...Anni Aurei

("Of the Golden Ages") 

Everyone's doing their Best Of...lists.  Here's some of my picks, throwing in a few Latin words (as we follow blindly down ancient Rome's path toward dissolution): 

Word (nomen) - brainworm. 

There have been multiple mots thrown out there on the wall, Time Magazine-style.  The most ridiculous I heard was the first one, "demure", from Dictionary.org, but really from some influencer who misuses it all the time to the point that it has become standard English, like the varied usages from "literally", "precipice", "leafy", and "vibrant".  In this case, I wouldn't know, maybe it trended strongly; but, do we have to celebrate it? 

Oxford went with "brain rot'.  I don't know, was this their translation of RFKJr's former malady, or are they still being haunted by the prions of mad cow disease?  

The Economist dragged it out in their essay, but finally went with "kakistocracy", the rule by the incompetent.  They remain indignant at the lack of good government.  I think "idiocracy" will surely be nominated by someone; that movie made a big comeback this year as it seemed to signal a logical endpoint for all our society's worst trends toward, yes, incompetency, performative politics, big piles of shit, etc.  I think what we're getting so far is just the first part, "Id-cracy", rule through the id of an idiot.  But that's just temporary; we could still avoid full idiocracy with  more education of the populace and a little less nihilistic "don't give a shit" attitude. .

Returning to my main point, I am still going with the Kennedy reject as my personal focal point of dissatisfaction with this year's version of the multiverse.  (see "Lathe of Heaven", below)  There must be some other place where the Kennedy heritage is destined to end up,  other than kneeling at the foot of  Drumpf, then playing the Fool in spreading some widespread, avoidable avalanche of a health catastrophe.  In my outlier thesis, it's his fault that Harris lost.  This is altogether too weird.

Film - (cacumen) 

For me, it will be "Dune, Part Two", though it was released too early to be a significant Oscars contender.  I thought it lived up to my expectations, which were high.  I think one additional episode should be enough from Mr. Villeneuve, who has now topped The Mexicans (take your pick of the big 3) as top international film director.  A year or so for him to get perspective on how to handle all the the many successive novels and the gist of them, but some of it can be speed-walked.  Particularly the part about the Dominant Worm ("God Emperor"). A little more "Chapterhouse of Dune", the backstory that is behind the streaming serial "Dune: Prophecy"(not impressed) might help the understanding.  Anyway...

I'm eager to see the early Dylan biopic with Timothee Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown").  I'd have to guess he may be Best Actor in the Oscars, and this is surely Angelina Jolie's chance to win Best Actress for her portrayal of Maria Callas (in "Maria"), unless she messed it up entirely.  I'm not considering any of these post-Thanksgiving entries, though;  they can be on my Film of the Year list for 2025, if they are good enough.

I'd say "Lee", Kate Winslet's WWII vehicle, and "Conclave", the story of a fictional election of a Catholic Pope, are movies that were released in good time and had some good points ("Lee" was an unheralded true story, "Conclave" had good use of foreign languages in the Vatican's polyglot environment, fine roles for Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, and Italian Sergio Castellitto), but did not reach paradigm-shifting excellence.  One that went for it was "Anora", the tragicomic sex flick of a stripper and a Russian oligarch's wayward son.  It has the same crazy energy as two recent international triumphs, "Parasite" and "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" but I think it falls short in terms of social significance.   

As for the season's two big blockbusters, I haven't seen "Wicked", but I will do so though it's not my cup of witches' brew, and "Gladiator II" does not interest me--I love historical fiction but this is an unhistorical one. 

Song (canticum) -

 I've read a few of these top 2024 songs lists--rarely one of albums anymore, though they are still made.  These lists have a lot of stuff representing our fractured "popular" musical environment, while I only hear a couple of the genres (rock, indie). I will try to take some listening suggestions from them--YouTube is so easy, if you don't mind a few commercials.  These Best Of.. unanimously name Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" as #1. Yes, it's odious, but so are we all--I guess. 

The one I'd go with is Karen O, with Danger Mouse, on "Super Breath".  I think it's 2024, anyway.  Karen O's re-emergence as a powerful, controlled vocalist of renown in recent years was late but welcome, and D.M. gives her a suitable, classic backing instrumental line.  Yes, the breakthrough album for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was in 2022.

Book (librum) -

 Again, I've read a few of these lists, and there is one name always on the list (some respectfully refuse to rank within the top 5 or 10).  That is "James", by Percival Everett, taking the Huckleberry Finn story from the other side, that is, Jim's.  I have to try that one. Mostly I have read Yuval Noah Harari this year and some sci-fi, and I regret little of it.  The late Ursula LeGuin still entices my reading--she wrote so much, so well.  A re-reading of her "Lathe of Heaven" (1971) was revealing in what she anticipated of our future world, and it got me thinking more about dreams, an underappreciated aspect of our lives.  Anticipating a lot of free time to read in the near future, I do have a powerful list going forward.

Person  (persona)

 TIME came out with theirs before I, to my temporary embarrassment. I was going to critique their list, which had some interesting names, along with the unnecessary repeat candidates (Trump, Musk, Putin).  Of their list, I would strongly support Yulia Navalnya . It said she was previously a candidate, but did Alexei ever win? If not him, not Nemtsov before him, TIME has let history down.  My pick: Alvin Bragg - he is the Buster Douglas (of Mike Tyson fame) of Donald Trump challengers, the one who won.  It may not have been the "World's Biggest" prize of all time, but he did it and 2024 was the year. (Biden already got his in 2020, with Harris alongside).

Athlete (athleta) - 

 I saw that one of the sports mags named women's basketballer Caitlin Clark as Sportsperson of the Year, and I respect that choice for the huge impression she has made this year for the sport.  I would go with Stephen Curry, for a career of great NBA success, somehow exceeded by his amazing series of three-pointers in the desperate fourth-quarter comeback against Nikola Jokic and Serbia in the semifinal game of the 2024 Olympics.  Meaningful, and memorable.  Second choice would be for Freddie Freeman, for a similar career of success topped off by a remarkable game-winning homer for the Dodgers in Game 1 of the Series.

Food  (cibus) - 

 This is the Golden Age of Global Food.  I think a lot of the international shipment of food items will tail off due to increased price, climate change considerations, and more blights of food products.   Coffee and avocados are two products we can expect to become more scarce, much more expensive.  Forget about those lousy unripe Chilean fruits we see in the market.  My pick is a domestic product--Talenti gelato and sorbetto, which captures the essence of Italian high-end iced product and packs it tightly in nearly unopenable jars and sells it for $5-6 a pint--high-end price also, but well worth it.  The man credited with putting it on the market, Dean Phillips, ran a quixotic campaign in '24 to replace "too old" Joe Biden. He didn't get far, but he planted the idea that blossomed out of control after Biden's debate with Trump.

Lots of links I could have added--go find the lists yourselves if you want.  I gave you my choices.  Latin translations by Google translate, which isn't too swift on the Latin.  Not enough current data for the AI learning machine, I'd say.

Developments

About the UHC CEO Assassination

As US assassins go, Luigi Mangione seems more intelligent than the others; in particular, he can articulate his thoughts.*  Some ladies seem to find him attractive.  If I were the authorities in PA and NY, I wouldn't rush the extradition, but rather bring forward the gun charges for which he was arrested--those are a slam dunk. I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg (my choice for Person of the Year, over Dickhead 2.0) will eventually get some kind of conviction in Manhattan, too, but going for the maximum might be a reach too far.  Mangione should have access to good lawyers and will have some kind of painful story to tell that might work to some extent. 

