Sick 2020 Disad
1. Trump loses in 2020: wall consolidates opposition of key ambivalent voters
Brownstein 10/19
Ronald Brownstein is Atlantic Media's Editorial Director for Strategic Partnerships, in charge of longterm editorial strategy, The Atlantic, “Trump’s Wall Could Cost Him in 2020,” Pub: 10 Jan 2019,
SFR//ew, Acc: 11 Jan 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trumps-border-wallcould-cost-him-2020-votes/579952/
Trump’s Wall Could Cost Him in 2020 The president’s relentless effort to cement the loyalty of his base is alienating
him from the ambivalent voters who provided him critical support in 2016. President Donald Trump may now be talking more about steel
than cement, but his proposed border wall remains the Rosetta Stone for understanding both his conception of the presidency and his political strategy. Nothing better illustrates Trump’s political
wall, a goal that most Americans consistently oppose in polls, even at the cost of shutting
down the federal government, a tactic that surveys show most Americans also consistently reject. Politically, the showdown
over the shutdown demonstrates how much more Trump prioritizes energizing and mobilizing his passionate base, often with messages that
appeal to anxiety about demographic and cultural change, over broadening his support toward anything that approaches a majority of
the country. It sends the same message about his priorities in executing his office. Trump makes no pretense of governing as president
of the entire nation. Instead, he governs as the champion of his slice of America against all the forces in the country his supporters dislike or distrust—an instinct he displayed
calculus than his determination to build the
again this week with his latest threats to cut off disaster-relief funding for California. For a president to consistently steer his governing agenda and political messaging toward a demonstrable
minority of the country is, to put it mildly, a novel strategy. But Trump may feel comfortable playing on the short side of the field because it’s worked for him before. In the 2016 election, a
majority of voters said they had an unfavorable view of him personally and did not believe he had the experience or temperament to succeed as president, according to the Election Day exit poll
Trump, of course, won a slim Electoral College majority despite losing the popular vote
by nearly 3 million. A critical question looming over 2020 is whether he could squeeze out another
victory while facing opposition from a majority of the country. The struggle over the border wall actually provides a revealing gauge of Trump’s
prospects on that front. From the start of his presidential campaign, immigration, more than any other issue, captured the potential benefits of Trump’s
strategy of pursuing depth of support over breadth. Even during the 2016 Republican primaries, a majority of voters opposed deporting all
conducted by Edison Research. And yet
undocumented immigrants in all but two of the 20 states where exit polls asked their opinion. Yet the minority of voters that supported deportation backed Trump in such preponderant numbers
that they provided a majority of his votes in all but two of the 20 states. The same pattern was evident in the general election. In the exit poll, just 41 percent of voters supported Trump’s border
wall, while a solid majority of 54 percent opposed it. Yet Trump won a much higher share of the wall’s supporters (85 percent) than Hillary Clinton did of the wall’s opponents (76 percent).
Roughly one-fourth of the wall’s opponents either voted for Trump (16 percent) or drifted away to a third-party candidate (8 percent). That disparity reflected a clear trend in the exit poll. On
questions about Trump’s personal characteristics—such as whether he had the experience or temperament to succeed as president—he consistently won a higher percentage of those who said
“yes” than Clinton won among those who said “no.” That pattern may have reflected doubts about Clinton, a willingness to roll the dice on a political outsider, or a desire for change. But
The pivotal votes that made Trump president came from voters ambivalent at
best about him and key elements of his agenda. After two years of arguing for the wall as president, Trump has
shown no ability to expand its popularity. In 10 national polls conducted during his presidency, Quinnipiac University has never found support for the wall
whatever the cause, the pattern was decisive:
higher than 43 percent. With his Oval Office address on Tuesday night, Trump may have further consolidated support among Republicans and conservatives, which could raise that number
slightly. But his focus on grisly portrayals of undocumented immigrants is unlikely to dent the preponderant opposition to the wall among all the groups that powered the Democratic takeover of
wall usually faces opposition from at least
two-thirds of minorities and young people, and between three-fifths and two-thirds of college-educated
whites. Looking back at 2016, Trump may conclude that lopsided opposition from those groups doesn’t matter so long as he maintains strong support for the wall from his base. But there’s
evidence that the voters hostile to the wall, and to many other aspects of Trump’s tenure, are less willing to give
him the benefit of the doubt now than they were in 2016. To test that proposition, I compared results from the 2016 exit poll with findings from
Quinnipiac’s latest national survey on the wall in December. That comparison shows that Trump’s position among wall opponents has eroded
dramatically. Overall attitudes about the wall in the December poll remained similar to 2016, with 43 percent supporting and 54 percent opposing. (Other surveys, including
the House last fall: minorities, young people, and college-educated white voters. Depending on the survey, the
Quinnipiac’s, have usually found support slightly lower, at about 40 percent.) Among whites both with and without a four-year college degree, opinions on the wall in the Quinnipiac survey
showed only minimal change from the exit poll, with nearly three-fifths of whites with a degree opposing the wall and nearly three-fifths of those without a degree supporting it. But while overall
attitudes about the wall haven’t changed much, attitudes toward Trump have deteriorated significantly among the wall’s critics. Opposition to the wall, just like doubts about Trump’s personal
characteristics, was not a deal breaker for a significant share of voters in the presidential election. In the exit poll, 18 percent of the college-educated whites who opposed the wall voted for
now, far fewer express support for Trump in general. In the latest Quinnipiac
just 3 percent of these voters approved of Trump’s job performance, according to data provided by Quinnipiac. Ninety-two
percent disapproved. Likewise, just over one-fourth of non-college-educated whites who opposed the wall still voted for Trump in 2016. But in the latest Quinnipiac survey, only 9
Trump anyway, according to figures provided by Edison Research. But
poll,
percent of these whites approved of Trump’s performance, while 83 percent disapproved. In all, fully 88 percent of Americans who oppose the wall say they disapprove of Trump’s performance
Approval ratings correlate closely with the reelection vote for incumbent presidents
as president.
