Monday, October 26, 2020
THE ODDS ON TRUMP “WINNING” THE ELECTION (even when he loses the popular vote AND the electoral college AND has the Supreme Court affirm those results as too overwhelming to reject)
Nate Silver at the 538 web site posted this comment the other day: “Trump has a meaningful chance, per our forecast — …. a little better than the chances that it’s raining in downtown Los Angeles. And remember, it does rain there. (Downtown L.A. has about 36 rainy days per year, or about a 1-in-10 shot of a rainy day.)”
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
The morning after I read that, I went for a walk to a nearby bakery. It was lightly sprinkling. What were the odds that it would rain at all on my birthday? The rainy season in Los Angeles County is traditionally between mid-November and mid-March, though sometimes it can start as early as November 1st and occasionally lasts past April 1st. But the odds are against any rain in late October. Nevertheless, it rained yesterday morning, and we should take the chance of Trump “winning” the election seriously.
Remember: Trump knows he will lose the popular vote. How does he ignore this incontrovertible fact? That’s not as hard to spin as you might think. If I — and mind you, I despise Trump — can figure out a way for him to spin this outcome without too much effort, surely Trump himself will have no problem whatsoever in whipping up a meringue of half-truths.
The weak spot in my original optimism that he would be defeated can be found in my prediction that Trump will receive less than 60,000,000 votes. I’m afraid that was too optimistic. The rate of voting indicates that a significantly higher percentage of people are voting in 2020 than voted in 2016. No doubt there are people who would have voted for Trump in 2016 who didn’t think he actually had a chance and on election day in 2016 they just didn’t get around to voting. However, now that they have a chance to re-elect him, they are not going to miss this chance to anoint their dictator.
So here are two scenarios for how the vote for Trump will be contextualized by that master of prevaricating spin himself, Donald J. Trump.
SCENARIO ONE:
Let us imagine that Trump ends up with 65,535,000 votes. Here is Trump’s “victory speech”:
“I received two and a half million more votes this time than I did in 2016. Obviously, people approve of the fantastic job I’ve done and the great progress we’ve made in bringing manufacturing jobs back, negotiating trade treaties. If you are not doing a great job, you don’t get more votes. You get less votes. And I got more votes. I got more votes than Abraham Lincoln got when he was reelected.
You know, it’s absolutely astonishing that I got as much done as I did considering that I had to deal with the phony, corrupt investigation that Pelosi and all those idiots mounted in an attempt to pull off a coup. I am not going to let the Democrats mount a coup against a legitimately elected government that has just received more votes than I did when I first won office. I won last time, and I won this time.
It’s simply implausible that I won the electoral college in 2016 with far fewer votes than this time, and that I would not win the electoral college this time with extraordianarily more votes. I am the President of the United States right now, and the American people are even more enthusiastic about me remaining President than they were in 2016. The President takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I cannot allow the electoral abuse, fraud, and deceit that is manifestly evident in many of the states that are run by corrupt politicians to undermine our democracy.
I intend this afternoon to issue an executive order to establish a commission that will investigate this vote-casting process in this election. It will be a bipartisan commission drawing from all branches of the federal government, and I will expect them to conduct a thorough investigation that will be completed by the end of the year, at which point by the way I will be presenting the new Health Care plan that will once and for all make people forget about the grueling conditions they have had to endure under Obamacare.
We will make America great again, again. And again. Thank you, and God bless the United States of America, of which I am the President.
SCENARIO TWO:
Trump receives 66,268,000 votes. This is only a very slight increase in Trump’s total in scenario number one, but it would enable Trump to double down on his premises.
“My fellow Americans:
The results of the election are in, and I have received over 3,000,000 more votes than I did in 2016. Isn’t that amazing?
“In fact, I received more votes this year than Crooked Hilary received in 2016.
“I said back then that the popular vote was not accurate, and this only proves that more people voted for me back then than the Democrats wanted to admit.
“The fact is — If you are not doing a great job, you don’t get more votes. You get less votes. So I got more votes this time – over 3,000,000 MILLION MORE VOTES – and well, it’s simply implausible that that I would not win the electoral college again this time with extraordianarily more votes.
“You know, it’s absolutely astonishing that I got as much done as I did considering that I had to deal with the phony, corrupt investigation that Pelosi and all those idiots mounted in an attempt to pull off a coup. I am not going to let the Democrats mount a coup against a legitimately elected government that has just received more votes than I did when I first won office. I won last time, and I won this time.
“You want a President, right? Not one of these lifetime politicians, but a President? I’m here, and I’m staying here, to serve you and the country I love so much.”