Predictions & reactions to the election

I predict that by Nov. 1, 2026, before the next off-year election, America will have drifted into solidly authoritarian status. 

The peak of American civil liberties arguably was the time after same-sex marriage was made a right in 2015. An apex period for civil liberties ended in June 2022 when the radicalized USSC killed off a national right to an abortion. Of course throughout that time, the USSC was eroding voting rights, so the apex period was not fully stable.

By 11/1/26 pressure will be applied to quiet major critics of Trump and authoritarianism generally. Newspapers and comedians will have softened their tone. Federal funding for NPR and PBS will either be shut off, or they will be turned into authoritarian propaganda outlets. The Voice of America will be turned into an authoritarian propaganda outlet. 

The Environmental Protection Agency will be gutted and neutered by then. International climate agreements will be terminated. All new federal judges will be radical right authoritarians. Federal lawsuits against Trump will be dropped. State lawsuits probably will too. The treasonous 1/6 insurrectionists will be pardoned.

Four forms of authoritarianism are now contending for P&W (power and wealth) with not much standing in their way. The first, is the drive for a unitary president, i.e., a dictator. A lot of powerful Americans want a unitary president. Also contending for P&W are Christian theocracy, unregulated capitalist plutocracy and single party rule. Deeply embedded in all four of those is kleptocracy, which is closely associated with authoritarianism. 

By 11/1/26, the flow of power and wealth to those 4 variants of authoritarianism will be noticeable. For example, the we can expect the Trump and his GOP to conduct an American variant of the democracy-killing campaign that Viktor Orban used to kill Hungarian democracy in two years. The Dems may not be able to regain federal power for a long time. The Dem party itself might fracture. How well the competing four get along with each other is unclear to me. They overlap quite a lot making analysis of that basically impossible.

We can reasonably expect that ethics rules will fall mostly or completely away and government operations will be heavily shrouded in secrecy. The GOP and/or the USSC might even completely get rid of freedom of information laws to try to prevent evidence of authoritarian corruption, incompetence, oppression and bigotry from ever becoming public. Trump has made it clear that he will gut the deep state, leaving only corrupt, incompetent loyalists left to run government operations.

For most low income Americans, the economic pain will start to seriously hurt. They are screwed. The middle class will also start to feel the bite of P&W flowing from them to the elites. Worker and consumer protections will significantly decrease as power flows to corporations.

If the Repubs maintain control of the House, I expect the Senate to get rid of the filibuster. That would give Repubs in congress free reign to pass whatever laws they want with no serious opposition from Dems. The only requirement there would be unity within the GOP, something that Trump is more than capable of imposing on them.

There will be hideous genocide in Gaza, Lebanon and the Ukraine. The Ukraine will fall to Putin and his brutal vengeance. The slaughter will be savage. All global democracies will be under increasingly intense pressure to go authoritarian. The last stand for global democracy will be Europe's democracies, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and little or nothing else.   

The Dems demise? Illegal immigration, a bad economy (inflation) and scary demography/social changes were probably the biggest issues in this election that killed the Dems off. But I do wonder about how much of the fear, anger and resentments that drove voter to Trump are real and how much the product of dark free speech (lies, slanders, crackpot conspiracies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, etc.). My guess? About 20% real and ~80% dark free speech mirage. 

I could go on and on and on like this, but those exemplify the kinds of reactions and predictions that are running through my mind at present. I do believe that by 11/1/26, all of these predictions will turn out be be at least significantly true, i.e., ~40-80% true if one could quantify it. In essence, by then we will have witnessed the death of American democracy, imposition of major limits on civil liberties, lots of bigotry and oppression of target groups (the LGBQT community is royally hosed), staggering corruption in government, commerce and Christianity, and the rule of law converted into the rule of the thug, with elites who tow the authoritarian line staying above the law, while the rest of us are screwed. 

We have well and truly screwed the pooch this time.

I do hope my predictions prove to be wrong. That would be wonderful. 

