Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1611
All politics today. Political scenario planning, odds on assorted Trump strategies, etc.
(Originally mis-numbered as 1600)
Sixteen hundred, wow that is crazy. Good morning. I am sleepy. And, I’m not gonna lie, a teeny bit hung over.
Stayed up too late watching politics. Did that once-a-year ringmorale where I figured out how to watch MSNBC for election updates. Tried other networks, borderline intolerable. Not that MSNBC is pleasant. Kornacki is going with NBC in the breakup, when MSNBC becomes MS NOW in six days. I am pissed. I hope once they are completely separate companies MS NOW expends significant effort trying to poach him. Or he starts his own live streaming thing on Youtube or some shit I would be content to just watch precinct-by-precinct analysis I don’t need long snippets of speeches or analysis.
Anyway, great night for Dems, for people who don’t like Donald Trump and hey that includes me. Excellent all around. Excited for Mamdami, unfriended a few old friends who just said the most bonkers things about him. People get so weird. Psyched he got over 50%. So weird Mira Nair’s son is mayor of NYC. Saw her present Kama Sutra a Tale of Love at TIFF in 1995. Congrats to Spanberger and her old roommate who are now governors of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, those PA Judges who kept their seats and Newsom’s glorious, properly-nuclear (shouldn’t hyphenate, keeping it anyway) redistricting amendment. Between that and VA Dems basically obtaining a supermajority in their legislature, Trump’s bullshit mid-census redistricting plan should mostly fail. If Republicans keep pissing off their base with shit like SNAP shortfalls, it might even fail here in NC and collapse completely that would be so hilarious.
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We are listening to the 1988 Bedhead album Transaction De Nova this morning, 2015 Numero group reissue. God I miss this band. They were so great, I loved them so much. Also I still fit into my Bedhead concert tee I bought on this tour so there.
Let’s talk political strategy today. Sorry. Seems like a good day to catch up. Maybe I’ll do it every 100 issues or something.
Lawrence had a good defense of Schumer’s refusal to endorse Mamdami and I “get it” – big tent yadda yadda. But I think it was a) strategically wrong, b) going to backfire for him over time, and c) ethically indefensible. Pretty pissed at Barack for not endorsing as well. He was the dude on the Dem line on the ballot! Fucking hypycrites. But the worst is Kristen Gillibrand who, less we forget, singlehandedly tanked Al Franken’s political career because he made a single inappropriate boobs joke, and now refused to condemn the serial sexual harasser. Fuck that shit. Dead to me.
Trump: He is going to run again, or try to. I think that is his plan, no doubt. I have him about a 20% chance of success. I think there is a 10-15% chance his health will fail or get bad enough the wolves come out. So, 85% chance he will give it a go. Unfortunately for him there really is no good way to pull it off. Unfortunately for us there really is no quick and simple way to stop him.
80% likelihood de won’t try the veep thing, even though that is probably his best chance of success. I give it such a chance because he ruled it out himself in off-the-cuff remarks where he is getting really bad at lying about his dictatorial aspirations. I also sense he has enough political sense to know people will think it’s cheesy. But mostly I think he knows there is not a single person around him — children included — who he can trust to step aside and let him be president again. Come on grandpa lets get you home. And as Vance keeps polling in the lead, he knows Vance won’t step aside. So he has to try something else.
I think he will just ignore the law and run. This has a lot of benefits for him. It will seem to work. There is no good way to stop him because there is no single ruling body that can stop him. Well, the Supreme Court could but enough of them, even rank partisainship aside, have their head up their ass about the mechanics of elections and states rights that they won’t do it. I mean, let’s give em a 20% chance that they will, but odds are they won’t.
Which means the next line of defense is the states, and the good news is is I think this is probably almost impossible for Trump. And more good news: he will get some early momentum and a ton of early attention, so I think he will (probably, this is all statistics) fool himself into thinking it’s working. To be sure there will be some justification and reading of the law to say it’s legal for him to run again, but that is mostly mood. Red states will let him on the ballot even if his justification is “Well I am a fish now and the constitution doesn’t say anything about fish.” Some state like Missouri or Alabama will go first and let him on the ballot. Others will follow.
The problem with this, of course, is that many states will not let him on the ballot, and the court cases will be myriad if he tries to fight it. It is possible the Supreme Court steps in at this point but I don’t think they have the stomach, they can simply stay silent and avoid ire, and in any case, the laws are complex about states and the assorted ways they handle this and even Alito has shown significant deference and I suspect even if they find one or two in favor of Trump, they won’t issue a blanket ruling.
So, you know, you gotta get to 270 electoral votes to win and when you aren’t on the ballot in 150 of them to begin with, it’s a long road. So it comes down to getting on the ballot at all in the normal battleground states: North Carolina (SNAP making this hard, the redistricting was very unpopular), Georgia (last night a dark harbinger of his current chances), PA (good luck given last night), AZ (hasn’t been too good for him recently).
It is a long-ass road and I think there is a 80% chance of utter failure. And this is if no one in the Republican party breaks and runs against him at some point when he hits inevitable adversity in this effort and/or shows (more) signs of dementia.
So, 80% likelihood of failure at three, four different junctures, but not a zero percent chance of success of getting on the ballot everywhere or enough places.
Then he’s gotta win, which, you know, his policies are unpopular, etc. etc. but now we’re into the realm of shit I say every time that fucker runs and he does often manage to pull it out, doesn’t he?
