Pluses: admittedly much the shorter list, but we did resolve a few things.
- Thanks mainly to vote shifts in California and New York, the popular vote outcome was not at variance with the Electoral College vote, and it wasn’t particularly close (over 4-1/2 million votes).
- Largely as a result, the losing side, and VP Harris herself, have indicated cooperation with formal certification and transition processes.
- Harris is gone. She’ll get a chunk of money for a book and retire to the lecture circuit.
- Walz, same, and given the likelihood that he would have been a 21st-century version of Henry Wallace, with Chinese instead of Soviet agents in his inner circle, that might be more important than getting rid of Harris.
- Taking a somewhat longer view, Trump is gone too (perhaps not a much longer view; see the final Delta item below).
- By extension, there is some chance that ’28 will not have the electorate choosing between a crook and an idiot for President.
- Whatever one may think of prediction markets, and there are arguments on both sides regarding their functionality, the biggest prediction market of all, the US stock market, was forecasting a Trump victory all year (not coincidentally, the same thing happened in 2016).
- By the way, the media will actually report negative economic news now.
- I could have put this in either category, but I’ll leave it here: your Cluebat of the Day is a reminder that Trump is as old as Biden was in ’20, and notwithstanding some of my more apprehensive items below, to expect anything much of him is a waste of time.
- Likely continuation of relatively good space-industry policy across Administrations, which should be the only thing that matters several decades from now.
Deltas: fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.
- Much of what follows is an artifact of the division of the country between 1) the despairing and panicky and 2) the arrogant and condescending.
- In the period from now through at least January 20th, and probably for some time thereafter, we remain vulnerable to both endogenous and exogenous threats. This is partly due to the usual game-theoretic conditions obtaining during a transition of executive power between opponents and partly because the United States has not had a functional Commander-in-Chief for quite some time.
- No one appears to be truly serious about, to name the first few stresses that come to mind, the fantastically dysfunctional Caribbean Rim, a mental health pandemic that has been underway since at least ’11, horrendous debt/wildly unbalanced budgets, possibly exploding white-collar unemployment due to AI, or the continuing collapse in TFR. Then there are the synergies; I note that force projection via drones from the Caribbean in combination with widespread poor mental health could become an existential threat to public order.
- We’ll be in a race with the Europeans to see who can abandon Ukraine first. The historical analogy is the League of Nations, Haile Selassie, and Mussolini.
- Given the rather mixed record of our response to COVID-19, which I remind readers occurred under the first Trump Administration, I now believe that the United States continues to exist at the sufferance of the Chinese. They don’t want the bother of actually running this joint, but if they ever, for any reason, decide we’re more trouble than we’re worth, they could inflict functional degradation to the point of dissolution on a timescale of months. Our exquisitely-credentialed elites can be relied upon to make plenty of unforced errors to move things along.
- Endogenous threats are something else. It very much remains to be seen whether we will get through the next ten weeks without mob violence. There are plenty of otherwise functional adults in this country who believe their own propaganda, eg about “White Christian Nationalism” being an actual thing, and might decide that physically attacking it is just what the situation calls for. “It” being any church that’s mostly white and didn’t unsubtly promote Harris.
- Another psychological threat is the human attachment to particular apocalyptic scenarios. You can reliably enrage someone not by telling them that their world will end but by telling them that their favorite world-ending scenario will never happen. For the Left it’s usually some environmentalist thing or the supposedly ubiquitous neo-Nazi threat; for the Right the current infatuation is with a terror attack across the Rio Grande. This is also where I mention how many falsifiable predictions by RWNJs just got shot down in flames, like Harris being replaced by Michelle Obama and the Democrats fraudulently manufacturing tens of millions of votes to make it impossible for Trump to win.
- Likelihood of near-future attempts at horrendously protectionist economic policies: restrictions on labor-market entry, high tariffs, etc. Note that this does not invalidate the predictive aspect of this year’s market runup, as the effects won’t kick in until next summer or later. The synergies with possible double-digit white-collar unemployment could be particularly interesting.
