COVID-19 is the perfect 4T event?

[David Horn]

(04-27-2020, 09:10 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-13-2020, 10:22 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-12-2020, 06:53 PM)mmailliw Wrote: I'll be honest:  COVID-19 was the first thing that had me thinking about "4T" style generational theory in a LONG time!  And it's the first moment that really felt like a "crisis" from where I stand.  Before that, things may have appeared to be very ready to come to a head - but for the most part, it was very easy to pretend (if you wanted) that things hadn't really changed.  2020 'feels' too late to start the 4T, but it does feel very clearly "Crisis" mode in a way that 2001-2004 was not!

(And this is the name I posted under the old forums:  I don't plan on being drawn into generational boundary debates again )

I have to agree that COVID-19 is a crisis-level threat, but the lack of a suitable response is the actual crisis.  I'm not sure that another, vastly more competent leader would have changed anything though.  It's just that Trump is so monumentally incompetent and self-delusional, that the response is already going off the rails, and he sees that as a net positive.  November is still a long time in the future, given the pace of things, and the Donald is seriously talking about opening the country for business.  If that happens, Katy bar the door.

The old unraveling values suggested small government, low taxes, as little domestic spending as possible, and disrespecting any science that tried to show a big problem that required a big government existed.  Trump is continuing to demonstrate where these old values don’t work for the COVID-19 problem.  He thus falls into the Buchanan - Hoover slot.  You can’t really expect a federal response worth anything while he is in charge.

Biden?  Is he potential grey champion material?  Can he drive a major change?  Will the economy be in such bad shape that he will abort other issues?  Can’t tell yet.

I don't see Biden as a revolutionary of any kind, and that's what will be needed.  If he picks another centrist as VP, then I won't expect much from him or his successor (assuming he only rune for this one term).  I would love to be proven wrong.

[Isoko]

David,

The truth is Trump isn't making a mess. He is actually stabilising the system. From what I have heard, it was under Obama ICE was established. Also Obama deported alot of illegals too, the highest amount. Yet it is never spoken about.

AOC would actually crash the system. It has too many problems right now. Too much debt. Too much poverty. If she took over, she would legalise everyone, open the borders, try to institute public reforms, push for a more socialist agenda like free healthcare, etc.

Noble attempts but it would just overburden things. In Soviet terms - Trump is Brezhnev and AOC is Gorbachev. 

To be honest, no President can save America now. I think it will just collapse and reform itself with an unseen actor.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2020, 11:18 AM)Isoko Wrote: David,

The truth is Trump isn't making a mess. He is actually stabilising the system. From what I have heard, it was under Obama ICE was established. Also Obama deported alot of illegals too, the highest amount. Yet it is never spoken about.

AOC would actually crash the system. It has too many problems right now. Too much debt. Too much poverty. If she took over, she would legalise everyone, open the borders, try to institute public reforms, push for a more socialist agenda like free healthcare, etc.

Noble attempts but it would just overburden things. In Soviet terms - Trump is Brezhnev and AOC is Gorbachev. 

To be honest, no President can save America now. I think it will just collapse and reform itself with an unseen actor.

Sorry, but Trump is an existential threat to the US and the world at large.  And the system he's destroying was already weak, because it's been built to be that way by hisown party.  That doesn't mitigate anything!  The US needs to be a lot more social democrat than libertarian/neoliberal, and how we get there is the open question.  If we don't get there, then your point may be valid. For now, we need to make the US work for the majority of its citizens, not just the wealthy and powerful.  What that will look like is a work in progress.

[Isoko]

David,

Once again, how can you pay for all this? The problem with the U.S is that she is in 1980s Soviet waters. There was no way or will to radically turn that system around. When you are in that stage, the system fails and has to be rebuilt from the ground up, not the ground down.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2020, 12:24 PM)Isoko Wrote: David,

Once again, how can you pay for all this? The problem with the U.S is that she is in 1980s Soviet waters. There was no way or will to radically turn that system around. When you are in that stage, the system fails and has to be rebuilt from the ground up, not the ground down.

We're already entering a deflationary period, which is the worst form of economic crisis.  Printing and spending money is the easiest way out.  Since much is needed, much money should be printed.  I only hope it's used wisely.

In the aftermath of WW-II, the US debt was 128% of GNP.  By 1962, it was 32%, and not one cent of the debt was retired.  The difference: growth and inflation made the debt seem small in a then highly robust economy. There's no reason not to do that again.

