By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on July 11, 2023
An Editorial Opinion
On August 9, 2022, I predicted that Donald Trump would become the Republican nominee for president in 2024. This prediction is on track to becoming true.
On August 22, 2022, I predicted that Trump would win the 2024 election. After I made this prediction, Trump was indicted on New York state criminal charges and federal criminal charges. Trump may face additional criminal charges in Washington, Atlanta, and New Jersey between now and the election. In my view, these criminal cases will not derail Trump's comeback bid.
On August 2, 2015, I became the first American journalist to publicly predict Trump's 2016 election victory. My prediction was made a mere three weeks after Trump announced his candidacy. This prediction became true in January of 2017.
On March 20, 2020, I predicted Trump's defeat in 2020, which was caused by Trump's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This prediction became true in January of 2021.
For the record, the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump. He lost the race by more than 7 million legally cast votes.
Based upon an incredible display of inner strength and his keen political instincts, and without any meaningful help from his mediocre criminal defense teams, Donald Trump is poised to pull off the greatest political comeback victory in the history of American presidential politics.
Here is why I predict that Trump will win in 2024.
Trump's GOP
Since his 2020 defeat, Donald Trump has ascended to "deity" status within the Republican Party. The GOP is no longer a political party; it is a personality cult that worships Trump.
During his term in office (January 2017 to January 2021), Trump was able to add three diehard right-wing conservatives -- Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – to the U.S. Supreme Court. These three appointees gave the GOP a firm six votes on the Court, which now proudly and openly operates as the judicial wing of the Republican Party.
Trump’s Supreme Court has killed the federal right to an abortion, thrashed affirmative action, curbed tribal rights for Native-Americans, invalidated state gun-control legislation, abandoned judicial ethics, voided student loan debt relief for college graduates, okayed intentional discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans, and taken aim at a host of other targets on the GOP’s political "hit list."
In January 2022, GOP members of the U.S. Senate successfully killed legislation that would have restored much needed vitality to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was severely gutted on June 25, 2013, in the Alabama case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
Trump and his cult followers have also galvanized a movement against non-white migrants seeking to enter the United States at the U.S.-Mexican border, while enthusiastically welcoming immigrants from European countries. During his presidency, Trump resurrected the Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 "Operation Wetback" program at the southern border. Curbing people of color from entering America, via legal or illegal means, is a major driver of support for Trump’s re-election campaign.
State and Federal Criminal Prosecutions Pose No Threat to Trump
Donald Trump is facing criminal charges in New York for “hush money” payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. He is also facing federal criminal charges in Miami over his possession of highly classified national security and defense documents in his Mar-a-Lago the home.
Trump is likely to face additional federal charges for inciting the January 6th Insurrection and charges for possessing classified national security documents at his golf club in New Jersey. Likewise, Trump is expected to be charged later this summer on state voter fraud charges in Georgia.
According to numerous political polls, none of Trump's criminal cases imposes a threat to his viability as a political candidate. He is the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination.
It is highly unlikely that Trump’s federal criminal cases will be tried before the 2024 election. Once Trump becomes president, he is expected to use the full executive powers of his office to quash the federal and state criminal cases. Trump will have a plethora of political and executive tools in his presidential toolbox to quash all of these cases.
If Trump faces Joe Biden in the 2024 election, Trump will win by a landslide. Biden appears to be increasingly frail, weak, inept, and senile with the passage of time. On most days, Joe Biden looks and acts like a character in "The Walking Dead" movies and television series.
Meanwhile, Trump’s robust political rallies in “Red States” are turning into rockstar events. Trump's energy level is high at these campaign events.
GOP Voter Suppression Laws Enhance Trump’s Chances for Victory in 2024
Today, a majority of the 50 states have enacted various forms of voter suppression laws that enhance Donald Trump’s chances for victory in 2024.
What is more, these new voter suppression laws are generally protected by Trump's Supreme Court. The lone exception to this rule is the Court's recent decision in Milligan v. Allen (June 8, 2023), a voter suppression case in which the Alabama legislature used an egregious form of “in-your-face” racial gerrymandering to minimize the number of potential black Congressional districts in the state.
Milligan v. Allen is a symbolic victory, rather than substantive one, because Alabama’s lone black Democratic Congresswoman routinely receives 96% of her campaign financing from GOP donors. As a result, she regularly tows the GOP party-line on all economic empowerment issues that matter to Republicans. This is why her predominantly black political constituents remain in severe economic distress even though a Democratic president has occupied the White House for 9 of her 12 years Congress. Barring a political miracle, a second black Congress member from Alabama will likely to be cut from the same cloth as the state's current black Congresswoman.
Since Trump’s defeat in 2020, Republican-controlled legislatures have empowered election officials to establish new state election rules, purge voter rolls, decide election contests, reject legally cast votes, and decertify election results that they do not like. The GOP has also successfully placed activist election deniers in thousands of poll worker positions across American.
The only voter suppression tools from America's past that Republican-controlled state legislatures have not resurrected are poll taxes and literacy tests.
The GOP voter suppression mechanisms that have been resurrected are tried and tested tools for preserving white political dominance in America. They are modern-day adaptations of the proven voter suppression mechanisms that flourished in Confederate states from 1870 to 1965.
Epilogue
I am a longtime political Independent and student of history and political science.
So that we are clear, I do not support Donald Trump or Joe Biden for president. Both men are deeply flawed.
However, I am a realist who always measures the winds of political change in America. My political predictions are based upon my objective measurement of these changes and their impact in the political arena.
Trump’s criminal cases will not prevent his re-election or return to the presidency. He has found a creative pathway to neutralize these impediments without using highly skilled criminal defense lawyers.
Additionally, neither Joe Biden, nor Kamala Harris, is strong enough to defeat Donald Trump and his political forces in 2024. Because of Biden's and Harris' collective weaknesses as political leaders, women, African-Americans, Native-Americans, LGBTQ Americans, and other historically disadvantaged minority groups have lost more federally protected rights under their watch than they have under any other presidential administration in modern history.
Barring divine intervention from God, Donald Trump will become the next president of the United States.
Trump will go down in history as the 45th and 47th President of the United States.
After he assumes office in January of 2025, Trump is going to mete out severe political punishment to: (a) participants in the January 6th Congressional Committee hearings, (b) DOJ criminal prosecution team members, (c) New York state criminal prosecution team members, and (d) Georgia criminal prosecution team members. Trump's ruthlessness in this regard will match that of his presidential role models -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Pinping.
Trump will likely pardon all of the defendants who were convicted of crimes arising from their organization of and participation in the January 6th insurrection.
Finally, the American public has lost confidence in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Donald Trump is the modern-day Republican Party. Trump’s margin of victory over Biden will be the greatest landslide since Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984.