- Closely related likelihood of near-future attempt to create a Federal bureaucracy capable of displacing millions of people, rationalized by immigration-law enforcement. While we may reasonably hope that it proves to be incompetent (see the end of #17, below), there is considerable risk that, if realized, it will be used by every future Administration in an attempt to physically expel opposition, to say nothing of the scale of harrassment of ordinary Americans; as I have snarkily remarked before, enjoy your hours of sitting at a checkpoint on I-70 under the (literal) gun of unionized, unfireable Federal employees.
- Some likelihood of national ID blatantly analogous to Chinese “Resident Identity Cards,” ostensibly to secure voting. (Hey, we don’t need Tim Walz after all!)
- The hideous disaster that is RFK Jr, who warrants his own blogpost.
- Escalation of extreme politicization of civic holidays, previously seen only for Columbus Day. Any observance, or for that matter failure to display certain insignia or utter liturgical statements, will be denounced (or celebrated) by political factions. This may start as early as this Monday (Veterans’ Day) and become conspicuous by Independence Day ’25. I foresee a substantial market in American flags modified by tribal cultural symbols.
- Specific to Christmas, expect a resurgence of cartoonish performative “resistance,” as in denunciations of (wait for it) Salvation Army bell-ringers. See also the end of #6, above.
- Sectionalism continues, in various senses other than the merely geographical; in particular, GenX broke heavily for Trump, with all other generations lukewarm or modestly opposed.
- Relatedly, Trump appeals overwhelmingly to the alienated. In Missouri, low MHI and life expectancy at the county level is strongly correlated with his highest vote percentages (with the obvious exception of St Louis City, which is sui generis). There are worse things they could do than vote for him, but expecting good policies to emerge from this phenomenon is foolish; see #8-10, above.
- Conversely, the historic Democratic appeal to the disadvantaged has failed. This has resulted in, for example, Trump carrying counties in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Anything like current attitudes among Democratic elites will prevent their recovery of that voting bloc.
- Note that this is at odds with stereotypical conservative understanding that illegals, who are in abundance in the RGV, are a Democratic vote mine. It was already the case that illegals who vote (and, yes, lots of them do) break about one-third Republican. I would bet a modest sum that in this election that fraction was at least one-half. Culture matters more than adherence to legal niceties. Note also that illegals who voted for Trump have no serious expectation of deportation, and they are very likely correct.
- Speaking of not understanding one’s base, Trump carried Missouri in a 59-40 landslide even as we voted to, among other things, substantially relax restrictions on abortion and raise the minimum wage. In Cass County, a 110k-population suburban/exurban area immediately south of KCMO, only 33% voted for Harris, but 49% voted for Amendment 3 to largely decriminalize abortion and 58% voted for Proposition A to raise the (already much higher than Federal) state minimum wage. I encourage readers to perform similar statistical exercises for their own states and counties. Once again, culture and local conditions matter; no one familiar with the situation on the ground in Belton-Raymore or Harrisonville MO should be surprised.
- Some chance that Trump will get the Eric Greitens treatment, albeit with the Constitutional formality of Amendment XXV, with JD Vance in the place of Mike Parson. Democrats and the Washington Establishment would be eager to cooperate. You think their shoving Biden aside in July was a coup? Wait a couple of years.
Net-net: the Crisis of the 2020s has a ways to run, and the geopolitical/military phase of it has yet to fully kick in. Do not be fearful, but do be constructively apprehensive.
Glenn Reynolds pondered consequences of the Federal debt bubble finally bursting, and made an observation I don’t recall seeing elsewhere: “State and local governments will still be there if the federal government goes broke.” Well, most of them – I wouldn’t place bets on the Illinois government’s longevity. One canary in the coal mine: for some time that state has had trouble paying off lottery winners.