I do not know if it is still safe for me to post criticisms like I do, or if it is still safe for people to comment here. That is something I am just starting to think about. At the moment, I think it will be safe because I am too small a pipsqueak to bother with. But there is some uncertainty in that. 

Election day

Poll closings, Eastern time:

Presidential historian Jon Meacham writes an opinion for the NYT (not paywalled):

I thought I knew what we were dealing with. When Donald Trump began his rise to power in 2015, he struck me as a dangerous but recognizable demagogue.

Then he proved me wrong. His concerted efforts to overthrow the November 2020 election very nearly succeeded — tangible proof that he is in fact willing to follow through on the authoritarian threats he so freely makes. I now see him as a genuine aberration in our history — a man whose contempt for constitutional democracy makes him a unique threat to the nation.

[Historical] analogies come naturally to me. Yet more and more, I fear that trying to find historical precedents for Mr. Trump presents dangers of its own. No similar figure in American history has ever had such a strong grip on so many. To suggest otherwise diminishes the sense of urgency the moment requires. I wish I were overstating the case. But I am not.  

That his attempted coup failed should not be grounds for dismissing the threat he poses; rather, that it was attempted at all should persuade us not to endanger the constitutional order again. And to dismiss his own radical words as well as the concerns of those who worked with him that he harbors dictatorial ambitions is to put faith in a man who has already shown himself to be more interested in himself than in the nation, more devoted to his aggrandizement than to the Constitution.

As I read that, I listened to NPR interviewing a Republican and other opinionators. The Repub says says DJT loves the US has has no authoritarian intent. An non-Repub opinionator says that DJT has too short an attention span to seriously contest the constitution. Too short an attention span? 

NPR and most other MSM sources continue to treat DJT as just a normal politician doing normal things, not an abnormal monster doing monstrous things. To those news sources I award a fair, balanced and well-deserved grade of F since Trump's 1/6/21 coup attempt for abysmal reporting about politics and DJT in particular. They still call him a conservative, not an authoritarian which he clearly is.  I've written to them and made this complaint, so I did what I could do.

I don't know what else to say.

Any thoughts?

This is it!

 

The hour(s) has finally arrived.  It’s presidential Election Day in the U.S.

For all us political junkies here, it’s "last call" for your 11:59:00 pm predictions.

For example:

• Will the polls be accurate?  I.e., will the vote be razor thin?

• How long before the race gets called (later tonight … tomorrow … next week)?

• Will there be any riots/violence in the aftermath?

• Other (you tell me)

Give your last-minute assessment of what you are expecting.

(by PrimalSoup)

Various bits: Blog note; Poll note; Chaos note; Violence note; Headlines

Blog note: Regardless of whether Harris and the Dems generally win or lose tomorrow or in the days following the election, please try to maintain control of emotions. Don't gloat over Trump losing. In recent posts, I've argued that America is in a generations-long battle of deeply corrupt authoritarianism vs less corrupt democracy. 

If Trump wins, that could be the decisive battle that leads to the end. But if he wins, pro-democracy, pro-honest, competent government people will need every possible ally they can get in hopes of saving our rule of law-based democracy and our civil liberties. Along the way to establishing his corrupt dictatorship, Trump and his enablers will have to do a lot of anti-democracy things. Each of those bad things need to be pointed out and the democratic damage they cause stated clearly and respectfully. Maybe some allies will come of that defense tactic. Alienating, disrespecting or insulting rank and file MAGA people as a whole will not be helpful in the long-term war against the various forms of American authoritarianism vying for power no matter how the elections turn out, even if Harris wins.

That said: I strongly endorse Harris. GO HARRIS!

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Poll note: Each Day I watch the polls. In the last few days I sensed a shift from net Trump support to net Harris. The Iowa poll yesterday showing Harris beating Trump was part of that. However, the situation is so complex that I am unsure of how much weight to give the polls. My intuition has flipped from thinking DJT would narrowly win to now thinking Harris will narrowly win. 

