I’m very dubious as to the value of that thing. Would anyone seriously have taken a 50:50 bet on Trump on that day in July?
I wasn’t that impressed when Silver got every state right in 2008 (2012?). It’s just modelling. I don’t like his (or his team’s) attempts at punditry. He’s as bad at that as anyone else. He is just very good at statistics. I don’t think his interpretation of it is any better than anyone else’s.
I think the chance that Trump has flounced off by the election is higher than his chance of winning.
I do, too. It really never even occurred to me that he’d consider flouncing until I read about it here or at Slate a week or so ago, but now I do believe he’s sorely tempted. I think the one thing keeping him in the race (other than sheer ego-driven competitiveness) is an indistinct gnawing fear of the consequences if he bails.
I mean, soooo many of the the people and corporate entities he calls friends would be pissed.
You are self described as a lefty, but for those of us nearer the center, Penn is a little too enthusiastic about communism for my taste. Of course, I was pretty unhappy about Sanders, but now he seems like Thomas Jefferson compared to our primary choices. I have to say that Penn, like Sanders, would at least have the best of intentions.
I don’t think he does. Bouie figures Trump at least recognizes that dropping out would be the loseriest loser thing a loser could lose, but one of the biggest problems we have with Trump is his inability to see the broader consequences of his immediate actions. All along I’ve felt that he’s running for the gig because he wants the trophy (he probably imagines his face on the squillion-dollar bill someday, along with an extension built onto Mount Rushmore to accommodate his smirk), but there’s no way in hell he wants to do what the actual job would actually require of him.
But if he doesn’t actually recognize that about himself, if he’s self-deluded enough to think that being POTUS is only slightly harder than being CEO of Trump Inc., then he won’t bail for any price.
For me, that does go an awfully long way, particularly if they’re willing to put in the effort to gain the knowledge and background for the gig. I still find myself blinking in amazement that Schwarzenegger didn’t actually burn down the state of California. He put in a good-faith effort, reined in most of the idiot impulses that drove him in his younger years, and we came out okay.
I do understand that Penn is too lefty for a wide swath of American voters, but I still feel strongly that he’s nowhere near the left-wing version of Donald Trump.
The intentions thing is pretty important, even though history has shown that most genocide and famine started with good intentions. But good intentions, combined with separation of powers, and constitutional limits, might not be so bad.
You remind me to wonder what Trump’s intentions actually are. “Making America Great Again” does seem to imply that he wants to improve the standard of living for… well, whomever he considers good Americans. His rhetoric heavily implies “I wanna help you guys out! Just you guys over here, these particular (white cisgendered Christian American-English-speaking tax-hating) people who’ve had such a tough time under Obama’s thumb.”
And the good intentions that started those genocides and famines were also directed at a subset of a population. “Just you guys over here. Fuck the rest. Let 'em starve. Let 'em be ethnically cleansed from our country.” It seems obvious to me that good intentions aimed solely at a subset of the population, and particularly at the expense of the rest of the population, is the sure way to those disasters you mention.
I am not sure that his intentions go beyond making the deal, in this case the election. Like when he was in Alabama with the bible that someone gave him. he is sort of using conservative rhetoric, but once he gets elected, and makes the deal, there will be no reason for him to keep that up. That is likely why he is always so vague about specific programs or policies. He does not really care about any of that.
