I’m sorry to tell you this, but Donald Trump is going to win a second term as president

My 50 years in electoral politics has taught me to expect the unexpected, writes Vince Cable. The president may be a blowhard, but he has kept American soldiers out of body bags

Trump rallies his supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, just before the coronavirus outbreak effectively shut the state down (Reuters)

Of all the decisions in politics which will change the world, the choice of president by American voters in November ranks pretty high. I am not an American, I know little about American politics and my understanding of it is informed by watching British TV and reading material written by people with a similar outlook on the world to my own. I am also instinctively an optimist and believe the good guys can win.

So when I see American cities ablaze with anger, read of the disastrous handling of the pandemic and hear Trump’s wildly erratic, bizarre and repulsive outpourings I tend to assume that he must be heading for a landslide defeat. And that he will then be followed by someone who will lead the world in combating climate change, global economic depression and the retreat into protectionism.

Yet as someone who has spent over 50 years in electoral politics, winning some and losing some, sometimes predictably and sometimes surprisingly, my experience tells me to prepare for the unexpected and unpalatable. The signs are of Trump getting re-elected – and some troubling times ahead even if he doesn’t.

There five reasons why I think Trump will probably win, and one reason to worry even if he doesn’t.

First, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump share few views save for the hypothesis that, when it comes to winning the elections, “it’s the economy, stupid”. People ask, therefore, how an incumbent president can possibly get re-elected in the middle of a depression where one in seven American workers, some 20 million people, are without employment.

Yet what matters is the direction of travel; much of politics is based on hope not experience, so people will look for signs that things are getting better. In the last few days new data showed 2.5 million jobs created and the stock market, Trump’s main barometer of progress, looking up. There will be more recovery stories to come, as Trump claims credit for a revival fuelled by both the bipartisan stimulus package and the Federal Reserve’s non-partisan support to the economy.

Second, it is dangerous to assume that the Black Lives Matter protests will hurt Trump. They may do, and they should. His incendiary, divisive language deserves no better. But the crucial group of white voters who turned out for Obama but switched to Trump may decide that they prioritise law and order over racial justice. The 1968 riots helped to elect Nixon. Since then racial attitudes, discrimination and segregation have improved but not sufficiently. Trump calculates that this is still a tinderbox which can combust in his favour.

Third, the president may be a blowhard but he has – so far – kept the peace and kept American soldiers out of body bags.

He quickly got rid of dangerous warmongers like John Bolton who believed in acting, as well as talking and tweeting, tough. He has made friends with Putin and North Korea’s Little Rocket Man. He has quietly handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban without more allied dead: a not very noble, but certainly realistic, acceptance of defeat. He has ignored the provocation of Iranian drones and sanction-busting oil tankers en route to Venezuela. Like Obama before him, he has realises that the US can no longer be the world’s police force.

Fourth, and crucially, Trump is desperate to win while it seems that Biden would merely enjoy the chance to serve. If Trump loses he is unlikely to progress to dignified retirement on the lecture circuit or writing his memoirs. More likely he will be fighting corruption probes that could lead to possible jail time. He has every incentive to fight hard and dirty and will use race, religion, false allegations and whatever else is necessary, including vast amounts of money. By comparison, Biden rather gives the impression that he is just doing his duty for party and country.

Last, Trump knows his base – and they still love him. Biden’s base is broader but far less secure. He was apparently planning to choose a somewhat conservative woman from the midwest as his vice-presidential candidate, to appeal to swing voters there. He is now being advised that he must have a black and radical candidate to fire up the Democratic base. Whatever and whoever he chooses, someone will be disappointed and there will be negative electoral consequences.

The polls suggest that Biden is ahead in national votes. But that counts for little. Hillary Clinton was 3 million votes ahead of Trump four years ago, and still went down to an ignominious defeat which so many pundits had decreed impossible. The brutal electoral reality is that on the skewed electoral system Trump only needs around 45 per cent of the popular vote – 3 per cent more than his current approval rating. That is eminently achievable by November.

We should not assume that Trump would graciously accept defeat, either. I discount the more alarmist warnings about him turning to the military. But it is entirely plausible that he would refuse to accept a narrow loss, calling in the legal attack dogs as he did throughout his business career. If he got as far as the Supreme Court, there are justices there who owe him one. Getting rid of Trump will not be easy.

Does it really matter if Trump wins again? If we believe in the importance of rhetoric and the quality of public discourse, then, yes, quite a lot. It would be a major relief not to hear a daily barrage of insults to friendly countries, ethnic minorities, women, experts, Obama and anyone who is not a fully paid up Trumpophile. But whatever your prejudices – good or bad – about this president, his utterances simply serve to confirm them, and anyway, the more he emits these sallies, the less seriously they are taken.

When it comes to matters of substance, I will not try to guess at what the Democratic alternative could accomplish domestically in such a bitterly divided Congress and country. As a non-voting foreigner my main concern is with the gaping hole in global politics which is the lack of cooperation and leadership on big areas of common interest around the world economy, climate change, and poverty. It is clear that Trump does not care an iota about these things and he has already done a great deal of damage to the multilateral institutions like the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation and to global cooperative projects such as the Paris climate accords.

In an ideal world, Biden would look to like-minded leaders elsewhere for support to stop the rot. The world is far from ideal, so real international cooperation means working not just with allies like Merkel and Trudeau but also with less edifying figures from China, Russia, Brazil and elsewhere in the populist international. Yet the election is shaping up as a bidding war on “America First” protectionism, and on sounding toughest in a new cold, and potentially hot, war with China and its allies. On this, it seems that Biden wants to out-trump Trump.

It should be scarcely conceivable that a president as cynical, corrupt and often unhinged as Donald Trump could be re-elected. But experience teaches us that we should not be surprised if that is the outcome. And if, somehow, the Democratic campaign succeeds against the odds, Biden’s inauguration will not put US trade and foreign policy back on a liberal and internationalist footing.

To that extent, the Trump legacy may well live on whoever wins in November.

Vince Cable is the former leader of the Liberal Democrats