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The remaining primaries and convention at this point serve as little more than a coronation for the inevitable Trump nomination. It was discussed last week the unlikely circumstances in which Trump is prevented from running. The questions now are:
The likelihood Trump wins? Betting markets put the odds between 40-60%, which is not that useful but is what I would expect. The election will be very close and come down to the usual swing states like in 2020 and 2016. Biden's approval ratings are precariously low for an incumbent, especially given that the Electoral College works to Trump's advantage.
What will a second Trump term be like? My guess is much like his first term. A lot of hollow populist gestures to his base but not much happens. I still don't understand these people who are otherwise centrist or middle-left like Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith, who predict or expect a foreign policy crisis if trump wins , but always fail to articulate what this entails. I guess they have to keep toeing the 'orange man bad' line even though he was not that bad, and the economy and other metrics did well under his presidency (until Covid, which was out of his control anyway). Key alliances were strained much, as commonly feared in 2016-2017. The leadership of allies like Germany and France begrudgingly accepted Trump, and not much else happened.
50-50. Biden's currently down by about 10 points from where he needs to win comfortably, but the vibecession is easing and a lot of his low polling is just disaffected leftists who are sad that he hasn't been as extreme as they wanted him to be. They'll almost certainly come around when Trump is in the news more. That said, Biden still has big problems in terms of immigration and his age, so there's a lot of uncertainty.
Somewhat more of the same, but probably moderately worse. If you've read any of the "behind the scenes" books of the Trump presidency, you'll know it was basically a three ring circus between:
When Trump's term began, all three rings were fairly evenly matched. But as the years went on, the Establishment was utterly annihilated while the Far Right was cut down and sidelined pretty harshly as well. Towards the end it was mostly just grifters. After J6 there was a fourth ring, The Crazies, who insisted Trump really won the election. People like Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, and others took the reins in the final days.
If Trump were to win a second term, I doubt he'd bother much trying to reach out to the first 2 groups, and mainly focus on The Grifters and The Crazies. There'd be even less of a pressure to push through immigration reform, and US foreign policy could be negatively impacted.
Two of the three people you named in this category were some lf Trump's most important advisers, who gained in influence during Trump's term.
I've grown used to, and even fond of, all the silly and quirky takes about Trump's presidency on this site. But this one especially sounds like you made up a Trump Presidency in your head to be mad about. (US foreign policy will be damaged because, uh, lots of people believe the election was rigged in Georgia.)
Obviously Trump sacked Bannon, who was one of his most prominent populist advisors. Stephen Miller, who was in charge of immigration, started strong but kept getting undercut by Trump in a number of ways, although he personally still had some sort of seat at the table. Peter Navarro himself was basically shipped off into a hidden office where he had little access to Trump after a certain point, although the tariffs he helped initiate did go through. Navarro would eventually regain favor, but only by joining the Crazies and insisting the election was stolen.
This is not what I said at all.
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