[Isoko]

The problem is David you cannot keep printing money forever. It just adds onto more debt and this itself eventually needs repaying. Unless of course you default but that leads to nasty consequences and could be the only way for the U.S in the future...

You could potentially reset the debt and pretend it never existed but again, it would cause a lot of economic problems and just lead to investors and debtors losing confidence in America.

Also you have to remember that in the past, America got out of its economic woes due to World War 2. There is a huge debate on how effective the new deal actually was. But having to produce all those tanks, planes guns, etc and loaning them to other nations certainly got the U.S out of a financial pinch. Not even a war could successfully do that today due to the nature of the times.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2020, 12:40 PM)David Horn Wrote: We're already entering a deflationary period, which is the worst form of economic crisis.

That was true in 2008-2009.  The Covid-19 recession, however, is a supply side recession, not a demand side recession.  Printing money doesn't work when you won't allow people any additional goods or services to spend the money on.  At most it can get us stagflation back, which is worse than what we have now.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2020, 02:49 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-28-2020, 12:40 PM)David Horn Wrote: We're already entering a deflationary period, which is the worst form of economic crisis.

That was true in 2008-2009.  The Covid-19 recession, however, is a supply side recession, not a demand side recession.  Printing money doesn't work when you won't allow people any additional goods or services to spend the money on.  At most it can get us stagflation back, which is worse than what we have now.

Ask the industry moguls, "How many workers will you rehire?"  Almost none expect to hire anywhere near the same number they had on staff before this all started, so where do their customers get their money?  With unemployment likely to be well above the 2008-9 recession levels for years, that spells deflation writ large.

[pbrower2a]

We have people working more hours than is necessary for their sustenance -- and in places where property rents are exorbitant, like California and New York City, many people are getting bare sustenance on what they earn short of the necessities for having a place to sleep at night, having presentable clothes for their jobs, and commuting between work and their dismal flat -- especially if they are also paying off student loans.

A big chunk of America's GDP is economic rent -- income that economic elites treat as an entitlement. If that disappeared, most people would see no harm in their lives. Plutocratic ideology has overtaken the benefits of technological improvement. I can understand why "Make America Great Again" appeals as a slogan; many Americans would be better off if they could return in a time machine to the 1950's. (OK, there are some things not to repeat: the mindless destruction and devouring of natural resources that we now consider unthinkable, the smoking habits of the time, the Blood Alley roads, the male chauvinism, and especially Jim Crow practice in the South. But other than that, the next happy time in America will in many ways resemble the 1950's except that our economy will do better stewardship of natural resources, smoking will more likely decline than increase, we won't be tearing up Interstate highways to shunt people onto Blood Alleys, male chauvinism of the 1950's will be abominable, and Jim Crow will be a prime example of Bad Old Ways to be shunned.

Labor unions will be back, and people who do real work will get real pay again. I expect revitalization of the Heartland of America as a means of deconcentration of the population -- which will revive the Rust Belt (even if with an economic basis very different from that of the 1950's). Life will be more conformist, but part of conformity will be a reduction of the disparity between sybaritic excess and gross deprivation that seems to be the recent (and soon moribund) way.

[David Horn]

(04-29-2020, 04:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Labor unions will be back, and people who do real work will get real pay again. I expect revitalization of the Heartland of America as a means of deconcentration of the population -- which will revive the Rust Belt (even if with an economic basis very different from that of the 1950's).  Life will be more conformist, but part of conformity will be a reduction of the disparity between sybaritic excess and gross deprivation that seems to be the recent (and soon moribund) way.

I suspect that the solution to this ongoing problem will be different this time.  Some otherwise well compensated work will be automated away, and some reduced by greater reliance on machines. It's hard to unionize that. Some alternative that pipelines money to people so they can be recycled it in the economy will be needed.  What it will be is a mystery, but going back seems unlikely.

[Warren Dew]

(04-29-2020, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: Ask the industry moguls, "How many workers will you rehire?"  Almost none expect to hire anywhere near the same number they had on staff before this all started, so where do their customers get their money?

If they follow through with that, that will be great, since it will mean startups will easily be able hire people without having to compete with monopolists, and small businesses will be able to grow into the areas that the big businesses are refusing to hire people to reenter.

Personally I doubt that the "industry moguls" will keep those promises.  Monopolists will not give up their power that easily.

[David Horn]

(04-30-2020, 11:33 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-29-2020, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: Ask the industry moguls, "How many workers will you rehire?"  Almost none expect to hire anywhere near the same number they had on staff before this all started, so where do their customers get their money?