There will be an upsurge of Islamic violence in the US with or without help from Biden’s border policy, and with or without Iranian backing. It’s already on the rise in Europe. One of the lessons of Sowell’s Cultures trilogy is that assessing an immigrant population’s culture requires assessing relations between the countries of origin and destination at the time of the migration. To illustrate, he noted that Meiji-era Japanese in the US and Showa-era Japanese in South America had very different views of WWII. Europe has large Muslim populations that emigrated from Muslim-majority countries hostile toward the West. France has the added feature of receiving some of those immigrants from a former colony, Algeria; not sure how that group’s hostility level compares to that of other Muslim immigrant populations. Sweden has an interesting situation; a large percentage of migrants vacations in countries of origin during summer, during which time crime rates in Sweden drop significantly.
Regarding voting in Texas: A- You don’t vote unless you have a valid I.D. and a Voter Registration Card. B- You don’t get a driver’s license or I.D. without a valid Birth Certificate or other proof of citizenship, notwithstanding having a Texas Driver’s License since 1979. Ask me how I know.
Starr county, the one that’s voted Democrat since 1894 cast fewer than 20,000 votes in total. Whatever illegals might find themselves there would only be passing through and not finding much tolerance either. It’s a tough place to make a living and the locals are not keen on sharing what jobs are there.
https://www.politico.com/2024-election/results/texas/
…for the Right the current infatuation is with a terror attack across the Rio Grande.
We’ve already had a Venezuelan gang take over multiple apartment complexes and commence extorting rent, which is quite enough trouble from across the Rio Grande to inspire concern. But terrorist attack need not cross the border as the likely combatants are certainly already here- and probably cashing government checks and getting free housing.
This is also where I mention how many falsifiable predictions by RWNJs just got shot down in flames, like Harris being replaced by Michelle Obama and the Democrats fraudulently manufacturing tens of millions of votes to make it impossible for Trump to win.
I presume RWNJ is right wing nut job, so thanks. Supposedly the democrats who forced Biden out wanted a mini-primary to be won by someone other than Que Mala- but Biden derailed that clever plan by endorsing his VP. And fraud has a limit. They don’t control every state and this time a lot of fraud appears to have blocked by timely legal action. But note they’re still busy “finding” ballots and stealing other elections even today.
Likelihood of near-future attempts at horrendously protectionist economic policies: restrictions on labor-market entry, high tariffs, etc.
In other words, there won’t be an open border allowing unlimited entry of cheap labor and other countries won’t be able to use their own mercantilism to bankrupt American businesses and drive economic activity out of the United States.
Closely related likelihood of near-future attempt to create a Federal bureaucracy capable of displacing millions of people, rationalized by immigration-law enforcement.
In other words, foreign colonists will be sent home and we will no longer be forced to support them.
Some likelihood of national ID blatantly analogous to Chinese “Resident Identity Cards,” ostensibly to secure voting.
Actual US citizens already have this. It’s called “Real ID.” Our resident foreign colonists have no such bother, as they’re allowed to use arrest records as the equivalent.
The hideous disaster that is RFK Jr, who warrants his own blogpost.
Please explain why autism diagnoses track with the increase in the number of vaccines required- and why no one ever seemed to wonder about that before just now.
It was already the case that illegals who vote (and, yes, lots of them do) break about one-third Republican.
I was assured that it was unpossible for illegals to vote. And I don’t care if some of them illegally vote with me, the point is that it’s illegal. In any case, even if they don’t illegally vote, in many states they still get drivers licenses, which gets them registered, which then gets their ballot harvested. They might not even suspect any of that, they just want to drive their government supplied car.
Speaking of not understanding one’s base, Trump carried Missouri in a 59-40 landslide even as we voted to, among other things, substantially relax restrictions on abortion and raise the minimum wage.
Reportedly, Trump appeals overwhelmingly to the alienated, so I’m actually not surprised that people who want jobs to pay more and don’t like policies such as the six-week abortion limit voted for him. That’s one reason why Trump promising to deport the Chamber of Commerce’s never ending cheap labor force and repeatedly stating that abortion is now a state matter won him votes.
