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Bill McCardle
Bill McCardle
3 years ago

This is now getting ridiculous. A couple of days ago we had an article about Trump not giving up the Presidency if he lost now we have one about him dropping out before the election. Scaremongering, wishful thinking, anti Trump rhetoric call it what you will, it’s 2nd rate journalism and not befitting UnHerd. I’ve no particular opinion on Trump worth sharing right now but I have plenty on these embarrassing excuses for journalism. We’ve heard it all before with his election win (all polls against him, no chance of winning, the worst defeat ever, Hilary a shoo in), Brexit (the British people will never vote to leave EU, etc), the recent UK General Election (the people love Jeremy, maybe I’m exaggerating that one). I turn to UnHeard for stimulating, thought provoking reading not the safe, same old stuff regurgitated from any number of other media, New York Times, Washington Post, Times etc. Those voices are not UnHerd in any way – boring, conformist, group think. Come on UnHerd be different. Tell us something genuinely new not just more wishful, poor quality, pack mentality journalism.

latke.queen.margalit
latke.queen.margalit
3 years ago
Reply to  Bill McCardle

You turn to UnHerd for your own brand of conservative groupthink and are sad this article does not provide it.

Ian Thorpe
Ian Thorpe
3 years ago
Reply to  Bill McCardle

Scaremongering worked well for the establishmeny when their COVID19 hoax trick us into meekly surrendering many of our rights and liberties. Why wouldn’t they try it again with the election, scaring voters away from Trump with the intent of persuading him to drop out so machine politician Pence can step in? Just a thought.

benbow01
benbow01
3 years ago

Sounds like wishful thinking by an author known for his impartiality in matters Trumpian.

‘ Her point was that plenty of Trump voters ” perhaps half of them ” now actively dislike him and his antics.’

Would this be the same ‘perhaps half of them’ who were deplorables?

How did that previous out of thin air estimation, work out?

Evidence light.

Nick House
Nick House
3 years ago
Reply to  benbow01

I’m guessing your use of the word ‘impartiality’ was ironic…
The BBC author, who’s name I will not speak, is about as partisan as they come, from a deeply partisan organisation.

Andrew
Andrew
3 years ago

Justin Webb: Radio 4’s Today programme and previously BBC’s North America Editor. What worse qualification could you have to comment upon American politics? Tainted to the core – why else would the BBC have employed him? Just cut and paste Democrat talking points.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago

Why would Trump need lawyers? What has he done in office that was anywhere near as illegal and/or insane as the invasions and misadventures perpetrated by his predecessors in relation to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and various other places.

Tucker Carlson is an interesting option, but surely highly unlikely at this point. That said, his news/comment show is breaking all records for cable news.

Rob Thompson
Rob Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Fraser, the key phrase in the article is “Worse: quite a few of the things he might need sorting date from before he was President,”

David Simpson
David Simpson
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Surely the point being made, is that Trump is scared of prosecution for things done before he became President, and that is all that’s keeping him in the race, and also driving him mad. That he’s breached the wall, but someone as committed, but better qualified, is now needed to rebuild the city on the hill.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

I still don’t understand what the ‘things’ are that need sorting from before his Presidency -is this a reference to his tax affairs?

David Bell
David Bell
3 years ago

This feels very “what if”. But then “what if” Biden is diagnosed with Alzheimer …

The problem with “what if” is you can run it endlessly and the media did that in 2016, they just failed to run one option, “what if Clinton is unelectable”. The problem is most in the media have not asked the same question of Biden, so here goes “What if Biden is unelectable?” – Justin, that is the heading of your next column if you choose to take up the challenge!

In 2016 Trump was only going to win against one candidate, Clinton. My guess is when they hit the campaign trail together Biden will walk into the same issues Clinton had and lots of people will find it difficult to vote for him. Does that mean Trump will win? No, it’s still a race! What it does mean is that Trump is not the lost cause many in our media think he is!

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  David Bell

The difference is that Biden is simply not as hated as Clinton was. In 2016, millions who would normally vote Democrat without even thinking just could not bring themselves to vote for her. This doesn’t apply to Biden, appalling though he is on almost every measure.

Jenn Usher
Jenn Usher
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

The problem for Biden would be the upcoming debates. The contrast would be so terribly stark, that it is difficult to see how a majority of voters could be enthusiastic enough about him to go out into the chill and rain and vote his ticket.

Of course, mail-in voting, where perhaps millions of stolen or counterfeit ballots would be added to the system could assure him a landslide. That is what ballot-harvesting is all about and why the Democrats are so enthusiastic about it. A total loss of confidence in the sanctity of the ballot, which this will foster, will lead very rapidly to the collapse of the US. Which is the whole point, anyway.