If they follow through with that, that will be great, since it will mean startups will easily be able hire people without having to compete with monopolists, and small businesses will be able to grow into the areas that the big businesses are refusing to hire people to reenter.

Most of the throw-aways will not be workers needed by typical startups, unless they're looking for gig workers. In any case, why is it good to have a large pool of unemployed, just to provide a few entrepreneurs with access to cheap and ready labor? This should be the time that labor begins to rebalance the inequitable economy, and having too many looking for too few jobs is the exact opposite of what's needed to do that.

Warren Dew Wrote:Personally I doubt that the "industry moguls" will keep those promises.  Monopolists will not give up their power that easily.

Cutting the cost of labor by automation and any other means at hand is nothing new. Using a crisis to accelerate that is right out of the vulture capitalist playbook. Since we decided to put so-called venture capital in charge, companies are now literally forced to cut costs to ramp up stock prices or profits -- whichever is in vogue at the moment.

[pbrower2a]

Wartime casualties without the bullets. We have the worst possible President for meeting this Crisis.

[pbrower2a]

(04-30-2020, 10:25 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-29-2020, 04:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Labor unions will be back, and people who do real work will get real pay again. I expect revitalization of the Heartland of America as a means of deconcentration of the population -- which will revive the Rust Belt (even if with an economic basis very different from that of the 1950's).  Life will be more conformist, but part of conformity will be a reduction of the disparity between sybaritic excess and gross deprivation that seems to be the recent (and soon moribund) way.

I suspect that the solution to this ongoing problem will be different this time.  Some otherwise well compensated work will be automated away, and some reduced by greater reliance on machines. It's hard to unionize that. Some alternative that pipelines money to people so they can be recycled it in the economy will be needed.  What it will be is a mystery, but going back seems unlikely.

The people who operate and maintain the robots will be the people to organize. See also creative people as employees. 

Typically it has been the cheap labor with repetitive tasks that has been most automated out of existence. 

...I expect that most people will work fewer hours, with people working second jobs only for such short-term objectives as getting a down-payment on a household mortgage. There will be less work to spread around, as people will not be needing more stuff. 

Down payments on housing? Sure. I expect the American economy to be more dispersed. California is taking on Third World conditions. I have my prediction on what housing will be like -- huge apartments with many apartments having no real windows; people will rely on video screens that give them whatever view they want. You could be in Lubbock, Texas and have an excellent view of Lake Como.  Or the Andromeda Galaxy close up. Or... You will also have video available that offers a road trip. Thus the Big Sur or Camden, New Jersey (the latter if you are a masochist) if you so desire. No gas costs, no motel bills, no traffic jams (unless you really want to travel "the 405" in Greater Los Angeles),  you can have ersatz travel even if drunk... or you could watch a sporting event as if you were in the audience. That may be the only way in which people get to see a World Series game in Yankee Stadium.

[pbrower2a]

Support for the status quo ordinarily disintegrates at some point during a Crisis Era. The focus of this Crisis Era, barring an apocalyptic war increasingly unlikely to happen, is COVID-19. This polling should not be confused with my other polling map. At this point, standing up to President Trump suddenly looks like very good politics.


Also posted at Leip's Election Atlas, where I composed these maps:

Approval only of the President's performance on COVID-19 -- not disapproval. Note the difference in the legend. I am treating anything from 46 to 49% approval as effectively a tie. To be sure, COVID-19 is the focus of most Americans' concerns these days as a clear and present danger to ourselves, or at least to people for whom we care. COVID-19 is about as dangerous as any war for which there is conscription, and I assure you -- I am doing everything possible to dodge its draft! This time, draft-dodging is without qualification a noble act!  



Trump approval:

60% or higher approval
55-59%
50-54%
46-49% (white)
43-45%
41 or 42%
40% or lower

Trump's "best" state is Wyoming, where he gets 59% approval on his handling of COVID-19. As you can see. sixteen states give Trump 40% or lower approval on his handling of COVID-19, which shows Trump in an unflattering light. To be sure, these states have usually been trouble for Trump for other things, but because COVID-19 is the equivalent of war as a clear and present danger, it is the current focus of political life.    

Note that all Governors fare better than Trump in approval in their states (I take that the number for the District of Columbia is for the mayor or the majority of the city council, either Democratic.  



Approval of State governors

Red  - Democrats;  Blue -  Republicans

The saturation is the tens digit of approval (first digit of an approval number. Thus Kristi Noem (R, SD)  gets a saturation of "4" in the color red for 49% approval and David Ige (D, HI) gets only 39% approval and blue at the saturation level of "3". Those two Governors get the worst approval ratings.    

