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Goodguy  11hr ago (text post)   Edited 8hr ago   3945 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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What are the chances Trump gets impeached now and actually removed from office? Could he go to prison even? He is beyond fucked. Republicans are already turning on him on the timeline.

I think the odds that Trump is gone within a year are around 95%. (And I hope this prediction is as accurate as my election predictions from yesterday.... because the only chance for Republicans to win in 2028 is if they get rid of Trump.)

95%??? What gives you such confidence? Very few presidents have actually been removed from office.

Republicans will be in a far better position to win the next election if they remove Trump from office. If they remove him from office (or more likely, he will resign prior to being convicted), they will lose maybe 1-5% of their base in the next election from the "betrayal", but gain 5-10% which they would otherwise not be able to get if Trump remains President.

And Democrats are on track to have 55-57 Senate seats (I predicted 55 seats would be the most likely outcome, and Murkowski might switch parties), so they will only need 10-12 safe-seat Republican Senators to get on board to remove him from office.

I can guarantee you that there are at least that many Republican Senators that would be delighted to get rid of albatross Trump, especially after what an asshole he's been to so many of them, and their own personal disdain for him.

I also predict that Elon Musk, their biggest donor, along with Thiel and some other big donors, will happily support removing Trump.

So it's a no-brainer that this is going to happen. Trump can even simply resign for "health reasons" or whatever.

And there's historical precedent for Republicans to potentially bounce back. Nixon resigned as soon as enough Republicans were willing to vote to convict, and then his VP only lost the 1976 Presidential election by 1%. It's not a good chance for Republicans in 2028, but at least it's a chance.

I think this is unlikely for the simple reason that Trump will never resign voluntarily, and I just can’t see the congressional GOP having the spine to force the issue, even if it does make sense. It’s not impossible but I definitely wouldn’t bet on it.

The only reason why Republicans didn't get rid of Trump before was that they were afraid of losing elections if they did that. Now they know they are guaranteed to lose anyway as long as Trump is President and applying his recent brand of turbocharged stupidity, so Republicans literally have nothing to lose, and potentially everything to gain, by getting rid of him.

And you have to realize that the Republican base, more than anything else, hates losing. Trump is now a LOSER. This is the worst losing Trump has ever done.

In the exit polls, Trump only had 38% approval. I think the real figure of genuine approval (not pure political loyalty and trying to stick up for "your side") is 25-32%.

After tonight, his real approval in the base will be around 20-25%.

Then if Republicans aggressively attack him for being a LOSER and even for betraying some of his campaign promises, the real approval will go down to 10-20%. (This is even before getting behind whatever criminal charges get leveled against Trump.)

And most of those 10-20% voters are hardcore partisans, so Republicans can regain almost all of them in the next election simply by being "not Democrats".

So yeah, this is why the knives are going to be out. Trump will most likely be gone within a year.

And yes, Trump will absolutely resign rather than be convicted. He might wait till, like Nixon, he is told the votes are there for conviction, but at that point he will save his skin. Saving his own skin is what he is best at.

Why would Democrats allow Trump to be impeached if he weakens the Republicans so much? Better for them to make some noise about it in public but give him an easy out (as in still in office but useless) so that they get better results in 2028.

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