With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.
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Notes -
Well, I get no Bayes points. I had a feeling Trump'd win, but I didn't say it so it doesn't count.
I'm interested to see what Elon Musk can get up to with the Fair Game order presumably ending, although Twitter's still a millstone that he has to figure out how to delegate. Still, that purchase seems to have swung the election - it's the most obvious cause for the young voters turning away from SJ in droves - so I can't say it was a mistake, just something with costs that he has to minimise going forward. Musk MVP, and I think Trump noticed that in his victory speech.
@Capital_Room, @naraburns, and anyone else who wants to: I'm asking you now for a number on Trump getting murdered or otherwise failing to assume power (e.g. faithless elector scheme, fake elector scheme, 1,000,000 fake votes showing up).
Anyone who wants to: Chance on Biden resigning before Jan 21, so they still get to claim "the first female President"?
It's a bit early to tell — everyone still seems to be reeling and emotional over the results. That said, while a lot can happen in two months, and I'm not ruling out any of the above, I'm going to have to rate it fairly low — something like 10-15%. The surprising lack of Valkyrie memes (or references to von Stauffenberg in general), as well as the relatively conciliatory attitude of Democrat party elites — "Kamala Calls For Peaceful Transfer Of Power To Adolf Hitler," as the Babylon Bee calls it — makes it seem more unlikely.
On the other hand, said "peaceful transfer of power to literal fascist" attitude on the part of our elites raises my estimation as to their confidence in having "Trump-proofed" the government over the last four years, and that people on both sides should probably stop acting as if Trump is going to have any more authority or control over the executive branch than Biden currently does (i.e. basically none).
As long as I've been politically aware (~30 years now), the Republican party has consistently failed to turn electoral "wins" into actual political victories (save tax cuts for the wealthy, a bigger military, and "well, the left only got part of what they wanted this time" that is really just losing more slowly). The go-to excuse has always been whichever branch[es] they didn't control. Why can't a Republican president get things done? Democrats have the House and/or Senate. Why can't a Republican Congress get things done? They'll get vetoed by a Democrat president. Why can't a Republican president and both houses of Congress all together get anything done? The liberal activist judges on the Supreme Court will just strike it down.
But now we've got the closest thing to a trifecta. The White House, the Senate, and probably the House of Representatives — and with a lot more "MAGA" populists and fewer old party-establishment swamp-creature squishes. Plus, the most favorable Supreme Court in my lifetime. So, when 2028 rolls around, and nothing's been accomplished and everything has still moved leftward, what excuse is left? How do you keep right-wing voters believing that if they do everything they're told, and just show up and vote in large enough numbers, they can win, once it's finally made obvious that the game is rigged, and that "If you lose, you lose. If you win—you really lose."?
So, I actually have some hope. That is, I hope the next four years will finally convince enough people that voting doesn't matter, that there's absolutely no way forward for the right within the system and the law, and to give up entirely on that futile path.
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By all accounts, he’s seething that she stole the nomination from him. Couple that with the fact that she then lost an election against a candidate he’d already beaten once and I can’t imagine him being in the mood to give her anything.
Also I doubt anyone except for morons will push for it, it’s symbolically awful. The first female ‘president’ will be a loser, a charity case. Even Liz Truss did better.
1 in a 100 or so?
Seething even right up before the election? I’d love to read about that!
Only rumours, sorry.
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My odds the day before were 60% Trump 40% Harris. In retrospect perhaps 70% would have been a better figure, but no higher. The fact is that there were a lot of unknowns going on (such as weirdness about polling reliability) so I feel my mental modeling is still fine.
Odds on failing to assume power I concur at placing around 1%, with heart attack being the leading cause, assassination more of a distant second somewhere hovering around a successful 14th amendment or legal challenge.
Doing some super lazy math, I think I still feel good about that. 2-4ish percent annualized heart attack chance at 78 for those who haven't previously had one, upweighted due to his bad diet and overweight status, downweighted for them not normally being lethal, upweighted slightly for the chance he'd step aside if the aftermath was severe enough, downweighted for being only a quarter year, lands me somewhere in the upper region of a single percentage point, and filled out by the other random unpredictables, sounds about right.