Net-net: the Crisis of the 2020s has a ways to run, and the geopolitical/military phase of it has yet to fully kick in. Do not be fearful, but do be constructively apprehensive.
I can agree here.
>restrictions on labor-market entry
“We can’t end slavery because it will increase the price of cotton.”
Immigration has a two-fold effect. It both suppresses wages and causes price increases to housing. Local labor can’t fairly compete against people prepared to live in horrible conditions (six people to a single bedroom). Illegals/visa workers can do this because their home countries typically have much lower costs of living. Even if the worker doesn’t stay in America, they have the effect of reducing wages.
These problems aren’t limited to blue collar workers. White collar workers are replaced with H-1B visa workers (and it isn’t limited to the tech sector, either).
This isn’t the first time immigration has been an issue. Eisenhower ejected one million illegals. The world didn’t end.
thank you Xennady. I was having the same thoughts, plus, “who is this troll?”
tim f: “who is this troll?”
Probably a severely disappointed Kamela worshipper. But laying out a set of concerns is not trolling.
What the author misses is where the real problem for the next few years will arise — in the corrupted halls of Congress. A President is not a King, rather he is an executive who implements the decisions made in Congress. And we know with gut-cinch certainty that many of the Republicrats in the House & Senate will work tirelessly to thwart anything that President Trump tries to achieve.
We the People realize this. Look at the election results, and notice the rather small “coattails” from President Trump’s massive victory. We voted for Trump — and then did NOT vote for unreliable Republicrats down ticket. That should be a giant warning sign to the clique which runs the Republicrat Party.
MCS, in Texas the voter registration data is encoded in the bar code on the back of your driver’s license. No voter reg card needed. They ask for your ID, flip it over and scan the back.
Posted together for lulz. I wonder if the author is prepared for their own medicine.
So what is “Social Security Number” or “RealID” then? Have you been asleep for a hundred years?
I don’t know what you mean – everyone seems to have been wondering about it for decades now. From a scientific perspective, there’s still several plausible correlations that could explain it, not just vaccines. Like the large delay in having children that has hit most first world populations (having children late in life has much stronger correlation with autism than vaccines).
I would like to see more studies and research into it all. And as ever each family should be free to make their own choices in consideration for their unique circumstances. What may be good for one child, may not be good for another. Would that society and government return to more flexibility and less rigidity.
Good post.
Let’s look at the half-full glass:
-The widespread belief among conservatives that the Democrats stole the 2020 election was probably justified. It was also politically corrosive. The Trump landslide was the best possible outcome of the 2024 elections. We may be voting our way out of our national mess after all. It’s conceivable that reasonable reforms of state election procedures will come out of it as well.
-The election results repudiated or at least damped the no-longer-ignorable uptrend in high-level official corruption: the illegal spying on, political prosecutions of, and IRS and regulatory abuses-of-power against regime opponents. We don’t know what the future will bring, but the re-election of the Democrats would have encouraged rather than discouraged the corruption.
-Trump has many flaws, but he tends to hire first-rate people and is open to innovative ideas. Reorganization/relocation/abolition of Cabinet departments is one of them.
-Trump unambiguously likes the USA. That’s not to be taken for granted nowadays.
-The DEI regime is diminished.
-It’s almost certain that Trump will stop the mass inflow of illegal aliens. Some kind of federal action against immigration seems very likely, even if it’s only to deport criminal aliens and recent illegal immigrants.
-The Biden administration’s foreign policy has been catastrophically stupid and inept. What comes next can probably only be better. I doubt that Trump will do worse in Ukraine than Biden did, even if Trump attempts to force a settlement. Trump can also hardly do worse in the Middle East, since he recognizes that Iran is the driver of the war against Israel, he isn’t invested in Obama’s idiotic Iran appeasement project, and he won’t hold Israel back or try to force Israel to enable a Palestinian state. Trump is likely to favor a military buildup to some extent, and not to dismiss threats from China and other hostiles.
