I hate to be a buzzkill, but the odds are he will win in 17 days. We need to make preparations for the long and difficult road that faces us. I don’t know what that means, maybe you do.
I keep seeing posts that polls show it’s 50-50 but polymarket has Trump’s odds at 60, Harris’ at 40 with over $2B in wagers. Terrifying.
It’s 4 accounts’ bets that put Trump’s odds at 60, likely being done to influence people’s perceptions about Trump’s chances. It only took ~$30M to tip the scales to 60, which is a very cheap way to advertise for Trump considering the billionaires who support him. https://www.wsj.com/finance/betting-election-pro-trump-ad74aa71
Many people who gamble big money go by past divergences between polls done before, and exit polls done after. These can vary between 5% to 10% , which is important when the published count is almost 50:50 in some states.
Many US states violate UN practices for free and fair ballot counting, and while this is blindly ignored for decades, it shows up in the odds. People in the USA tend to talk about this as the shy republican effect, and other names.
At the same time, I do not trust the polls being done now, because most people do not answer phone, text or email about asking, given there are so many scam polls out, so I have to wonder how this skews the results.
I would totally use the bookie odds and ignore the polls
Polls also only try to measure public opinion and don’t quantify the very real effects that the vast toolkit of dirty tricks play in the election process, including whatever October surprises are lurking around the corner.
Honestly, I think it’ll be really disappointing for conservatives and liberals alike. Conservatives because he won’t accomplish much, and liberals because all the alarmists won’t have anything to show for it.
But that’s the optimist in me. If he actually does half of what he’s talking about, strap in for some crazy inflation and unemployment turbulence.
Did you forget about his last presidency? Millions of Americans dead, huge increase to our debt, economic crash, loyalty oaths, refusal to help half of Americans who did not vote for him, ridiculous nepotism, elimination of half of citizens bodily rights, selling national secrets to the highest bidder, pay for play schemes up the wazoo, more lies than every previous president in history combined, steady increase in right wing terrorism, constant never ending culture wars, refusal to listen or accept briefings from advisors, travel bans, trade wars, praising of dictators, alliances dismantled, attempted coup, politicizing vaccines, demonizing healthcare professionals, refusal to transfer power, and of course illegally profiteering from office.
This list is nowhere near exhaustive and I think you may be wishfully naive in thinking he won’t accomplish anything. Well, more accurately, all his shit ass handlers will get project 2025 rolling. The top search result right now is pro project 2025 debunking the “myth” it would be bad for US citizens. You can’t make this shit up.
wishfully naive in thinking he won’t accomplish anything
But he honestly didn’t accomplish much in his presidency. I went through your items below, but basically the things he actually did was:
- tax cut - shot deficit way up, but we seem to have survived it
- negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan - not sure why Biden didn’t stick to it, so maybe the timeline was too aggressive?
- annoyed a lot of people
Most of the rest was pretty innocuous. I went through everything you mentioned in some detail, but in general, the main issues I had were:
- transfer of power - probably won’t be an issue next time because it’s hard to argue around the 22nd amendment, and he’ll be 82 (same age as Biden is today)
- trade war - we’re going to have some whack inflation if he gets his way
- narcissism - this is the root of almost everything I dislike about him
But since we have term limits, I’m not worried about the first, and we survived the rest, so I think we’ll be mostly okay. Yeah, there will be a mess to clean up, but it seems even Congress isn’t so crazy as to let the exec burn the country to the ground.
My response to those items
Millions of Americans dead
Would’ve happened regardless, it’s just the nature of the pandemic. I’m not going to hang that on him.
huge increase to our debt
Yup. I also blame Biden, Obama, and Bush for this as well. It’s unfortunately a bipartisan issue (though Obama almost got it under control).
economic crash
Again, pandemic. It’s a “screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t” situation. I would’ve handled it differently, but I think Clinton largely would’ve done the same.
loyalty oaths, refusal to help half of Americans who did not vote for him
Yeah, that’s weird.
