Will anyone from the left realize why Trump won — again?

Weeks before the 2016 election, I sent an email to several media and political personalities predicting that Donald Trump would win Pennsylvania and get 306 electoral votes.

I’m not a professional pollster, but I did work on three winning presidential campaigns, and I simply tried to block out the noise from supporters of both the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns. I pulled up the 2012 electoral map to see which states Mitt Romney won and then, factoring in the latest data and political miscalculations, made an educated guess for 2016.

Using that same system, I have come up with a prediction for 2020: an absolute floor of 278 electoral votes for Trump, with a real chance that he’ll win more than 310 electoral votes. That may upset Joe Biden’s supporters and the Trump haters, but hopefully some of those who oppose Trump will ask themselves if this is a possibility and, if so, why it would happen — again.     

It is not an exaggeration to state that much of the mainstream media, academia, entertainment, medicine and science, Big Tech, the “deep state,” the Never Trumpers, the Democratic Party, and other entrenched establishment elites have joined forces to defeat Trump. Of course, they have a right to oppose the president on any grounds. But they should stop to consider what they themselves might represent to many Americans who struggle to pay bills, feed their children and, in some cases, simply survive. 

To those Americans, those who adamantly oppose the president — Democrats or Republicans — look like the power center that has ruled over them for decades and made their lives miserable. These elites typically preach, “Do as I say, not as I do.” They’re rarely subject to the rules and dictates that they hand down. They have an “inside track” because they hold the keys to a club that’s off limits to the average American.

For anyone who can do the math, the main answer to why Trump won in 2016 — and why I believe he will win again on Nov. 3 — should be blindingly obvious: Trump went out of his way to expose those elites to the American people as the very problem making their lives exponentially worse. He convinced enough voters that he is not one of those “ivory tower elites” and can’t be bought by their special interests.

As was proved to varying degrees with the last presidential election, many Americans bought into Trump’s narrative regarding liberal elites. That’s not surprising; human nature dictates that most people tend not to take the advice of those they view as the ones putting them down and keeping them down. 

With the coronavirus pandemic, this year has been surreal — and painful — in so many ways for most Americans. There’s no question those issues will play a key role in the election. The virus has touched everyone, and its economic effects have been especially devastating to the working class. Trump, now a COVID-19 survivor, has made it clear that, in general, he opposes perpetual lockdowns to deal with the virus.

After the government of Ireland issued a truly punishing new lockdown in that country, one person summed up the collective hopelessness in a tweet: “The sense of devastation and despair this has created is like nothing I have ever experienced. They have stripped us of everything that gave us joy. Every social outlet, every relief, has been made illegal.”

While the left may not realize it, Trump knows there are millions of Americans who agree with that sentiment. They believe that the handling of this virus has been politicized and that some state restrictions have robbed them of their joys.

If it is fair to hear voices arguing for continual lockdowns, then it should be equally fair to hear the voices arguing against them — especially if some of them are medical experts. Unfortunately, many Americans fear that science and medicine have become politicized as well. As proof, they cite that certain medical experts who argue against wearing face masks and imposing lockdowns are ignored by the mainstream media and censored by Big Tech. 

Honest opinions, based upon research, can be debated but should not be silenced. Silenced debate is the opposite of honest science and medicine. Trump is counting on enough voters buying into that argument as well.    

And while the virus may be the main issue of 2020, it is far from the only issue. Many Americans have very real concerns about the economy, crime, policing, home schooling and other issues — including those related to the presidential campaign itself, such as Biden’s avoidance of hard questions and apparent reluctance to hit the campaign trail.

So while some members of the media, academia, entertainment, medicine and science, Big Tech, the deep state, Never Trumpers, the Democratic Party, and various entrenched establishment elites do have the right to join forces to try to defeat Trump, they probably fail to see themselves as millions of American voters do: namely, that they’re the problem.

Douglas MacKinnon was a writer in the White House for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and former special assistant for policy and communication at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. He is the author of “The Dawn of a Nazi Moon: Book One.”