It's easy of late to be disheartened.  Trump, who has a unique style that some find off-putting (I don't), nevertheless managed in three years to bring America to an impressively strong position, whether in terms of national security, economic well-being, or constitutional rights.  Overseas, he's forced other nations to abide by their obligations, pushed back against China's unnerving expansion, and may even have succeeded in bringing lasting peace to the Middle East.

Trump ought to be a shoo-in for the election, but the Democrats weaponized the Wuhan virus to destroy the economy, piggybacked on an ex-felon's death from an overdose or heart attack to stoke violent racial unrest and anarchy, and are promising massive election fraud.  But fear not: a former analyst for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency offers some hope.  I'll share some of what he said with you, and I urge you to read his entire article.

Ron Aledo is the CEO of Federal Elite Solutions, an international risk and security consultant.  In other words, he makes his money by trying to determine trends so that he can help his clients make smart decisions.  His bio is impressive, for he began his intelligence career in the Army before moving on to work for the CIA and DIA.  Both organizations have made more than their share of mistakes over the past five decades, but their analysts have still acquired useful skills in understanding available information.

Aledo posted a long LinkedIn article entitled "Intelligence Analyst Predicts Trump Victory in 2020."  He has 12 bullet points explaining why he can "estimate with high confidence (85%+)" that Trump will win.  His predictions intrigued me because they operate from a base of common sense.  Take the first bullet point:

--1. The Manchurian Candidate/ End of the world Apocalypses candidate cannot be used against Trump this year. It was used against him back in October/November 2016 and did not work. It only can be used once. The Republicans also used that technique against Obama back in October/November 2008. The Manchurian candidate/End of the World candidate strategy means that if a X candidate wins, that candidate will destroy the country and it is going to be the end of the world. Trump demonstrated that he did not destroy the country nor the world by winning back in 2016. People know now the world will not end if he wins in 2020. That is why the Republicans could not use this technique against Obama in 2012 and why the Democrats cannot use it against Trump now in 2020. IT CAN ONLY BE USED ONCE. 

That point about using the extremist argument only once is right on the money.  As Scott Adams was saying in 2016, a lot of air should go out of the Democrat balloon when Trump doesn't (1) put gays and Jews in concentration camps, (2) start wars all over the world (indeed, he went the opposite way and didn't start any wars, unlike his five predecessors), (3) sexually abuse women in the White House (a job left for Kennedy and Clinton), or (4) do any of the other over-the-top things that bloomed in Democrat imaginations.

The problem with today's Democrats is that the air didn't leak out when Trump governed like a normal, conservative (indeed, Reagan-esque) president.  Instead, they transitioned smoothly from hysteria to insanity without a hiccup in between.  Nevertheless, those who are not Democrats, but are instead relatively disinterested politically, have probably noticed (a) that Trump is not Hitler and (b) that the Democrats are crazy.  So, yeah, point one makes sense to me.

Another point that interested me (Point 3, to be exact) is that Aledo thinks Trump has reassembled the old Reagan Democrat coalition.  "The Reagan Democrats," writes Aledo, "are firmly behind Trump and they are the most decisive voter group in the Rust Belt/Mid-West key battleground states, the ones that usually decide the Presidential elections."

Again, I agree with Aledo's take.  As the endorsements from the Democrat mayors in Minnesota show, the working class understands that the Democrats have abandoned them.  While Democrats once represented the little guy, they now represent the leftist guy.

Despite thinking Aledo is correct, though, I do worry that the American landscape has changed profoundly since 1980.  Technology has shifted the balance of power out of the Midwest, and the past 28 years of governance siphoned many of the Midwest's resources off to China.  Are there still enough people in the Midwest who even remember the old values?

As you can see, I like Aledo's optimism, and I think his analysis makes a lot of sense, which is why I urge you to check it out.  Having said that, I utterly refuse to go overboard with optimism in the face of what may be the first Third World–style election America has ever had because the Democrats opted for violence and corruption over persuasion.

Image: Screen grab from the home page of the Trump campaign website.