EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
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.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Well, as a prior, he actually didn't spend a whole lot of time actually governing near the end of his term either so that seems like a pretty reasonable baseline. I predicted downthread that the Cabinet will matter a LOT, but also that by the second half of his term he's going to be in some kind of physical decline and reach Biden levels of activity, though mostly physical (mental is too unpredictable to say).
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Because they are ultimately backed by statistical analysis, and those analyses are often sufficiently (and explicitly) tuned to avoid mis-calls. While there's some mild pressure at TV networks to call states "first", there's some strong pressure to avoid making a mistake. And the people actually doing the calls are actually somewhat competent at their jobs.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
That line where she couldn't name anything different was absolutely killer. However, didn't happen in a vacuum! I called that specific aspect back in ~August when she missed the window to roll out an actual set of policies, especially important given that a second debate did not happen... she filled the void of news with a grand total of one singular policy (at-home medicare).
Interestingly enough, guess who she actually performed pretty well with? Yep, the 65+ crowd. The data's not strong enough to draw a straight line but it's still suggestive. Personality matters. Policies matter. Money only provides a nudge, it can't replace these two aspects.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
At 98.5% much later the next morning, it looks like it's Harris +5. So she didn't actually need Walz. Should have gone with Shapiro as a purely strategic question/factual matter, but wouldn't have been enough by itself to win either.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
I wouldn't characterize it as a "choice" but it's certainly to some extent preventable (and speed of counting isn't a great proxy for no-fraud, but FL as a whole does deserve props for reform after the 2000 debacle). I think the bigger issue is that it often takes a determined effort to run a clean election, and motivation seems to vary greatly -- even within each political party, and of course by state. Of course it depends on how expansive your definition of "fraud" is, but 1-2% is far, far higher than the data suggests. I will say and have long said that despite this, more urgency is needed to clean things up, but this isn't purely partisan nor is it nefarious. Inaction is simply put the norm. For example many states and local municipalities are reluctant to spend money to actually buy good equipment, this has been well documented for decades.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Notably, (caveat about hindsight 20/20 of course) it doesn't currently appear as if Pennsylvania alone would have delivered Harris the presidency, so this is a moot point. Shapiro vs Walz was only ever going to deliver a single state at best, VP picks just don't do anything beyond that.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Trump didn't talk legislation because he didn't have to. Lingering economic goodwill from his 4 years was plenty for him to campaign on.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
The Senate control looks to be, while not quite best-case, pretty darn good for the GOP, but it's not totally settled. This is actually a very, VERY big deal. We might be in the weird situation where the House margins are way more tight -- all eyes are going to be on Johnson for the next few years (assuming he even survives)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
I saw an article that was hoping Trump would win the popular but lose the electoral vote, because then both parties would have been burned and potentially feel motivated to change it.
Personally, however, though I'm totally open to going by popular vote, I don't think the compact as-is would survive a constitutional challenge.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
It's definitely abnormal, usually they say a few quick words. We haven't seen her personally really lose a race other than 2019, which was handled via a letter to supporters on social media, not a video, and well after the writing was on the wall and her campaign had been full of infighting, so that seems roughly on-brand personally despite not much to go on.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Honestly I can't parse this comment as anything but overtly sexist, and plainly adds nothing either. Do better.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
I think one of the most interesting lessons people often miss is that money in politics doesn't actually matter as much as most people think. People have the perception you can buy wins, and that's just... not true, broadly speaking. There's still plenty of room for more reform, but it's not a corrupt hellscape where only money talks.
With the priors a lot of people I talk to, and the cash advantage the Dems had pretty consistently, you would have seen a Harris victory.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Democratic attitudes definitely play into it, but the candidate herself completely failed in the second half. I think many people might find this video about Buttigieg interacting with 25 undecided voters very interesting. Pete himself is great -- but a LOT of the voters totally drew blanks when it came to Kamala's actual policies, which is so telling, and for good reason. She didn't talk about them a lot, and didn't have a full set of them to start with! She leaned on the Hillary "Trump bad" playbook instead of the Biden "do things" playbook. Even good old Mayor Pete's response to a question about why Harris wasn't being very outspoken (people noticed) was met by a kind of "well it's awkward when your boss is still President" -- he didn't actually challenge the perception, because it was accurate.
In an alternate world she could have released an actually ambitious set of changes and altered the narrative. Talk about what she wanted to actually DO. That's worth maybe a 2 point swing in swing states -- almost exactly the amount by which she lost.
I ACTIVELY follow politics and I can only name maybe TWO actual policies she proposed and actively promoted, and one of them was bad: a harebrained anti-scalping scheme, and an at-home medicaid expansion. That's literally it. That's all that comes to mind. And I'm a news junkie. That's horrific.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Exactly exactly. Women in the House do just fine, though how often they emerge from the recruitment process varies greatly. I honestly don't think gender matters a whole lot anymore. Sure there are some double standards still, but also some advantages for a woman (though fewer), but overall it just doesn't move the needle a lot.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
So, I'm curious: predictions about what, if anything, Trump will do for his "revenge list"? A lot of people here said that he was just talking a big game but wouldn't actually do anything too crazy, because he didn't in 2016, but then again he probably feels more strongly about it due to his legal troubles post-2020. Potentially, these people or organizations he's made noise about include:
Biden, Harris, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pelosi, NY AG James, Judge Engoron, Liz Cheney, Jack Smith, DA Bragg, former CJCS Milley, former FBI director Comey, Hunter Biden, Fauci, former FBI agents Strzok/Page, Rep Schiff, Zuckerberg, former attorney Micheal Cohen, various journalists, any of the major news networks.