K Sheedy
K Sheedy
3 years ago
Reply to  Jenn Usher

Again with the postal vote is corrupting BS?
And the democrats want to bring down the USA?
Nonsense squared

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago
Reply to  Jenn Usher

Yes -the Biden team are apparently already trying to impose conditions on the debates -a ‘live’ reality check team being one of them; his camp is already sounding pretty weak.

David Bell
David Bell
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Yes, but he carries a lot of baggage from recent comments that were racist to plagiarising Neil Kinnock’s speech. Then there are some worrying health issues.

Bidden isn’t as hated but he may be as unelectable!

jmstafft
jmstafft
3 years ago

How very BBC. But of course, any BBC personnel voicing a pro-Trump opinion, or at least not skewing facts to suit an anti-anyone-on-the-right stance would be ‘disappeared.’ How very unprofessional.

lsedwards2012
lsedwards2012
3 years ago
Reply to  jmstafft

I think this is much better analysis of the current situation (ignoring the TDS sections):
https://www.youtube.com/wat

Bill Gaffney
Bill Gaffney
3 years ago

Ah so! A knothead-nattering-nabob-of-nothingism writes another anti-Trump screed. I wonder, when Trump wins again in November if this knot head-nattering-nabob-of-nothingism’s head will implode. UNHERD! Tsk, Tsk, Tsk on you.

Hilary Arundale
Hilary Arundale
3 years ago
Reply to  Bill Gaffney

I don’t really understand this whole knee jerk anti BBC reaction to the article. Is this an Unherd thing? I read it as Webb proposing a scenario for the establishment of the hegemony of the republican right in the US. I thought it was quite an impartial piece of journalism. But what would I know? I’m a bit to the left of Genghis Khan.

Michael McVeigh
Michael McVeigh
3 years ago

I’ve read quite a number of articles on UnHerd which I have disagreed with, but this is the first which is pure comedy.
Webb has obviously no idea of the drug of power or of the notion that a week is a long time in politics.

Nick House
Nick House
3 years ago

This article carries the sort of ‘BBC fake news’ sentiment that we’ve repeatedly come to expect from the cultural Marxist media, and resulted in their previous poll meltdowns – not least of which over Brexit, UK 2019 and 2016 US elections. It’s utter, nonsensical rubbish.
There’s no evidence cited for Trumps plans, in fact anyone with half a brain knows that he’s a fighter who’ll see it through, and who won’t give up on the US working (or currently non-working) man.
If history tells us anything, it’s that Trump will likely win by a landslide – Nixon in ’68, post riots.
The non-socialist american masses want law and order, and economic recovery, both Trump strengths, not victimhood, cancel culture, defunding and a president who’s losing his marbles.
And they’ll shortly find out how badly served Trump has been by Democrat led deep-state conspiracies that have deliberately bedevilled his presidency. Role on the Durham/DoJ investigation report…

D Herman
D Herman
3 years ago

Let me get this correct – right leaning voters who want a more conservative form of government, will vote for Biden to get it??!

The USA has stark choices to make – get the popcorn in.

Simon Latham
Simon Latham
3 years ago

Plenty of conservative white and black Americans support Trump because he is a doer and a patriot (the Democrats are talkers and unpatriotic). Having said that, I would not be surprised if Trump called it a day, given all the bile directed at him at home and abroad: the wretched discourtesy of Webb and his BBC colleagues in this country never ceases. Why Webb should appear on UnHerd I can’t think – we hear too much of him on radio 4. As a political outsider, Trump has achieved quite a lot and deserves a second term. He is certainly of sounder mind than Biden but neither of them is getting any younger and surely the USA must promote some younger politicians.

Nick House
Nick House
3 years ago

One has to wonder whether we need an Opinion piece from a BBC journalist, whose opinion is already well known and is as clearly anti-Trump as it is possible to get – no surprises there.
Would calling it just another BBC anti-Trump ‘hit-piece’ have been more accurate?

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Nick House

Good point. BBC opinion is hardly ‘UnHerd’. It is blasted at us 24/7 over countless channels.

Phil Desaulniers
Phil Desaulniers
3 years ago

Trump’s Mt. Rushmore speech was a very welcome reset, and hopefully he leans into it.

