The Donald Trump 2020 trap has been set

| 8:10 pm EST February 1, 2019
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The 2020 presidential election is nearly two years away, but because of how these things now work, numerous prominent Democrats are already entering the race. That’s all well and good. They’ll each have a long time to explain to us why they should (or shouldn’t) be the nominee, and voters will have plenty of time to sort out the field. But there is one huge trap they’ll need to avoid falling into, and it’s already being laid by the media’s never-ending quest for ratings gold.

If you look at what’s really going on, from Robert Mueller finally closing inn on Donald Trump and his family, to the increasing likekihood of impeachment, to Trump’s collapsing approval rating, to the reality that his resignation is the only bargaining chip he has left, the odds are that Trump will not be running for president in 2020, because he won’t still be president by 2020.

But if you were to only listen to cable news, even if it’s a channel like MSNBC or CNN that loves to call out Donald Trump for his scandals and crimes, you’d come away with the impression that Trump will absolutely be running for president in 2020. Every time the 2020 Democratic field is discussed on television, it’s always in terms of how they’ll match up against Trump, how they’ll debate Trump, how they’ll deal with whatever lies Trump makes up about them.

This is absurd. The odds are that Donald Trump will be ousted from office, under indictment, and fighting to get out on bail ahead of his trial by the time people are casting their votes in 2020. That means the eventual Democratic nominee will probably be running against some other Republican nominee entirely. No one knows who that person might be (don’t bet on it being Mike “obstruction of justice” Pence), so there’s nothing for cable news to run with in that regard. It’s why everyone on cable news is still pretending – for now at least – that Trump is somehow going to magically survive his own impending demise and end up running again; it’s simply a more ratings friendly story than the reality that the 2020 Democratic field is running against a vague Republican question mark.

Back in the real world, we can’t afford to fall for that. If the Democratic candidates plan their campaign strategy around the assumption they’ll be running against Trump, and if Democratic primary voters make their choices based on who might match up best against Trump, they’ll be falling into a trap. Even if you think there’s a chance Trump survives to 2020, no one paying attention thinks it’s a particularly good chance. If the Democrats want to prepare for the possibility of running against Trump, so be it – but they can’t just assume they’ll be running against him.