I usually don’t make predictions, but the worst is going to happen
I don’t care that Allan Lichtman sticks to his confident prediction that Kamala Harris will win the race for the White House. He just wouldn’t budge. And I’m not basing my prophecy on FiveThirtyEight’s simulations, which currently give Trump 516 wins out of 1,000 vs. Harris winning 481 times out of 1,000, with 3 tie situations. I don’t care about other aggregators, but even if I don’t, I’d mention a few of them: Kalshi gives Trump 57% vs. Harris 43%; Election Betting Odds gives Trump 56.9% and Harris 42.6%. PredictIt, a completely stupid website, shows the bets at 56¢ for Trump vs. 49¢ for Harris (I don’t know how these add up), or maybe 48¢ for Harris, or 56¢ vs. 48¢ when you count Republican vs. Democrats (who the fuck was the retarded that created this shit of a site?).
Screw the polls, and screw the markets. I just believe I have a reasonably accurate representation of the American psyche.
When Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, first predicted in August 2015 that Donald Trump would win the 2016 elections, I agreed with him. You see, back then, Scott Adams wasn’t the rabid Trumpist that he is today. While he was still a reasonable, decent individual, Adams merely based his prediction on the way Trump was using persuasion and influence, fields in which Adams has quite some qualifications (he’s even a certified hypnotist).
We should nonetheless agree that today’s Trump is not the Trump of 2015-2016. Instead of a highly skilled persuader using techniques that resonate with many voters, he’s now an individual with an obvious cognitive decline bordering dementia, with an ever-increasing narcissistic personality disorder, and whose mythomania went off the charts. And yet, enough people will vote for him so that the electors will get him elected. This electors-based system is medieval, but this is how America is.
Obama becoming President was a miracle. Harris won’t be a second miracle. Not now, not in America. As a side note, Obama was the hugest disappointment in the history of the American Presidents, at least before Trump. Listen to Norman Finkelstein explaining to Glenn Loury why Obama was a complete fraud (make sure you go from 1:09:01 through 1:38:10).
This year, I’ve been thoroughly following the American politics, which included, among others, hunting on YouTube all the segments belonging to The Daily Show (Jon Stewart, Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, Jordan Klepper, Ronny Chieng), Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t like Seth Meyers, and I stopped watching Bill Maher after October 7, when he revealed his sick Semitic Nazism. (I stopped watching John Oliver years ago, but he seems to be avoiding the Trump vs. Harris issues anyway.) I’ve listened to the other side too, because you can find anything and everything on YouTube.
My feeling is that we (and by “we” I mean “they, the Democrats”) are laughing out loud and mocking Trump more like a form of intellectual masturbation. This won’t make any Trumpist change their vote! No matter how mentally deranged is Trump, his voters will keep their faith. They won’t get to reason, and they won’t vote for the smaller evil, which is Kamala Harris.
It doesn’t help that Kamala Harris isn’t very persuasive herself. A blackish Democrat woman whose economic program is a pathetic patchwork, but at least is not poised to ruin the country and the world through the catastrophic decisions Trump is likely to take? Why would Americans use their brains? A highly uncultured nation sensible to disinformation, with propensity towards magical thinking and medieval Christian dogmas?
Those TV shows that are mocking Trump can’t change a thing. Do you believe that George Carlin’s takes on religion have led to anyone becoming an atheist? This is not how it works. The same way you can’t make a teenager think the way you’d want them to think, you can’t make a religious person stop believing in a God through logic. You can give everyone all the available information; but unless they themselves decide that the truth is different from their previous beliefs, they just won’t change their minds. People who believe in Trump, even if merely out of hate for the Democrats, will vote for him, amen.
So, brace for a second Trump Administration. Why not, prepare for a JD Vance one, à la LBJ’s.
Also, get used to the idea that Europe, Ukraine, ROC Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan won’t get the same military support from the United States as before the second reign of Trump. I suppose Israel would still get everything they want, which won’t help at all. Russia, China, Iran, DPRK will increase their presence in the news reports. Embrace the new world! But if you’re a European, be aware that tough times are ahead.
