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m_d_hI remember T driving us to work on Election Day -- we'd both already voted; I voted via mail as usual, he voted at an early voting site on a previous weekend. I was confident that Hillary would win, and thought any polling errors would be in her favor, because I figured Trump was such an incompetent candidate. I voted for Stein, the Green candidate, because I knew Maryland would go for Hillary. And of course Maryland went for Hillary.
Stuff began going wrong that evening as first Trump won Florida, and then started leading in the upper Midwest.
I was in shock that such a lying asshole could win. After the shock wore off, a few nights later I literally cried, grieving a country that I thought couldn't possibly elect such an obviously lying asshole. I thought we'd moved beyond such openly vicious racism and sexism, plus Trump was just a guy who played a businessman on TV, he wasn't actually any good at running his own businesses -- how many times had he gone bankrupt? How many people had he swindled? His "business model" is fraud!
Then I spent the next four years in near-constant disbelief that around 42% of the country still liked Trump, even after seeing how he was actually running the country. But the economy was doing well, and usually the incumbent President gets to take credit for the economy, usually that's the number one variable in Presidential politics, how the economy is doing.
But I predicted a recession would occur in 2020. Not because I wanted to get rid of Trump, but because it would be the proper time in the economic cycle for a recession to occur, sometime in 2020. Maybe just a mild recession, but enough to show Trump was not a flawless steward of the economy. If Hillary had won, she'd be facing the same recession risk, I thought.
Then a recession did occur in 2020! but not because the Federal Reserve squeezed interest rates, because of the most dangerous global pandemic in a century.
So today, in addition to being a lying racist asshole, in addition to seeing how he was actually running the country, we can see that Trump was incompetent at both managing the pandemic, and growing the economy: 4 million fewer jobs today than during January 2017. He shrank the economy, while ballooning the budget deficit. He's awful.
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Although the financial markets still like him. I guess they're his final constituency, the people who only care about how they're making profits from the second largest stock market bubble in US history, and the largest bond market bubble in human history. Your 401(k) balance has been safe with Trump. So far.
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Why does anybody think this guy can win again?
FiveThirtyEight gives him a 10% chance. The betting markets give him a 37% chance. My own proprietary model doesn't produce a chance, it produces a prediction -- a prediction of a double-digit loss in the popular vote.
Every objective indicator says Trump will do worse than he did in 2016, and he only won the Electoral College in 2016 by 77,744 votes in three states, out of 128,838,341 votes cast for the two-party candidates -- a margin of 0.06%.
Biden only has to do 0.07% better than Hillary did, and he wins.
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But now, unlike four years ago, Republicans are openly trying to stop counting the votes before they're all counted! A sitting President tweets on Election Eve that a Supreme Court decision allowing more votes to be counted in Pennsylvania will "induce violence in the streets".
Even Trump realizes he's going to lose if all the votes are counted, losing not just the popular vote again as in 2016, but the Electoral College. At least 78,000 people in those three states have switched from Trump in 2016, to Biden in 2020. The pollsters know it, the politicians know it, the President knows it.
Sure, given the history of polling, there's a blind 10% chance of a polling error large enough for Trump to win, if all you looked at were the polls and the history of polling, and failed to look away from your spreadsheets. But Trump's not betting on rolling craps. He's betting on bullying the Supreme Court. And if that doesn't work, he's betting on violence in the streets.
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I sit here this morning wondering what people expected when they voted for an obviously lying and viciously racist asshole four years ago. Did they expect he'd leave the White House peacefully after his first term ended? Did they expect him to act honorably in defeat? Or did they want to make this asshole the first Dictator of America?
I don't know what's in the mind of Trump's 42%. But 42% isn't enough to win the Electoral College without the Supreme Court leaning heavily on the scales. And if you don't approve of Trump's performance after four years of watching him in office, and yet you voted for him anyway, and so gave him that 10% chance of a polling error,
I mean, if the undecided voters all flipped to Trump and allowed him to squeak by again with those same Upper Midwest states or a slightly different combination of similar states, then we are a country that cares not a whit about competence, performance, behavior, racism, sexism, nepotism, or ethics. I'm not sure what it is we do care about. I see nothing positive about Trump that would induce an undecided voter to get out of bed and vote for him.
Last time, I understood that people didn't like Hillary either. They wanted to take a chance on somebody from outside of the mainstream. OK, you took your chance. Did it really give you what you hoped for? Really? Now you can see what it got you.
