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Will Trump be easy to beat in 2020?

Will Trump be easy to beat in 2020?

  • Total voters
    80
Greenbeard said:
The GOP pursued a very effective strategy in 2010 of lying to the olds about the ACA.

Greedy Geezers?
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Well, yeah, vote against what you don't like. My point exactly. Coming from the New Yorker I have to guess it was another "what's wrong with those oldies, don't they know what's good for them?".
 
Bullseye said:
Well, yeah, vote against what you don't like. My point exactly. Coming from the New Yorker I have to guess it was another "what's wrong with those oldies, don't they know what's good for them?".
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Without the ACA, the trust fund would've been exhausted three years ago. In reality, benefits were increased, the donut hole was closed, and the life of the trust fund was extended over a decade as cost growth slowed dramatically. Meanwhile, the quality of the care seniors receive has increased, per MedPAC.

They were sold "death panels," not the better, cheaper care they got.
 
Bullseye said:
Yeah, right. That was the whole reason a majority of people objected to ACA. :roll:. Not the lies about "keeping" plans and Doctors, not the huge deductibles and premiums and their huge year of year growth, nor the vanishing number of providers.
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You said, "WHAT right wing demagoguery." I provided an example. But thank you for providing two more examples of demagoguery.

1)Obama was wrong about his "you can keep your doctor" claim because he didn't foresee that many plans were so bad that they wouldn't be able to live up to the new standards and had to be dropped, and yes, that caused some people to end up switching their doctors. But you sure didn't hear that explanation from Fox News, and through their right wing lens, that inaccuracy became a lot more insidious.

2)The premiums were always rising. They just happened to continue rising because the ACA didn't implement a mechanism to stop the rising premiums. Right wing demagoguery made it seem like the premium hikes were unique to Obamacare, when in fact it was a feature of a private health insurance system.

Bullseye said:
Yeah, my mistake. Voters are knitting the Dems sweaters and introducing them to their brothers and sisters. Even setting an extra setting for Easter dinner.
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Okay so you're backing off from your suggestion that Democrats are alienating voters since they retook the House. If you feel I'm wrong, then you are of course free to clarify how you know this.
 
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Greenbeard said:
Without the ACA, the trust fund would've been exhausted three years ago. In reality, benefits were increased, the donut hole was closed, and the life of the trust fund was extended over a decade as cost growth slowed dramatically. Meanwhile, the quality of the care seniors receive has increased, per MedPAC.
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Do the actual trustees of Medicare report that extension of the "trust fund"? I haven't noticed it in their annual reports.
Greenbeard said:
They were sold "death panels," not the better, cheaper care they got.
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LOL, I don't know of anyone who got "cheaper" care. I do know that many locations lost providers to the point only one or two served the area.
 
Bullseye said:
Do the actual trustees of Medicare report that extension of the "trust fund"? I haven't noticed it in their annual reports.
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Of course.

The financial status of the HI trust fund is substantially improved by the lower expenditures and additional tax revenues instituted by the Affordable Care Act. These changes are estimated to postpone the exhaustion of HI trust fund assets from 2017 under the prior law to 2029 under current law and to 2028 under the alternative scenario.
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LOL, I don't know of anyone who got "cheaper" care. I do know that many locations lost providers to the point only one or two served the area.
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Exterminated by death panels, no doubt!

Here on planet Earth, everything is costing far less than expected due to the sharp slowdown in health care cost growth.

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Greenbeard said:
Of course.





Exterminated by death panels, no doubt!

Here on planet Earth, everything is costing far less than expected due to the sharp slowdown in health care cost growth.

2cxb6sk.png
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Help me old here. Maybe it's just my tired old eyes but I don't see any of the lines sloping down or even stating flat. Projections and line extensions don't impress me. We were told ACA was going to "bend the cost curve down - it hasn't. We were told we'd save $2500 a year in premiums - we haven't. By the way, you got a chart that shows customer costs, e.g. premiums, co-pays, additional taxes paid to subsidize low income individuals and insurance company profits?
 
Bullseye said:
Help me old here. Maybe it's just my tired old eyes but I don't see any of the lines sloping down or even stating flat. Projections and line extensions don't impress me. We were told ACA was going to "bend the cost curve down - it hasn't.
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"Bending the cost curve" literally means slowing the rate of growth. Which it clearly has.

We were told we'd save $2500 a year in premiums - we haven't.
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$2.6T in savings over a decade is about $800/year/American. Or over $3,000 per year per family of 4 on average since 2010.

By the way, you got a chart that shows customer costs, e.g. premiums, co-pays, additional taxes paid to subsidize low income individuals and insurance company profits?
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That's what national health expenditures are: everything we spend on health care (premiums, cost-sharing, taxes, admin expenses).

We've saved $2.6T on national health expenditures relative to pre-ACA trends.
 