But honestly, most Presidents are pretty hostile to those outside their party (both left and right complain about obstructionism). I think it’s tacky, but ultimately, “not helping” people who didn’t vote for you isn’t a thing a President can realistically do.
ridiculous nepotism
Yeah, not a fan of that. That said, it’s pretty common in politics to appoint friends to important positions. I think Trump did it more than others, but not that far outside the norms AFAICT.
elimination of half of citizens bodily rights
That’s not something the President has much control over. The closest is Roe v Wade being overturned, but he didn’t bring the case to the court, he merely appointed justices when there were openings, and honestly, his picks were reasonably tame (way more mild than I expected).
selling national secrets to the highest bidder
Is this proven? I know about the classified documents case, but AFAIK there isn’t any proof yet that he actually sold anything. Still super sus, but I’m not ready to pin this on him until he’s had his day in court.
pay for play schemes up the wazoo
You need to be more specific here.
more lies than every previous president in history combined
Yup, this is absolutely a problem. That said, it’s kind of a President’s job to lie. I think Trump certainly abused his bully pulpit though, and I hope there’s a law around this that could stick him with something, because it’s not a good look for the POTUS.
steady increase in right wing terrorism
Source? I think a lot of this can be explained by COVID (i.e. people slowly going more crazy during lockdowns), not Trump himself. But I could be wrong.
constant never ending culture wars
I blame DeSantis and other conservative governors more than Trump here. That said, he certainly stepped up his rhetoric this campaign season.
refusal to listen or accept briefings from advisors
Also a problem, but ultimately, it’s the President’s call on whether to listen to advisors. Due to this, I think the office of President should be significantly restricted.
travel bans
Well, most were shot down.
trade wars
This is my main concern, because he seems willing to send inflation to the moon with his tariffs just to stick it to China or whatever. That said, Biden kept his tariffs, and I don’t think Harris would remove them either.
praising of dictators
Yeah, that’s really weird, especially his praise of Kim Jung Un…
alliances dismantled
Which ones? He claims he’ll pull us out of NATO, but he claimed that in the last election, so I don’t think he’ll do it (and not sure if he can?).
attempted coup, … refusal to transfer power
Yup, that was definitely not cool, and my concern about something like that happening (at least election denial) was why I voted Biden in 2020 instead of my normal third party vote.
politicizing vaccines
Clinton would’ve done the same.
demonizing healthcare professionals
Which ones, Fauci? He literally lied, and not just a little.
illegally profiteering from office
I’m not super well-read on this, but my understanding is that he crossed a lot of Ts and dotted a lot of Is.
That said, I’m definitely not happy with how he handled himself during his presidency.
Looking at a map with the current polls (and focusing on the toss-ups), it seems that the most viable path to victory for Harris is to pick up PA, MI, and WI. If she drops PA, she’d need MI, NV, WI or AZ, and GA or NC, but that seems like a big ask. If she wins PA, she could lose WI if she picks up AZ, GA, or NC and she could lose MI if she wins GA, NC, or AZ and NV. But winning PA and losing both WI and MI would require winning AZ and either GA or NC.
So there are a few paths to a Harris win, and a few don’t seem very farfetched, but none of them seem likely enough for comfort. Definitely not how I was hoping to be feeling at this point in the election.
I’d say it’s remarkable that Trump is even still able to run for president, but all this country seems to care about is social issues, and that clearly makes it easier to control people.
Breaking news, obvious scam is a scam.
Not sure I’d call it money laundering, it’s all being done in the clear.
But it’s certainly a scam:
The paper released Thursday shows that Trump and his family assume no liability. It indicates that none of them are directors, employees, managers or operators of WLF or its affiliates, and said the project and the tokens “are not political and have no affiliation with any political campaign.”
There’s a strong implication that launching this during his campaign means it’s tied to the campaign, but it’s really not.
Washing that money clean
I wonder if any particular blyat is gonna buy these up.