Over and out.
I’m also afraid he’ll be re-elected. As for us Europeans, we are a negligible quantity for these people…
What are you specifically afraid HAL?
Definitely there are Trump’s few unpredictable stands but, for better or for worse, some 60% times worse, he usually caves to the manhandles and they gratificate his ego with just the ribbon cutting.
No, sorry, Trump is not the same guy from 2016 or 2018. Right now, he’s so disconnected from reality that’s giving me the chills.
More vengeful for sure, he is a toddler with his tantrums and lots of power… he will cut heads at the FBI for sure, and partly rightly so… Do you find normal that like Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer threaten Trump’s presidency with the [Intel community] “have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you”?!
Like I’d mentioned, the good thing with Trump is that the rest of the world should see the US as what it is, a dysfunctional, egocentric yet diminishing power that, like Mexico is doing, you still have to do business with, but you should distance with everything else; whether is with Trump or Kamala.
This has nothing to do with the fact that, ON AVERAGE, the typical Trump voter is LESS EDUCATED and with a lower IQ than a typical undecided or Democrat voter.
This is even more true today than it was in 2016.
I don’t have a way of measuring average IQ but my bet is actually the opposite; proportionally, more educated will vote for Trump this time around than it did 8 years ago. Ironically, some 2016 voters of Trump will change camps, and bring a new set in.
You surely mean that some 2016 voters of Hillary will change camps.
I’m also one of the handful that predicted right Trump’s win in 2016. Perhaps because I am in a swing state, perhaps because I am right between two antagonistic towns, so it is easy to gauge the sentiment of both camps. My take for 2024, Trump will win; Kamala only has secured of women vote in the abortion ticket, that is it.
In 2016 polls failed miserably because the media made it a taboo to say you wanted Trump, so people just lied in the surveys… people here despised Trump’s persona but loved his stance against the “swamp”. Well, now Americans know he won’t fight against DC’s swampy waters but still believe he will become annoying enough for Democrats will put their act together next time… spoiler alert… They won’t!
But, at the end of the day with Trump’s victory, mass media will have a renascence, and Democrats will win the senate back in 2yrs… so all secretly happy.
I couldn’t care less in either party, the only way to have Democrats wake up would have been losing to an emerging third party, never to any conservatives.
Now, the establishment, still clearly prefers Kamala, she has been vetted not to mess with the current policy and Trump, while quite easy to bribe in by the establishment, still has those occasional tantrums, specially with Russia.
By the way, the majority of Trump voters are not “Trumpist” nor “believe” on him, they are just highly disenchanted people of all types and colors with the status-quo. Hillary failed in that she was not genuine and highly bellicose, Kamala is just stupid beyond belief and her whole entourage a reflection of Hillary and Biden’s.
There are two “good” things on Trump winning though?
1) Trump will enable Israel so much that they likely will push themselves fully into Iran… Not even the US will be able to save Israel of that; hundreds of million people will not let be abused forever. Just destroy the little they have and you will see of their capabilities. Also, here, a global financial crisis, will bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets.
2) European leaders, on their visceral despise for Trump, will have a second change to finally and permanently distance from the US’ sinking foreign policy and start worrying, for once, for Europe’s future. Probably they will fail again at it and though! European leaders, probably will just wait 4 years for a Democrat in the White House. However, her, like Trump did, will just drag Europe further down as it tries to boost US economy at the cost of their allies’s economies. I don’t see either Americans or Europeans waking up to the new reality and voting Kamala or Trump, Starmer or Meloni’s, ain’t the visionaries we need in either side of the Atlantic.
You’re cynical.
But Meloni is not that bad!
Oh, here’s a bonus on Taiwan: Encircling Taiwan was a smokescreen for China’s real goal of convincing US not to intervene, expert says.
