One of the things Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, constantly warns his readers against is getting cocky.  Or as the Victorians liked to say, "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip."  Or going a few thousand years farther back in time, Aesop warned us not to count our chickens before they hatch.

For conservatives watching President Trump go from one triumph to another, both at home and abroad, even as the Democrat primary candidates seem caught in a socialist death race, getting cocky means thinking Trump will easily get re-elected.  As the SEALs would say, though, "the only easy day was yesterday" — in other words, every step to the White House is hard, disciplined work, and only 2020 hindsight will prove whether that level of work was really necessary.

However, sometimes the other side — the Democrat side — gets cocky, too.  Or perhaps it's whistling in the dark.  That seems to be the only explanation for a column from Rick Newman, a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance, assuring the world that not only will Trump lose in 2020, but he might do so "by a wide margin."  Newman wrote this column despite acknowledging "unemployment at a 50-year low and the stock market near record highs."

Newman offers four reasons for his optimistic belief that the next Democrat presidential candidate (Bernie the lifelong socialist? Buttigieg the gay socialist? Biden the corrupt, pandering socialist?) will sweep the floor with Donald Trump.  It's hard to take any of these reasons seriously.

First, Newman contends that the strongest economy in fifty years really isn't strong enough, citing that usual leftist bugaboo, "income inequality."  Yes, it's true that the rich got richer under Trump.  What Newman closes his eyes to is the fact that everyone else did, too, with the working class benefiting most.  No wonder that most Americans, especially those trapped in eight years of Obama stagflation, support Trump's economy.

The only thing that could change that dynamic is the recession Progressives have been dreaming of since the day Trump took office — and really, it's not a nice person who hopes that Americans' economic well-being will be destroyed just so that person's favored candidate can seize political power.

Second, Newman seriously thinks Mike Bloomberg can buy some Democrat into office, even if not Bloomberg himself: "Whether he's the Democratic nominee or not, Bloomberg's spending on behalf of the party will probably produce a financial advantage, maybe a decisive one."  That's such a silly statement that it's hard to find an intelligent response.  It's like arguing with someone who says the moon is made of green cheese because potatoes are on Jupiter.

Third, Newman points to Trump's "blind spot" on health care.  It's true that Trump, thanks to John McCain's perfidy, was unable to destroy Obamacare, and now, stuck with a Democrat House, all he can do is incremental executive orders.  Nevertheless, even on that small canvas, Trump has made some strides returning the free market to American health care, which is the only way to bring costs down.  The individual mandate is now set to zero, Trump is forcing hospitals to be transparent about prices, and he's worked with pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices.  Meanwhile, all that the Democrats have to offer is the horrors of socialized medicine.

Fourth, Newman thinks Barack Obama still has the clout to play kingmaker.

[I]t seems certain that once Democrats choose their nominee in 2020, Obama will fully back the candidate and campaign on his or her behalf. That could help boost minority turnout, which was weak in 2016 and contributed to Hillary Clinton's loss.

I don't think so.

After all, Obama was unable to play kingmaker with Hillary, despite his strong cachet with minority voters.  Four years later, with either an old white man or a young gay man running as the Democrat presidential candidate, and with upwards of 34% of black voters looking favorably on Trump, Obama's time as kingmaker is over.

I'm not going to make the mistake of assuming that President Trump has a clear path to re-election, much as I would like that to be true.  Nevertheless, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Newman's predictions show an unreasonable optimism.

Newman's essay reminds me of the joke about the cheerful boy who awakes to find that a dump truck crashed into his house, depositing a load of manure into his bedroom.  When his parents rush in to check on  him, they find him digging away, confidently certain that there's a horse in there somewhere.  Newman's trying hard to find a horse, but he's looking in all the wrong places.