What I really want to talk about, though, is United Healthcare.  Yes, I'm a customer, I think--it's just Medicare's Part D, it costs little and currently provides comparably little benefit but whatever. Mangione is way off-base if he was pissed that he couldn't get all the treatment he wanted; that's such a First-World problem.  There is rationing of healthcare in all systems.  On the other hand, if it was the insurers who made his pain worse because they induced him to get sub-standard care--the result of which didn't look so hot on that X-ray associated with his back--then he had some beef with them.  But a gangsta approach does no one any good.  And, frankly, he was more Bernie Goetz+ than Unabomber material, but he might do well on the witness stand.

There's a real, enduring problem with our healthcare system, and it's called the profit motive of the middlemen involved.  UHC is probably the worst offender, though statistics can be biased easily depending on what is measured.  They are sucking the value out of the whole process with their relentless pursuit of more money.  They need to be more like--gasp!--utilities, with profit levels basically guaranteed but limited, strict measurement of reliability of customer treatment, and some mandatory regulatory oversight.  In fact, they should be utilities, full stop. We don't have to go all the way to eliminate them as profit-making enterprises, which was the real mistake of the Medicare for All movement.  The pharma/insurance lobby got its back up.  Not to mention all the jobs.

Trump's Cabinet and Other Nonentities

I don't get too worked up about the fate of the crappy nominees Trump has chosen, even for his Cabinet Secretary positions.  For the most part, anyway:  I do think RFKJr is the one who must be stopped, and I think his non-conforming policy positions on some subjects (not vaccines, but more like on corn oil, abortion pills, etc.) could end up sinking his chances with enough Republicans to deny him.

The ones like Gabbard or Hegseth, if they get the votes, it won't change things all that much.  There are overly well-developed organizations beneath them that will go around them, if they are too flaky. And can you imagine a Cabinet meeting of the clowns?  On the one hand, it would be a joke--a bad one--and wouldn't be a good use of time.  On the other, though, it would flatter POTUS--it better--so he might want to have more of them this time around. The betting notion would be the over/under on the number of Trump Cabinet meetings Rubio attends.  Preliminary line: 3.    

I don't mean to minimize the damage Trump will do, but he's got four years--two, really. This joke will get old, while still young.  And by "joke" I mean "scam". 

Playoffs:  College and NBA

I give some credit to the NCAA planners who have come up with a viable expansion of their college playoffs, which they roll out this year.  They are going from 4 teams (the critical cut happening at the #4/5 ranked team) to 12 teams (as it happens, that will be a cut from #10/11).  There is still not a great deal of satisfaction, particularly from the SEC, though their teams muddied up the waters by beating each other up somewhat randomly in the big games. Alabama is the team that gets gored this year, #11.  Seems strange, but Alabama did lose three games in its regular season.   

The correct answer is 14, as in 14 teams in the playoffs.  Two conference champions deserve byes, the SEC and the "Big Ten"+.  (The other two teams getting the byes were bad jokes I won't recite.) Those are the only two conferences that matter, and all the best football programs are migrating to them if they can. (Except Notre Dame, of course--they are special.)   Anyway, with 14 teams in the mix, the two losers from the conference championships get home field vs. #13 and #14, then the other eight teams play in neutral bowl locations and are seeded #5-#12.   That is where they will likely go before too long.  They are learning the lessons from the NCAA's other marquee event, the basketball championships (now both men's and women's), which have maximized participation to great effect. 

The NBA has hedged completely that critical cut by making two of them, one more absolute and the other more real.  Every competitive team's goal has to be to get into at least the top 6 of their conference, though 10 teams make the postseason in some form.  Teams 7-10 still have a shot in brief playoffs, though they will be disadvantaged.  It's a good design.  

They also seem to have done well, so far anyway, with their new early-season event the NBA Cup, now progressing through its second season.  It's created enthusiasm and the players have mostly bought in.  The result has been a lot of close, meaningful games with near-playoff atmosphere.  It's only the second season, though; the relationship between NBA Cup success and success in the real thing, the playoffs, has yet to be demonstrated convincingly.  The Lakers did win the Cup and reach the conference finals, though, last year; the latter was a surprise.  The Oklahoma City Thunder are the top team left in the final four, judging by regular season record; they will also likely be favorites in the playoffs, along with the Celtics, who did not make the final four, in the East. .

 

*So to speak. I thank Ken Klippenstein for printing the manifesto in its entirety in his Substack, which the big boys chose not to do, though they selected quotes to support their hot takes. 

+ I will seek to refer to all college conference names other than the SEC in shock quotes, to draw attention to their transparent greed-seeking behavior. And because their names are such lies. Repeatedly. 

Some Gratitude

To start off, I am grateful that our family has been able to stick together.   No one in the immediate family is estranged.  Our sister's successful gall bladder operation this week, our children have been able to find work that suits them, our niece continues to build her sustainable fashion design work, even our cousin who's been forced abroad because her husband is wanted for questioning will probably be able to return with a new government and Department of Justice (bad as that will be in general).  I'm particularly grateful that our son returned safely from his overseas military deployment. That's about as much as I will ever say about those closest to me in this blog. 

Saturday I finally got over my mood and need for intensive "self-care" after the election debacle.  I woke up that day to find that my blessed Cincinnati Reds made a good trade:  acquiring a promising young starting pitcher (Brady Singer)--one can never have enough starting pitching--trading a good infielder, Jonathan India, who didn't have a position in the coming season and wanted out.  I think the Reds are ready to compete in 2025.  Next, that morning I watched an interview on MLB-TV between Greg Amsinger (encyclopedic memory of baseball, on demand) and Johnny Bench, the greatest catcher of all-time (core Red in the heroes' Pantheon), who rarely does that kind of thing.  Chelsea defeated Leicester, a signal result for the Blues' new coach, Enzo Maresca, who led Leicester to qualify for promotion to the Premier League last year.    

Currently visiting Newport, Rhode Island for the first time.  It's offseason here, a little cold and windy, but still has a lot of charm, as do the folks who live here.  The International Tennis Hall of Fame is a beauty (though the museum there is closed for renovation).  I'd suggest visiting here in April; still offseason prices but should be nice. 

I am grateful for my town, Taos, which maintains its defiant independence (better than 3-1 for Harris--a quick search indicates it has the second-best margin of any rural county in the lower 48); it should be one of the last places to feel the pain of the new hateful regime coming in.  At the same time, though, I am grateful that my wife and I have the liberty and the means to look abroad for some respite from the political circus.  2024 has shown us that our Constitution can't protect us, that the rule of law has been overrruled, so our freedoms depend on the people, and they aren't so dependable, electorally.   We plan to spend a lot of time away, at least for the next two years until Trump Clown Car 2.0 crashes to earth.  The best thing that can happen to Earth. 

We are past the precipice, pushed out the window, but as they say while falling, "So far, no problem!"

 

Have a good Thanksgiving!

Two Somewhat Weird Ideas about the 2024 Election

 I have heard much talk about this Trump-X voter, X being a Democrat, and how that seems strange.  I agree, though that there are some such people, I don't doubt.  But here are two hypotheses about them: 

1) There are quite a few (a million or so?) who just left the President line blank!  I've not heard anyone say this.  It is not logical to conclude that the difference in the partisan margin of two races is made up entirely of people dividing up their vote by party, but it could simply be the effect of voters not selecting in every race.  