EDIT: Watch this video from this timestamp (11:25), and tell me what you think of such voters: https://youtu.be/NQEKgoIr_6A?t=685
I don’t watch any of those shows like Jimmy Kimmel… but for what you send me tells me why I am not missing anything. I do, once in a while, check Reddit and those portals and, like that Kimmel video, give a completely false portrait of the reality of the Trump supporters.
Of course, US is filled with those people portrayed in the video, I see them everyday! But they are not the bulk of the society, not even the bulk of Trump supporters. The mainstream media loves to use those outliers but the society does not fall for it any longer therefore, the polls failed miserably in 2016.
Here, a swing county, in a swing state, I meet Trump supporters everyday; they are business people, women in white-collar jobs, blacks, Muslims, (surprisingly no Jews! and we have many), workers, educated, immigrants from Asia, from Mexico… all sorts. Some of them, just mention it quickly other even put pro-Trump signs in their lawns. Those shows like Kimmel’s and European press ignore this and it is not accidental, it can not be… it is very visual.
You defended Meloni, well, the establishment press here was visceral with her too, even though is she is nothing different in substance at the end… like Trump is, she has her persona for the meetings, but once elected, she caved in like Trump usually does. The only difference with Meloni and Trump, is that he is more blump and more vengeful, but both are in the same category to me. Most of the “extreme” right and part of the left in Europe has been carefully vetted anyways and, therefore, inoffensive to the establishment. As a curiosity, think of this, the main “extreme right” in Spain, VOX*, was mostly founded by “anti-Iranian” groups… Why would “Anti-Iranian” care at all about Spain?!?! Do you get the mechanics behind these populists?!
*https://elpais.com/politica/2019/01/11/actualidad/1547224673_461197.html
1. “I meet Trump supporters everyday; they are business people, women in white-collar jobs, blacks, Muslims, (surprisingly no Jews! and we have many), workers, educated, immigrants from Asia, from Mexico… all sorts.” Educated doesn’t mean they cannot be retarded. I can show you very educated Germans, even Dr. Dr. (with two PhDs) who are completely retarded. Also, give me a list of 20 CEOs and I’ll show you 18-19 retards among them.
2. “he is more blump and more vengeful.” Blump? ¿Qué es esto?
3. “El exilio iraní…” It doesn’t make much sense.
4. “I don’t watch any of those shows like Jimmy Kimmel… but for what you send me tells me why I am not missing anything.” You do miss. A lot. I know more about what Trump said here and there than you. OK, watch Fox News, or whoever you want. But get informed!
1) True. But I do know some formal educated and are quite intellectually, and still vote for Trump. I agree with your CEO stats though.
2) Blump is an obscure slam word for boring/idiot.
3) EXACTLY!! It does not make sense!… or does it? Who do you think finances “anti-iranian” groups worldwide? It is a controlled populist safety-valve so people do not come up with some alternative they cannot control (think of Corbyn, Imran Khan, Morsi,..). Gosh, now even they are now going after Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and calling her an “autocrat”!
4) Still you do not get I am a leftist… Gosh, I even listen to podcasts like REVLEFT! The media really has done a job with European perceptions of what is happening here. I would never vote for someone like Trump, but never for someone like Kamala either; both are equally horrible.
You’re not a leftist, you’re a cynical person.
I was also described both as a leftist and as a fascist. (But I’m no Mussolini.)
cynical:
1. believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity…
I don’t see what makes you think I am that. Actually, for more than a decade subscribe to behavioral economics and believe people are motivated by incentives (external and/or internal) more than self-interest. Also, I am very trustworthy (never lock the car even at grocery stores or even don’t lock the house!!). People, Trump or Kamala’s voters, are overweeningly good people.
There are several meanings, some of them bordering other terms.
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition:
Random House (now defunct; Penguin Random House LLC):
Distrustful, pessimistic, even somewhat sadistic: let the worst happen if this is the only way to get out of this situation!
Also, unless you’re Rousseau, you should know that people are not inherently good, unselfish, and non-violent.
I disagree. Trump is, this time, too unreliable and unpredictable.