What If Democrats Win… And So Does Trump?

The year 2020 has been one of black swans, to be certain.

Some would say 2016 was the precursor, when Hillary won the Popular Vote, and Trump was elected.

Who saw it coming, eh?

Certainly not the pollsters.

One man did, however, and since 1984 he has CORRECTLY predicted every Presidential Election’s outcome… including Trump’s impeachment.

More on that in a moment.

But just so we’ll understand one another, the term “black swan” in this and other such contexts (not necessarily politically related, however), is the moniker given to events that are outside the context of normalcy, or the normally-expected, are exceedingly rare, difficult to predict, may often have severe consequences, and in hindsight, often have broad acceptance that the event(s) in question were characterized as obvious.

In fact, I would suggest that many who supported the Current White House Occupant now, and then, would also consider him a “black swan” president.

Consider these actual events:

As candidate Trump, on his website, he wrote in part “It’s Time To Drain The Swamp In Washington, D.C.” Interestingly, that page (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trumps-five-point-plan-for-ethics-reform) is NO LONGER ACTIVE, and must be accessed via the Internet Archive (as linked above).

His promises were fairly straight-forward (though neither drastic, nor sweeping, and have been done previously):

First: I am going to re-institute a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for 5 years after they leave government service. I am going to ask Congress to pass this ban into law so that it cannot be lifted by executive order.

Second: I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs.

Third: I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists.

Fourth: I am going to issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.

Fifth: I am going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections.

Not only will we end our government corruption, but we will end the economic stagnation.

The promise is one thing. However… the reality is much different.

Consider these ACTUAL EVENTS of his administration which call into question the veracity of his claims, and the integrity of his administration:

• His former-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Scott Pruitt, was living in super-cheap housing courtesy of the wife of a man who was lobbying the EPA, and the administrator Scott Pruitt.

• Trump opened the door for 281 lobbyists to work for his administration in his first three years. Former lobbyists now run four agencies, including the departments of Defense and Energy.

• A former coal lobbyist was put in charge of regulating air pollution.

• Trump fired the State Department Inspector General at the request of the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, because the IG was investigating how Pompeo used staff from the Department of State to run personal errands for him, such as picking up takeout food orders, and the family dry cleaning.

• Pompeo spoke at the Republican National Convention, live from Jerusalem, while on a taxpayer-funded trip.

• The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security used the White House to stage a naturalization ceremony starring the president, which became a video segment for the GOP convention.

• Trump’s White House Press Office recently announced they have compiled a “very large dossier” on Washington Post writer David Fahrenthold, after he reported that “taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office.” (Remember Nixon’s “Enemies List”?)

• Former Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi, a Republican, attacked former Vice President Joe Biden and his son at the convention for allegedly taking money from foreign governments. (Much like the absurdist claims of child sex-abuse rings being run by Hillary Clinton from a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor, there is no evidence of any such claims.) Her charges against the Bidens have long been reviewed and found lacking. But she said: “If they want to make this election between who is saving America and who is swindling America, bring it on.” Bondi’s hypocrisy encompasses her work as a registered agent for the nation of Qatar, a foreign government dealing with charges of corrupt dealings in its bid for the soccer World Cup.

• Regarding the baseless charge that the Biden family took in millions from a foreign government, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Trump’s daughter Ivanka was granted valuable trademarks by the Chinese Communist government, including three which were approved on the same day she dined with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

• Last month, Trump’s 2016 campaign CEO Stephen Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud for a fundraising scam called “We Build the Wall” which raised several millions of dollars. However, Trump consistently promised that Mexico was going to pay for the border wall.

• The Office of Special Counsel sent 134 letters warning federal workers of possible illegal actions during the first three years of the Trump administration. Former White House Counselor and Trump 2016 campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was scolded that her “disregard for the restrictions the Hatch Act places on executive branch employees is unacceptable,” and in one instance, she promoted Ivanka Trump’s clothing line on television.