You will notice that Governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont are Republicans and that Governors of Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, and North Carolina are Democrats, and thus we have the anomalous colors for those states.

Source:  http://www.kateto.net/COVID19%20CONSORTI...202020.pdf

[LPDec63]

As we get deeper into this Covid Crisis, it's starting to feel like the same old same old Culture War. At first it did feel like we were headed toward the Regeneracy of consensus, and to some extent we are making progress. For example the popularity of the Governors, especially those who have implemented strong measures vs the continued unpopularity of Trump. But the thing is that the poll numbers always seem to come back to the 44% Red Minority vs. the 56% Blue Majority. That toxic paradigm persists even as the Pandemic rages on.

So, I think this is all coming to a head Nov 3. And no matter what happens, there's going to be trouble.

If there are obvious problems with the election, will the Blue states accept another sketchy Red win? If there is a Blue Wave will the Red staters accept it peacefully? I'm thinking No.

[Eric the Green]

(05-15-2020, 10:16 AM)LPDec63 Wrote: As we get deeper into this Covid Crisis, it's starting to feel like the same old same old Culture War.   At first it did feel like we were headed toward the Regeneracy of consensus, and to some extent we are making progress.  For example the popularity of the Governors, especially those who have implemented strong measures vs the continued unpopularity of Trump.  But the thing is that the poll numbers always seem to come back to the 44% Red Minority vs. the  56% Blue Majority.  That toxic paradigm persists even as the Pandemic rages on.

So, I think this is all coming to a head Nov 3.   And no matter what happens, there's going to be trouble.

If there are obvious problems with the election, will the Blue states accept another sketchy Red win?  If there is a Blue Wave will the Red staters accept it peacefully?  I'm thinking No.

Well stated, and welcome.

[pbrower2a]

(05-15-2020, 10:16 AM)LPDec63 Wrote: As we get deeper into this Covid Crisis, it's starting to feel like the same old same old Culture War.

Maybe at this point we are going to find that some parts of the Culture War will fail because those parts will prove contrary to needful solutions to a genuine Crisis. The Gun Cult certainly has proved irrelevant. 

Quote:   At first it did feel like we were headed toward the Regeneracy of consensus, and to some extent we are making progress.

... I couldn't resist. Nobody expects the Regeneracy that shakes a recent climate of indulgent depravity -- what I call the Degeneracy as the opposite of the Regeneracy. We get a Regeneracy because of degenerate behavior in the 3T -- devouring of capital in speculative bubbles, a mindless "celebrity culture" from which nobody can learn anything, under-investment in job-creating plant and equipment, short-changing the public sector to support tax cuts for people who have bought political power...   

Quote: For example the popularity of the Governors, especially those who have implemented strong measures vs the continued unpopularity of Trump.  But the thing is that the poll numbers always seem to come back to the 44% Red Minority vs. the  56% Blue Majority.  That toxic paradigm persists even as the Pandemic rages on.

Trump support has been eroding. Remember that he got only slightly more of the popular vote in 2016 than did Mike Dukakis in 1988. Trump's 45.93% of the popular vote was good enough for election because  Trump got the 'right votes' in certain states. even though it is only slightly higher the 45.65% that Dukakis got in in 1988 (with only 111 electoral votes). Trump did worse than Romney in 2016 and Kerry in 2004, and not much better than McCain in 2008 -- all of whom lost both the popular and the electoral vote. If Trump fares less well by 1% in 2020 than in 2016, then he loses his re-election bid. 

Demographics of the electorate, with younger voters tending sharply Democratic replacing older, more Republican-leaning voters dying off or going senile, alone suggest a Trump loss. The youngest voters in 2016 and 2018 were about 20% more Democratic than Republican, voters over 55 (the generations have voted much alike from early-wave X to the Silent) have been about 5% more Republican than Democratic in 2016 and 2018. Even without a shift among voters among the elderly in their partisan identity, Trump loses. About 1.5% of the electorate, typically people over 55, dies off every year. In four years that means that Trump loses because a 1.5% shift in the vote gives him about 43.5% of the vote. He wasn't going to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with those numbers, and if Florida didn't get him then  Arizona or North Carolina would turn enough against him to ensure a defeat. 