I suspect that those commercials showing women voting for Harris but keeping quiet or saying they voted for DJT is resonating with some women. There seem to be an awful lot of angry husbands out there who are rabid DJT supporters. That could be something the polls cannot pick up on. Also, it appears that Biden's incredibly idiotic and insulting assertion that Trump supporters are garbage is not going to hurt Harris nearly as much as I initially thought. Initially, I thought Biden's comment was going to be the last nail in the Harris coffin. 

In the history of modern polling, there’s never been a race where the final polls showed such a close contest. If the poll averages are exactly right down to the decimal (they will not be), Ms. Harris would barely need to outperform the polls to prevail.

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Chaos note: I was aware that authoritarian MAGA Republicans were planning to unleash a massive wave of lawsuits if Trump loses. I was rudely told yesterday by an exceptionally well-informed interlocutor that I was seriously misinformed and needed some slapping around to wake me up. So, I Perplexited (not a real word, yet) it:  

Q: Have oner 100 lawsuits been filed by Republicans to lay the groundwork for fomenting chaos if Trump loses the election? Apparently that has happened, but it is being poorly reported by the MSM.

A: It appears that Republicans and the Trump campaign have indeed filed a significant number of lawsuits related to the 2024 election, though the exact number is not explicitly stated as over 100. However, the information suggests an aggressive legal strategy aimed at challenging various aspects of the election process. 

Republican Legal Strategy: The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Trump campaign have adopted a more aggressive pre-election legal strategy compared to 2020. This strategy includes: Implementing an "election integrity" program with 100,000 volunteers and attorneys in battleground states. Engaging in over 130 election lawsuits across 26 states, according to an RNC official.

The lawsuits filed by Republicans cover various aspects of the election process: Challenging voter registration procedures, contesting rules for overseas voting, questioning the certification of voting machines, and attempting to restrict mail-in voting.  

In conclusion, while the exact number of lawsuits is not confirmed to be over 100, the search results indicate a significant and coordinated legal effort by Republicans to challenge various aspects of the election process. This strategy appears to be more extensive and organized compared to 2020, potentially setting the stage for contesting the election results if the outcome is unfavorable to Trump.

I stand corrected. I was misinformed. A lot of lawsuits are flying right now. We can expect a heck of a lot more if DJT loses the election.

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Violence note: In my opinion, widespread violence is highly unlikely if DJT loses the election. But there could be scattered violence. But there is some indication (not paywalled) of some violence being plausible:

On Telegram, a Violent Preview of What May 

Unfold on Election Day and After

Groups backing former President Donald J. Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.

“The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible,” read one post from an Ohio chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right organization that was instrumental in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”  

A New York Times analysis of more than one million messages across nearly 50 Telegram channels with over 500,000 members found a sprawling and interconnected movement intended to question the credibility of the presidential election, interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome. Nearly every channel reviewed by The Times was created after the 2020 election, highlighting the growth and increased sophistication of the election denialism movement.

Geez, we have an election denialism movement bubbling up! What next, a vaccine denialism movement or a global warming denialism movement? Oh yeah, we already have those. Never mind.

Q: How many of those authoritarian blowhards are actually willing to get off the computer, load up their guns and stomp into the streets to shoot at whatever targets they pick? (IMO, very few, maybe several dozen) 

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Trump, in Increasingly Dark and Dour Tones, Says He ‘Shouldn’t Have Left’ the White House

Reading the Auras of Democrats and Republicans on the Eve of the Election -- According to daily polling from Civiqs, which has been charting America’s mood about the direction of the United States, the vibes around this so-called vibes election have been strikingly stable.

Dem vibes

Repub vibes

(more fearful than the Dems)

The election is uncertain, but it might not be close -- Close polls don’t tell the whole story. It’s not unlikely that if we see a typically sized polling error, one candidate — Donald Trump or Kamala Harris — could run away with the election

GOP primed to back Trump if he contests election

Some dark humor

You have to prioritize

the imminent threat --

Choose paint color or call fire dept?