Tucker Carlson: Trump must pledge to 'improve people's lives' to be sworn in for second term this time next year

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Tucker: Republicans shouldn't get too confident about 2020

Republicans think Trump's victory in 2020 is assured.

With exactly one year to go before the next presidential inauguration, Tucker Carlson said Monday that campaigning against the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party is not enough to ensure President Trump will win a second term.

"America remains as divided as it was three years ago," he said Monday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

"Trump could lose. Will he lose? That depends entirely on what he runs on," he added, noting that many Republicans wrongly feel assured they will claim an easy victory in November because of the "freak show" in the Democratic Party, where "elderly socialists are accusing each other of Thought Crimes."

Carlson recalled that Trump won in 2016 not by telling voters what he was against, but instead what he was for.

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The Republican's "Make America Great Again" slogan embodied that spirit, the host said, adding that Trump told Americans that people who run the country are "clueless," do not care about the working class, and had "screwed up foreign policy [and] left the door open on our southern border."

According to Carlson, voters responded to Trump's message of improving the economy, securing the border, and embracing American nationalism over globalism.

While the economy and overall unemployment numbers are trending positively, nearly half of lower-income Republicans say economic conditions were still hurting them personally, according to a recent poll.

"Keep in mind, these aren't sociology professors from the Oberlin faculty lounge,"  Carlson said. "This is the president's core, it's his base. Why do they feel that way? It's not personal. It's just really simple."

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According to the host, the costs of basic necessities -- like housing, education and health care -- continue to rise faster than wages.

"The candidate who makes it easier for 30-year-olds to get married and have kids will win the election. ... Improve people's lives and they will vote for you, period," he said. "Republicans ought to write that on their hands."

Carlson stated that focusing on the "lunacy" in the Democratic Party will distract from the true needs of Americans. While Trump and Republicans in Congress can successfully make the case that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., plans to transform American into a socialist country, that will not be enough to win.

Without a positive message from the right, Carlson said, Sanders' promises of student loan forgiveness and a long list of new entitlements will energize many young Americans -- including Trump voters -- to back him if he is the Democratic nominee.

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"Democrats are waging the most aggressive possible campaign against everything normal people think is virtuous. They are promising to undo our justice system, empty our prisons," he said. "They think so little of this country that they are pledging to open our borders to the world: 'Every impoverished nation on Earth welcomed here for free health care paid for by you.'

"They want Americans sorted into creepy little categories by their DNA, judged or ordered punished by the basis of their sex and skin color," Carlson went on. "They don't simply deny the existence of biological sex, they're trying to force you to deny it too -- you'll be fired if you disagree or have your kids taken from you. Democrats aren't promising change. They are promising revolution."

Normal Americans, Carlson continued, do not want a radical transformation back to "Year Zero," but instead they just want "things to get better."

"The candidate who promises to make them better incrementally but tangibly will be inaugurated president a year from today."