There should be data to confirm or refute this hypothesis, but I haven't seen it.  It's the sum of the difference, precinct by precinct, of the total number of valid votes submitted and the sum of all entries on the President line (including all party lines, but also all write-ins).  

On the one hand, I could see voters who are dissatisfied with all their listed choices voting for no one.  On the other, if it were a desire to have divided or limited government, as I have often heard suggested,  a voter's choice would have made more sense the other way:  a Republican Congress to control a Democratic President.

The bottom line is that there is a gap of several million votes for Biden-Harris that did not accrue to Harris-Walz.  They did not (all) go to Trump-Vance, and the 3rd-party vote appears quite similar to that of 2020.  The gap does not appear to be in the number of voters, either.  Maybe they didn't stay home, after all. Understanding where those blank-liners are, and what their particular concerns are, would seem to be extremely valuable--perhaps they are persuadable.

  (I have to think a bit more about the fact that turnout was higher in the swing states, and how that affects this hypothesis, though surely it shows that swing voters were responding to the constant stimuli, It goes back to the difference between the national vote and that of the individual swing states.)

2) Those Trump-X voters may have been in large part those upredictable RFKJr fans. Who can know what they are, collectively, thinking or doing beyond that weird predilection?  Democrats looking for someone to demonize could do worse than targeting the Kennedy pariah:  apart from getting zero Democratic Senator votes, there is plenty of oppo to feed Republican Senators about his abortion and climate change views.  It's one time when it makes sense, even if the substitute would only be worse (having made the current DH-elect person angry),  Behavior like his should be punished.   You know, "it's going to hurt me more than it will you,"  the old lie.

Social Media OK?

We have just moved to open up a bit to other channels: 

Bluesky:

j1stoner.bsky.social

 and Substack chat

 https://open.substack.com/pub/stonerj/p/join-my-new-subscriber-chat?r=33u6d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=tr

Yes, I am a "slow adopter".   You never saw me referencing X, or Twitter, or Facebook, as far as I can remember.  They don't matter in The Bigger Picture, which will be the next post.

My Nation, Alas!

The very worst thing about this, Americans of all kinds, we let Trump win! I hate when we can't stop assholes from profiting by their bad behavior. 

 The Betrayal of Hope -   This was supposed to be the Beginning of the End of Trumpism.  It still is, in a way, but the end is not as I visualized, the public's awakening to the corruption at the heart of it and their rejection of him.  I would say this is the end of the Obama-Biden-Harris Era, which overlaps with the newly-recognized Era of Dickhead.  Republican obstructionism throughout limited the gains a true Democratic majority coalition could get for the American people and for the future of humanity.  That coalition is breaking down now.

The next couple of years will see how much of those limited improvements will be wiped out by the return of the monstrous extremists to full Federal power. Then, after that, the inevitable Republican-driven economic collapse (I see it as renewed inflation combined with job scarcity driven by export dropoffs). The nation will then (2026?  more likely 2028) be ripe for the Great Restoration, and Trump's own rapid fade from center-stage as among the lamest of ducks. 

My speculative theory was that Putin and Trump, in their numerous private, unrecorded calls, made a high-stakes wager:  the proposition was that Trump could basically campaign with nothing but tariffs, xenophobia, and invective, and win the election.  If he wins, the two of them split up the resulting future grift in some specified way (Putin gets X% of the future Trump Moscow?); if he'd lost Putin gives him a safe exile spot (Baku).  Putin wins, either way, as confidence in American democratic elections will be undermined.  So, congratulations to them on their winning bet.

Justice Unserved - To put it in baseball terms, our systems for Presidential accountability batted one-for-six, .167, against Trump. 

 The first impeachment was, in effect, a "waste pitch", it never had a chance, Democrats were just showing they were willing to impeach.  (We have since seen that the House can, in effect, impeach a ham sandwich, as the Republican House just did with HHS Secretary Mayorkas.) . The second impeachment, though, was the real chance to kill off the threat of Trump, and most Republican Senators failed to show, many of them with miserable excuses.  Foul ball. Any claims of acquittal on that one ring hollow, though technically correct. McConnell said it should be left to the prosecutors.  So they did.  (The part about Trump's being out of office for the Senate trial portion was completely bogus, and recognized as such.)

We got a second strike with the NY state trial and conviction, though it did not produce an out.  Two good things about that one:  1) As it is in NY state, which is unlikely to have a Republican governor willing to eliminate the conviction anytime soon, history will record the felony (sentenced to probation, never completed).  Historians do notice things like that.  2)  It will record his legal indiscretion as tax fraud. It is entirely appropriate that he, personally, be convicted of fraud (not just his charities, or his organization, or his luckless subservient victims).  It is certainly one prominent aspect of his criminal persona, fraud. 

The big one, though, was his contempt for the constitution and for the rule of law overriding his power. The overt evidence of it was the indictment for the same incitement to insurrection (Jan. 6) that the second impeachment's Senate punted (to mix sports metaphors), though there was a lot of evidence of covert acts for the same purpose uncovered through investigations.  Not all of it could be used, ruled the Trumpist Supreme Court, in effect, but some of it could be.  There was a real chance for a conviction, if it were to happen. 

Now, it won't.  I'd still like to see Jack Smith, who has a very smart legal mind, come up with a way that his case be frozen in ice for four years, to be defrosted later.  To put it somewhere Trump can't have it dismissed without recourse, and without the statute of limitations expiring.  If that were so, and Trump alive, he'd still be guilty, the public would undoubtedly hate him and all his former allies would already have deserted him.  The record should show, regardless of whether he serves a day in prison, that he did indeed conspire to obstruct a Federal proceeding and defraud the American public. 

As for the other two cases, they won't come to trial, either, now, if they ever would have without the election result.  Trump will get a very stern letter about his abuse of documents, and the Georgia case against him will go into a file cabinet while the rest of the case may eventually go on without him.

We Become the World's Untreated Sewer Hole - I put my thoughts about the pollution the US will be spewing upon the rest of the world above the domestic effects of this electoral result. Culturally, there will be the usual dreck we export, though some of it has lost its bite.  Technology-wise, we will see whether there will seen to be risk trusting American devices.  Trash-wise, we will go from being the "world's garbage dump" to a serious brain-drain, and I doubt anyone will take our barges of unrecycled recyclables. 

In the midst of reduced exports (and a stubbornly resistant negative trade balance, which will irk Trump incessantly), our tariffs will give Trump a chance to play wheeler-dealer with other countries, and you know what kind of edge he will seek.  One he can capitalize upon. 

This will apply in particular to his management of oil exports and the associated grift.  We will do our best in the next four years to contribute to climate warming, while sponsoring nothing new domestically to reduce our footprint upon the air, the land, and the waters. 

We Need Resistance at the State Level - By which, I mean also at the local level.  We can expect nothing new that is not negative from the Federal government over the coming years.  If we are resolute, we can minimize the impact in the places we live of the Trump Administration.  The first two years will be critical:  Trump will have one shot to get fulfillment of promises about deportations, Justice department purges, oil leases, and tax code revisions going.  He will get appropriations for some of it, right away in a budget reconciliation bill, which just needs a bare Senate majority.   He will seek a change in the healthcare regime to replace the ACA; if he has the votes to repeal it, he likely will not have the support for something to replace it. 