Some negatives:
-Trump is old. He functions at a high level, but at his age there are no guarantees. Assassination is also a nontrivial risk. The worst case might be a moderately slow decline like Biden’s, during which there’s a power struggle.
-Protectionist economics is horseshit. The best case here is that Trump uses the threat of tariffs to negotiate reasonable deals with our trading partners, which was sort of what he did in his first term. As always, you can’t always take Trump at face value (recognition of this fact is one of the notable differences between Trump’s supporters and haters).
-Some kind of debt crisis seems inevitable regardless which Party is in power.
-Few people now in US high elected office acknowledge the magnitude of possible foreign threats. The USA is highly vulnerable to missile attacks from offshore, from Latin America, from terror and drone attacks from inside and outside of its borders, and probably from cyber attacks. We are also highly vulnerable to conventional war as we have allowed our military to deteriorate.
On the whole:
-Trump can hardly be worse than the Democrats, and may be much better, especially if he and his people have learned from the setbacks of his first term.
“The widespread belief among conservatives that the Democrats stole the 2020 election was probably justified.”
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/other/the-2020-presidential-election-fraud/
This tragical history tour covers multiple election cycles.
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/other/documented-voter-fraud-voter-registration-fraud-in-the-u-s-part-1/
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/other/documented-voter-fraud-voter-registration-fraud-in-the-u-s-part-2/
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/other/documented-voter-fraud-voter-registration-fraud-in-the-u-s-part-3/
Here, they wanted both. Just moved and slow to update registration, so provisional ballot for me as well. My point was that Texas isn’t handing out DL’s to illegals and I doubt too many were voting here. Judging by the premium I pay for uninsured driver coverage, not many are bothering with whatever it takes to get a valid DL or insurance.
Jonathan: “Protectionist economics is horseshit.”
Surely it depends on how the economy is run. Clearly, holy “Free Trade” is horseshit when it results in a de-industrialized US that lacks the employment which used to underpin societal stability and the tax revenues which facilitated government — besides leaving the US unable to put a warplane in the air or an aircraft carrier on the water without Chinese components which we are no longer able to manufacture.
But if there is a Real World case for “Free Trade” as opposed to an old unrealistic theoretical argument, let’s hear it!
thank you Xennady. I was having the same thoughts, plus, “who is this troll?”
Thanks, but I wouldn’t call him a troll. He’s an occasional contributor who likes to say things that are wrong. He’s written some interesting pieces about Haiti, for example.
But if there is a Real World case for “Free Trade” as opposed to an old unrealistic theoretical argument, let’s hear it!
There isn’t, but I’ve had the thought that these folks think they’re ruling the world so it makes perfect sense to distribute industry to every country so it would be a total disaster if “free trade” ever went away because then economic collapse would follow so no one would ever oppose ‘free trade” fearing disaster. Read that quickly so you don’t have any time to think about it.
Anyway, this was an important organizing principle for the Soviet Union, so often a critical factory was build in one Soviet Republic and another critical factory was built in a different Republic so no one would ever think of dissolving the Soviet Union because disaster would
follow.
That worked out pretty well for the USSR, right?
Right??
The ‘millions of ballots for Biden’ stuff may be wrong but it’s also a red herring that I wish people wouldn’t propagate, either in reference to the 2020 or 2024 elections.
Biden won the Electoral College in 2020 by less than 50K votes distributed across three states (AZ, GA, WI) in an election with far fewer controls on ballot collection and processing due to COVID than in previous or now subsequent elections.
Yes the fraud was at the granular level
Henry Wallace was played for a sucker by the Soviets during his 1944 visit, which wa also at the height of the “gallant Russian allies” hype. By 1948 he was completely taken; thus his “Progressive” candidacy.
But he realized very soon afterwards that he’d been had. By 1950, he’d become a vehement anti-Communist, and fully endorsed Truman’s decision to fight in Korea.
Walz, however, has no excuse, and I very mouch doubt that he could ever see the light.