Josie said:
Do you think Trump will be easy to beat in 2020 or will it be a tough road? Any Democratic candidate that you think would wipe the floor with him? Any Democratic candidate that you think can't beat him?
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It really depends on who the Dem nominee is. Trump is rightfully one of the most unpopular presidents ever, and it should be a relatively easy path to the White House, but it's still possible to have a tough, tight race if the wrong person is selected.
 
Greenbeard said:
"Bending the cost curve" literally means slowing the rate of growth. Which it clearly has.
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LOL, maybe in relation to "projected" lines but not in the reality of what we as consumers are paying.


Greenbread said:
$2.6T in savings over a decade is about $800/year/American. Or over $3,000 per year per family of 4 on average since 2010.
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Again that mythical "savings" against a projection. When I pop up Quicken and look at my HC premiums I see a continual substantial increase year after year.


Greenbeard said:
That's what national health expenditures are: everything we spend on health care (premiums, cost-sharing, taxes, admin expenses).

We've saved $2.6T on national health expenditures relative to pre-ACA trends.
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LOL, "trends" and "projections" are for academics to discuss over brandy at the faculty lounge. I'm talking the effectives of actual costs on actual people. But go ahead go talk to a middle class family, above the subsidy line and tell them how much better they're doing. Best case: they'll just laugh at you.
 
Josie said:
Do you think Trump will be easy to beat in 2020 or will it be a tough road? Any Democratic candidate that you think would wipe the floor with him? Any Democratic candidate that you think can't beat him?
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If his popularity remains what it is right now it is doubtful.
 
Bullseye said:
LOL, maybe in relation to "projected" lines but not in the reality of what we as consumers are paying.
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Yeah, that's exactly what people were and have been talking about. Here, from the most optimistic side of the spectrum, is Obama adviser David Cutler and others at the Center for American Progress arguing back in 2009 in "Why Health Reform Will Bend the Cost Curve" that with reform national health expenditures would be $4.5T this year. That was their pie-in the-sky bending the cost curve scenario!

Meanwhile, ten years later in real life national health expenditures will actually be about $3.8T this year. $700 billion lower. (Or about $2,100 per person lower this year alone. Again, that's $2,100 per person below the rosy-Obama-adviser prediction.)

The rosiest projections and grandest promises about the potential of the ACA ten years ago didn't come close to what's actually been achieved.

Again that mythical "savings" against a projection. When I pop up Quicken and look at my HC premiums I see a continual substantial increase year after year.
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Unless deflation hits, that should be true of pretty much everything.

LOL, "trends" and "projections" are for academics to discuss over brandy at the faculty lounge.
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And people who want to know what's going on in the health care system.
 
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Helix said:
This one will be about how much regular voters are utterly repelled by Trumpism vs how motivated his cult is. So no, I don't think that defeating him in 2020 will be "easy."
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Unfortunately the voting public has the memory of an egg plant and the elections are 1.5 years away.
 
Exquisitor said:
It comes down to astrology.

Trump has the new moon before the election advantage and thus will not break the model to win.

Kamala Harris rated -11 has a Saturn Return in 2001 loosing her the election and making her administration Hell like GWB.

Biden, Sanders 7, Tulsi Trump 5, Clinton -1, McAuliffe 9, Brown 11, Landrieu, Ivanka 14.

Predicting US Presidential elections
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tenor.gif
 
Chomsky said:
I voted 'No'.

(it will not be easy to beat Trump)

I base this upon:

1] It's difficult to beat an incumbent President.
2] It's even more difficult to beat an incumbent President during a good economy.
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I would normally agree with both of these. However, those apply to typical elections in a typical political environment. Those left the building in 2016 and there are no signs of them returning any time soon.

As for the economy being good, I can't think of a president before who was upside down by 10 points on job approval when the economy was good. Do you?

Barring any changes in the current trajectory of the economy, political landscape, or unforseen tragedy, I believe Trump will be difficult to beat.

But that being said, I believe the Dems will pull it out.

I suspect it may be similar to 2016, but reversed against Trump. The citizen vote totals in some of the toss-up & critical states may be close, but the national Electoral College totals may end-up being a bit wider.
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Greenbeard said:
Yeah, that's exactly what people were and have been talking about. Here, from the most optimistic side of the spectrum, is Obama adviser David Cutler and others at the Center for American Progress arguing back in 2009 in "Why Health Reform Will Bend the Cost Curve" that with reform national health expenditures would be $4.5T this year. That was their pie-in the-sky bending the cost curve scenario!
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LOL, not surprising an Obama advisor writing for a Progress think tank is going to get all gooey about ACA.
Greenbeard said:
Meanwhile, ten years later in real life national health expenditures will actually be about $3.8T this year. $700 billion lower. (Or about $2,100 per person lower this year alone. Again, that's $2,100 per person below the rosy-Obama-adviser prediction.)
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According to nebulous projection about what MIGHT have happened. As I said real people haven't seen a penny of that.
Greenbeard said:
The rosiest projections and grandest promises about the potential of the ACA ten years ago didn't come close to what's actually been achieved.
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Probably not. Year after year of double digit increases in premiums for the Silver option and multi-thousand dollar deductibles probably don't cheer up the people that have to pay them.


