Tripling Down on Trump
I’m just going to say it. Trump is going to lose in 2020.
No one is willing to say it out loud because of what happened in 2016.
When the political pundits and polls predicted Hilary Clinton would win no one knew of the extent of Russian involvement in our election or the European elections. Even my college educated friend was repeating a known fake story she saw on facebook that was circulated by Russia against Ms. Clinton and she ended up voting for Mr. Trump.
I guarantee she is not voting for him again.
In fact according to a CNN exit poll for the 2018 congressional election, half of white women voted Democrat and half voted Republican. In 2016 53% of white women voted for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump will always have his base. But his base alone was not big enough in 2016 to put him in the White House and is not big enough now. His narrow victory was due to a majority of white women, moderate Republicans, and independents who voted for President Obama in 2012.
Independents voted for Mr. Trump because they liked the fact he didn’t follow the establishment’s rules and was going to shake up the status quo in Washington DC.
And because he said he was one of us.
But the working class is asking themselves why they ever thought a billionaire was one of them. Mr. Trump has never had to fuss with health insurance and has never been unemployed. He paid his way out of the draft, sent his kids to private schools, and doesn’t drive. His family doesn’t cook their own meals, make their own bed, do their own laundry, clean their own toilettes, or take out their own garbage.
The only time Mr. Trump is “one of us” is when he needs our vote.
Mr. Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College by a margin of 70,000 votes in three key Midwestern states.
Are those 70,000 independents going to vote for Mr. Trump again?
To get another view I called frequent Valley Voice online commenter and lifelong Republican Xavier Avila to ask if he thought Mr. Trump would win in 2020. I was a bit surprised by his answer.
“I’m a realist. I honestly don’t know,” he said.
Mr. Avila still thought that Mr. Trump had a good chance of winning but did not consider it a sure thing. He felt the Midwestern states were behind him in 2016 and would be so again. Mr. Avila said that independents don’t like regulations so Mr. Trump might even pick up more in 2020.
He saw former Vice President Joe Biden as Mr. Trump’s biggest threat. “Biden represents Obama’s legacy and a lot of those independents who voted for Trump voted for Obama in 2012.
As far as Mr. Trump losing the farmers vote because of the trade war, “I see that as more hype than anything else.”
Mr. Avila said he just returned from a dairy conference in Iowa and said “Iowans are not leaving Trump.” “They all see the cheating being done by China and know something has to be done about it,” he said.
California Republican Woman of the year Vicki Riddle also had changed her position on Mr. Trump – to being even more bullish than she was two months ago.
“I’m tripling down on Trump,” she said.
“Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of their presidential front runners are defining their party as ‘socialism is good,’” and that, she says, is alienating the moderate Democrats and Republicans in general.
Ms. Riddle also pointed out that whereas Mr. Trump’s rallies are typically attended by 50,000 supporters this week’s rallies by presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders only attracted 15,000 people.
“He goes above the press and directly to the people and connects with them,” she said.
It would be like Christmas coming early, Ms. Riddle said, if Democrats nominated either Ms. Warren or Mr. Sanders next June.
Concerning farmers, she feels as though they have tripled down on Mr. Trump also. That message was clear when he negotiated the Unite States, Mexico, Canada Trade Agreement and the fact that Vice President Pence visited Lemoore.
Mr. Avila bet a couple beers that former Representative David Valadao would jump into the Congressional race. He still feels a little guilty taking free beer from his friends because he knew it was such a sure thing.
I don’t think Mr. Avila will be making the same wager when it comes to Mr. Trump in 2020. But I might want to bet Ms. Riddle an elderflower cake that Mr. Trump is not going to win. I’m just sorry I have to wait until 2020 to taste her cooking again.
Aliens Versus the Climate
In July, a humorous Facebook page titled Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us was posted by Matty Roberts. He thought it would be funny to suggest everyone raid of the air force base on September 20 in search of aliens.
A few weeks later 1.5 million clicked “interested” and 2 million people registered as “going” to this ill-equipped and desolate corner of Nevada.
Mr. Roberts quickly updated his post to say he was just kidding don’t show up. But it was too late. The “raid” went viral.
