Author of 3 Books on Trump Reveals Tough Scenarios for Elections
Tough scenarios await the upcoming U.S. elections and the subsequent period, given Donald Trump‘s legal situation.
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These scenarios were outlined by David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist from Washington. He warned that Trump will cast a shadow over the American political scene for decades, even if he loses the presidential election.
Johnston, who predicted Trump’s rise to the presidency more than three decades ago in his three books about the billionaire, with the most famous being “The Making of Donald Trump,” said that his conviction in a criminal case “could lose him support among independents and moderate Republicans, which could ultimately lead to the failure of his campaign.”
However, the renowned American journalist also warned that “even if Donald Trump is fully convicted and serves a sentence in prison, he can still hold the office of President of the United States unless the House of Representatives impeaches him and two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict him.”
Johnston predicted that Trump would ask his supporters to boycott the elections, “claiming they are rigged, putting the country at risk of an unprecedented political crisis.”
In the same interview, Johnston revealed the dark side of the American electoral system, considering that “the Electoral College is a product of old compromises dating back to the era of slavery and is no longer suitable for our current time,” as he put it.
Below is the interview:
There are many calls to change the electoral system in the United States so that the president is the result of a direct popular vote. How do you view such calls? In truth, the American Electoral College is the result of compromises with the southern states that legitimized the system of slavery to issue the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
Later in 1790 and 1802, new slave states were created from parts of the original states of North Carolina (Kentucky and Tennessee) and Georgia (Alabama and Mississippi) to maintain equal representation in the U.S. Senate between free states and slave states. As a result of these compromises, these southern states were granted eight additional seats in the Senate.
As you know, the Electoral College consists of all the Senate members (100) plus all the representatives (435).
In Wyoming, for example, there are three representatives in the Electoral College (two Senators and one Representative), where each vote in this body equals less than 200,000 people.
Meanwhile, in California (two Senators and 53 Representatives), each vote represents more than 700,000 people. Therefore, the Electoral College favors small states and violates the principle of “one person, one vote.”
How do you view Trump‘s recent conviction? Do you think it could affect the course of the elections? In fact, I was the first person to point out that even if Donald Trump is a convicted felon serving a sentence in a state prison, he could still hold the office of President of the United States unless the House of Representatives impeaches him and two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict him.
Of course, this would be an absurd situation, and one would hope that even Republican Senators would join in removing Trump if this scenario happens, which is unlikely.
The truth is that Trump could still become President again because Americans elect in each state separately through the Electoral College. Of the fifty states, there are 13 that could go either way and will determine who wins.
In the final analysis, do you think the conviction can affect Trump‘s electoral chances? Let me clarify, opinion polls have shown very clearly earlier that if Trump is convicted of any felony, much of the support he enjoys among independents; that is, people not registered with any political party, will decline. Support among historically moderate Republicans will also decline.
Therefore, starting with a large number of Republican and independent voters leaving would doom Trump‘s campaign.
In general, voters may gradually abandon Trump, especially after his conviction, but I expect that if the former president realizes he is going to be completely humiliated when voters turn against him, he is likely to ask his supporters to stay home and not vote, falsely claiming, as usual, that the system is rigged.
I have known Trump for a long time and have covered his news longer than any other serious journalist, specifically since 1988. The following year, I became the first American journalist to write about the possibility of him becoming President.
I have written three books about Trump, two of which were global bestsellers, and one titled “The Making of Donald Trump,” which has been translated into ten languages.
And I say: Trump lost in 2016 by three million votes (referring to the popular vote but he won the Electoral College), by seven million in 2020, and he will lose this time by more than ten million votes.
But some people support Trump, and the polls still show his popularity? Except for a few million in the United States, most Americans have no idea that Donald Trump has spent his entire life deceiving people, lying, evading the law, and providing extraordinary and inexplicable services.
For example, he provided dubious services to one of the world’s largest cocaine traffickers and other services including alcohol, limousines, and hotel suites for the wealthy’s children, as long as they had money to lose in his casinos.
What do you think of President Joe Biden? Biden is a devout man who goes to Catholic mass every week and has an incredibly deep knowledge of global affairs from his many years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his service there, along with a little arrogance. But he is also boring.
Biden has great confidence in himself, which may turn out to be a mistake because assuming people know your good deeds is unwise.
Continuous promotion and reminding people of these good deeds is how you expand your base among voters and strengthen their commitment to you and your political party.