Greenbaard said:
Unless deflation hits, that should be true of pretty much everything.



And people who want to know what's going on in the health care system.
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At the prices they're pay, they have a right to. :cool:
 
Bullseye said:
LOL, not surprising an Obama advisor writing for a Progress think tank is going to get all gooey about ACA.
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Miss the point much? Their "gooey" projections wildly underestimated the actual cost savings achieved.

Even the most in-the-tank-for-the-ACA proponents couldn't have imagined how well things actually turned out. In reality, the cost curve has bent more than anyone a decade ago predicted.

Probably not. Year after year of double digit increases in premiums for the Silver option and multi-thousand dollar deductibles probably don't cheer up the people that have to pay them.
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There weren't years of double digit increases in the benchmark premiums. Under Obama, anyway. More than half of the entire cumulative change in benchmark premiums since 2014 occurred in a single jump in 2018 due to deliberate sabotage by the Trump administration. I don't disagree that premiums today should be much lower--they would be, if Trump hadn't deliberately raised them.

The Trump administration has stopped reporting on this (for obvious reasons) but the last time HHS looked at the deductibles of plans purchased in the marketplaces it found the median deductible faced by consumers was $850, not thousands.
 
Puigb said:
Considering that he won his first election by 80,000 votes in 3 blue states, entirely due to lower turn out among key Democrat voting blocs...against the least popular Democratic presidential candidate maybe ever...after 8 years of a Democrat in office...Trump is literally the most vulnerable incumbent in recent history. It's even worse for him when you consider his support with independents has dropped drastically, and he never had much support from them to begin with. His poll numbers never reach above 45%, and the last president to lose his bid for a second term was a president with an approval rating below 50%. No recent incumbent has been re-elected with approval ratings below 50%. So is he easy to beat? Absolutely, especially since the difference between now and 2016 is people have now seen how he "governs", and aren't liking it. All that said, the Democrats have proven in the past that they can literally lose elections given to them on a silver platter by Republicans. Once Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016, Republicans were basically handing Democrats 4 more years. And what do Democrats do? They blow it. And it wouldn't surprise me if they do it again in 2020.
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But something else that’s unprecedented is the level of Russian trolling. The Russians know the fault lines in American society: the latent racism, bigotry, misogyny, hyper-religiosity, xenophobia, etc... just below the surface. Once again they will put their fingers right there and push. It doesn’t take much pressure- just a little gentle pressure until you hear a snapping sound...
 
Josie said:
In my opinion, Trump is very easy to beat. I just don't have much confidence in the Democrats nominating someone who can rally their base into coming out in droves in November. I might be wrong, though.
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Trump won with a lower percentage of the vote than what Romney lost with just 4 years earlier. If the Democrats can sufficiently rally their base, they can beat him. However, right now it looks like its setting up to be a circular firing squad in the Democratic primary, and they could nominate someone too far to the left.

With the right candidate, they can beat Trump though. The economy is good, but Trump has never even had a 50% approval rating. The only president in the history of modern polling to never had a majority. Any other president with this economy would be polling at over 60%. Trump isn't, because frankly to most Americans he is an embarrassment and an utterly despicable human being. Just the same, the Democrats could nominate someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren and still lose to him because of it.
 
A lot of responses have focused on who is picked. And while that is important, let's not forget that it's also important to for the chosen Dem candidate to court all Dems everywhere, and address their specific concerns.

If they focus primarily on courting white educated urban females, like they did in 2016, they will lose again.
 
Helix said:
This one will be about how much regular voters are utterly repelled by Trumpism vs how motivated his cult is. So no, I don't think that defeating him in 2020 will be "easy."
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I'd impeach him....that way "regular voters" can get a good taste of crazy flat earther style dems right before 2020.
 
Josie said:
Do you think Trump will be easy to beat in 2020 or will it be a tough road? Any Democratic candidate that you think would wipe the floor with him? Any Democratic candidate that you think can't beat him?
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Of course it won't be easy. Thinking that was the mistake the Dems made in 2016. 40% of voters won't vote for anyone but the Democrat. Another 40% will never vote for anyone but the Republican, even if it's trump.

Who we're all fighting over is the other 20%.
 
There are still too many variables to make an assessment. Trump should be easy to beat, but it really depends on a few unknowns.

1) what will the economy look like in Nov 2020? If it is still robust, that will make Trump harder to beat.
2) who will the Dem candidate be? If it's Bernie, Trump will be harder to beat. America simply is not going to vote in a socialist (whether or not he really is).
3) will more come out about Trump's potential criminal behavior? If SDNY or others come out with more stuff, Trump will be much easier to beat, even with Bernie (2).
 
AlphaOmega said:
I'd impeach him....that way "regular voters" can get a good taste of crazy flat earther style dems right before 2020.
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impeachment is next to impossible with a Trumpist controlled senate. i'd rather send him packing at the ballot box.
 
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