. So that huge
disapproval number suggests that the 2020 Democratic nominee could win a considerably higher share of wall opponents than the 76 percent who voted for Clinton in 2016. By contrast, the share
opponents of
the wall are now consolidating against Trump’s overall performance at an even higher rate than its
supporters are coalescing behind him. That’s a very different landscape than in 2016, and one that springs directly from two years
of wall supporters who approve of Trump in Quinnipiac’s latest poll is about the same (83 percent) as his vote among that group in 2016 (85 percent). That means
of governing in a volatile, confrontational manner aimed almost entirely at his base, the strategy that he’s escalated again by shuttering the government over the wall. It’s possible, of course, that
with slim victories in key Rust Belt and Sun Belt states, Trump can squeeze out another Electoral College victory even if he loses the popular vote again. His chances will rise if a third-party
alternative again divides the voters who are resistant to him. But these
patterns of public reaction suggest that Trump’s relentless effort to
cement the loyalty and stoke the outrage of his strongest supporters, compounded by his volatile behavior
in office, is building a wall between him and the ambivalent voters who provided him critical support in
2016 (or at least withheld it from Clinton by splintering to third-party candidates). The sharp movement toward Democrats in the midterm elections among
independents and college-educated white voters, both groups that broke closely for Trump in 2016, points toward the same conclusion. Trump’s
monomania on the border wall shows that he remains fixated on the priorities and resentments of his core
coalition. But even a 30-foot barrier probably wouldn’t protect him in 2020 if he allows the waves of
discontent to continue rising among the majority of Americans who don’t consider themselves part
of that ardent club.
2. The plan’s a populist win that Trump takes credit for and gives him the
election in 2020.
Yglesias 18 (Matthew Yglesias, 9-26-2018, "How Trump could win in 2020," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905752/trump2020-strategy, accessed 10-24-2018)
What if President Trump did popular stuff on policy? In particular, what if Democrats do well in the
midterms and take the House and start passing bills, and then Trump takes their most popular ideas and
agrees with them? Or at least with watered-down versions of them? So maybe Trump signs a bill to hike the minimum wage to
$12 an hour, a deficit-financed surge in infrastructure spending, some version of a DREAM Act paired to wall funding, and maybe
even something like the Manchin-Toomey background check bill. Up until now, Trump has governed like a very hardline
conservative except on trade. But except for authoritarian views on immigration and crime, Trump doesn’t
have any personal history of consistency as a conservative. And even during his 2016 campaign, he put forth a much more eclectic, heterodox
version of himself than how he’s governed. Of course, maybe that won’t change no matter what happens in 2018. Maybe he’s a true prisoner of
the conservative movement. Maybe he’s always harbored Heritage Foundation sympathies and they are just now blooming. But I think a
reasonable person should have some humility about his ability to foresee the future and admit that this
bipartisan, populist Trump is at least a possibility . Trump’s path to victory One immediate consequence of this would be
that it would give guys like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee, who sometimes like to position themselves as more high-minded than Trump, the
opportunity to actually vote against the president sometimes. Any Trump-Pelosi deal could easily weather a dozen or so defections from the right
that would allow that crew to own the brand of “true conservatives” without needing to do anything to check Trump’s corruption or
authoritarianism. Conversely, it would greatly empower the left of the Democratic Party because it would cost more moderate factions their
resistance branding. Trump’s electoral base wouldn’t mind a handful of ideological betrayals since rank-and-
file Republicans are really here for the culture war stuff and not for the concrete policy anyway. So Trump
would enter the 2020 campaign with his base intact but also with the brand as a freethinking moderate
who’s at odds with the right wing of congressional Republicans. Democrats would end up nominating someone with a
relatively extreme rejectionist profile, and Trump would be in a good position to improve his approval ratings and
get reelected. Think of it as basically a rerun of Bill Clinton in 1995-’96 with “triangulation .”