The damage from some of these policies can be reduced by attentive local resistance.  Deportees can be protected in some cases; oil drills and pipelines can be tied up by protests and legal challenges. In particular, states may be able to make provisions to reduce the harm coming to our healthcare.  There are Democratic governors with strong political positions (e.g. Newsom, Pritzker, Moore) who can demonstrate that kind of positive leadership  and thereby raise their own prospects for what will be a wide-open 2028 contest.

Democracy, Liberty, and Freedom: I Need a Break from This

I am highly skeptical of our claims to have democratic elections because of all the distortions in our system (Electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression efforts, the unrepresentative Senate).  This one seems to have given a clear majority to Trump (final popular vote will be about 50-48, a 3-point shift to him and the same away from Biden to Harris, on similar total vote), and that's what really bothers me.  This is what our voters freely chose; my conclusion is that we do have a democracy but we have a failing polity.  The cost of our elections has gone way up, and the quality of the result way down.   The level of civic education is shockingly low. I'm not going to explain this opinion about what to me is evident; I was witness to this campaign, and I know what I feel when I wake up in the morning:  It is a lot like how I felt waking up during the pandemic; it's very discouraging.

When it comes to liberty, we should expect that Trump would increase it; he is more a libertarian than he is a conservative.  His objective is reducing the degree to which Federal laws, organizations, and individuals touch upon us.  His actions are almost anarchic, reducing the scope and effectiveness of them, except for those tools of government he can use and abuse. The judgment is pending whether he will crack down on things like homelessness, cannabis legalization, same-sex marriage, and reproductive rights, or leave those things to the mixed state and local jurisdictions. This is a key aspect as to whether his administration will be tolerable for the average citizen. 

"Freedom" was one of the keywords of the Harris campaign, recently rejected.  She was using it largely to speak to reproductive rights for women, but there are other aspects of freedom to which we must look. (of course, she lost, and the fate of that freedom is very unclear) I am thinking of the basic ones of where one will live, work, how they will raise children, and enter into social engagements.  We will deny foreigners the freedom to be in our land, and we may well find that penalties will fall on companies and people who dare to leave. 

As for  me, though, I am looking to escape his maladministration and suppression of my liberties.  Appeals to "patriotism" in the fight against Trump are leaving me unmoved; I am more interested in how the rest of the world deals with Trump than I am with our domestic struggles.  I recognize that Trump's malign impact will be felt worldwide; I am not going to be a cheerleader for the USA in these days. 

Predictions

My own predictions for this election were bad, but no worse than most others'. Essentially, I had the scenario wrong:  after Harris came on, I concluded we were probably back to the "Status Quo" scenario of a deadlock, but we were actually still in the "Biden weakened" one (change the name in the subject).  Harris was fatally limited by the Biden administration's weak incumbency.  Harris was further handicapped by misogyny, racism and status anxiety, faults very evident in American society. I will add a dark implication that Hispanics don't seem all that willing to back a black woman.

 I had the ranking of the swing states somewhat right (except for Arizona), but I based them on an estimate of the national vote which was wrong by 3% in each direction.  As I suggested, a three-point drop for either candidate would be catastrophic, and it was electorally disastrous.  

My stake in PredictIt, which had survived the 2016 loss and many other twists and turns, went almost entirely down the drain this time.  The election prediction markets are not very predictive, but they react very quickly.  In the past, I could hedge those kinds of Democratic losses with other markets where I offset the losses confidently.  This year, there were very few markets--PredictIt seems to be on its last legs, with Kalshi now the governmentally-approved site  (I passed on Kalshi when it requested I enlist with a payment service called Plaid which promised to sell my data) , so I risked all of it.  The only money I will have there coming out of this election will be on the win by Ruben Gallego in Arizona and, most likely, some marginal payoff if Biden does not resign his job before Jan. 20 (something I just heard Jamal Simmons suggest). 

My predictions for the Trump Administration:  the tax cuts will happen, through the budget reconciliation process, and that will also fund the increase in ICE and other HHS organizations for the deportations, which will increase but not to the extent Trump pretended in his campaigns.  The logistics are too difficult to deport tens of millions, not to speak of the bad public relations involved.  There will be a harsh immigration bill passed, and there will be a long debate about an abortion bill, which will not pass.  The economy will look great for a year or two and then crash.  Democrats will win what is possible in 2026's midterm elections and will be ready to take on the post-Trump Republicans in 2028. 

The biggest uncertainty about Trump's coming administration is whether he will find the need to declare a national emergency to get his more extreme policies implemented.  He did that for the Muslim ban and to steal appropriations to build some of his wall during his first term.  This time, the circumstances are more favorable for his ability to do his dirty work, so maybe declaring an emergency which would put all our safety at risk will not be necessary.

Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You f***ed up. You trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can help. -- Animal House

Follow-Up

Did I mention that Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, 65-4 in years in control of the Diet and government, lost its snap election?   That was an oversight on my part; the LDP most likely will do the Italian thing and find another party willing to go with them, the classic trap. But still, one more piece of evidence of this unstable moment. 

 I'm not going to retract any of my picks in the previous post, but I probably should explain my unorthodox pick of Harris-Walz winning Arizona, which has fairly consistently polled in Trump's favor (though by very little).  You know the theory about the "shy Trump voter" who polls always miss?  I'm not questioning its existence, but I don't see it applying in the case of Arizona:  from what I've seen, Arizona Republicans are the opposite of shy.  Instead, I would suggest the existence, and the miss in the polls of the "shy Latina voter".   Think of it this way, and praise our culture for the (still) secret ballot:  How about the Latina who answers the phone, but doesn't want to do the survey, and clearly her husband is just in the next room?*

As additional evidence, look at the trend on "delta" to national popular Presidential vote:  How did the pollsters miss this?  I rest my case. 

About Pennsylvania, though, I have to admit that the data says "tie", just as the polls do, and PA will likely be determinative.  Harris-Walz can't win without PA (or a combo of other non-Wall states), and Trump, the same, really (though his campaign is trying as a last-ditch effort to make Michigan viable as an alternative).  I'm going beyond the data to give a small edge on the tangible/intangibles, as I suggested. Wisconsin/Michigan: I'm staying optimistic about both.  Loss of either would portend disaster for Harris-Walz, as much as would Trump-Vance losing...

North Carolina/Georgia: I am usually disappointed in NC at the end (Obama in '08 the single exception in the other direction).  Like I know that a very good Democratic candidate in Texas (read:  Colin Allred) gets just about 48%, if they run a very good campaign.  Yes, Democrats will win the Governor race there, by a lot, and thus probably control the legislature despite extreme gerrymandering.  As for Georgia, besides Harris needing a massive turnout, she needed the severe Republican political malpractice that benefitted Biden, Ossoff, and Warnock in their races before. The state Republicans worked together this time and Trump didn't do enough specifically in GA to screw it up.  At least that's how I see it. 

Finally, Nevada. Jon Ralston got over his freak-out over the Republican-trending early vote there and reversed the sense of his guidance at the last moment, now predicting a "very, very close" victory for Harris.  I stand by my unique Toss-up call for that one.   It's like picking a draw in a league soccer match, which is a thing. 

