The Case for Trump by the political and military scholar Victor Davis Hanson is a book dedicated to the "Deplorables."  It is a fact-based analysis of why Donald Trump was able to win the presidency in 2016.  Beyond that, Hanson sat down with American Thinker and discussed the presidential election in 2020.

Donald Trump ran against both political parties and the East Coast establishment in the 2016 presidential election.  He was the first man ever elected to the nation's highest office without prior experience in government, politics, or the military.  In a nutshell, Trump appealed to a forgotten but sizable portion of the population: the working and middle classes most negatively impacted by decades of globalism.  Through direct quotes from various individuals on both sides, Hanson makes a powerful case that the elite of both parties hold immense disdain for these middle Americans.

Hanson told American Thinker, "He was not supposed to win.  With the victory, he interrupted sixteen years of a planned progressive agenda.  This election was a referendum on prior credibility.  His victory meant all those who were consulted in the past would be isolated because Trump was not necessarily going to listen to those in the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, Hoover Institution where I work, and the Council on Foreign Affairs, nor was he going to call past presidents for advice.  This was an affront to the entire political establishment."

Before Trump, Republicans and conservatives usually did not take the initiative, nor did they go on the offense.  "Trump did just the opposite.  His aggression was very popular among the frustrated Republican voters.  They did not want a John McCain or a Mitt Romney whose often passive attitude they saw as a cancer.  McCain had ignored attacking Reverend Wright and his outrageous comments, while Romney never really objected to what 'moderator' Candy Crowley did in the second debate.  Conservative voters were ready for someone who fights back.  They might not like all Trump's wild comments and tweeting, but they thought Trump's combative attitude was worth it." 

Hanson went on to explain that many voters saw Trump as authentic.  Regardless of what audience he was speaking to, he always wore a suit and a tie.  "He never adopted a southern accent when speaking to voters in that region as Hillary Clinton did, or changed his tone when speaking to the inner city as Barack Obama had, or wore jeans and a flannel shirt at state fairs as Joe Biden did.  Even though he is a multibillionaire, people found Trump more authentic and empathetic.  For example, after Hillary Clinton said she wanted to shut down the coal industry, he went into West Virginia and said he loved the 'big and beautiful coal.'  He also gives straight answers, not the 50-50 type, such as 'on the one hand, in theory, maybe we will take a look at that, that is a good question to explore.'"

Fast-forwarding to 2020, Hanson believes that Trump's track record is pretty good.  He is creating economic opportunity through growth, redressing longstanding trade inequities, reducing costly and poorly conceived overseas entanglements, cutting red tape that restricts business activity, and restricting illegal immigration that threatens wage growth.

Regarding Beto O'Rourke, Hanson believes that his strange background will come back to haunt him in the Democratic primaries.  "The image he did not want to convey is that he is from a very wealthy white family.  He had used privilege and influence as a young man to get ahead, mostly getting off from serious punishment after a DUI and apparently not charged to the fullest extent for burglarizing a warehouse.  He wrote grotesque stories about killing children, ate dirt, and played a trick on his wife by supposedly putting feces in her bowl.  There seems something sick, mean, weird, and sinister about all of these.  Regarding his policies, he has a hard-left agenda now.  He never says anything concrete about an issue, almost like he is mindlessly vague.  I think the more people know about O'Rourke, the less they will like him."

His prediction is that Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris will get the Democratic nomination.  "Trump will be running against one of these candidates.  The issues they are running on are pretty radical, and they do not have the support of 51% of the electorate.  Trump can say, 'You may find my tweets crass or crude, but I am the only thing between you and socialism.'  The Democratic candidates are in an echo chamber competing to be the one furthest left."

Hanson makes a good point, considering even anti-Trumper and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said this: "Joe Biden went out and was essentially apologizing for being male, over 50, and white," and "Beto, or whatever his name is, he virtually apologized for being born affluent and white."  He also bashed the Democratic policies: "We need a healthy economy, and we shouldn't be embarrassed by our capitalist system.  If you want to look at the record of a system that is non-capitalistic, just take a look at what was perhaps the wealthiest country in Latin America, and today, people are starving to death.  It's called Venezuela."  He went on to say, "I'm a little bit tired of listening to agendas that are pie-in-the-sky that are never going to pass into law, never going to afford.  I think it's just disingenuous to promote those things as if they are serious issues.  You've got to do something that's practical."

Will Trump win in 2020?  Hanson thinks he has a very good chance.  "The Democrats are against the extra oil produced since 2016, the Keystone Pipeline, and the traditional judges appointed.  They will run on issues such as a 90% tax rate, outlawing combustible engines, wanting reparations, radical abortion, abolishing ICE, and abolishing the Electoral college.  In addition, a lot of Latinos where I live, in Central California, do not like the Catholic-bashing by liberals and the effects of thousands of illegal immigrants suddenly in their schools.  Also, the monotonous white-bashing is not popular among the working-class white electorate.  Most of those caricatured are of the working class that do not have white privilege.  For example, a truck-driver working twelve hours a day has very little in common with a Malibu homeowner."

He predicts that Trump will draw from the traditional Democratic base that includes 40% of the Hispanic vote and 40% of the Jewish vote.  "About half of the base of the Democratic Party is anti-Semitic and at least half of the party likely also does not like Israel.  Progressives talk recklessly about Israel as evil even though there are 100 other nations in the world, and dozens that are disasters.  The Left only bashes Israel because it is a Jewish state and so they are basically saying, 'I don't like Jews.'"

In reading the book, people understand why Trump won, and Hanson also explains the reason he thinks Trump will win again: "the Democrats, who have alienated the middle classes," would need to get "95% of the black vote, 75% of the Asian vote, 75% of the Hispanic vote, and 70% of the Jewish vote.  I do not think that will happen."  As they say, from his words to G-d's ears.

The author writes for American Thinker.  She has done book reviews and author interviews and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.