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If he did so, that would be a level of spite that would probably earn him its own distinct place in American history.
He wouldn't simply because it would likely end up robbing a future Democratic candidate of the title and prestige, since Dems have a slightly better collection of prominent women politicians.
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I don't think Biden will resign for something so symbolic. But he is old and senile, it's not impossible that she still gets a shot at wrecking Trump's "47" merchandise.
I was wrong, badly, and I'll spend the next week saying that repeatedly, I expect. I should know better than to underestimate Musk.
But that doesn't mean the Democrats have given up. The electoral vote probably won't be close enough to make faithless electors a worthwhile scheme, but it will at least be seriously discussed. I expect the weapon of choice here will be lawfare: Trump isn't president yet, so New York could still try to put him in jail, at least for a while.
I did say many times that I'm not a numbers person. But there's still surely a 5% or 10% chance that someone other than Trump gets sworn in next, I would think. My priors on such a thing are low (it would literally be unprecedented) but we live in interesting times.
If they win the house, they could try to say he is an insurrectionist. But…in that case that would require some swing district Dems overriding the will of the people.
Winning the popular vote provides enormous legitimacy. This won’t happen.
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With respect to the lawfare, I'd point you to this article from two or three days ago: Dems say they will certify a Trump victory — even the ones who think the 14th Amendment disqualifies him. So I mark it down as unlikely. Seems to be little appetite for it even in private. If they follow through and don't contest, I think that's actually pretty decent evidence in favor of what I've been saying all along -- that regardless of some lefty rhetoric, they honestly do not intend to actually make a constitutional issue out of things like this.
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I appreciate your humility and your honesty, and I think that number's reasonable (with the House being projected to go Republican, even offing both Trump and Vance likely wouldn't accomplish a flip, and Vance-covered-in-Trump's-blood would be far worse for the Democrats than Trump himself, but loonies aren't exactly famed for their rationality). Just wanted to check in on your predictions.
If Trump is assassinated, it will be by a loony, not a Democrat. Given the previous assassination attempts, not necessarily a left-coded loony. The charisma about Trump that makes him an effective politician also makes him a better target for Herostratus-style loony assassins. (See also Reagan, JFK).
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seems huge overestimate and I would bet money against it (up to 1:100 odds, counting transaction costs and risks)
Trump's had two solid assassination attempts, and the Secret Service pretty clearly ain't what they used to be. Blues are all-in that this is a fascist takeover. In 175 million Americans, it would be pretty amazing if there weren't a few more willing to have a go to save the nation, capable of planning better, and coherent enough to make a go of it.
No, they aren’t.
Most outlets are only calling him fascist in conjunction with last week’s news. Going forward, they prefer “dangerous,” “unpredictable,” or “authoritarian.”
More importantly, they aren’t insinuating a takeover. He appears to have won fair and square.
I think both are moot points. The mind which decides to strike a blow against fascism is just as detached from reality as the one that thinks he’ll impress Jodie Foster. Stochastic terrorism is overrated.
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That is why I give odds at 1:100, not 1:1000 (note: these are real odds, betting involves extra risks and on bet itself here margin is thin enough to make betting useless for profiting on it)
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He also doesn't need to make any more appearances in front of large crowds until the inauguration, which will presumably be covered really well because it involves lots of important people besides Trump. I'm fairly certain he'll survive until January.
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With Trump and Elon being friends and Trump even talking about Starship and starlink during the victory speech I think it is likely that we might actually go to the moon. Trump's new friends are tech heavy and Elon is a main character and a true space nerd.
If DOGE happens, I rate the chance of Trump and Musk still being friends by the end of 2025 at 25%. Trump doesn't want to actually cut spending on popular programs (which is almost all of them), Musk does. This isn't an issue that can be papered over.
Yes. And Elon only has experience with high margin companies, or at least potentially high margins, and for which people want desperately to work with and are ok to burnout for, eg because they are a cool entry on the CV and stepping stone for a better job down the line, but I have less confidence he could turn around a boring company in a boring established industry, were people just want to have save job and retire in 20 years. And I am very sceptical he could reform a government bureaucracy.
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