Table of Contents
Allan Lichtman 13 Keys
Every four years we can always count on hearing from Allan Lichtman and his keys to the White House. He takes great pride in bragging about his accomplishment that he has predicted the correct winner of every Presidential election since 1984. Granted he does have to be a bit of a hypocrite to come to that conclusion. Such as in 2000 claiming that he was correct about that election since Al Gore won the popular vote yet in 2016 he still claimed he was correct in predicting Trump’s election even though Clinton won the popular vote that time.
Regardless, now with the election over and Trump having won looking through Allan Lichtman’s keys to the White House, it is evident he let his personal biases get in the way of accurately predicting the President for 2024. If we look at his reaction to the results of the election it is clear he deviated from what should have been an unemotional analysis applying his keys to determine the outcome and instead applied the keys for what he preferred to happen.
As the NY Post quoted his first reaction to the sign of Trump’s impending win on election night was the following:
“Oh, the democracy’s gone, once democracy’s gone its almost impossible to recover….Democracy is precious, but like all precious things, it can be destroyed. And typically destroyed from within. And throughout the 21st century, democracy has been in decline everywhere around the world, and America has now fallen in step. But never give up hope. It’s unfathomable”
Does this sound like someone who was able to apply his keys in a logical and unbiased manner?
Of his thirteen keys to the White House, he said that Kamala Harris had garnered eight of them and Trump had garnered five of them. Some of the keys clearly do favor Harris, but let’s look at the more debatable keys and see if there is anything he may have let his biases affect.
1. Social Unrest Key
In this key, Allan Lichtman declared that there is no large-scale social unrest like in 2020. Has he looked at college campuses over the past year? Nearly every elite and major educational institution has been rocked by riots and protests. Columbia University had an academic hall taken over and nearly destroyed by protests so violent they had to send students home early.
We see large-scale takeovers of parks, streets, and bridges throughout New York City with protestors fighting with authorities. While these may not be as large as the riots of 2020 this certainly is significant social unrest which is what the key is asking. We had Presidents of some of the most prestigious universities in the world hauled before Congress to answer for the social unrest on their campuses. Hundreds of students set up encampments at colleges throughout the country.
If this does not qualify as social unrest I’m not sure what else Allan Lichtman would be looking for.
2. Foreign Success Key
Is Allan Lichtman delusional? Does he actually believe the Biden/Harris administration has had foreign policy success? Two wars have broken out under the Biden/Harris administration that threaten to engulf their respective regions, we have an emboldened China that is threatening Taiwan and had a disaster of a withdrawal from Afghanistan. In fact, you could make an argument that foreign policy has been the most disastrous part of the Biden/Harris administration.
Just in regards to the Russia-Ukraine situation how can he define that as a foreign policy success? Two and a half years and 200 billion dollars sent over and yet Russia is on the move and taking more territory day by day. All because Biden/Harris couldn’t come up with a clear plan aside from schizophrenically throwing weapons at Ukraine with no outlined path to victory.
If they wanted to arm Ukraine they should have not put so many restrictions on the use of weapons and drip them in piecemeal. On the other hand, if they were not looking for a total Ukraine victory they should have pushed the parties to negotiate. Their foreign policy was muddled, confused, and evolved too slowly thereby resulting in a major foreign policy failure as opposed to the success that Lichtman claims.
3. Long Term Economic Key
While some signs point to the long-term economy being in decent shape for the country in terms of major macroeconomic numbers. The long-term economy for the average person has been difficult, to say the least. In fact, most of the voters in Tuesday’s election indicated that the economic difficulty they were facing was their number one priority in shaping their vote. Of those who indicated the former, the vast majority voted for Donald Trump.
Lichtman in academia may be insulated from the worries of the average person but wages have been stagnant for many Americans or at least have not kept up with the rise of inflation. This is a daily reminder for the average voter that life has been harder under the Biden/Harris administration than it was under the Trump administration regardless of what the broader economic indicators posit.
Also, the job market, while the numbers for new jobs looked good on the surface many workers reported it taking longer than at any point in their careers to find new work if they were let go. Yes there may be lots of new jobs at Mcdonalds or Burger King but for your semi-skilled worker, the jobs are not that plentiful.
4. Incumbency Key
Allan Lichtman gave Vice President Harris the incumbency key as she could capitalize on the achievements of the current administration. This would be great aside from the fact there were not many achievements to capitalize on. This was a historically unpopular administration and it would have been to Harris’ advantage to navigate as far away as possible from the “accomplishments” of the Biden administration.
In fact, any other Democrat would have likely defeated Trump in the election as they would not have had the baggage of being part of the current administration. Thus they could make the case for how they would do things differently which Harris was never fully able to make. This incumbency was a huge negative for Harris but Lichtman who seems to be a major Biden fan, likely could not get away from his own bias of viewing the administration’s accomplishments in a positive light thereby incorrectly giving her the incumbency key.
5. Scandal Key
You may disagree with this one as it is arguably not a scandal in the traditional sense, but I believe the cover-up for Biden’s cognitive decline was a major scandal for this administration. This was the lie of the century which we did a piece on that you can read here.
It was obvious to anyone who viewed Biden for at least the past three years that he was not the same person from past years She had interacted with him daily and had to realize something was seriously wrong but was complicit in the cover-up. This was a danger to America and the rest of the world for the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on Earth to be severely mentally compromised. Rather than putting the good of the nation first she and many others as well, let this scandal go on for years.
This perpetuated a weak America around the globe and led to some of the other issues we have discussed above. It’s one thing for your retired Grandfather to be forgetting a few things as he gets older, its another thing when your Grandfather is the President of the United States. This was a true scandal of the Biden/Harris adminisration and the American people did not forget that we were lied to for years.
Takeaways
While Allan Lichtman may have a good track record in the past of predicting Presidential elections I believe he became too emotionally invested in the outcome of this race and it clouded his judgment. He wanted to insert himself into the race and thought maybe he could have an influence on the outcome. Rather than viewing and making his prediction of the Presidential race between Trump and Harris as what he thought would happen he viewed it as what he wanted to happen. That’s fine when you’re in the Op-Ed business but when your claim to fame is election predictions it is best if he had allowed his brain to make the choice instead of his heart.