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Four years ago I expected the polling error to favor Hillary. This time I expect the polling error to favor Biden. That's my liberal bias playing with the dice. But polling errors do not systematically favor Republicans. Polling errors are, by definition, random. I'm rolling my dice and this time even if I lose again I expect Biden to win anyway. A polling error won't be enough for you this time, Donald. And you know it.
Stuff began going wrong that evening as first Trump won Florida, and then started leading in the upper Midwest.
I was in shock that such a lying asshole could win. After the shock wore off, a few nights later I literally cried, grieving a country that I thought couldn't possibly elect such an obviously lying asshole. I thought we'd moved beyond such openly vicious racism and sexism, plus Trump was just a guy who played a businessman on TV, he wasn't actually any good at running his own businesses -- how many times had he gone bankrupt? How many people had he swindled? His "business model" is fraud!
Then I spent the next four years in near-constant disbelief that around 42% of the country still liked Trump, even after seeing how he was actually running the country. But the economy was doing well, and usually the incumbent President gets to take credit for the economy, usually that's the number one variable in Presidential politics, how the economy is doing.
But I predicted a recession would occur in 2020. Not because I wanted to get rid of Trump, but because it would be the proper time in the economic cycle for a recession to occur, sometime in 2020. Maybe just a mild recession, but enough to show Trump was not a flawless steward of the economy. If Hillary had won, she'd be facing the same recession risk, I thought.
Then a recession did occur in 2020! but not because the Federal Reserve squeezed interest rates, because of the most dangerous global pandemic in a century.
So today, in addition to being a lying racist asshole, in addition to seeing how he was actually running the country, we can see that Trump was incompetent at both managing the pandemic, and growing the economy: 4 million fewer jobs today than during January 2017. He shrank the economy, while ballooning the budget deficit. He's awful.
-----
Although the financial markets still like him. I guess they're his final constituency, the people who only care about how they're making profits from the second largest stock market bubble in US history, and the largest bond market bubble in human history. Your 401(k) balance has been safe with Trump. So far.
-----
Why does anybody think this guy can win again?
FiveThirtyEight gives him a 10% chance. The betting markets give him a 37% chance. My own proprietary model doesn't produce a chance, it produces a prediction -- a prediction of a double-digit loss in the popular vote.
Every objective indicator says Trump will do worse than he did in 2016, and he only won the Electoral College in 2016 by 77,744 votes in three states, out of 128,838,341 votes cast for the two-party candidates -- a margin of 0.06%.
Biden only has to do 0.07% better than Hillary did, and he wins.
-----
But now, unlike four years ago, Republicans are openly trying to stop counting the votes before they're all counted! A sitting President tweets on Election Eve that a Supreme Court decision allowing more votes to be counted in Pennsylvania will "induce violence in the streets".
Even Trump realizes he's going to lose if all the votes are counted, losing not just the popular vote again as in 2016, but the Electoral College. At least 78,000 people in those three states have switched from Trump in 2016, to Biden in 2020. The pollsters know it, the politicians know it, the President knows it.
Sure, given the history of polling, there's a blind 10% chance of a polling error large enough for Trump to win, if all you looked at were the polls and the history of polling, and failed to look away from your spreadsheets. But Trump's not betting on rolling craps. He's betting on bullying the Supreme Court. And if that doesn't work, he's betting on violence in the streets.
-----
I sit here this morning wondering what people expected when they voted for an obviously lying and viciously racist asshole four years ago. Did they expect he'd leave the White House peacefully after his first term ended? Did they expect him to act honorably in defeat? Or did they want to make this asshole the first Dictator of America?
I don't know what's in the mind of Trump's 42%. But 42% isn't enough to win the Electoral College without the Supreme Court leaning heavily on the scales. And if you don't approve of Trump's performance after four years of watching him in office, and yet you voted for him anyway, and so gave him that 10% chance of a polling error,
I mean, if the undecided voters all flipped to Trump and allowed him to squeak by again with those same Upper Midwest states or a slightly different combination of similar states, then we are a country that cares not a whit about competence, performance, behavior, racism, sexism, nepotism, or ethics. I'm not sure what it is we do care about. I see nothing positive about Trump that would induce an undecided voter to get out of bed and vote for him.
Last time, I understood that people didn't like Hillary either. They wanted to take a chance on somebody from outside of the mainstream. OK, you took your chance. Did it really give you what you hoped for? Really? Now you can see what it got you.
-----
Four years ago I expected the polling error to favor Hillary. This time I expect the polling error to favor Biden. That's my liberal bias playing with the dice. But polling errors do not systematically favor Republicans. Polling errors are, by definition, random. I'm rolling my dice and this time even if I lose again I expect Biden to win anyway. A polling error won't be enough for you this time, Donald. And you know it.