It has crept up quickly almost without my noticing – it is a presidential election year in the United States. Four years of Donald Trump has rushed by. Not that it has really been four years.

With all the publicity surrounding the Trump impeachment process, it seems no-one is paying much attention to the upcoming election. So I figured it was time to get on the record.

First, I should admit I am a little surprised Donald Trump is running for re-election. I hadn’t expected him to serve a full term. I figured he would quite, either from frustration or boredom and that Mike Pence would now be the American president.

I don’t think Trump has learned all that much in his three years so far in the world’s top job, and he certainly has demeaned the office. But that is what he was elected to do.

At least he has started no wars (other than a number of trade disputes), and may yet manage to bring North and South Korea to a peace agreement. His unpredictability hurts America on the world stage and has certainly boosted the fortunes of Russia’s president Putin, but I can’t decide if that was calculated or accidental.

There is no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump will be re-elected. The Democrats, at this point, don’t seem to understand that they need to offer something different, that fighting the 2016 election over again will produce the same results.

It is tough to imagine any of those running for the Democratic nomination beating Trump in November. Their personal attacks and apparent vendetta against the president remind Americans why they voted for Trump in the first place – they were tired of old-style politicians doing the same old things. Trump managed to convince them that he cared.

That a billionaire businessman could convince average Americans he was one of them was perhaps the greatest marketing move of the past decade. Nothing he has done (or not done) in the past four years has changed that. The Trump brand is strong, and in politics branding is crucial.

I could offer the Democrats some advice on what they need to do to defeat Trump, but since they apparently haven’t figured it out already I doubt they would listen. It isn’t rocket science.

Trump can be defeated by a candidate who is sincere, who listens, who proposes policies that resonate with the voters. Common sense is required, not blind ideology.

Do you see that as a possibility this year? Neither do I.

Four more years of Donald Trump will, in my estimation, weaken America even more. There are millions who disagree with that, and they will be turning out in droves on election day.

The Democrats don’t seem to have understood why Trump is popular with so many people. Until they can manage that, they are destined to lose to him once more.