Donald Trump has lead a charmed life: Born into a wealthy family, when he was a child, his father found ways to avoid taxes and divert funds making his son a millionaire by age eight. After mysteriously avoiding the draft with a supposed bone spur, Trump entered the family business, and his father found ways to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars more to him, even as he wound up declaring bankruptcy five times. Despite his reliance on his father's money, due to his enormous ego and love of media attention, Trump was able to cultivate an image as a self made tycoon. Eventually this image led to an entire reality show built around him appearing as an almost god like figure deciding the fate of others. All while he put his name on dishonest money making con jobs, like Trump University, or subpar products like Trump Steaks. And then, somehow, he managed to win the presidency, despite his lack of experience and while running a chaotic campaign based on bigotry, lies, childish boasts, and misogyny. Not even the release of his repulsive comments about sexually assaulting women on the leaked public access tape couldn't stop him. His victory itself was a fluke, as he got just the right number of votes in the right states to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by millions.
Which takes us to the recently released Robert Mueller report on whether or not his campaign conspired with Russia to give him an electoral advantage. For two years now progressives have been hoping that this report will deliver a knock out blow to Trump, outlining outright criminal behavior on his part. Instead, it states that no one in the Trump administration openly worked with the Russians. Somewhat amazingly, it even let Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr off the hook for their infamous meeting with a Russian operative in Trump tower. As an article in Slate magazine so aptly put it, "It sure looked like at least Trump Jr. and perhaps others at that meeting committed a crime. Federal law makes it a potential crime for any person to 'solicit' (that is, expressly or impliedly ask for) the contribution of 'anything of value' from a foreign citizen." Sadly, this seemingly obvious crime committed by Donald Trump's son and son in law will go unpunished.
Even though the report does not expressly say that Trump did not engage in criminal obstruction of the investigation itself, it's been mostly seen as a vindication, something that he has, of course, trumpeted to the hills. And this perception of innocence leads to a truly depressing fact: he now has a better than even chance of winning reelection. I know, I know, Trump has never had an approval rating over 50%, and there's a huge swath of Democrats ready to run against him, but the power of incumbency is very strong.
Remember that in 2004, George W Bush was running for reelection while the Iraq war that he started was crumbling into a disaster, and the economy was not doing well. Yet he not only won, he did better in 2004, than he did in the previous election, winning the popular vote after losing it in 2000. Trump will probably have more advantages than Bush did: the economy has been strong for the past three years, and while it appears that there are signs of a slow down, it probably won't turn into an outright recession. Trump's other advantage is the thing that so many many Americans have feared the most: normalization. The country has just gotten used to having a president who lies, attacks and brags constantly. Every time Trump says something that seems outrageous even by his standards, (like say, defending people at a Klan rally or attacking Senator John McCain months after his death), his approval ratings hardly ever budge. He has set the bar so low that he can't sink any lower before the election, which means nothing he says will really hurt him by then.
Oh sure, the Democratic base hate Trump just as much as the Republican base loves him, but those two groups of voters will mostly cancel each other out in 2020, leaving things up the people who always have decided presidential elections in this century: swing voters in swing states. A lot of these people are the kind of voters who mostly ignore political media coverage until right before the election, and then make their decision based on how the economy is doing and whether they feel a big need for change. While I sincerely hope that the reluctant Trump voters that put him in office will turn on him, they certainly can't be counted on.
So is Trump's victory in 2020 a lock? Of course not. Remember that there are other investigations of his potential criminal actions going on in congress, not to mention that the Democrats haven't even picked their candidate yet. A lot can happen in a year. But right now, to the deep abiding shame of this nation, Trump has the advantage.