OK, we are all accustomed to two-term Presidents. Since 1980 we have seen only one incumbent President (the elder Bush) defeated in a re-election bid.  Even that one reflects that two terms for an agenda is usually enough before people crave a change in direction. The elder Bush wasn't awful; he simply went stale. What he did well his challenger promised to repeat... and Bill Clinton stayed with the Bush 41 foreign policy. Bill Clinton, Dubya, and Obama got re-elected much as they were first elected, with five, three, and two states, respectively, changing sides between the first election and the re-election. Before that, Reagan won a 49-state landslide re-election following a 44-state repudiation of Jimmy Carter, which is itself a change of only five states.   

So we expect much the same in 2020 as in 1984, 1996, 2004, and 2012 with the incumbent getting re-elected with a switch of perhaps five states or so. So Trump loses Michigan and Pennsylvania but picks up Colorado, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. No -- not this time!. It is still early enough for me to see a range of possibilities for the 2020 election from a smashing rejection of him as happened to Jimmy Carter  to a bare win. As time passes the range will shrink. Either a smashing victory  by Biden (a forty-state win with Trump winning electorally-small states in the South, Great Plains, and the Intermountain West but nothing else)  to a bare win (all wins by Trump in 2016 except for two of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- if he loses all three, then he is defeated). 

In basically a two-way Presidential race, 39% is the floor for an incumbent President in a re-election bid in the last century (that is Hoover in 1932).

Quote:So, I think this is all coming to a head Nov 3.   And no matter what happens, there's going to be trouble.

Trouble only if the mass perception is that the winner cheated or induced others to cheat to get elected. 

Quote:If there are obvious problems with the election, will the Blue states accept another sketchy Red win?  If there is a Blue Wave will the Red staters accept it peacefully?  I'm thinking No.

Trump support is loud, firm, and fervent. So far there are no mass anti-Trump rallies because Trump-haters are not going to appear in mass rallies while such is unsafe due to COVID-19. This said, 80 thousand deaths from something that seemingly never happens in a country advanced as ours: 80,000 deaths already (and who knows how many more?) from a respiratory disease of the sort that seemingly happens only in the Third World.

[pbrower2a]

(04-30-2020, 11:33 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-29-2020, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: Ask the industry moguls, "How many workers will you rehire?"  Almost none expect to hire anywhere near the same number they had on staff before this all started, so where do their customers get their money?

If they follow through with that, that will be great, since it will mean startups will easily be able hire people without having to compete with monopolists, and small businesses will be able to grow into the areas that the big businesses are refusing to hire people to reenter.

Personally I doubt that the "industry moguls" will keep those promises.  Monopolists will not give up their power that easily.

Monopolists and near-monopolists) have real power only if they can suppress competition or (I am thinking of fast food and grocery merchandising) operate upon low-enough margins to make competition pointless.  Specialty retailers seem to have largely vanished as hypermarket stores have flourished (think of Meijer in the Midwest). In the town of 10,000 in which I live the card-book-and-gift store and a music-and-video store have disappeared... and such is so in towns of similar size over a 50-mile radius. Where the music-and-video store was, in came a rent-to-own rip-off emporium  (it has overpriced schlock available on 'convenient weekly payments' whose appeal I have no desire to understand) replaced it.  The stereo sold is a set of bloated boxes that give more of a light show than any semblance of high fidelity. Yuck! I'd rather go to Best Buy about 45 to 65 miles away once the lockdown is over. Don;t even ask me about the glossy furniture. 

Contrary to a commonplace myth, the 1930's were a wonderful time for starting a business. Real estate was dirt-cheap.  Merchandise was available at fire-sale prices without the smell of smoke. Employees were easy to find because many were unemployed. Customers were loyal, especially if they had a relative on your payroll. Spending time at your business was likely more attractive than the dingy flat at which one had been living.  Above all, one was unable to get away with any bad habits as an owner-operator. People did expect value for their money, and that included the ability of the business owner to convince one of how well the merchandise fir into the customer's life. 

In any event, we have more a problem of material surfeit than of material inadequacy. It may sound like a broken record on my part, but further increases in productivity will not make Americans' live better.

[LPDec63]

(05-15-2020, 10:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-15-2020, 10:16 AM)LPDec63 Wrote: As we get deeper into this Covid Crisis, it's starting to feel like the same old same old Culture War.

Maybe at this point we are going to find that some parts of the Culture War will fail because those parts will prove contrary to needful solutions to a genuine Crisis. The Gun Cult certainly has proved irrelevant. 


