There's a good chance that the upcoming presidential election will be decided by the "double haters" - those who can't stand either Trump or Biden and who won't vote for either of them. In 2020, Biden picked up votes from people who were no longer willing to stomach Trump. But in 2024, if a significant portion of those people decide to vote for a third candidate, all the indications are that this will work in Trump's favour in the head-to-head against Biden. Trump's supporters are mostly locked in; you'd have to be to continue to support Trump after everything he has done. The same can't be said for Biden's - or at least not for enough of them. For instance, if RFK Jr. is on the ballot in many states, he is likely to siphon votes away from Biden to a much greater extent than from Trump. There is also talk about a No Labels ticket putting up a candidate, which is supposed to be a centrist alternative to Trump and Biden, although apparently they are having trouble convincing anybody who has a public profile to run on that ticket. Again, if it goes ahead, it is more likely to siphon votes away from Biden than from Trump.
What it may get down to is that anyone who has any money may feel that Biden may hurt their bank account more than Trump. RFK is nuts, Trump is a clown show, Biden is just going to keep promising to spend more money until he gets re-elected again. Since the choices are so bad, it's bound to go down to the wire again and the winner is going to be disappointing no matter who it is. If Biden is elected the President may be President Harris by the end of the term.
This is, actually, one of the big questions about this election cycle: Many Trump voters have come out and said they won't vote for Trump; moreover, the totally not conservative but perpetually antiliberal sympathizers with conservative politics say they won't vote for Trump, either. Compared to 2016 and 2020, what will his vote total be? A sharp drop would suggest those voters came through on their word. A mild drop would suggest some of them voted for Trump, anyway. A steady total (65-75m) or gain (>75m) would suggest those voters stuck with Trump despite saying otherwise. It is hard to project the mitigation of lost voters by an influx of new voters, and will be hard to read in the polls because, as the saying goes, people lie to pollsters.¹ An even more fascinating question is what Trump voters do if Trump is defeated. While there is much talk of insurrection and violence, there is also some struggle among certain conservatives to distinguish Trumpism as separate from the conservatism that cultivated and raised it to power, would pretend to not support it, but is apparently willing to accept it. After all, as a matter of voter behavior, the next in line are DeSantis and Haley; one is a southern-state governor and culture warrior who seeks to make teaching of history illegal, and the other is a former southern-state governor who falters in discussion of the Civil War that started in her state, refuses the human rights of women, and wants to be counted among Nazi sympathizers. It's not like an end of the Trump era would mean the underlying components go away; inasmuch as Trumpism is a brand experience↗, the underlying product it is and represents existed before, and will continue in the marketplace beyond Donald Trump. It's like the time, some years ago, this guy I know wagged at me about not merely dismissing the views of others, and why it's other people's fault that someone votes for Trump, and just to go by the history since², Trump voters have remained fixated on certain issues the advice would have us look away from, such as supremacism and conspiracism. Maybe people forget when major Republican figures, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, dabbled in antivax conspiracism a little over a decade ago. Or perhaps it's been long enough that they don't recall that the Christian nationalism now bearing such influence among Republicans has been influential for over thirty years.³ The actual vote totals will be an interesting reflection on question of who won't vote for Trump, including who say they won't vote. ____________________ Notes: ¹ It is, of course, a bit more subtle than that, but in certain questions, poll respondents are known to be unreliable. ² i.e., speak nothing of the forty-plus years preceding that, and we really shouldn't need to count back a bit over a century before that, even if it's there. ³ It's one thing if Dan Quayle came to his senses, and insofar as the entire world is lucky that he is the exception, he is still the exception. The former vice-president did, thirty years ago, pledge allegiance to the same Christian flag congressional Republicans now abide.
I think Biden will probably win and I also don't see any credible Republican politicians in the pipeline. I didn't vote for Reagan back in the day but going back in time, were that possible, Reagan is the only Republican President that I would/could have voted for. If there were such a thing, these days, as a Rockefeller Republican, they would get my vote. I'm sure, somewhere, there is a Democrat, currently, that could get my vote but it wouldn't be from the Progressive wing and it wouldn't be from the retro/geriatric wing (Biden). Biden proposes (Warren influence) a 30% energy tax on Bitcoin miners. That's a disqualifier for me right there. Everything his has done in office has been to create inflation rather than to fight it. Everything he has done has been to support unionism, and to increase spending rather than to address the ever growing debt. There are "talking points" about his plan to lower the debt, fix infrastructure, "invest" in the future but it is all BS and all he has really done is to just try to buy votes with student loan "forgiveness", starting the narrative about "greedy" corporations, and other BS. I could support, I guess, either someone like (D) Governor Whitmer or (R) Governor Sununu. Sununu is a little too slick for me but considering the alternatives, he would do I suppose. I just can't get behind Biden's economic views (to the extent that he has any). I don't think he has any real understanding of economics in the first place. People can say, the economy is good, he spent less than Trump or whatever the talking points are but it's all BS. My wallet would be lighter under Biden than under most anyone else.
Well, except they may look at the economy right now, and the rate that inflation is dropping, and they may want that to continue. An often asked question is "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" And given the recession that hit at the beginning of COVID - most Americans are. Biden has a 95% chance of living to the end of his second term. If Trump is elected, he has a 90% chance. So his VP pick is probably more important than Biden's. In addition, Trump has a family history of Alzheimer's - Biden does not. https://theconversation.com/biden-a...t-presidents-term-demographers-explain-225153
I'm not discussing Trump. I'm discussing Biden. He looks and acts like death warmed over. Of course everyone is better off without Covid than with Covid. That has nothing to do with Biden. You can keep inflating the money supply to keep the economy afloat (artificially) until you can't but that's not a sign of a great economic plan. This isn't just a critique of Biden, it's a critique of all current politicians. People point to a good stock market but the main driver of price hasn't been profit or productivity. The P/E ratio just keep going up. That's just a function of retirement plans and government "printing" money. The companies aren't more profitable, the government is just flooding the market by increasing the money supply. We're just paying more for the same thing. That's all that "Bidenomics" is doing.
You said "Since the choices are so bad." What do you think the choice will be in November? Agreed. Unfortunately, it works. And people will always take an economy that works over an economy that wisely plans for the future but makes them poor now.
I know who the choices are. I don't like any of the choices. Regarding the economy. It's works until it doesn't work. It doesn't work well if you hold dollars (hence the interest in Bitcoin) but one day, it won't work. One day the dollar will be so debased that no one will buy government debt. One day the interest rates will be too high for the government to pay even though without causing hyperinflation. I don't want to reward that kind of behavior (by ignoring it).
I think the better of two bad choices is for Biden to be reelected and (crazy as they are) for the Republicans to maintain control of Congress. Even that is iffy since the margin has gotten so narrow and those elections are local so even though it might be better to have a mixed government, those elections are based on local issues. I personally wouldn't like to see a Democrat as President along with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate. One or the other, but not both. If Trump and the Republicans were in control (of both chambers) the economic decisions would probably be fine. The world might end though...who knows?
I think moral hazard and the corrupting influence of "big money" in politics are the two most harmful aspects of our governmental system.
Well, a good indicator that Trump is screwed is that Liz Truss has endorsed him! And she wants Nigel Farage back in the UK government!! Ah, well, we were always skirting with a truly nuts right-wing fringe... bring on Labour to have a go for the next 5 years, and see if they can make slightly less of a mess of it! And while being independently wealthy certainly helps (you have to feel sorry for those MPs who can't live on the £86k p.a. such that they need to take second jobs to feed their habits), we have at least limited the amount of money sloshing around the political system, and it doesn't appear quite so obviously corrupt as a result.