Greg C.
Greg C.
3 years ago

The article provides no plausible reason for a last minute resignation. Trump’s behind Biden in the polls but wasn’t he also behind Hillary :

https://www.bbc.com/news/el

Andrew Baldwin
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago

Justin Webb’s scenario seems far-out to me, but I don’t claim any expertise in political strategy.
I am an economist though, and find it strange that two days after the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) came into effect, he wouldn’t be writing about Trump’s huge triumph on this issue. July 1 was also the day that Ian Brodie, the Chief of Staff in Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office was forced to resign. Harper made him quit because he had leaked classified information that came from the Canadian consulate in Chicago, suggesting that the Democrats weren’t serious when they threatened to renegotiate NAFTA or cancel it. The Canadian reporters thought it related to Clinton. It actually related to Obama and may well have cost him the Ohio primary. Harper actually did damage control by making a speech saying stories published on Obama and NAFTA were “blatantly unfair”, although as it turned out, they weren’t. President Hopey-Changey, once in office, did nothing to renegotiate NAFTA, and neither did his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. They were both, in the final analysis, slippery, cynical, duplicitous pols. By contrast, when Trump said he would either renegotiate NAFTA or tear it up, he meant it, and it was precisely because his Canadian and Mexican counterparts knew that he meant it that he succeeded in renegotiating NAFTA.
The provisions in the new treaty aimed at preventing currency wars among the North American partners are unique to USMCA, although the Obama regime wanted to put something similar in the TPP. While they do interfere with national sovereignty over monetary policy, they may well have promise in protecting countries against unhinged behaviour by their own central banks. Trump or Biden may well want to stick similar provisions in a US-UK Trade Agreement, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for the UK.
Does Justin desperately want Trump out of office? Is this why two days after such a huge triumph for Trump, all he can write about is how Trump might make his exit?

Allan Dawson
Allan Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

F89k that….if Trump tries to tell the UK how to run its own currency, he (like the EU) must be f78ked off at the highport.

Why do so many globalists want to sell out the UK to the US?

Blatancy Rose
Blatancy Rose
3 years ago

Justin Webb is employed by the BBC. That should tell us all we need to know about him and his politics. This article is nothing but wishful thinking on his behalf.

Alexander Allan
Alexander Allan
3 years ago

Justin Webb should keeps his wet dreams to himself.

Dean Ethridge
Dean Ethridge
3 years ago

Like Noonan and others in the Northeast media enclave, Webb doesn’t understand the political dynamics in the totality of the U.S. Trump will fight – and he will fight to WIN. Unlike the preening ‘elites’ that Noonan and Webb hobnob with, I am not willing to predict the outcome of the electoral process. (I will concede that an electorate capable of twice electing Obama is also capable of electing a mentally impaired man with a lifelong record of corruption.) But the election will be FOUGHT; it will not simply be relinquished. I agree with Bill McCardle and other who have commented: Webb is being ridiculous.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
3 years ago

I’ve always felt the Trump was the wrong President elected for the right reasons.

Trump lacks the political acumen required of the office, whilst at the same time having the genuine ability to identify and articulate the issues which affect millions of Americans but have been ignored for the last quarter of a century.

If popularism is to capitalise on the gains it has made, perhaps it would do so better without Trump?

K Sheedy
K Sheedy
3 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Populism means giving emotionally satisfying simple (wrong) answers to hard questions… in order that the not-too-smart vote for populist manipulators who have hidden agendas. The problem with Trump is he never had any agenda beyond ‘look at me, I’m so so great.’
Heaven forbid that we replace Trump with an intelligent, devious, populist.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

I tend to agree. His off road speeches used to surprise and (somewhat) inspire, but lately his ramblings have felt helter skelter and failed to seize the political moment. His Rushmore speech was much better -he faithfully followed the autocue all the way through. I wonder if he is losing his appetite for the game. These protests should really have been open goals for the Republicans, law and order, due process etc… but they’ve made a bit of a hash of things overall. I wonder if there is not a smart strategy to give the Democrats enough rope with which to hang themselves -risky though, and he’s going to have to step up to the mark and deliver some big hits if he’s going to win in November.

Ken Schefers
Ken Schefers
3 years ago

I normally ignore typos, but Mickey Kaus’s last name was spelled two different ways in this article; neither was correct. Dukakis also lost to George H.W. Bush, not George W. Bush.

Martin Byrne
Martin Byrne
3 years ago

The NYT? really!