I will throw in the Obama factor that they will need to think of a way for ole Donny to run without letting Barry run, which will complicate things, maybe, if Barack wanted it to. He doesn’t have to run, he just has to keep em on their toes to make their logic even more convoluted. I give him a 50% chance of performing this service for the country, but if he does, the odds are halved.
The other path I suspect he is strongly considering is Coup II Electric Boogaloo, simply trying to not leave office. The Supreme Court probably won’t love this, but they are craven these days, so give them stopping it 50-50 odds. Odds are good at the moment that we’ll take the house and speakership so that will make things a lot harder, but of course we might not, and Mike Johnson’s non-seating of Grijalva is probably at least research if not practice into this topic. I will let my conspiracy instincts run wild and say that the ballroom is probably cover for a full remodel of the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, and in his mind might be related to all of this but I don’t think it’ll play into it, unless he drops all masks and goes full Saddam and they have to yank him out.
50-50 there’s another Rally on the lawn. Another riot almost worked last time, is thrilling, etc. but I suspect he also knows a) the police prep will be much better no matter what he does, and b) the crowds will be smaller.
He may well have to rely on Vance like he tried with Pence but Vance ain’t gonna pull that shit and I suspect Trump knows it.
So how does he pull off a coup without the veep and the speaker helping him? He has the military, moreso this time than last, but I don’t think the rank and file generals will help him too much and that’s assuming Pete lasts three more years which seems inconceivable.
This is where my scenario planning fails but I suspect this is where they are focused right now. They will try all of this but they will absolutely have a last ditch effort, or… let me rephrase. They are absolutely, right now, thinking about how to have a last-ditch effort. They may not have thought of one yet. But you know they are working on it.
Then we have the Dems, of course, and… I dunno, man. There are two ways for any one to look at this: who can the dems run that can win and who do you want to win and they are, of course, probably not the same but you can convince yourself they are because that’s what a supporter does. Can AOC win? Bernie at 87? I mean, if Bernie stays as hale and hearty as me grammy, just maybe. Ditto Warren, but only if Bernie is frail. Mayor Pete maybe, he is so good on TV, will appeal to people who have been supporting genocide and fascism but like to think of themselves as moderate, etc. etc. Ditto Gavin. I respect the dude’s chutzpah on the socials and with this redistricting amendment but he is not to be trusted. It’s possible after the VA gubernatorial race and Earle-Sears’ trouncing after focusing on trans issues that Newsom will stop with his trans bullshit, but he is obviously plenty willing to toss them overboard if encouraged, so he has pretty permanently lost my trust. Will I support him if he runs? Against Trump, yes. But it will suck.
I do not think any of these people could beat Trump if he was magically, legally on the ballot in every state and healthy and non-senile. I do think it likely that whatever actual state we end up in, they can beat him. I do not know if any of them can beat a different Republican candidate behind which the party is unified. That is a long-shot, but not impossible. 50% chance let’s say (yes I know all this math does not add up fight me).
And that is the last question: is there another Republican to run, to try and thread the needle and “be there if Trump needs me” but not piss him off, etc. etc. I am somewhat surprised at Vance’s consistent polling as the leader of a non-Trump Republican party and I fucking hate that guy. Will that stay? Will Trump try and torpedo the person hey may see as his biggest threat? Even if he needs him for Coup II twice the Van Damage? TBD. But yeah, I do think it’s conceivable JD will resign and run against Trump, 20% chance. Another 10% that he figures out the plans (you know they are leaving him out of them), and gets ahead of them by announcing before Trump.
There is plenty of room for wildcards on either side. I still think The Rock could pull it off. Wes Moore, Kamala running again gawd I don’t know about that one but she’s going to isn’t she? And plenty of other things could go haywire: the usual terrorism, violence, war wild cards, inflation, the Fed has a whole sub-drama brewing that could spill over into the mainstream. He could luck out and the Supreme Court could strike down his tariffs (I give this a 75% chance because they are obviously unconstitutional and Alito et al might convince themselves they are doing Trump a favor) and the economy could get healthier, though that’ll only help so much.
Right now I give it a 20% chance that it starts clicking with people how fucking checked out he is. I’ve been somewhat shocked he doesn’t have enough political instincts at the moment to realize he needs to do some bonkers populist thing obviously against the interest of Miller, Bessent, etc. But he hasn’t. His instincts are slipping, this is a mad dash, an old man demented mad dash, the strategy is def getting shoddier, I think. It may still hold, but it is a long shot.
There’s a whole other subplot with Stephen Miller who knows all of this and is rushing toward fascism ASAP. While most people don’t seem mind, I do see a 35%ish chance he overplays his hand, and the supposed libertarians rebel en masse. And publicly. There do seem to be a few doing so quietly but they’ll need to speak out for it to matter.
So, yeah, man. I don’t know. I don’t think Trump will pull it off but he is going to try, and he is going to get pretty far. Assuming he doesn’t keel over first. I am mentally prepared to see his name on Kornacki’s big board.
And even if Vance or someone else is on there too, the only 100% confidence prediction I will make here is that most networks will give Donny the red color and Vance will get the other color.
Feel icky putting a photo of my daughter in this issue, so we’re gonna skip that. And rather than a playlist today we’re gonna do this interesting video Taylor made a few days ago with Lawrence Lessig about his current efforts to curtail/limit Citizens United, which is a pretty fascinating approach really. A non-zero chance of success. Maybe slightly more optimistic about SCOTUS’ role, but I do see his logic and it does sorta box em in a bit. Fingers crossed. But I don’t see it happening on a timeline to effect any of the logic for the next presidential election, and in any case, I don’t really think the money will make that much of a difference.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.