Will Trump Win The 2020 Election?

As we get closer to the primaries in November, I've begun to wonder who will become our next president. With the "huge shock" of the 2016 elections, many Americans are realizing that our voting system isn't as accurate as we thought it was.

I remember I was a college freshmen when the 2016 primaries first started, and all the democrats were hoping Trump would be presidential candidate for the Republicans. This was because everyone believed there was no way someone as crazy as Trump could be elected into office. "We will win by a landslide," they said.

Unfortunately, most people didn't realize how many people agreed with Trump's outrageousness and how much people hated Clinton. The 2016 elections taught the Democrats that you could not trust party loyalty and that a candidate's likability is very important.

When Bernie Sanders began gaining traction, the party's first instinct was to gate keep. Because he was campaigning around ideas that have long needed to be talked about but are "controversial," Democrats decided to essentially "kick" Bernie out of the primaries for a safer candidate.

I guess this should make sense, but what they fail to realize is that in order for a candidate to gain popularity, you cannot just rely on how lukewarm they are. Honestly, Hilary Clinton was the most lukewarm you could get with any presidential candidate. She never really pushed for anything worthwhile like free college or taxing the rich. All she really relied on was her identity as a woman.

Now I am all for a female president, but my main focus is to help elect a president that will actually make positive change. Hilary couldn't even bother to promise that much. Her entire campaign was centered around not letting Trump into office.

I've been observing most of the Democrats that I follow on social media or talk to daily and I think we are about to repeat history. With candidates like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker trying to gain traction, most people are pushing for them without doing any background research. When people discover undesirable things and they become well known such as the candidates part in the prison industrial complex, Democrats then turn to their favorite scare tactic: "If we keep focusing on these things, then Trump will win again."

I understand this kind of thinking, but it is exactly the reason why Trump won in 2020 to begin with. Instead of looking for a more compelling candidate, Democrats are pushing the exact opposite. No presidential candidates have mentioned policies about global warming, economic inequality, gentrification, wealth distribution, taxes, etc. without doing the generic, "together we can get stuff done!"

Now obviously that's not what most of them say, but if you were to sum up they statements in one line that would be it. I haven't heard a candidate besides the politician AOC (Alexandra Ortesia Cortez), ask hard hitting questions and coming up with possible solutions for them.

In order for Democrats to secure a win for the 2020 election, they must first stop pandering to the other side and actually stand for something. I keep hearing candidate talk about winning back the vote of "the working class," but how can you do that if all you campaign is dust. Maybe something will change this cycle if the Democratic Party won't be afraid to stand behind someone with a voice.