Derek M
Derek M
3 years ago

No

Jeffrey Shaw
Jeffrey Shaw
3 years ago

When Trump arrived in DC he didn’t realize what he’d won and he didn’t have a clue how Washington works. A President has over 4,000 appointments at his fingertips that reach 4 levels of management down into every structure of every agency. That said – it wasn’t until January of this year that his National Security advisor announced he was “cleaning out the Obama appointees” still on staff and last October, he got upset by a US Attorney from California – a woman Obama appointed, he’d never bothered to fire some 3.5 years into his tenure. Even the vilified Obama IRSCommissioner remained in office for 10 months before the man retired voluntarily. It is worth recalling that the “Drain the Swamp”campaign tag line never came from the Trump campaign – it was on a homemade poster at a rally. The entire Russian charade was orchestrated by Obama people who Trump and his idiot AG – Jeff Sessions left in office during the opening 90 days of his administration. Trump meant well from the beginning, but I think he has realized that he is incapable of changing those operatives controlling the levers of US Government, because he has only now discovered who they really are.

lsedwards2012
lsedwards2012
3 years ago

It’s not clear what crimes Trump is supposed to have committed in this fantasy article. However, it is clear that the Durham probe is quite likely about to prosecute many high level Obama officials. One of the few reliable pollsters (with a track record going back decades) who correctly predicted 2016 gives Trump a 91% chance of winning 2020 and stands by that prediction despite the last couple of weeks. I don’t dispute that Trump’s polling is down and some people aren’t happy, but that’s their way of signalling displeasure – it’s a persuasion technique to get the candidate to do more of what you want. They will return to Trump when push comes to shove. Just look at the UK GE if you want evidence of that, the parallels are quite striking. Further, since gun ownership is one of the best predictors of voting intentions (a revealed preference instead of an opinion poll in an impossible polling environment), and gun sales have gone up massively, I think Trump will win unless the Dems steal it with ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots. There is no chance that Trump steps down unless he gets ill, although I do wish he would.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago

There was absolutely nothing in Trump’s recent Mt Rushmore address to support any of the conjecture in this article. Additionally, watching Tucker Carlson on Fox there is very little there to support the view he is “attacking Donald Trump from the populist Right”. In fact Carlson’s recent opinion piece on Trump’s Rushmore speech was pretty laudatory. Elsewhere Carlson has tended to be more critical of the Republican party as a whole for not standing up more boldly for conservative values in the face of ‘cancel culture’. Where critical of Trump it has been for him not being sufficiently Trumpist.

The polls don’t look good for Trump -but neither did they on the last occasion, which makes the result harder to call. I would imagine though that as we get closer to polling there are likely to be some pretty tasty adverts on how Democrat run cities have been burning, their citizens murdered in the hundreds, whilst their mayors call for defunding of the police and defer to the mob.

Sonny Ramadhin
Sonny Ramadhin
3 years ago

Another article written from the depths of BBC group think. How many 2016 Trump voters switch after seeing the recent anarchy unleashed from the foundations of an ideologically driven democratic party. Trump and Biden are straw men in the culture wars and I believe the silent majority will be heard once more.

Allan Dawson
Allan Dawson
3 years ago

Trump isn’t going to quit….

marko mars
marko mars
3 years ago

If you are going to hang a bit of idle and biased speculation on what some alleged Trump supporter says then for God’s sake get his name right.(Hint: it’s not Mickey Klaus) Otherwise it looks as though you cranked out some piece of risible bullshit while waiting for your Uber to turn up.

M Blanc
M Blanc
3 years ago

This is just pure bollocks. I suppose it’s possible that President Trump will resign or decline to stand again. I should say that it is very unlikely. And if it comes to pass, so what? It certainly won’t be a positive for ending mass immigration, which is the principal issue upon which Trump campaigned and upon which he was elected. It’s obvious that he’s done very little about it. It appears that he really didn’t care all that much about it. But if he didn’t do it, it won’t get done. No one in the Republican party will do it. They’re all full-bore globalist. Not that it’s likely, given the changing demographics and the disinclination of immigration patriots to vote for the Republicans who hate them, that any Republican can be elected president. Either Trump manages to hang on and we get four years to prepare for the dark ages that will be upon us when the Democrats are back in power, or he’ll lose (or resign) and the dark ages will begin in January.

David Simpson
David Simpson
3 years ago

It is refreshing to read intelligent and interesting articles about Trump, especially from a BBC man. Almost restores my faith in Auntie.

ian brown
ian brown
3 years ago

Last night I was reminding myself what Obama was like by watching some YouTube vids – the man was different class. I hope Trump doesn’t resign, it would send a good message if he were to lose bigly in October.

Allan Dawson
Allan Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  ian brown

Yet Trump pushes to protect the left behind…..

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago
Reply to  ian brown

I agree as orators they are different class. Now though when I see Obama I find him a bit oleaginous; almost too good. I think Trump’s public speaking is pretty dreadful unless he is following the autocue. But in the primary and presidential debates in the run up to the last ballot he was pretty extraordinary -he demolished Clinton when she apparently held all of the aces. No one could seem to get to grips with his heavyweight slap downs and direct insults. Not ‘presidential’ but highly effective.