You might be right. I wonder if it will be deep enough too enough to cause some Trump supporters to lose their desire to make a trip to the polls.

In 1988, I was a campaign worker in a Canadian federal election. I thought it very strange that this election was 99% focused on the upcoming free trade deal with the USA. On one hand, the FTA was a big deal, but there are so many other issues for governance. The FTA did not deserve the attention it got.

For most of the election, most of the conversation at the voter’s doorsteps was the FTA. But in the last week, I sensed that the voters were starting to move towards other issues. Had the election been called a week or two later, the election result could have been very different.

It seems strange that politics is often so much about timing. And as much as political machinery may want to control that timing, it can’t (yet). Mr. Trump’s 2016 success was a culmination of social forces that no one understood, let alone tried to take control of. His 2020 success will depend on the timing of the next recession. He will lose enough of his base, but it’s a question of “When?”.