It’s the kind of vision Trump supporters will savor, but should give Democrats nightmares.
With Democrats already spending the summer scheming to avoid the disaster of the Biden presidency in the November mid-terms, one key observer of American politics is already looking ahead to the fall of 2024.
And what he’s seeing should have the wokest liberals losing sleep for the next two years.
Dick Morris, an architect of Bill Clinton’s presidential runs in 1992 and 1996 and an adviser who helped the Clinton White House weather the scandal that led to Clinton’s impeachment in 1998-99, has since become one of the country’s most respected conservative commentators.
But he still brings that knowledge of both the Clintons and Democratic Party politics to bear. He’s forecasting a return of Hillary Clinton to the American political stage for the 2024 presidential campaign — and facing off against former President Donald Trump in a rematch of the 2016 fight.
And he said a case coming before the Supreme Court next term will help seal a Trump victory.
While Trump has made no announcement regarding his 2024 intentions yet, Morris has no doubt the 45th president intends to become the 47th president. And he appears equally sure that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic standard-bearer running against him.
That’s more likely than another round of the doddering Joe Biden, he said, or Democrats taking a gamble on Vice President Kamala Harris (a woman who can’t even get her own staff to stay on board.)
“Already, the Democrats are pressuring Biden not to run because they see what a disaster he would be. And Harris is no better. The line of possible alternatives is queuing up,” Morris told Newsmax on “National Report.” (The full show can been seen at this link. The Morris interview segment starts about the 2:40 mark)
Do you think 2024 will be a Trump-Clinton rematch?
“You have Gavin Newsom, governor of California, [Jared Polis] the governor of Colorado, Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary.
“But, ultimately, the left is going to have their candidates, and they’ll probably run Sanders or maybe AOC, and that will trigger Hillary into the race in order to save the Democratic Party from the left rerunning the Hillary Sanders race of ’16. And I think Hillary will win that contest. I think she and Trump will face it off, and I think Trump is going to win handily.”
(To be clear, it’s a topic Morris said he explores at length in his new book: “The Return: Trump’s Big 2024 Comeback,” so there’s undeniably a bit of salesmanship here.)
While a new Trump would obviously galvanize Democrats, progressives and their Janissaries in the mainstream media, there are plenty of reasons to think he might succeed.
Simply comparing the record of the Trump years on foreign police, the economy and energy independence against the current 1970’s malaise redux of Biden’s incompetent administration would go a long way toward getting sane Americans voting Republican.
But Morris sees another reason:
In the fall, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of Moore v. Harper, an election law dispute out of North Carolina that would invest state legislatures with greater power over how elections are conducted.
As Politico reported, the case mainly involves the issue of gerrymandering legislative districts, but Morris sees broader implications, such as changes to election laws that would improve the integrity of the vote.
“In the five key swing states, Republicans control the legislature, but the Democrats control the governor,” he said. “So [Republicans] passed all these great bills, prohibiting drop boxes, voter ID, no ballot harvesting, and the Democratic governors have vetoed them.
“But when the court rules in this case, which they will next term, it will completely cut the governors out of the process, and those bills will be veto proof and take effect.”
Morris didn’t identify the swing states he had in mind, but North Carolina — where the Moore case originated and Democrat Roy Cooper is in the governor’s office with a GOP-controlled legislature — is obviously one. Other swing states with Republican-controlled legislatures and Democratic governors are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
If Trump had secured the combined 46 Electoral College votes of those three states in 2020, he’d be president today.
And to Morris, that means he’s going to be president come 2025.
Obviously, this isn’t graven in stone. Morris gives short shrift to any potential challenger to Trump for the nomination — such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — and predicting events two years away is always a dicey proposition in human affairs (particularly septuagenarian human affairs). But it’s a valid argument.
And no honest American who watched how the 2020 election unfolded in a pandemic year, where elections officials and courts seemed to make up rules as they went along, can dispute that the vote could easily have gone Trump’s way in crucial states decided by razor-thin margins (like Arizona’s 10,457 out of more than 3 million cast).
If Morris is right, those conditions won’t be around for a 2025 rematch between Trump and Hillary. And if that doesn’t keep Democrats awake at night, nothing will.