3. Trump loss in 2020 causes Paris re-entry
Harvey 17 – Chelsea Harvey, Regular Contributor to The Washington Post's Energy and Environment
Blog, “Withdrawing From the Paris Deal Takes Four Years. Our Next President Could Join Again in 30
days.”, Washington Post, 6-5, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energyenvironment/wp/2017/06/05/withdrawing-from-the-paris-deal-takes-four-years-our-next-president-couldjoin-again-in-30-days/?utm_term=.64430f2b2578
Rejoining the agreement And as Burger pointed out, there’s nothing stopping a future president from adding us right
back in. According to the agreement’s rules, parties may officially join in one of two ways. First, they can join by signature and
ratification — that is, by participating in the agreement’s original negotiations and then signing on board. This is how the United States
originally became a part of the agreement. After the deadline for signature has passed, which occurred April 21 of this year,
parties may join through a process called accession , which is essentially the legal term for joining an agreement at a later
date, after it has already been negotiated and signed by other nations. Parties that join by accession are subject to all the same
conditions as parties that joined by signature, and nothing in the rules prevents a nation from joining
by signature, withdrawing and then rejoining by accession. According to Manguiat, the United States could
do just that by simply submitting another document to the United Nations, which it may do at any time
after withdrawal takes effect — even immediately, if the president so chose. Its reentry would take legal effect just 30 days later. In
our next president could start this process immediately upon taking office — potentially right
after the Jan. 20, 2021 , inauguration, if a transition occurs at that time. And in the meantime, it’s likely that rejoining Paris
will feature as a key campaign promise for any liberal candidates running against Trump in 2020 .
International outrage aside, polls suggested that most Americans wanted the U.S. to remain in the Paris agreement, and it’s likely that many
would support an immediate reentry under a new leader.
theory,
4. Final decision on Paris is decided by 2020 – staying prevents extinction-level
warming
Schlanger 17 – Zoë Schlanger, Environment Reporter for Quartz and Akshat Rathi, Science Journalist
with Quartz, “It’s Official: Trump is Forcing the US to Turn its Back on the Paris Climate Agreement”,
Quartz, https://qz.com/996376/trump-has-decided-to-pull-the-us-from-the-paris-climate-agreement/
Since Trump reportedly waffled up to the last moment on the Paris agreement decision, we decided to show you what almost could have been.
Here’s our story, written both ways. US president Donald Trump announced today (June 1) he’s decided to withdraw the country
from the Paris climate agreement. The US emits about one-sixth of the planet’s total greenhouse gas emissions,
making it the second-largest emitter in the world. The decision removes the US from its commitments to
international efforts to reduce fossil-fuel emissions and thereby avoid levels of global temperature rise
that imperil the future viability of human life on Earth . The US joins Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries to reject
the Paris agreement. Notably, Nicaragua refused to join because its leadership felt the agreement did not go far enough. Syria, meanwhile, has
since 2011 been mired in one of the globe’s most violent civil conflicts. Not leaving means Trump will have to respect the US’s commitments to
reduce emissions. Trump
will abide by the structure laid out in the agreement, which means it could take the
US up to four years to actually leave. So the real question of whether the country stays in the Paris
climate agreement may be decided by voters in 2020 the presidential election . Trump, who reportedly was
undecided as recently as last evening, ultimately listened to ignored the voices of energy industry giants like ExxonMobil and Shell, coal
company Cloud Peak, and Rex Tillerson, his own secretary of state, not to mention some of his most trusted advisors, daughter Ivanka Trump and
son-in-law Jared Kushner. He thus ignored instead listened to the climate-denying faction of his inner-circle, including Environmental Protection
Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, chief strategist Steve Bannon, and a coterie of 22 Republican senators who sent a letter to the president urging
him to back out. (Those senators have collectively received $10 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 2012.)
The pledge made by the Obama administration to the Paris agreement is was not legally binding, but symbolically important. It
offers offered an assurance to other nations that the country would take responsibility for its own share
of global emissions. Within weeks of Trump taking office, however, his administration began the process of rolling back key federal
emissions standards, making clear that it had no intention of working towards meeting the US’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by
2025 to about a third of the country’s 2005 emission levels. Without the US, the total number of countries that have formally pledged emissions
reductions remains 147 drops to 146, in total accounting for roughly 80% 65% of the planet’s emissions. As the US vacates its seat at the
bargaining table, it has partners in it cedes climate leadership to India, China, and the EU, all of which have publicly pledged to strengthen their
without US participation during what scientists agree are critical
years, the hope of avoiding dangerous levels of climate change slips farther away.
commitments to mutually reduce emissions. Still,