... I couldn't resist. Nobody expects the Regeneracy that shakes a recent climate of indulgent depravity -- what I call the Degeneracy as the opposite of the Regeneracy. We get a Regeneracy because of degenerate behavior in the 3T -- devouring of capital in speculative bubbles, a mindless "celebrity culture" from which nobody can learn anything, under-investment in job-creating plant and equipment, short-changing the public sector to support tax cuts for people who have bought political power...   

I AGREE that the 3T has been a Degeneracy.  But the problem is if we are truly 12 years into the Crisis, there doesn't appear to have been any true Clean up of the behavior.  And I actually do expect to see generations coming forward that are less self indulgent.  



Trump support has been eroding. Remember that he got only slightly more of the popular vote in 2016 than did Mike Dukakis in 1988. Trump's 45.93% of the popular vote was good enough for election because  Trump got the 'right votes' in certain states. even though it is only slightly higher the 45.65% that Dukakis got in in 1988 (with only 111 electoral votes). Trump did worse than Romney in 2016 and Kerry in 2004, and not much better than McCain in 2008 -- all of whom lost both the popular and the electoral vote. If Trump fares less well by 1% in 2020 than in 2016, then he loses his re-election bid. 

Demographics of the electorate, with younger voters tending sharply Democratic replacing older, more Republican-leaning voters dying off or going senile, alone suggest a Trump loss. The youngest voters in 2016 and 2018 were about 20% more Democratic than Republican, voters over 55 (the generations have voted much alike from early-wave X to the Silent) have been about 5% more Republican than Democratic in 2016 and 2018. Even without a shift among voters among the elderly in their partisan identity, Trump loses. About 1.5% of the electorate, typically people over 55, dies off every year. In four years that means that Trump loses because a 1.5% shift in the vote gives him about 43.5% of the vote. He wasn't going to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with those numbers, and if Florida didn't get him then  Arizona or North Carolina would turn enough against him to ensure a defeat. 

OK, we are all accustomed to two-term Presidents. Since 1980 we have seen only one incumbent President (the elder Bush) defeated in a re-election bid.  Even that one reflects that two terms for an agenda is usually enough before people crave a change in direction. The elder Bush wasn't awful; he simply went stale. What he did well his challenger promised to repeat... and Bill Clinton stayed with the Bush 41 foreign policy. Bill Clinton, Dubya, and Obama got re-elected much as they were first elected, with five, three, and two states, respectively, changing sides between the first election and the re-election. Before that, Reagan won a 49-state landslide re-election following a 44-state repudiation of Jimmy Carter, which is itself a change of only five states.   

So we expect much the same in 2020 as in 1984, 1996, 2004, and 2012 with the incumbent getting re-elected with a switch of perhaps five states or so. So Trump loses Michigan and Pennsylvania but picks up Colorado, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. No -- not this time!. It is still early enough for me to see a range of possibilities for the 2020 election from a smashing rejection of him as happened to Jimmy Carter  to a bare win. As time passes the range will shrink. Either a smashing victory  by Biden (a forty-state win with Trump winning electorally-small states in the South, Great Plains, and the Intermountain West but nothing else)  to a bare win (all wins by Trump in 2016 except for two of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- if he loses all three, then he is defeated). 

In basically a two-way Presidential race, 39% is the floor for an incumbent President in a re-election bid in the last century (that is Hoover in 1932).

Quote:So, I think this is all coming to a head Nov 3.   And no matter what happens, there's going to be trouble.

Trouble only if the mass perception is that the winner cheated or induced others to cheat to get elected. 

Quote:If there are obvious problems with the election, will the Blue states accept another sketchy Red win?  If there is a Blue Wave will the Red staters accept it peacefully?  I'm thinking No.

Trump support is loud, firm, and fervent. So far there are no mass anti-Trump rallies because Trump-haters are not going to appear in mass rallies while such is unsafe due to COVID-19. This said, 80 thousand deaths from something that seemingly never happens in a country advanced as ours: 80,000 deaths already (and who knows how many more?) from a respiratory disease of the sort that seemingly happens only in the Third World.

I agree that the 3T has been a Degeneracy.  But the problem is if we are truly 12 years into the Crisis, there doesn't appear to have been any true Clean up of the behavior.  


I agree that things look fine, but we're only in May.  I think it is highly likely that there will be election shenanigans.  And it will only take one of two states to mess things up.. i.e. Florida in 2000.  I actually think that if team Red is looking bad in the polls in Oct/Nov, that they will be looking for a Florida 2000 scenario.   If so, we will see what happens.  Can the status quo continue to maintain if Blue States win the popular vote but lose the electoral college again in a sketchy way?  Nothing will be resolved by accepting sketchy results again.