this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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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.
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 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
I've seen some analysis correlating the shift in those odds not to any political news or polls, but to things like Elon Musk telling folks to go bet on Trump...
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.
My big issue is the hidden vote counting, lack of recounts, and the exit polls being so unreliable in many states to choose the winners. So, unreliable, that all the major networks stopped using them after 2018 to call elections and fewer exit polls are being done. Exit polls have been established as good tools since the past 300 years. And when they consistently give bad calls, that area has always had ballot stuffing, or the electronic version of that
In my opinion, hidden ballot counting with bad exit polls will outweigh any other issues
Everybody does. It happened before in Europe.
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.
But he honestly didn't accomplish much in his presidency. I went through your items below, but basically the things he actually did was:
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:
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
Would've happened regardless, it's just the nature of the pandemic. I'm not going to hang that on him.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
You need to be more specific here.
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.
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.
I blame DeSantis and other conservative governors more than Trump here. That said, he certainly stepped up his rhetoric this campaign season.
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.
Well, most were shot down.
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.
Yeah, that's really weird, especially his praise of Kim Jung Un...
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?).
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.
Clinton would've done the same.
Which ones, Fauci? He literally lied, and not just a little.
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.
Well it looks like we can both agree that round 2 Fascist Trump Boogaloo won't be a positive thing and will instead be profoundly negative.
Let's be clear your hope he won't get anything real done is misplaced wishful thinking at best. Even if he can't reach his goals he is an enormous piece of shit and those in his orbit that will be assisting him are often even worse.
It is allowing life to be breathed into a astro-turfed political movement created by the wealthy to openly oppress our citizens.
Stroking racial and gender divides does not settle tensions and instead ramps them up. Think about the next gay man who gets beat to death because of these bullshit culture wars. Think about the next young mother who dies because politicians are deciding their health options. Trump and his party own this shit.
Trump winning will just be another misogynist dagger in half our population continuing to set back rights and progress. The example we are setting for our daughter's by even allowing this man to run is disgusting.
While I can appreciate your impartiality historians are not going to be half as kind as your are. In fact, I would say a lot of what you said felt more like an apology, giving the benefit of the doubt, and hand waving.