In a column dated November 4, 2020, a New York Times writer declares Elizabeth Warren has defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. Of course, this is the same paper that had Hillary Clinton with a 92% chance of winning the 2016 election the night of the 2016 election. But who am I to stomp on a dream?

Dreaming the Donald’s Demise

David Leonhardt’s 2020 election imagineering comes in response to a Times column by Bret Stephens predicting a Trump victory. It is also the latest entry in the blossoming journalism genre we can call “Trump’s-a-Goner.”

Kyle Smith at the New York Post has collected some of the gems from the past year. One favorite: The New Yorker in April ran an article titled “Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency.” Adam Davidson writes:

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophesy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth.”

Davidson says he’s not being prophetic. For that, you need look no further than Maxine Waters. This weekend, the California congresswoman didn’t just call for Trump’s impeachment, which she does with the regularity of an I Love Lucy rerun. She is now claiming a divine call to personally terminate the Trump presidency. Waters declared during a church sermon Sunday that God himself sent her to rid the land of the President.

Who knows? She’s in L.A. Perhaps the voice she heard was Morgan Freeman’s. (What Maxine is not hearing is Joy Behar calling her crazy for claiming to hear from God. She saves that derision for conservatives.)

Post-Trump Trumpeting

Meanwhile, The Hill just published a column titled “It’s time we start thinking about post-Trump America.” Why bother thinking about a post-Trump America? Haven’t liberals been telling America for two years Trump was going to blow up the world?”

But if we must:

My first thought when thinking about a post-Trump America? “Gee, maybe my liberal friends will like me again.”

My second thought when thinking about a post-Trump America? “How will the world survive not obsessing over the footwear Melania wears onto helicopters?”

My third thought? “It’s sure going to be quiet.” I remember after the Clinton years how dizzying it was getting off that roller coaster ride. Trump? It’s riding a roller coaster while chugging Red Bull through an electrical storm surrounded by a swarm of angry bats.

My final thought? “Late night comedy writers will actually have to work for a living. What could be more dreary than waking up every day to write jokes about Elizabeth Warren?”

Elizabeth Warren Beating Donald Trump

That’s President Warren to you, mister. That is, if David Leonhardt of the NY Times is correct. In fact, in his column set on November 4, 2020, he writes that she wins in a walk.

“Donald J. Trump, who spend much of the past four years as a historically unpopular president, lost his bid for re-election Tuesday.” In Leonhardt’s vision Trump is done in by a “stagnant economy” and a term that served as an “era of deep national anxiety.”

I’d say Leonhardt should read a newspaper, but the media has done a pretty effective job downplaying the booming economy and rising poll numbers. And only the media’s self-consumption could hide the fact that but for those suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome, the rest of America is feeling less anxious than they have in years.

But how did Warren beat Trump? First off, she gets help from — don’t laugh — running mate Eric Holder. Yes, The New York Times believes the man who gave loads of weapons to Mexican drug gangs is just the guy to be #2.

Speaking of #2, Warren is in the same socialist camp that gave us the stinky streets of San Francisco. Let’s see: Peace, Progress & Prosperity vs Piles of Poo. “Keep America Great Again” versus “Keep Trying to Make America Venezuela.” Yeah. America’s going to have a tough choice with that one.

Leonhard lays out the Warren-Holder play: “She and Holder consciously borrowed from the populist strategy of Obama’s 2012 campaign against Mitt Romney.”

I hate to point out the obvious. No, actually, it’s fun pointing out the obvious. Elizabeth Warren is no Barack Obama. Barack Obama is Denzil Washington. Elizabeth Warren is the lady in a late night commercial looking to get a reverse mortgage.

And Mitt Romney is certainly no Donald Trump. Romney’s the paid spokesperson pitching the reverse mortgage. And Donald Trump is … well … Donald J. Trump. The guy who dominated network prime time … as a hobby. The guy who in his first try at political office beat the Bush Machine, the RNC Machine, the DNC Machine, the MSM Machine, the Deep State Machine, the Obama Machine and the Clinton Machine. Oh, AND the Access Hollywood video machine.

What’s Trump going to do now that he has campaign experience and accomplishments to run on?

Trump also has something else that’d be foolish to discount. Motivation. Presidents running for a second term rarely have fire in their belly. Bush the Elder ran out of obligation. Clinton and George W. coasted on their laurels. Obama looked bored and perturbed that he even had to bother. (Then again, who needs to sweat it when you’ve got your IRS sabotaging your most effective opposition?)

Donald Trump? He’s got a score to settle. He doesn’t just want 270 electoral votes. He wants vindication. He wants annihilation. He wants a popular vote victory so huge he can hold his Inaugural Ball on the backs of those who spent four years calling him illegitimate.

Leonhardt thinks Elizabeth Warren is going to get in his way? Yes, he does. And how? “Rather than emphasize Trump’s personal behavior, as the 2016 Clinton campaign did, they cast him as a greedy billionaire who corruptly used the presidency to enrich himself further.”

Really? They’re Going for the Greedy Billionaire Thing?

Bad casting. You aren’t going to beat Trump that way. First off, according to Bloomberg his personal worth dropped about $100 million last year. His daughter Ivanka had to shut down her very successful clothing line. Son Eric had to shut down his charity. With a huge chunk of the nation despising him, knocking Trump hats off the heads of supporters, how much value has the Trump brand lost the past two years?

Also, do you have any idea how much money it cost Trump to walk away from The Apprentice? He had a 50% ownership stake. (To give you some idea of the numbers, in 2010, a single :30 spot on The Apprentice cost $99,074. Also, according to NBC News, The Apprentice made serious bank starting in 2004 by “nabbing special payments from corporate giants like Proctor & Gamble and Pepsi that are featured throughout entire episodes.” As the theme song goes, Trump was making “Money, Money, Money … Money. Money.”)

But let’s put aside that the presidency is costing the Trumps a pretty penny. Is hitting Trump for his financial success a winning strategy? No. For one thing, class envy is an ugly look. “Elect me, so I can take what successful people have” is hardly aspirational. “Make Rich Americans Poor Again” is a depressing slogan.

Who will resonate better with Americans of all economic stripes? The guy who hangs with the hard hats and builds skyscrapers and resorts or the woman who hangs on the sidelines shouting “You didn’t build that!”?

Sorry, New York Times, Sen. Warren and all the Never Trumpers, that is not how you beat Donald Trump.

You want to be rid of Donald Trump? Get your post-Trump America? It can be done. I’ll tell you how sometime soon.