Who’s going to stop Donald Trump being re-elected in 2020?

That is the big question looming large over America’s political landscape as the clock ticks ever louder on the next election.

Maybe it will be Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose much-awaited report into alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign team and Russia is expected in the near future?

Should Mueller produce real hard evidence directly implicating President Trump, it would be game over for The Donald.

But I very much doubt that’s going to happen.

Who is going to stop Donald Trump from victory in 2020? Robert Mueller? I doubt it

If he had found any, we’d surely know about it faster than a greyhound flies out of a trap.

Maybe it will be old age or ill health?

But I very much doubt that will happen either.

Trump, who will be 74 by the time he faces the voters again, shows no sign of slowing down or losing a single ounce of his combative energy.

Maybe it will be Hillary Clinton, who has spent the past two years seething with indignant fury that she lost and is apparently ‘seriously considering’ running again?

But I am 100% confident that won’t happen. Mainly because Trump would think Thanksgiving had come early.

So who CAN stop Trump?

The pool of Democrat candidates who have so far indicated they will run is distinctly underwhelming.

Bernie Sanders, 77, still wants to turn America socialist, to which Trump simply has to say one word: ‘Venezuela.’

Will any of the Democrats be able to stop Trump? Bernie Sanders, 77, wants to turn America socialist and Elizabeth Warren is just a new Hillary - charmless with huge chip on her shoulders

Elizabeth Warren is the new Hillary – a charmless Trump-hating lawyer with a massive chip on both shoulders. She is proudly progressive, and wants to heavily tax the rich.

Kamala Harris has endorsed Medicare-for-all and making college ‘debt-free’ – which would bankrupt America in about 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, the rising Democrat superstar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is single-handedly lurching the party so far left with her 70% tax rate clarion calls it is in danger of turning communist!

Kamala Harris's Medicare-for-all and making college ‘debt-free’ would bankrupt America in about 30 seconds. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is lurching the party so far left it is in danger of turning communist

Enter Howard Schultz, the maverick Starbucks billionaire, to a blaze of mostly negative headlines as he said he might run as an independent candidate after years supporting the Democrats.

He’s promptly been viciously whacked for being vain, out-of-touch, arrogant, not knowing the price of Cheerios, and for being so dumb he doesn’t realise if he runs as an independent then he increases the chance of another Republican win by splitting the anti-Trump vote.

But Schultz is definitely not dumb, and he didn’t get to become one of the most successful businessmen in American history by rolling over and surrendering when the going gets tough.

Instead, he has stood his ground and whacked back.

Now enters Howard Schultz, the maverick Starbucks billionaire, to a blaze of mostly negative headlines as he said he might run as an independent candidate after years as a Democrat. He's been whacked - and he's whacking back

He whacked Ocasio-Cortez, citing her 70% tax plan as one of the reasons he couldn’t run as a Democrat: ‘I no longer feel affiliated because I don’t know their views represent the majority of Americans. I don’t think we want a 70% income tax in America.’

He whacked Harris for wanting to abolish private health insurance – ‘That’s not correct. That’s not American. What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?’

And he whacked the Democrats generally for moving so far to the left they haven’t just lost loyal supporters like him but are making themselves unelectable.

Schultz has whacked Trump too, branding him ‘unqualified’ and ‘despicable’. And he says he plans to whack the Republicans just as aggressively in the next few weeks.

The truth is he thinks the whole Washington system is broken and needs whacking back into shape. And he’s absolutely right.

This is not something Howard Schultz has just thought about.

I interviewed him twice for CNN six years ago and he banged the exact same drum then, accusing both parties of ‘failing to lead’, of ‘putting ideological purity over the well-being of the people’ and of having ‘undermined the full faith and credit of the United States.’

The DC system is broken. I interviewed him twice for CNN six years ago and he banged the exact same drum then. He was very impressive

Schultz practices what he preaches as a leader.

He’s had two periods of running Starbucks.

The second began in 2008 as America’s financial system teetered on the brink of complete collapse, and like many companies, Starbucks was taking a beating.

Schultz turned things around in spectacular fashion.

When I asked him how, he answered: ‘I stood up in front of our people and I apologised for the fact we, as leaders, had let them and their families down.’

Then he created what he called a ‘transformation agenda.’

He explained to me: ‘It was a one-page document and whether you were a part-time barista in one of our stores or the president of a division, you understood with great clarity the core purpose of the company, the humanity of the culture and values and most specifically, the role and responsibility of what we had to do as a company to restore confidence in the brand and the experience.’

It worked and profits poured back in their billions.

I asked him what parallels he would draw between running a company like Starbucks and running the country.

‘You have to sequence things that are most important because you can’t do everything at once. There has to be 100% transparency, truth, and authenticity among the leaders. And success has to be shared. The challenge is to achieve the fragile balance between profitability, social conscience and benevolence. Starbucks was the first company in America to provide comprehensive health insurance for every single employee. ‘

He was also very exercised about enabling every American to live the American dream, a motivation driven by his own very underprivileged upbringing in the projects of Brooklyn.

‘I understood what it meant not to have access to the American dream as a kid,’ he told me. ‘I think the most important thing is that everyone in America, wherever they live, whatever station they have in life, must have the belief that the American dream is alive and well – that no matter where you come from, you have the same opportunities as somebody born into privilege. I don’t believe it’s that hard, we are making it hard because we’re fighting one another, as opposed to focusing on what’s important and that’s the American people.’

I remember being very impressed by Howard Schultz back then.

He struck me as a smart, innovative and determined man with an unashamedly capitalist zeal but also a genuine social conscience who truly believes in the ideal of the American dream because he was the perfect example of it.

He turned Starbucks around in spectacular fashion. He spent his childhood in the projects and became a billionaire. But now he's being ridiculed for not knowing the price of a box of Cheerios

I feel no less impressed by Howard Schultz today, because what he is boldly and courageously saying – at no small risk to the Starbucks brand - needs to be said.

The partisan enmity in US politics has never been worse.

As a result, most political energy on both sides is now devoted to crushing or abusing opponents rather than improving the lives of Americans.

The ever-more-demented Democrats have sucked themselves into the massive misapprehension that lurching to the ‘woke’, PC-crazed, fiscally ridiculous progressive left is the way to beat Trump.

It’s not.

It’s the way to guarantee he gets re-elected.

Incumbent US presidents usually get re-elected anyway.

If they run on a surging economy, as Trump may well do come November 2020, it’s almost impossible for them NOT to get re-elected.

So Democrats, whose breath-taking entitled arrogance at the last election cost them victory, should stop screaming at Howard Schultz and start listening to him.

The party needs a moderate candidate who doesn’t scare the children or horses, doesn’t want to punitively tax the rich or bankrupt the country, and has the balls to stand up to Trump in what will be a ferocious election battle and fight fire with fire.

If all Howard Schultz achieves with his independent campaign is to drive his old party to the correct centrist place to do this, from its current socialist suicide mission, he will have done the Democrats an immense service.

If the Democrats ignore him and keep going down the shrieking socialist route, they may know the price of Cheerios, but they will also be saying Cheerio to their chances of winning back the White House.