 As for the World Series, the less follow-up, the better.  All the drama was in the first game, really, which was one for the ages.   I guess the last game--which I missed--was at least exciting. Instead of "follow-up", when it comes to postseason baseball, with so many 100-mph hurlers, it's about the change-up.  Or Blake Treinen's curve ball.   The question is whether this throwback matchup is the first of many, or the first of a more-normal kind of interval, a decade or two?  The likely departure of Juan Soto suggests there may not be a rematch next year, which I'm sure Yankee fans would be seeking for their buck.  It reminds me of Brooklyn Dodgers fans in the Fifties, so they say.  

Wait 'til next year!  And if Trump wins, we won't need any more years, it'll be like that forever. 

But Change.  When you have weak incumbency, something you could argue exists for both White House tickets, you get this.  

*Moral of the story:  Not all white men are the same, behaviorally.  I know some people of color might reply that when it comes down to certain situations, they are, and they might be right.  Anyway, in Arizona they are proud of their rightness and will not shy away from saying so.  More like the effect if you canvassed whites in Wyoming, or Alabama.  

Instead, the additional hidden turnout in Harris' direction might be from Native Americans  (especially those on the reservations); though they are several percent of the state's population, who overcome obstacles and vote, they probably never get polled.

After Fol-de-Rol, Predictions

Talkin' Baseball

The impetus for this post at this moment is the imminent start of baseball's World Series.  It's the Yankees and the Dodgers, what I've been fearing and dreading.  For years, and decades, really, but this year this particular rivalry for the championship has raised its head once more.  

This is the matchup that has occurred most often in World Series history, which is basically to say that the Dodgers are the team the Yankees have faced most often.  The Yankees have a large edge in their Series showdowns, but the Dodgers have had a couple of memorable wins (1963, 1955) 

The Yankees' rise goes back to acquiring Babe Ruth in 1919; the Dodgers' to breaking the color line with Jackie Robinson and adding Roy Campanella in the early Fifties, . Neither team has spent much time away from the top of the standings since then.  

In my career as a Reds fan, they are both among the teams which I hated, and envied, most often. After my initial negative impressions of them formed, it was their habit of buying the most expensive players which irritated me, as it made my small-market team's chances ever more difficult. 

With the Yankees, their 4-1 defeat of the Reds in the '61 Series imprinted resistance to their inevitability, without my even being aware of it; it was something I became aware of and resented soon after its occurrence as I first experienced the outside world. We did get our revenge against them in 1976, a 4-0 Series sweep, the Big Red Machine's finest achievement. 

The Dodgers had their history with the Yankees in the Sixties, with my reluctant support--the greatness of Koufax and Drysdale was undeniable, and they proved it against the perennials, the Bronx Bombers, in that '63 Series. But their re-emergence in the late Seventies as rivals to the Reds was what turned me against them for all time.  Particularly as long as they had Tommy Lasorda as manager. 

It surprised me to discover that this, the most frequent World Series rivalry, has not come up since 1981, (Don't get me started on that year's improvised playoffs, something which burns me still....), not even by accident.  More like it's been an accident it didn't occur sooner.  It's been a welcome respite.  My aversion has even faded a bit in its intensity, though I still root against both teams in all games, on principle. .

Beyond doubt, this is the ideal World Series matchup.  The #1 team in each league, the two top TV markets, Ohtani vs. Judge, as well as Mookie Betts vs. Juan Soto, Freddie Freeman vs. Giancarlo Stanton.  Six probable future Hall of Fame hitters. The network "got lucky" when the Mets won game 5, ensuring that the Series would start on Friday, instead of Tuesday (if both teams in the Series won in 5 games or less).  

Starting pitching is, somewhat surprisingly, a weak spot for both, though the Yankees do boast a top one in Gerrit Cole and a hot one in Clarke Schmidt.  If Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman (followed by Teoscar Hernandez and Max Muncy) are clicking, though, it will not matter who the Yankees send out there.  On the other side, though, the depleted Dodger rotation will give way quickly to their deep and strong bullpen, as they show the Yankee slugging stars frequent changes of pitchers ("different looks"). I expect a couple of slugfests, a couple of pitching duels (maybe not the ones expected), and a couple of blowouts.    

Election Commentary

I have no need to wait for more data to form opinion of my expectations; more poll data will serve for nothing.  The Biden Weakened scenario gave way to Biden Out, but that morphed almost immediately, due to the expert salvage operation by Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, to get back to Status Quo by the convention.  There was an Inflection Point, indeed, as Harris' improvement trend flattened out.  And there it has stayed, despite everything (Harris destroying Trump in the debate, Trump's meandering but threatening nonsense, and more).  The 48-46 national polling advantage I cited for Harris at the beginning of the month has not really moved, despite a number of polls all over the place. 

The largest uncertainty at this point is about the mysterious uncounted Trump voter from the 2016 and 2020 polls, compared to results in elections, if he is still out there, uncounted.  Or, perhaps overly accounted for. Nate Silver had a piece in his paid Substack, and then one in the Times, showing the frequency table of  different combinations of winner, by state, resulting from his simulations, using correlations and certain other elements of his own secret sauce (but only showing the 20 or so most frequent of the 128 permutations).  His conclusion was like one that James Carville has mentioned, that the most likely outcomes are ones where one candidate or the other wins all, or almost all, of the swing states.  What he has discovered is that the error term, that 1%, plus or minus, on the Trump voter error estimate (which comes in the adjustment from registered voter to likely voter, usually done by respondents' past history of voting, when available) makes all the difference in the outcomes, along with the correlations between swing states, seemingly very high. I take this to mean that he has no clue on the big picture, but his detailed analysis proved useful to me: 

That projection sequence, from poll preference to popular vote to state outcomes, remains very central to any possible prediction based on data.  If we look at the intangibles, and the tangible adjustments we need to make in order to come up with a final estimate, we find those to be largely in the favor of the Harris-Walz campaign.  Things like ground game, money, increasingly caustic media criticism of Trump's performance, along with grudging acceptance that, yes, Harris can answer questions--all day long, if she has to--though she is not going to deviate from her victory plan of retaining all Biden's supporters and adding what she can of disaffected Republicans.  

Both campaigns are running what I would call limited tactical upside strategies. Harris is not going to articulate anything dramatic that could change the dynamics--it's too late anyway, now.  Trump is not going to appeal to moderates and independents not already leaning his way--he can't.

The question of turnout is central now; the drive to get that 1% that could make the difference in these close state races.  It also bears on the close Senate races, many of which in the same swing states closely  contested for the Presidency, and indirectly bears on the critical outcome of the contest for control of the House. In this regard, the effort by the Harris campaign to do a big event in Houston is relevant:  while the GOTV effort may not be fully realized in NY and CA (apart from the districts with the close races), the underdog effort to try and break through statewide in TX (and in FL, wait and see) will pad the popular vote margin in a similar way to 2020.  