There are two things in play. One, there's no clear Trump successor who can fully capture the populist appeal as it currently exists. However, there IS a template for it, so we might see someone replicate his style of "say whatever and people won't hold it against me" but not for another 10 years or so. Part of this is his personnel decisions are somewhat unpredictable. So my certainty level on what exactly replaces it is low. Watch his cabinet picks carefully, and their reception, which will be a bellwether for 2028. We probably will see a continuing trend of corporate to politics pivots, to mixed success. For specifics on the other end, I could honestly see a Mark Cuban 2028 campaign. Appeals to working class people and a message in economics is probably here to stay for the next 5-10 years for the GOP, but how well Trump's economy actually does will play a role, because the rhetoric and think-tank support isn't super well defined for Trumponomics at the moment. That kind of "intellectual cover" is often the glue that makes a movement something lasting vs ephemeral (think Reagonomics which had intellectual influence well into the Bush years).
The second thing in play is how the Democrats respond, which determines how contested the middle, moderate, everyman vote is. They have some decent historical DNA for a return to their working class roots and appeal, but have a GIANT millstone around their necks -- the college educated crowd. There's a huge bubble among the college educated that we've seen over the last 10 years. It's (probably) slowly popping especially as Millennials age, and to a lesser extent the younger Gen X, but it's hard to get a sense for how fast that's happening. If the Dems do a better job with the working class, that changes the whole picture quite a lot. But if they stay in liberal la-la land, that leaves a ton of space for the GOP to solidify their gains into the gap.
Edit: removed polling specifics as I need to look at some more crosstabs. Good news for moderates: looking at NBC's "key states" exit polling (includes TX, FL, OH in addition to the swing states) a full and healthy 34% of the electorate say "independent or something else" about their political identity. That's pretty good from a moderate perspective. People themselves are still open despite the strong two-party machine.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
I predict he develops some kind of noticeable health issue in the last two years, but not one serious enough to incapacitate him (more like we'll slowly see him slowly reduce his working hours Biden-style but for more of a physical reason). Odds maybe 70%.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
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.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
So here's the language voters see, and I've bolded the most problematic parts:
Should the Utah Constitution be changed to strengthen the initiative process by:
- Prohibiting foreign influence on ballot initiatives and referendums.
- Clarifying the voters and legislative bodies’ ability to amend laws.
If approved, state law would also be changed to:
- Allow Utah citizens 50% more time to gather signatures for a statewide referendum.
- Establish requirements for the legislature to follow the intent of a ballot initiative.
The impression is clear: a voter who trusts the descriptions to be accurate would get the impression that the initiative process is currently weak, and that the legislature doesn't have to follow ballot initiative intent. In reality, the exact opposite is true!
Again I note that the issue is not that there was a few ballot initiatives that failed miserably. Most of the ones that make it to the ballot at least in Utah are typically just fine or even good -- the amendment that made them mad was literally an anti-gerrymandering one, which most all regular people agree is a good idea. It would be something else entirely if there were any cases of actual disasters or actual foreign influence (even proponents admitted this had never happened).
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
To be clear I do quite like the option of in-person voting, if for nothing else to give an opportunity for a theoretically-coerced individual to overrule their mail-in ballot, just in principle. Seems to me to be the best of both worlds if in-person is still available but the system is set up for and encourages mail-in ballots as the primary method. But if most people end up voting party line straight down that strikes me as fairly problematic. It's not uncommon for there to be at least one bad egg in a party-line bunch, as it were.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
Interesting but makes sense. Do you think most in person voters do this?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8mo ago
A typical ballot contains anywhere from 15 to 25 positions/questions, and anywhere from 20 to 40 candidates (not exact, totally spitballing based on previous experience). That's a lot of names. Hard to keep them all straight, yes?
Are you deliberately abstaining because you view yourself as not sufficiently educated, or are you not bothering because it's not practical to retain all of that information between when you roughly decide and the actual voting booth? I'd say the former is fine, even if I disagree, but the latter is exactly proving my point -- you could have contributed to the democratic process, but didn't, largely because you didn't have a paper ballot to consult at home with plenty of time to consider your options.
As an additional note, if ranked choice/IRV is implemented this becomes an extra important point -- because now you can potentially concern yourself with previously ignorable decisions.
How do you in-person voters... remember anything meaningful? Grew up in Oregon and opted for a mail-in ballot even here in conservative Utah purely for the convenience. I actually love being able to dedicate a little time one evening to reviewing the mailers I've set aside, the websites of a few candidates, and making sure I could remember the background behind things. Do you just quickly Google stuff? That sounds kind of dangerous as the #1 result isn't always a holistic or accurate portrayal.
Which (voting by mail) was almost incredibly useful this year. I don't know how much y'all may or may not have heard about this, but the Utah Legislature tried one of the most blatant and anti-democratic power grabs in memory, trying to give themselves power to effectively ignore or rewrite ballot measures even after they pass -- which isn't great IMO to start with, but the wording they put on the actual ballot measure/amendment to give themselves this power was an EGREGIOUS misstatement of the actual content of the measure (basically, a bald-faced lie). This happened with not one but TWO measures, both struck down by courts for being misleading to voters (though the second was less overt) -- but weirdly, this decision came too late to reprint the ballots, so votes on both will not be counted but will still appear. (Even worse, the whole thing wasn't prompted by anything understandable -- it was specifically because an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure passed that the legislature didn't like and got caught ignoring)
My point? Although the system worked in this case, if the courts hadn't managed to rule in time, or dropped the ball, a ton of voters right there in the booth may have been confused which one out of the four was the lie, which one was the exaggeration, which one was the one everyone likes, and which was the one that is probably useless (formalizing the election of county sheriffs, which... is already the case?)
But if you take home the ballot, and get to research as you vote, this becomes much, much easier. Professional politicians, hot take, take unfair advantage of voters, even well-informed ones, when voting in person. Vote by mail!
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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