Donald Trump and republicans everywhere are in high spirits after the president survived impeachment and was acquitted by the Senate. A reinvigorated Trump, who now feels vindicated by the partisan acquittal, will now focus on getting reelected in 2020. The president has a strong economy and a loyal political base behind his back. In addition, his democratic opponents are hardly an inspiring bunch.

While a lot can happen between now and November 2020, many voters will be hard-pressed to find tangible reasons to vote out an incumbent president who is overseeing an economy with record low unemployment, a record high stock market, safety at home and peace abroad. Basically, Americans are living in an era of peace and prosperity, similar to that of 1984, 1996, 2004 and 2012. In each of those election years, the incumbent president (Reagan, Clinton, HW Bush and Obama) were easily reelected to a second term. Therefore, if history is any indication, there’s a good chance that President Trump will be reelected in 2020. This is consistent with a recent analysis by Moody’s rating agency, which predicted an easy reelection of President Trump based on historic economic models. Further, Trump’s democratic opponents have thus far failed to inspire their political base, let alone independent voters.

On the face of it, a reelection of President Trump would be a great opportunity for republicans to attend to unfinished business during the president’s first term. If they are also able to win back the House and keep control of the Senate, republicans may finally be able to repeal and replace Obamacare, build a border wall with Mexico, add another conservative(s) to the Supreme Court, continue the policy of tax cuts and fend off attempts at gun control.

However, a more critical analysis of the recent past suggests that republicans should be a bit wary of President Trump’s reelection. Can Trump’s boast of the greatest economy ever and his near absolute loyal political base come unglued in the very near future? Can Trump’s reelection expose the long term impact of his questionable policies and exaggerated rhetoric?

The last republican president to be reelected was George W Bush in 2004, who oversaw a strong economy, easily overthrew Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and enjoyed wide public support in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the American homeland. Despite some misgiving about the reasons for the war on Iraq, the American electorate reelected Bush to a second term over former Secretary of State John Kerry, who was also a former Senator and a decorated war hero.

As history would have it, however, it was during Bush’s second term that the U.S. economy sank into recession and financial crisis and the war with Iraq turned sour as the body count of dead U.S. troops grew daily. By 2008, most Americans felt neither peace nor prosperity. When all was said and done, many Americans started regarding George W Bush as one of the worst presidents in modern U.S. history. This paved the way for the election of President Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress.

Had John Kerry won the 2004 election, there is a strong likelihood that the economic malaise and bloody war that afflicted the nation would have occurred under his watch. In that sense, republicans could have been able to claim ownership of a strong economy and a successful war effort, which the democrats ruined. However, as history would have it, president George W Bush, who was a darling of conservatives, neoconservatives, national security hawks, and Fox News hosts, became one of the most toxic ex-presidents since Richard Nixon. So much so, that he never attended any subsequent GOP conventions. He simply reminded Americans of a period (2006-2008) that they would rather forget. George W Bush became the personification of failure, deception and ineptness.

In a way, there are similarities between now and 2004. While the U.S. economy is growing at a solid rate, there are growing concerns over a possible economic slowdown in the next few years. Such a slowdown maybe driven by trade tensions with China and other nations, the corona virus outbreak, a maturing economic boom and an exploding budget deficit driven by steep tax cuts without any accompanying fiscal discipline. As such, many business people are starting to sound an alarm over a day of reckoning especially with regards to unsustainable debt levels and low interest rates. How can the government continue to finance its mushrooming deficits without offering higher interest rates in return? Either interest rates will rise, or the economy will slowdown say the experts.

Additionally, as a result of President Trump’s recent unveiling of his Deal of the Century between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which was rejected by the Palestinians, as well as growing tensions with Iran, the possibility of an armed conflict and/or terror attacks from the Middle East should not be dismissed. There are also unresolved tensions in southeast Asia (N. Korea) and Latin America (Cuba and Venezuela), which may erupt in armed conflict at any time.

The bottomline line is that president Trump, who is now presiding over a prosperous economy, may likely be presiding over an entirely different situation in a few short years if he is reelected. If so, the blame game will start and everything the democrats have been warning about may crystalize. A scenario where republicans may start abandoning their leader, as they did George W Bush, is not beyond the realm of possibility. The inevitable result will be a backlash against the GOP and deepening of the rift between traditional conservatives on one had and Trump populists on the other. It is this possible scenario, which may give rise to another Obama and democratic majority in 2024 and an even less favorable historical view of Donald Trump’s presidency.

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