Predictions

I start with an estimate for the national popular vote:  Harris-Walz 82 million vs. Trump-Vance 77 million. This out of 165 million total votes.* The percentages corresponding are Harris 49.7%, Trump 46.7%.  So, a bit more improvement for the Democrats than Republicans from the present poll averages as we scale up to the full 100% of voters (with 3.6% others).  By applying the adjustments to the national average by state that I reviewed in my post "Inflection Point", this then plays out to the following outcomes by state (mean estimates of Democrats' margin, with 80% MOE), with state-level adjustments and brief comments; 

 North Carolina  (-2)  +/- 2%:  1 pt to Democrats for the reverse coattails because of a miserable R Governor candidate;

Georgia (-0.5) +/- 2%:   1 pt to Republicans for Democrats' turnout being not quite as amazing this time;

Nevada (0) +/- 3%:  The largest uncertainty, but the least important for the EC;

Arizona (+0.5) +/- 2%:  I'm going against the consensus with an adjustment for the strong Senate candidate and the abortion referendum. 

Pennsylvania (+1) +/- 2% : 1 pt Adjustment for the focused turnout I expect from the Democrats. 

Wisconsin (+1.5) +/- 2% : 1 pt Adjustment for Walz-adjacent effect!

Michigan (+2) +/- 1% : Democrats should never lose Michigan, except by neglect, and that is not the case here. 

If we start with the standard 226D - 219R, the count without the swing states and with the 1 CD vote from NE and ME switching from their statewide winners, these point estimates result as 281 Harris, 251 Trump, with the 6 EV in Nevada TBD.  So that makes the final margin (prior to some potential actual fol-de-rol in the event) either 36 or 24 electoral votes. Slightly reduced from the 2020 Biden margin, more like that of Jimmy Carter in 1976 vs. Gerald Ford, which I think is appropriate in multiple ways. 

Senate

We have to accept as starting point that the Democrats will lose the seat in WV and that Tester's chances in MT against a 15-20 point gap in the Presidential race are slim.  That takes us to 51R, 49D, prior to any other seats changing hands.  The most likely ones after that are WI (Tammy Baldwin) and OH (Sherrod Brown), though I would give each better than 50% chance of surviving.  A little lower than that are others like the slim Democratic pickup chances (FL, NE, but especially Allred defeating Cruz in TX) and those for which the Republicans had hopes (NV--Rosen, MI--open seat, PA--Casey). My mean estimate would be a little worse than 49-51, but as we are limited to integers I will stick with that. Hopes will then turn to Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (Independent, now caucusing with the Republicans), especially if Harris wins.

House

I give credit to those pundits who do the research at the district level and report back, though I do not necessarily agree with their broad approach in their ratings.  Beyond the 13 or so "Toss-up" seats, all of which are truly likely to flip, there are the "Tilt' seats, which are shown siding with the incumbent in almost all cases.  This is the pundits' conservatism in calling for defeat of an incumbent or a change of party control.  When we consider those just a little tilted to one side as also highly vulnerable, there are 32 seats at high risk, 18 Republican and 14 Democrat, with the Republicans leading 204-199 in seats rated Safe, Likely, or "Lean" (going by Nathan Gonzales here, though his is very similar to those such as Cook Political Report.  Lean means the pundit has a clear idea who is ahead, though they are a little insecure about it.)

 That means the Democrats would need to win 19 of these 32 jump balls, or 60% of them, to take control of the House.  The means to take them presents itself in just a few states, and the Democrats are focused on them, almost as much as they are on the Presidential swing states (some--in AZ, for example, and PA--are the same, some are in less-urban areas of NY and CA, and a couple are in Iowa).

I believe the Democrats will succeed in gaining control of the House, picking up 5-8 seats.  A gain of 8 would bring the Democrats back to 222-213, the inverse of the Republicans' in 2022, and the same as the Democrats won in 2020.  The reversal of control of both the House and the Senate in the same election, in different directions, such as I am predicting, would be a first in US history.  Perhaps that is why the pundits are so reluctant to go there. 

Baseball

I think this will be regarded as one of the great World Series of days (post-DH).  One reason it might not be is because it may be just the first of a series of such Series, which may surpass this one (as with Dodgers-Yankees in the Fifties). Another is if one team dominates, but I don't expect that to happen.  Instead I expect it to be seven games, or if not that, six.  I reluctantly predict Yankees (or the Crank-biters, as we colloquially call them) to win in 7.  

As for the NBA, which began its regular season this week, the big question is whether the Boston Celtics can repeat.  There is a lot of parity in both conferences, if we exclude the fact that the Celtics seem a notch better, a bit more complete, as long as their quadrilateral (in order of importance, Tatum, Brown, Holiday, and Porzingis) remains intact.  We'll see, around Christmas, if that is the case.

*The comparable numbers from 2020:  Biden 81-74 million over Trump with total votes of 160 million, a margin of 51-47%.

More Quick Hits

Strategy for Playoffs (Planning Them) 

If you read between the lines in my previous WC comments, I believe that, if they are going to keep this extra playoff round, they should make it more valid.

 Expand the Wild Card round to best-of-five, the Division Series to a full 4-of-7. That would fix it, in the way the NBA Playoffs ensure these contests have their completion (though I personally would advocate "calling it" in any best-of-7 when it's 3-0).

That would mean a long break for those two bye teams in each league, both for good and for ill. The next evolution would be toward a system in which the only bye team for the first round is the one with the best regular-season record in the league--the NFL once again setting the pace. 

Where do the days come from to do all this? By reverting to the traditional 154-game regular season (from the current 162).  Adding those four potential additional games to the length of the whole season (including playoffs) would need this adjustment, though the one I propose would also bring the chance for more off-days and make-up days.  Few would object to this change, except team owners.  So they would need some adjustment, perhaps in their precious cap limits. 

"College football" is in chaos, it seems to me, with professional college, inc. teams serving as money-making incubators for the NFL owners to cherry-pick. The 'conferences", and their championships? Don't make me laugh. There are two that matter (the SEC and the Big 10) for the new, over-expanded playoff system. Those championship games will be life-and-death battles, for seeding? It makes no sense except in the greed, cow-milking one. And I was one of the ones recommending the radical idea of an expanded round! (I meant, to six). 

4X4 for Kamala 

Post-Election Proposals for Popular (mostly non-Partisan) Reform 

1) Remove the income cap for Social Security tax--this will fix one problem, at least. The previous argument for the famous shut-off in midyear for the privileged, that Social Security is but an insurance policy, now paid for the year, is no longer sustainable, as the tide has gone out and we see our wet suits for what they are. It is pay-as-you-go, always has been, really, and this gap for income earners between $140K (or whatever the current calculation for when the tax stops, for the rest of the year), and $400k, which was the Biden going-nowhere proposal, with tax recurring above that, will have to go. Among other reasons, for equity. It can get bipartisan support, and the complete change will save the security-part of SSA. (Above 400k, it can increase, or whatever the system can allow...) She could even advocate this now, if she wanted to show some intelligent diversion from a straight Biden line, but it has risks. 

 2) Direct election of the Speaker of the House

 Yes, but--ARTICLE 1,-Section 2. The House shall chuse their Speaker.. 

So, it would be non-binding, in a different way from chusing our President. Get it? I'm sure the House would, and meaningful challenges to the will of the electorate would be rare. Any of that would importantly take the struggle away from the existential question of the ownership of the White House. The elected Speaker would be able to deal with the Senate and thus with the President as head of Congress, and pull back the legislative authority from the presidency. The over-empowered executive could then focus on its true, huge responsibility for global security, maybe? Yes, and administration, a la- Jimmy Carter (bless him!--his 1976 victory is the key to understanding this election). 

I'd suggest ranked-choice voting, runoff of top 3, low barrier to entry but short campaign (in years with Congressional elections, so every two years). 

