Budowsky: Trump destroying GOP in 2018, ’19, ’20

Today I go further than most political analysts and state that the odds President Trump is defeated in 2020 are 90 percent and the odds Democrats win a sweeping realigning landslide are nearly 50-50.

The greatest Republican in history, Abraham Lincoln, has now been assassinated a second time, literally by John Wilkes Booth and now, politically, by Donald Trump. Trump treats Lincoln like a Republican in name only. He mocks and insults everything Honest Abe stood for.

Ronald Reagan, the greatest Republican and conservative in modern history, would angrily call Trump a conservative in name only. Reagan would be sickened by Trump’s admiration for the Russian dictator who attacks America and Ukraine, disgusted by Trump’s disdain for NATO, outraged by Trump waging global trade wars, and appalled by Trump’s race-based attacks against immigrants who Reagan believed are the core of the American idea.

Voters witness that many of the most authentic and respected conservative thinkers, including columnist George Will and countless others on a list too long to detail here, are among Trump’s most vociferous critics and opponents.

Voters know, or at least sense, that every previous president in history would condemn Trump for publicly praising WikiLeaks and pleading with a Russian dictator to support his election in 2016, publicly pleading with a Chinese dictator to attack his political opponents and support his reelection in 2020, and sending henchmen attempting to bribe or blackmail our democratic ally in Ukraine — which is under attack from Russia — unless Ukraine repeats Russian lies about the 2016 election and manufactures dirt designed to destroy Trump’s opponents in the 2020 election.

In 2018, Democrats won a sweeping victory and mandate in the midterm elections, creating a Democratic House of Representatives led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who should be named “Time” Person of the Year for her powerful, successful and devastating leadership of the opposition to Trump.

In 2019, a wave of Republican retirements began and continues to grow, while Democrats won major victories in Kentucky and Virginia. The stage is set for major 2020 battles in states from Texas to Georgia, which can now be described as light purple states that are headed blue in the foreseeable future. There is a real prospect that Democrats win even more House seats in 2020 and that support for Trump destroys a number of Senate Republican candidates in the coming election.

Republican retirements and election returns in 2018 and 2019 strike fear in the hearts of Republicans, yet they continue to practice blind obedience to the most unpopular and widely despised politician in memory. Republicans have become a cult of personality behind Trump, who virtually half the nation wants removed from office through impeachment and even more voters want defeated in 2020.

During impeachment hearings, House Republicans are drinking Trump Kool Aid with such bizarre, repellent and obnoxious contempt for truth that they are producing an advertisement for a Democratic landslide in 2020.

House Republicans are attacking, berating, insulting and defaming internationally respected diplomats and war heroes who were appointed by Trump but demonstrate profound integrity, courage and patriotism by speaking truth to power with honor and dignity. When Senate Republicans praise Trump they are, in truth, bearing witness that is false while the Republican Senate leader is reduced to campaigning as the “grim reaper” and another has moved from being praised as former Sen. John McCain’s protege to being mocked as Trump’s poodle.

In 2018 and 2020, women and young voters across America are storming the Bastille of Trump’s repulsive politics of bigotry and hate. Minority voters who Trump demonizes are surging to the polls in huge numbers. Liberal Republicanism is dead. Moderate Republicans are treated like enemies of the Trump state. Phony conservatives are bullied into supporting policies that true conservatives abhor. Principled conservatives are maligned for their conviction.

In 2018, 2019, and soon in 2020, Republicans learn that the more Trump campaigns aggressively and frenetically for them, the more voters storm to the polls against them.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.