Gingrich also points to
a column by Scott Adams -- the cartoonist who draws "Dilbert" -- which lists 20 supposedly incorrect political opinions about Trump. These include such misguided judgments as "Trump’s tweeting will cause huge problems," "Trump will not work effectively with leaders of other countries" and "Trump is incompetent." According to Adams, holding such wrong opinions requires that one stop talking about politics altogether, to which Gingrich adds that by Adams’ standard, "most elite 'analysts' would have to be quiet, because they have been so consistently wrong about Trump."
Mostly, however, Gingrich believes that 2018 will become a red wave of epic proportions because of the massive tax cut, about which he claims the liberal fake news media has poisoned the minds of the American public. He says that when average Americans find out how rich they are, thanks to Donald Trump and the Republicans, they will come out and vote in droves for the GOP.
Setting aside the nonsensical notion that a few hundred dollars will be "life-changing" to middle-class families, or that they aren't aware that the wealthiest Americans are being showered with millions of dollars in tax breaks as a reward for supporting Republican politicians, let's take a moment to recall that Newt Gingrich has always been wrong about everything. Back in his heyday during the 1990s, he had one great moment of victory in 1994 when he and his class of self-styled revolutionaries took over the Congress in a midterm rebuke to Bill Clinton's unpopular presidency. Clinton had an approval rating that year that bounced between 45 and 50 percent, numbers Donald Trump can only dream of.
You'd think Gingrich would remember that, or at least recall the moment of his great downfall in the next midterm election four years later, as colorfully
described by CNN at the time:
In the same cloud of outrage and optimism that has been wrapped around him all year, Gingrich took to the phones on the afternoon of Election Day still predicting that the President would be made to pay for his sins and that the Republicans would pick up six to 30 seats. But as the hours passed, the numbers just kept getting worse, and by 10 p.m. the Republicans were barely breaking even in the House. Then another seat looked vulnerable. Then seven more. Then, around 10:45, 13 seats. "At that point, we thought we lost the House," one said later. When the last returns came in, Gingrich had lost five seats -- a setback not matched since 1822. "Well," said Gingrich when it was all over, "we all misjudged this one."
It was
Gingrich who had insisted they would win big, and after that he was out as speaker within 48 hours. I'm willing to bet that his powers of prognostication haven't improved any with the passage of time.