Could Donald Trump win this, after he loses to Kamala? I'm willing to see it. 

 3) Do Away with States' Winner-Take-All (Conditionally) - This would be a compact of Congress that would support best practices and induce states voluntarily to switch away from giving all their Electoral Votes for President to the candidate getting the plurality in their state.  This would create more interest in turning out in the large states with partisan majorities, in spite of which there are always contrary pockets, usually in multiple Congressional districts. .

The other half of this would be independent certification that states are not excessively gerrymandering their districting.  Fair congressional districts are within our power to develop; AI could actually be useful here in developing a set of districts maximizing various objectives, in order to present decision-makers with a final choice. This reform would be targeted for the 2032 Presidential election.

4) Start a Federally-Supported Institute for Home Health Training - This is a favorite unopened envelope from the 2020 campaign. It is clear that the best health service for many, the one woman worth paying for, is at home, with varying levels of attention there, from periodic to full-time, depending on the needs and resources of the client.  It is very hard to find and keep active capable home healthcare workers.  A nationally-recognized certification program would allow these workers to move about, as many would like to do, and get work where they go.  So many will be needed.

The Institute should be located in South Florida (this is the partisan part).  That's closest to where the greatest portion of eventual work will be, and it is a good area to recruit future home healthcare workers. 

These are proposals for a Harris administration that could actually be accomplished in a hostile, or hopelessly split (at best) partisan Congress.  Doing any of these would radically change the dialogue and push toward 21st-century-suitable processes to manage one of the most important aspects of our society. If, on the other hand Harris loses, I got nothing for you, US. 

 These would not require constitutional amendments, which are not possible at this time.  Some may need to wait until after the expected post-Trumpian collapse of the Republican party as a viable competitor for national office (as opposed to the Senate, where they will linger on).

Quick Hits

 WC Round

(Baseball) 

By this I do mean messy, needing maintenance, perhaps an entry key.  But it is a facility that can be used. 

2 out of 3 for the lower-seeded team in these major-league basball playoffs is essentially just winning a series on the road against a good team.  They have all done it, and it doesn't create unusual pressure--except to win the first game.  

The Tigers showed it best with their quick sweep of the team I picked as part of my (un-bet) quinella for the World Series, the Houston Astros.  The 'stros run of 7 straight appearances in the ALCS (the League final series) ended quickly to a team that just didn't care. 

Contrast that a bit with the struggles of the Orioles to do anything in the post-season, despite dominant performance in the regular season. They definitely seem a bit overwhelmed, once again, in a pressure situation before the home crowd, a reward they earned with a strong second-place finish. (Game in progress at this moment). 

The other team I had in the proposed bet (at something like 15-1, with a huge margin for the house vs. the implied odds) was the San Diego Padres, a team not quite as hot as the Tigers (or the Astros were, for that matter) but one that finally may have its act together, healthwise.  They were the only team of the four home teams across the two leagues to win their critical first game. 

If the Royals complete their two-game sweep of the Orioles, it will be #5 vs. #2 (Cleveland) and #6 (Tigers) vs. #1 Yankees in the ALDS (Division Series, or league semifinal series).  These will at least be 3 out of 5, with home-field advantage only really in a decisive Game 5--not too many go that far, usually.  One would think with those one-sided seeding matchups the winners of that next round would be predictable.  I doubt it--I still think there will be a team that doesn't get a bye (i.e., not #1 or #2 in their league) that will make the World Series--but my hypothetical bet is already in the WC toilet (to repeat myself0.

V.P. Debate

Vance put a bandage on his ticket's bleeding. Walz got ifinn a potential knockout blow at the end, keeping J.D. from a 15-round win on points, dodging the whole time. It happens. .
Best line of the night for Walz: "Fact-check Donald Trump".

Michael Steele called Vance "Blue", which was a cute sort of insult, but I have to say he should be addressed as "Yo Disk!"

Regarding the "mexican gun cartels" comment, that was actually an opening Walz missed. The gun trafficking is primarily in the opposite direction, to Mexico, because the US has more access to them. Vance slipped it in unchallenged.

--My comment on Political Wire, 11 pm.  

EBK-PRB

In 1963, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player.  Radio was the primary way I was experiencing the game, and Rose was the hit of the broadcasts--taking an extra base, finding the hole for a base hit, filling the hole on defense (at second base)--he seemed to be everywhere for the team, which was experiencing a high point (not quite World Series level, though).  

In the 70's, he was an integral component of the historically successful Big Red Machine, now at third base due to the essential addition of Joe Morgan.  During this time, it became apparent to me that his quirks (flat-top haircut, running to first after a walk) were part of a sociopathic nature, shown also by his affinity for the likes of Nixon, Marge Schott, etc. 

He became a justifiable target for targets and jokes in his latter career, when he could no longer command a league-leading level of batting average, and his Sixties ambition of being "the first $100,000 singles hitter" had transformed into the quest to win one of the league records then viewed as untouchable:  Ty Cobb's 4,191 safe hits.  Ty Cobb, the similarly behaviorally-challenged star hitter of the early 20th-century (not the former Trump lawyer--no relation, I hear?).  Rose hung on in active duty several years as a replacement-level player to get there, but at least he could choose his hitting matchups for himself as player-manager some of the time during the end. 

That was the period when he screwed the pooch, his gambling habit becoming an addiction that sent him way over the line into prohibited behavior--betting on any baseball game.  He was rightly banned from active participation in the game after that--for life.  For Rose, who had little real value in his life beyond baseball and betting, it hurt a lot. 

Worse for him in the longer run was being eliminated from participation in the voting of the writers for the Baseball Hall of Fame.  This somewhat exclusive club--those inducted, the writers (a floating bunch, over time) who vote on its members, and those ad hoc groups which pick others who never get voted in (the Negro Leagues representatives being the most prestigious of those sets of selected members).*--chose to abide by the decision that Rose's behavior was disqualifying. 

Rose has passed away now. I recognize that my own view is biased:  I have long advocated for his induction, and even for more serious consideration of some other Hall-worthy players "cancelled" from membership (due to steroid use, admitted or alleged) despite clearly having met the performance levels.  I would now say it is time for him to be admitted in, posthumously.  Despite his unique (an once again, seemingly unchallengeable) record, he's not one of the all-time greatest, but he would qualify as the 25th-man, the utility guy, on the all-time team.  The "lifetime" ban has expired!

More Online Odds Discussion

Comparison of my odds on outcomes political vs. PredictIt:  Harris 65-35 vs. PI's 55-58 to 45-48 (!); Democrats winning the House 55%, PI (no entry); Democrats holding the Senate 18%, PI (no entry).  Perhaps the subject of a later posting will be that it is not now so clear to me there will be an (overall) strong turnout result, though it will be strong in many areas.  NY/CA drive is probably more specific than statewide.

*Of course, they are not officially of the same level, but the Executive Board and the writers are really the ones with control.

On the Killing of the Six Hostages

I have been thinking about this horror which I heard about only last night, and I am going to write what I think is going on, in blunt terms. 

The report is that the Israeli forces found the hostages already dead, and they estimated that they had been killed three or four days before.  Although the chances Israeli assaults might accidentally kill hostages are high, I find this report credible, if unproven.  

Let's go with that report and what it means.  Israel has had to send out warnings to evacuate from areas they are considering for attack in the very short term.  Not doing so would multiply civilian deaths beyond their already outrageous levels.  My supposition is that Hamas has developed a new strategy:  kill the hostages held in those areas with known risk of assault, before the IDF can get there. 

