Predictions in advance of the 2024 Presidential election - Predictions 4 - 6, with an alternate

This is the third in a series of four posts. The first in the series is here.

PREDICTION 4: Donald Trump will NOT become the Republican nominee.

When Trump realizes that he is losing within the GOP, he will, like the petulant child he is, leave the Republican party to form a new party, and take his supporters - who are a minority within the Republican party - with him. He will tell himself, and them, that he can attract enough independents to win in November.

UPDATE: This appears increasingly unlikely, as the leadership of the Republican Party have joined themselves at the hip to Donald Trump. Ronna Romney McDaniel's declaration that "we need to unite our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump," when 48 states had not yet held their primaries left me speechless. The Republican party is simply not a functioning party anymore.

The leaders of the party are continuing to speak and act as if Donald Trump has not been charged with 91 felony counts; as if he could not be found guilty of all of them by year's end; as if he is not an adjudicated rapist; as if he is not in danger of being wiped out financially by the outcome of just two legal cases that have already concluded; as if they don't see and hear the signs of his emotional collapse and cognitive decline; as if the Supreme Court will rule in his favor and invalidate decisions by Colorado and Maine to keep him off the ballot entirely in accordance with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Donald Trump has more baggage than an airport terminal, and the party is acting as if he is their best and only hope of defeating Joe Biden in November. Their steadfast clinging to him has trashed this prediction so far, and has thrown my next prediction completely out the window.

PREDICTION 5: The GOP will nominate Chris Christie.

Because he was the only candidate who told the truth about Trump.

UPDATE: You already know: Christie dropped out early. VERY early. To his credit, he did not join his fellow competitors for the nomination who dropped out of the race in lining up to kiss Trump's butt in New Hampshire.

He remains the only candidate who told the truth about Trump all along. Now, Nikki Haley is beginning to tell some truth about him. Someone in the political press should ask her if she would still pardon him.

As Trump's legal problems, financial problems, emotional collapse and cognitive decline loom larger and larger, I see a slim possibility, but not a probability, of her becoming the GOP candidate.

PREDICTION 6: Neither Christie nor Trump will gain enough electoral votes to win, and Joe Biden will gain a second term.

UPDATE: This prediction, as stated, is also now trash. Replace "Christie" with "Haley," and I believe it still holds true.

How confident am I in these predictions?

I am absolutely certain about Predictions 1 - 3, which simply say that what is already happening will continue to happen.

Prediction 4 is the center of this entire exercise - everything after it flows from it. I believe that it makes absolute sense, but I do not feel absolutely certain about it because, in my view, the Republican party stopped making sense some time ago.

So, what if Prediction 4 proves false? What if, against all reason, the GOP nominates Donald Trump again?

In that case, I offer an alternate Prediction 5…

PREDICTION 5:  Joe Biden will defeat Donald Trump. Handily.

My confidence level here is between 95% and 100%, and the 5% margin is only a hedge. I acknowledge the possibility of Trump winning, but I can’t imagine it. The first reasons that I can’t imagine it are Predictions 1 and 2: in my mind, nothing that happening with Trump right now adds up to him even being a viable candidate come fall, much less winning.

But beyond that, there are two other things.

The first thing is that TRUMP IS A LOSER. IT’S WHAT HE DOES. He lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by nearly three million votes, and got lucky in the Electoral College. In 2020, his luck couldn’t make up for losing to Joe Biden by seven million votes.

(Do Democrats even know that Joe Biden's total of 81,283,501 votes was the largest number of votes ever received by a Presidential candidate? If they do, why don't they say so, every day?)

Perhaps worse than that, Trump's endorsement of down-ticket candidates has led to their defeat more often than to their victory. Indeed, it’s almost a kiss of death.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

The second thing is that Joe Biden is winning. This slow-talking old man is getting things done at a scale and a pace that would be remarkable for someone 20 years younger. 

The Israel-Hamas war could be the great millstone around his neck, but would anything that happens in that conflict cause people to switch their votes to criminal defendant (and possible convicted felon) Donald Trump? I doubt it.

So, in both of two alternative scenarios, I see Joe Biden winning. 

I wish that I could end here, but I feel compelled to offer one more prediction.

NEXT: THE FINAL PREDICTION

Predictions in advance of the 2024 Presidential election - THE FINAL PREDICTION

This is the last in a series of four posts. The first in the series is here.

FINAL PREDICTION: Upon losing in November, Donald Trump and his followers will lose their minds.

In recent weeks, the political press has devoted a lot of attention to the question, “What will Donald Trump do if he wins?” They really need to give more attention to the question, “What will Trump and his followers do when they lose?”

We saw what happened last time. This time, they are likely to be even angrier.

What will they do? I don’t know. But I do know this: Donald Trump inspires the type of devotion that leads people to act violently on his behalf. Even better, for him, is that he does not have to explicitly tell them to do so. When he tweeted on the afternoon of January 6 that Vice-President Mike Pence lacked the courage to do his bidding, he didn’t have to tell the mob at the Capitol, “Take him out.” But he knew the likelihood of violence, so when the crowd not only began chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”, but constructed a gallows, he was fine with it.

