Trump Revulsion Theory is what I call the idea that the 2020 election will ultimately be determined by a groundswell of revulsion at how Trump has behaved the last four years and that will basically lead to whomever the Democratic candidate is, winning the election. Pundits uniformly dismiss it, claiming that Democrats will need to have the better vision or the more inspiring candidate to win, that trashing Trump will get them nowhere.
This theory posits that Hillary Clinton's message was just not compelling enough and is backed up by the historical pattern of moderate, "safe" Democrats with well intended but lukewarm messages like McGovern and Kerry, losing the election. But these pundits are forgetting another moment in history: the election of Jimmy Carter. One could argue that Carter did not bring some bold vision of the future that was compellingly better than what Ford had, but won anyway because people were repulsed by what Nixon had done to the presidency and wanted someone who was not tainted by Watergate. If true, there is indeed precedence for a Trump Revulsion effect.
So how will we know if Trump Revulsion will become an important factor in 2020 ? A subtle but significant clue can be found in the results of the New Hampshire primary. Bill Weld, the alternative Republican candidate to Trump won over 9% of the votes. Undoubtedly, none of those voters actually believed that Bill Weld would be the Republican candidate in 2020, this was purely a message of revulsion of what Trump has done, strong enough to compel them to get in their cars and stand in the cold to vote rather than just sitting out the primary. As Laurence O'Donnell has pointed out, if 2020 is anything like 2018, Trump cannot afford that large a defection and if it occurs in 2020 he would lose New Hampshire.
Consequently, if you are in favor of Trump Revulsion theory, you should be looking especially in swing states and even some red states that are going to hold primaries, to see just how much defection occurs. If it is as significant as it was in New Hampshire, it is likely to carry the day and that is a good thing because, frankly, the notion that people would vote for a corrupt,vicious,lying demagogue simply because they think he has a better economic message is rather frightening to contemplate.