It has a cold-hearted logic, and the implications for Israeli offensive actions against Hamas are clear:  attack, and they die.  The chances for Israeli surprise rescue assaults, I would suspect, are now very few.  They are left with no good reason to continue with their generally unsuccessful posture of attacking as the best way to get the hostages free, in the context of Hamas intransigence.  I am sure they don't have any good leads about how to take out the top Hamas leaders, regardless of the cost, or they would have done so.

It is time for Israel to declare a unilateral cease-fire, for a period of a couple of weeks or so, with the expectation Hamas would move during that time to make the cease-fire continue by releasing their hostages or making commitments to do so immediately.  If they do that, Israel would not renew hostilities so long as Hamas does not do so. 

I see no risk whatsoever for Israel to do that, beyond the damage Hamas will likely cause when they break the cease-fire with Israel still mobilized for active defense.  It won't even require Netanyahu to resign, if he can pull it off.  If Hamas refuses to release their hostages (something they have offered to do, but under relaxed security conditions Israel would not accept at the time) they would just go back to killing each other--nothing has been lost.  Israel would have to be somewhat stoic with their unilateral cease-fire until Hamas/Islamic Jihad violations inevitably cool down and avoid retaliation, or make that retaliation extremely limited and targeted.  They have the ability to do that.

If Hamas does not agree, it is time for the women of Gaza to slit the throats of their oppressors while they sleep. 

Inflection Point

 President Biden (praise be!) would typically cite the phrase in speeches in discussion of the US' place in history and of the status of elections in our constitutional republic.  I think that, typically, the phrase was not really getting across to the public in that fashion, and especially to those swing voters he was trying to attract.  

An inflection point can be described as a change in the direction of a graphical curve. In a broader sense, it means a turning point. Biden believes that 2024's election is such a turning point.  I suggested something similar in my rant about the "precipice" at the beginning of the year.  This election can clearly be seen as the climax of something, this battle of our political norms vs. Trumpism. On behalf of all, even the Trumpists, there is a belief that this election will be decisive.  

I can clearly see an inflection point, and it is not on Election Day (at least not yet, it could still happen) but it already happened, on July 21, when Biden chose to announce he would end his campaign for re-election and suggest Vice-President Harris for the party's nomination. Before that, Biden's standing v. Trump was trending downward, slowly, but seemingly without any positive inflection in sight (first derivative negative, second derivative=0).  Since then, a month with a favorable sequence of events, all evidence shows steady improvement in the public's view of the Democrats' ticket.

Where does Kamala's trend go from here?   My estimate of the gain since 7/21 is 3-5%, from down 1-2% (Biden or Harris vs. Trump) to up 2-3%.  One change that contributed to the gain since 7/21 was the collapse of RFKJR's candidacy, which, along with Harris replacing Biden, has made this much more a head-to-head, two-person race. Roughly speaking, the popular vote now looks to be about 48-46 Harris-Walz over Trump, with some 3% insisting on another individual and 3% undecided.

Those 3% are probably more like "don't know", meaning that they don't know anything about it that they will admit to knowing.  Those particular folks may not end up voting, unless something really grabs their attention (like a war threat).  Regardless, some combination of changes will bring the numbers up to 100% total (with the 3% 'other').  There isn't more than that amount (3%) of downside to the current percentages I suggested, for either candidate, if that much.  Trump's popular vote floor I would say is 43%, and Harris' 45%, which is where Biden was when he stopped.  I will say, though, that a 3% downward move for either from the current level would absolutely lead to a landslide.  So, the time is one of vulnerability, avoiding harm, even as Harris may gain even a bit more during her campaign's post-convention afterglow. Another debate looms; another inflection point is likely before November, though that could be an acceleration (less likely), a reversal--let's hope not, a plateauing (most likely). Or maybe not, just a steady increase, all the way. Sounds good.

 

Graph of the Predictit market for Democrats winning Presidential election by 35-64 Electoral Votes, from May 26 to August 25, 2024.

Is National Popular Vote Irrelevant?

Clearly I don't think so, as that's what I've been discussing--using its estimator, the polling averages.

I often see it suggested as being meaningless by Republicans who are on the defensive because they would lose by that measure every time these days.  (2004 the only recent exception)  I would argue that, instead, it is a measure for which there is ample data and one that, broadly speaking, can be used to provide a key measure useful to predict outcome in the critical states. .     

If we look at the percentage vote for one of the parties in the Presidential elections within these states, it is not at all static.  It rises up and down with the relative fortunes of the party.  However, there is less movement relative to the overall popular vote, and even moreso if one looks at the order of these states on that measure.  

To take an example, North Carolina's popular vote percentage margin for Democratic presidential candidates, as compared to the overall US popular vote margin, resulted the following in the last four elections:  -7.0 (2008), -5.9 (2012), -5.8 (2016), and -5.9 (2020).  (Note:  2008, the worst of the four data points, was the one when the Democrats won the state!)  So, you could estimate that the US Democratic margin nationally should be above 6% to favor their chances. 

Let's look at that measure, which also shows some distinctive trends in individual states vs. the national voting, and some conclusions that may be drawn from it: 

 

State	2008	2012	2016	2020	Comment
Nevada	+5.2	+2.8	+0.3	-2.1	Negative trend; projects to -4
Michigan	+9.1	+5.6	-2.3	-1.7	Projects to -2
Pennsylvania	+3.0	+1.5	-3.1	-3.3	Projects to -3
Wisconsin	+6.6	+3.0	-2.9	-3.9	Projects to -3 or -4
Arizona	-15.8	-12.9	-5.6	-4.2	Improved rapidly; projects to -3
Georgia	-12.5	-11.7	-7.2	-4.3	Changing rapidly toward D; projects -3 to -1
Florida	-4.5	-3.0	-3.3	-7.7	Not out of reach if Dems +4; 2020 looks like an outlier

In terms of rank order of this measure, GA, AZ, and NC have consistently been lowest, MI at or near the highest, and PA right in the middle.  With all these swing states below the national average in 2020--a high turnout year like 2008, and like 2024 is likely to be, it is clear that those who say Harris-Walz will need a clear lead in the popular vote, like 3 or 4%, have the recent data on their side.  At the same time, though, a lead of 5-6% might lead to an Electoral Vote "landslide" of 100 EV or more, and much more if FL flips. 

This model doesn't take into account specific variations and their possible causes; I would suggest the outlook in Wisconsin looks more favorable than this because of the Walz effect.  Turnout nationally, and its effect on the US national popular vote, will be up for Democrats because New York and California are so critical for regaining control of the House and will get extra attention, which will boost the Democratic vote margin, without doing much in some of the swing states. 

With a 50-45 popular vote margin, which I think is quite likely, this projects to a 297-219 lead for Harris-Walz, with Nevada and North Carolina too close to call and Georgia, once again, somehow on the Democrats' side.  On the other hand, if it finishes 49-47,by this model Harris would lose Pennsylvania, where Democratic turnout totally matters, and most likely the election as well.  The margins are fine. 

Unfortunately, though exit polls might help, the popular vote takes days to assume its final shape.  So we are left to lean upon the unwieldy support of the polling averages. That is, if we don't want to go by the even more inconsistent measure of polling averages in the several states.