THEY WANTED TO ASSASSINATE THE VICE-PRESIDENT, AND TRUMP WAS FINE WITH IT.

HE WANTED TO BE THERE.

Since he was prevented from going, he did what was for him the next best thing. He watched, and he tweeted. 

What Trump did that afternoon was a textbook example of stochastic terrorism, which Wikipedia defines as, “...political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.”

The political press would do well to use the term more often.

In 2020, Trump’s stochastic terrorism broke America’s two-century run of peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next. Blood was shed; people died. 

In 2024, Trump’s stochastic terrorism may break our even longer run of peaceful extensions of the same administration. Blood may be shed. People may die.

I don't know how to prevent that, nor how to prepare for it. I hope that somewhere, people smarter than me figure those things out.

SOON.

Predictions in advance of the 2024 Presidential election - Predictions 2 - 3

This is the second in a series of four posts. The first in the series is here.

PREDICTION 2: Donald Trump will get worse.

Whatever the amount that Judge Engoron awards in the tax fraud case, it will surely increase the burden of stress that Donald Trump carries every day. For a man who has shaped his identity around his wealth (most rich people don't go around talking about how rich they are), losing hundreds of millions of dollars, quickly and publicly, will be absolute hell.

He won't take it well, and he won't take it quietly. He will rage, more and more and more. 

The second E. Jean Carroll case led him to exhibit deeply abnormal levels of anger (don't take my word for this - just read his posts on Truth Social.). The political press will not know how to respond when Trump's mental ill-health publicly manifests daily.

I hope that they will decide to start interviewing mental health professionals the way that they consult other professionals for their expertise.

In any case, Trump's ongoing emotional collapse will be accompanied by a parallel cognitive decline. 

UPDATE: This cognitive decline came to the forefront in the last days before the New Hampshire Republican primary. In a rally speech, Trump tried to recite his talking point about having offered then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But his brain could not get his mouth to say “Nancy Pelosi”, and instead he said, “Nikki Haley” three times in a row. 

***************

Imagine being Donald Trump in that moment. You are engaged in the fight of your life. Multiple court actions could end with you spending the rest of your days broke and in prison, and your only real hope of avoiding that is by becoming President again. You HAVE TO become President again, so you're speaking to this crowd in New Hampshire. You want to remind them about Nancy Pelosi's failure, but when you start the sentence, you hear your mouth say, “Nikki Haley.”

“No, not Nikki Haley,” you think. “Nancy Pelosi.” 

You stop the sentence to try again, and your mouth says, “Nikki Haley.”

“What the hell, Donald?” you think. “Get it right. NANCY PELOSI.”

You try a third time, and FOR THE THIRD TIME, your mouth says, “Nikki Haley.”

What do you do? You are standing in front of thousands of people, you are live on camera, and everyone watching you right now must be thinking that you can't finish a sentence, they must be thinking that you're as bad as Joe Biden. You HAVE TO finish the sentence, because you HAVE TO become President, because you CAN'T go to prison.

“Keep talking,” you tell yourself. “You can do this. Finish the sentence.” And while you work up the will to finish the sentence, you keep talking to avoid looking like Mitch McConnell, to make sure people know that you CAN talk, and you hear your mouth say,

“You know they - do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything…”

“Finish the sentence, Donald.” you tell yourself. “ Nancy Pelosi.”

You hear your mouth continue, “deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of - lots of things, like...”

You’re internally screaming at yourself now. “FINISH THE GODDAMN SENTENCE, DONALD! SAY, ‘NANCY PELOSI IS IN CHARGE OF SECURITY.”

And you push yourself, HARD. No one knows how hard you push to finish the sentence. And you hear your mouth say, “Nikki Haley is in charge of security.”

And the entire world hears it, too. The entire world knows that there's something wrong. 

You know that there's something wrong. But you HAVE TO become President again. 

So you keep going, and going. And with every rally, with every appearance on a set of courthouse steps, with every interview, you know that there's a chance that what happened that night will happen again.

You know that your father had Alzheimer's.

You know that Alzheimer's tends to be hereditary.

Your father died at 93. You're just 77. So you have at least 10 good years left, right?

And you CAN'T spend those years in prison. You HAVE TO become President again.

So you keep pushing yourself, harder than anyone will ever know.

*************************

He won't get better. The world will watch him become worse.

PREDICTION 3: Donald Trump will lose support.

As the world watches Donald Trump's legal troubles get worse, and as the world watches Donald Trump become worse, more and more people will waver in their support of him. Eventually, more and more people  will decide not to vote for him.

How many will fall away before Super Tuesday (March 5)? Impossible to say. But even if the impact comes after Super Tuesday, the primary season will not be all roses and rainbows. In fact, I believe that the cumulative impact will be such that by the time of the Republican convention in August, non-MAGA Republicans will say, “We can’t win with this guy.” 

UPDATE: None, really. The primary season has certainly not become all roses and rainbows for Donald Trump.

NEXT: Predictions 4-6, with an alternate