Why Has the 2020 Election Become So Bitter? 

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The election of 2020 is well underway. President Donald Trump is probably overhead if you scan the skies long enough. Vice President has left his basement and returns to its comforts only occasionally. This campaign is heating up. What can we expect?

Well, I can tell you it will be an acrimonious race. Recently, Joe Biden called the President a liar, and said something to the effect that a liar should not be president. Of course, Joe is a proven plagiarist who cheated as a student and, for that matter, cheated for more than 40 years as a senator. One cannot be a plagiarist and a cheat without being a liar. So, I guess Joe considers himself exempt from his charge against the President. As I say, this is going to be a bitter race.

Yet no one that I have listened to understands quite why it is going to be so bitter. The Democratic leadership obviously hates Donald Trump, but why? After watching him for the last four years I have come to the conclusion that it is not because of his endless tweets or his penchant for name-calling or any of the standard Democratic complaints. It is because he stole the Democrats political libido and put it to Republican purposes.

As I have written for years, the Democrats have the political libido of a nymphomaniac. They simply cannot restrain themselves. The Republicans, by comparison, have a more chaste political libido. Theirs is more like that of a Victorian lady or gent. They do not want to make a scene. They do not want to bring down the house. The Democrats do, and they will stomp on the ruins if necessary.

From time to time the Democrats, driven by their intemperate political libido, break a precedent. Remember when the precedent was that an American politician would never speak ill of a seated president while traveling abroad? Ever since the defeat of President Carter every, Democratic presidential candidate, either elected or defeated, has spoken ill of a seated Republican president. There are other precedents that the Democrats have broken of late. All have been the victims of overactive political libidos.

In the 2020 race, the reason for all this bitterness is that Donald Trump has entered politics not understanding the Republican and the Democratic political libidos. He has disturbed the Democrats and some of the Republicans — forget not the Never Trumpers — by applying the Democratic political libido to Republican issues. It has served him well in terms of results, but it has riled up the Schumers and Pelosis of this world.

The President so far has rammed through 208 judges, changing the judicial makeup of the country. He has revived the economy by lowering taxes and ridding the country of scores of useless regulations. He has overruled countless precedents. At times he has brought down the house and at times he seemed ready to stomp on the ruins. He would be a perfect Democrat except for one thing. He is not a socialist.

Donald Trump has roared through politics with a zest for the game that Republicans really do not understand. Sure, the normal Republican politician likes the great game of politics, but at the end of the day he or she goes home to the spouse and the family. Donald is more like a Democrat. He grabs a bite to eat and begins the night shift. He flips on the evening news. He calls his chief of staff, brings in his overworked speech writers, works the telephones. Possibly he flies off to a battleground state.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Never Trumpers should be glad he became a Republican and they should have stayed around for the fun. Donald Trump has gotten more done in his first term in office than any predecessor. The only one who comes close is Ronald Reagan, but then he was originally a Democrat and may have had a bit of the Democratic political libido when he left the Democratic Party.

Now the President is running for reelection. The polls say he is behind. Well, at this point in 2016 he was behind also. For that matter at this point in the race in 1980 Ronald Reagan was behind too. The pollsters said the race was a toss-up as late as the night before the election. Then came the deluge.

________

Mr. Tyrrell is editor in chief of the American Spectator, where this column first appeared.


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