The Trends Journal, in May of 2016 was among the first magazines to predict Donald Trump would win the White House, while the polls and other media projected Hillary Clinton as the odds-on-favorite.
On 8 January, more than two months before Beto O’Rourke announced his candidacy in the race for the White House, Gerald Celente, on his Trends in the News broadcast, forecast: “Beto is the white Obama. This is who I forecast is going to be the leading candidate in the Presidential Reality Show®, 2020 on the Democratic side.”
A major factor that has helped shape that forecast was the steady streams of pro-Beto publicity by the major mainstream media during his 2018 race for the Texas Senate against incumbent Ted Cruz, and the continuing high profile positive coverage of him following his defeat.
Celente concluded the media fix was already in when The New York Times had run a series of pro-Beto front page features, among them a 5 February story of Mr. O’Rourke following his appearance in the Oprah Winfrey Show.
“Will you be running?” she asked. Declaring his admiration for Barack Obama, who he said “was very generous in sharing what his thought process was,” Beto played off the “Hope and Change We Can Believe In” 2008 Obama campaign slogan. His vacuous reply was that he could “be that person…to bring this country together around the big things that we know we should be able to do.”
Featuring a large photo of Oprah and Beto smiling on stage, the Times closed out the fact-empty puff piece with Oprah saying, “You’re the story: You seem like you’re getting ready to run … He smiled … The two hugged.”
TWO FOR TWO?
In fact, what inspired Gerald Celente to trademark the Presidential Reality Show® and forecast Obama the winner in the race for the White House was when Oprah took Obama under her wing.
In the Summer 2008 Trends Journal, Celente wrote, “Lagging behind front runner Hillary Clinton in the early polls, Barack Obama skyrocketed to stardom after America’s Queen of TV, Oprah Winfrey threw her support behind him.
“Transformed into a flawlessly packaged and directed Harpo production, the teleprompted orator promised he would “heal the nation and repair the world.'”
Celente notes that Beto O’Rourke brings a similar TV-packaged persona, look and youthful energy that are reminiscent of Barack Obama’s. And like Obama, while O’Rourke lacks substantial credentials and deep experience to justify a run for the White House, with Oprah and the mainstream media behind him, he has what it takes to be a Presidential Reality Show winner. TJ
TREND FORECAST
O’Rourke, who maximized his social media skills to build an enormous small-donor network, raised a record-shattering $80 million in his failed 2018 campaign to unseat Cruz and raised $6.1 million on the day he announced his candidacy. Boasting national celebrity, and backed by his billionaire real estate mogul father-in-law, O’Rourke is set to shake up the crowded Democratic field.
He will separate himself from the current “socialist” branded front-runners in the pack, by his declaration that “I’m a capitalist.
Of course there are the wild cards. Is there any “dirt” that will be uncovered? And a lot will depend on his performance in the Presidential Reality Show “debates,” and how he handles major divisive issues. He is for open borders, pro-Nafta, and existing trade agreements, which are positions that will be especially challenged and vulnerable among swing state voters should he win the nomination.