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.