I give this a fairly high probability.
Politics
Knife
I agree with Noah Smith here.
Although it’s not possible to know for certain what the consequences of a second Trump presidency would be, it’s very possible that it would result in the U.S. essentially surrendering its European allies to Russia and its Asian allies to China — thus dramatically weakening America’s own ability to resist those enemies in the future.
This is an extremely likely outcome of a Trump victory. And that, therefore, will make WWIII far more likely as well. Either that, or the below — followed by WWIII.
If the U.S. abandons resistance to China and Russia, it will go very badly for America’s allies. Europe will probably fracture again, with some states (probably including Germany) falling all over themselves to appease the Russians. Russia will then become a sort of de facto hegemon in Europe. In Asia, China would probably conquer Taiwan, cutting off U.S. semiconductor supplies and establishing Chinese hegemony in East Asia. Japan and South Korea would then be forced to choose between either becoming nuclear powers or becoming de facto satrapies of the new Chinese empire. Essentially, America’s major allies would fall to America’s enemies.
It is indeed, as Noah observes, a very dangerous time.
Incap
It’s pretty obvious from watching and listening to Trump that he’s gone downhill even more than Biden has. Politics aside, he’s not fit to be president simply for health and mental capacity reasons.
If you vote for Trump, your actual prez will be J.D. Vance whether or not he holds that title officially.
Pocketed
Trump is in Putin’s pocket and if he wins, it’ll go very badly for Ukraine.
Ryan Air
Regardless of why Jeri Ryan was added to the cast of Voyager, as an actor she was the best part of the show. The eps focused on her were better than all the rest, and she exhibited more range than the rest of the cast except perhaps Katherine Mulgrew (Janeway).
I couldn’t find it on YouTube and it’s been twenty years since I watched it, but there was one episode where Seven was talking about her difficulty in integrating back into human society after the trauma of being assimilated into the Borg and then the further shock of having to leave that behind and adapt to a now-foreign culture. It was just perfect and heartbreaking. Jeri did a lot with a little and I always appreciated how much she gave to what could’ve been just a trivial eye candy part.
Unfortunately, she helped elect Obama by accident. She didn’t mean to, so I don’t hate her for it.
Veeper
People really overestimate the amount of power a Vice President has (nearly none most of the time) and underestimate the amount of power a President has. At least, in the US system.
Empty Vessel Makes the Greatest Sound
But the “experts” told me that the 2016 and 2020 polls were eleventy billion percent correct and anyone who doubts this is a horrible, terrible, no-good conspiracy theorist. You mean they were just protecting their own self-interest? Why, that never happens!
Offices
I am the worst at political predictions, so take this with a grain of salt the size of Saturn, but I predict that Harris will narrowly defeat Trump, the coup attempt will last a few months but fail as some key Republicans turn against him (and he will have zero military support) and Harris will take office, perhaps a little late.
There will be some political violence but as most Trump supporters are obese 52-year-old white men who can’t run more than 10 feet without keeling over dead, it won’t amount to much.
Chaos Agents
Support Trump or not, it’s clear that the media enables him. They allow his campaign to get away with saying and doing things that would immediately lead to any Democratic candidate being torpedoed and tossed out of the race. There are dozens of examples and they are not hard to to find, so I won’t enumerate them all here.
This is, largely, because doing so makes the media orgs more money. It’s also about fear, too, but for my entire life the Republicans have been held to much lower standards of behavior and policy clarity. That has only worsened with Trump.
Cat-eating Haitians? Come on. It not possible to stoop lower than an attempted coup, but that’s pretty low.
Red Authoritarianism
One of the reasons I wanted to move out of a red state is I kept being purged from the voter rolls. No explanation as to why.
As much as California government sucks, doubt that will happen to me here and doubt it would even if I were a Republican.
Modefend
Yeesh, yeah, Nate’s model is jacked all to hell. When your model is producing obviously-erroneous results, it’s time to scrap it, not defend it.
Putin Worship
I find many people’s views on Russia and Ukraine terribly naïve and vile. Alas, many of these people are ones I formerly liked and respected.
It’s a terrible thing to realize that those you formerly appreciated as thoughtful and empathetic are just fine with the genocide of Ukrainians and the high likelihood of Russian invasion of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And then the concomitant multiple scores of thousands of deaths of US citizens as we will be fighting in those countries too.
I cannot say I understand and frankly, I do not wish to.
New Newfoundland
I’ve seen more than one person arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified because Russia thinks that the Ukrainians are actually Russians1.
I think that Canadians are really Americans with worse haircuts and food. Ergo, that means we should invade Canada and correct their Tim Hortons- and poutine-worshipping ways.
See how insane that sounds?
Box Of
People who think Harris saw the questions before the debate, you are fucking idiots. Those are the same questions they ask during every presidential debate and have since rocks were new.
What are you, 11?
There’s actually quite a lot to criticize Harris on but none of the conservatives seem to have the intellectual capacity to do so.