Here’s my reasoned Trump prediction, but first:
I’ve been publicly wrong before, as regarding, for example, something as important as Russia versus Ukraine.
I realize there’s a different law for rich and poor: No way could anybody I know get as many criminal court delays as Trump is getting.
I realize, from the essays by George Orwell, that people tend to think they are making reasonable predictions but in fact be accidentally biased by their beliefs and hopes. He would write his predictions down so he couldn’t escape self-knowledge. Luckily I’m nobody so I can safely make a public prediction.
As I write this experts are saying it is very probable that none of the four criminal trial will end before the presidential election—they haven’t even started yet—and, furthermore, that it’s very likely that if elected then Trump will make the trials and charges disappear in various ways, including but not limited to pardoning himself. And we all know the free and the brave would allow this.
And besides, being rich, experts say that, if guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Trump would get a fine or probation, but not jail time. Even though he would be safe in jail with his Secret Service protection—working in shifts, no way would they do much time in jail.
“They say” the odds are fifty-fifty as to who gets into the White House. So it is reasonable for the world and the US to be on tenderhooks, in a state of nerves, over the issues.
All that being said, my prediction is: The election won’t be close. Why?
Secondly, because I suspect, for Trump lovers, it will be like the old death penalty debate in Canada and the UK, where people would say publicly “Hanging’s too good for them!” and then, in the lonely responsibility of the voting booth, decline to allow capital punishment.
I expect Trump will lose the election, face trials, and then the MAGA hysteria will vanish as rapidly as the witch hunts of the 1950’s.
Firstly, because my favourite republican and former state governor, Arnold Swartzeneggar, said months ago that Trump would not get re-elected. And I have great faith in “the governator’s” horse sense.
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Sean Crawford
North of Missoula
Ides of March
2024
BIG UPDATE: Right after the election I did a one-line post, a juicy metaphor that requires some education to grasp. But hey, I think my usual readers will appreciate it.
The next day I posted some oil-on-troubled waters quotes about leading by example, an example of leading a good life, based on the youthful experiences of Thomas Jefferson. If you are reading this in some future library, to grasp our times, my pieces may be worth checking out.
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More Data, One Day Later: A it happens, Arizona is perhaps the most republican state of them all. Nevertheless, the Guardian reports that the public rejected republican politicians known to be an “election denier.” (i.e. believing that 2020 results are false, that it was “stolen”)
I got a kick out of a (July 22) long opinionated piece on Biden, Harris, Trump and 2024 by a respected blogger, John Scalzi, formerly a newspaper entertainment reviewer, who started his blog to keep in practise for becoming a newspaper columnist, link: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/07/22/biden-harris-trump-and-2024/
Breaking News comparison: Today, (July 21) President Biden has endorsed a woman, Harris, to be president. How does she compare to Clinton? Remember, many people said in 2016 they chose Trump, then a known racist, as their alternative-to-Clinton vote.
Clinton was seen as “uppity,” gunning for the presidency, not liking “the deplorables.” Harris has been humbly in the shadows of the White House for three and a half years without trying for big publicity—or for a job she could “win” at. By not hating people, except Trump, and by not self-promoting herself as a presidential candidate, she may avoid the misogynist particles that jumped like static cling onto Clinton.
Hence I still publicly say Trump will not get re-elected.
Nostradamus: (September 5) While on paper the scientific polls have the vice president very close to the president an historian nicknamed Nostradamus with an excellent track record says Harris will win… which matches my own claim. I wonder what someone reading this in the library years from now will think? Here’s the URL https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/05/harris-election-allan-lichtman