Besides being an open training range for the United States Air Force and completely off limits, Area 51 is in a region of the state with only 184 hotel rooms. The closest town, Rachel, has a population of 56 and has just 13 rooms in the Little A’le’Inn. They plan on trucking in extra food and opening up 30 acres for camping.
But Alien hunters have been warned that there will be limited cell service, and no internet, ice, water or food as it all will quickly sell out. The closest gas and toilettes will be 90 miles away.”If you’re coming, be prepared because it’s probably not going to be nice,” said one town’s store owner.
While alien chasers in Nevada will be trying to find a toilette, the rest of the world will be participating in the September 20 Global Climate Strike.
The Global Climate Strike will be students, workers, and citizens going on strike to jump start the world on doing something about climate change. September 20 is the official day of the strike but climate awareness events are going on all week, the biggest of which is the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23.
“There is still time to tackle climate change, but it will require an unprecedented effort from all sectors of society,” stated the United Nations, calling the threat to our planet “A race we can win.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres is congregating world leaders to make concrete plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
But the summit’s most famous attendee will not be a world leader but a 15 year old girl, Greta Thunberg, who landed in New York on August 28 after sailing across the Atlantic.. Thunberg traveled on a zero-emissions sailboat to reduce the environmental impact of her journey.
A movement called #FridaysForFuture began in August 2018, when Ms. Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks. She then continued striking every Friday until Sweden agreed to change its policies to fall in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Swedish teenager has become the figurehead of a youth movement of climate activists after her weekly protests inspired students to strike every Friday in more than 100 cities worldwide, including the United States.
Why are the kids striking?
Kids began questioning why they were studying to secure their future when there may be no future.
From Ms. Thunberg’s first strike, and the ensuing student movement, evolved the Global Climate Strike.
So is Tulare County participating in the Global Climate Strike?
Well if one logs onto 350.org or globalclimatestrike.net you can see all the events happening around the world on September 20, and one of them is happening right here in Visalia.
The globalclimatestrike.net suggests that if people cannot strike then organize or attend climate awareness march, rally or teach-in. Roy Kendall, an aspiring journalist, perennial student, and fulltime worker at 72 years old, opted to organize a teach-in.
He submitted the following Press Release to the Valley Voice.
Tulare County is located in the rich San Joaquin Valley of California’s agricultural heartland. It routinely ranks in the top three of all farm counties in America. It produces over 240 agricultural crops for human consumption, livestock feed, and seed crops.
The county had 45 crops worth more than $1 million each in gross value in 2017 with milk leading the list at 1.7 billion. The 2017 gross value of all agricultural commodities produced in Tulare County was $7 billion. The county led the nation in agricultural exports in 2017; it exported agricultural products to 80 countries that year.
Tulare County’s climate and geography has created the productivity that makes all this possible. But many of the conditions we see today—the land under our feet, the temperature, and the precipitation—have been very different in the past. These conditions have been changing since Tulare County was first settled in the mid-1800s, and they have been changing even faster since the 1970s.
John Austin, a resident of Tulare County who is active in science education, will make a presentation on Friday September 20, about how our climate has changed over the past 500 million years and how it is projected to change over coming decades.
September 20 corresponds to a worldwide 350.org environmental groups’ climate change strike. Rather than being an actual strike, the goal of this event is to educate regarding the scientific and historical evidence on climate change.
This event is free and open to the public. It is a pot luck with a Mexican theme. Please RSVP at 559-901-1974 or royjkendall@hotmail.com. 1213 S. Fairway Street, Visalia, is the location for this presentation.
So what are you going to be doing September 20? Alien hunting or attending a teach-in on climate change? Searching for extraterrestrials ironically could be the better use of your time as they might have an extra planet in case we screw up ours.
As for my husband, he will probably be watching college football Friday night rooting against the USC Trojans. They are playing the Utah Utes, another team he is not crazy about because they were admitted in to the PAC 12 even though, as everyone can see, they are not on the Pacific like the original PAC 8.
But who knows? After climate change causes devastating floods, or the state falls into the Pacific during a major earthquake, maybe Utah will be beach front property and people will start paying attention.