So the hypocrisy is blatantly glaring, as is the wholesale disregard for ethics, norms, and laws.

And realistically, every one of them could be considered “black swan” events, offshoots of the election of Trump.

Now, what about the man who “since 1984 he has CORRECTLY predicted every Presidential Election’s outcome… including Trump’s impeachment”?

That man would be Dr. Allan Lichtman, PhD, a Distinguished Professor of History at American University, who, in conjunction with Russian-born seismologist Vladimir Keilis-Borok (1921-2013) in 1981 developed an algorithm which has correctly predicted every Presidential Election since 1984. Dr. Keilis-Borok was an internationally renown seismologist who taught at UCLA, and was a member of numerous nations’ academy of science.

Their collaborative work using mathematical patterns of recognition, has not only correctly predicted the winner of every Presidential Election since 1984, but correctly predicted 128 of 150 mid-term Senatorial elections in 1986.

Their work and applied methods have also been used in predicting economic recessions, unemployment increases, murder rate increases in Los Angeles, and terrorist attacks. Read more about his forecasting work in this August 25, 2008 Washington Post article by Shankar Vedantam entitled “In the Quake Model, Rumblings Favor Obama.”

“The pollsters and the pundits cover elections as though they were horse races. But history tells us voters are not fooled by the tricks of the campaign. Voters vote pragmatically according to how well the party holding the White House has governed the country.”

“They [polls] are snapshots in time, none of this, in the end, has any impact whatsoever on the outcome of a Presidential election.

“The Keys to the White House – In 1981 I met Vladimir Keilis-Borok.  Vladimir turned to me and said ‘we are going to collaborate.’ At this point I thought the guy was either nuts, or KGB. We recast American Presidential elections as Stability – the party holding the White House keeps the White House, and Earthquake – the White House party is turned out of power. We looked at every Presidential Election from 1860 to 1980.”

Midterm Gains; No Contest; Incumbency; No Third Party; Strong Short Term Economy; Strong Long Term Economy; Major Military Change; No Scandal; No Foreign/Military Failure; Foreign/Military Success; Charismatic Incumbent; Uncharismatic Challenger

An answer of “TRUE” always favors the re-election of the White House party. If 6 or more of the keys are FALSE, you get a political earthquake.

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House than it did after the previous midterm elections. FALSE. “Republicans lost the U.S. House midterms in 2018.”

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination. TRUE. “No Republicans challenged Trump.”

3. Incumbency: The sitting president is running for re-election. TRUE. “Doesn’t look like he’s stepping down.”

4. Third Party: There is no major third-party challenge. TRUE. “Despite claims by Kanye West to be running, this is a two-party race.”

5. Short-Term Economy: The economy during the election season is not in recession. FALSE. “The [coronavirus] pandemic has pushed the economy into recession.”

6. Long-Term Economy: Real annual per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the two previous terms. FALSE. “The pandemic has caused such negative GDP growth in 2020 that the key has turned false.”

7. Policy Change: The incumbent causes major changes in national policy. TRUE. “Through his tax cut, but mostly through his executive orders, Trump has fundamentally changed the policies of the Obama era.”

8. Social Unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the campaign. FALSE. “There has been considerable social unrest on the streets, with enough violence to threaten the social order.”

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandals. FALSE. “As I predicted, Trump was impeached. Plus, he has plenty of other scandals.”

10. Foreign or Military Failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. TRUE. “We’ve had some very difficult moments with Donald Trump, but so far, true.”

11. Foreign or Military Success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. FALSE. “While Trump hasn’t had any big, splashy failures, he hasn’t had any major successes either.”

12. Incumbent Charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic. FALSE. “Trump is a great showman, but he only appeals to a narrow slice of Americans.”

13. Challenger Charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic. TRUE. “Biden is a decent, empathetic person, but he’s not inspirational or charismatic.”

 

So… given that this is the year of black swans, consider the following possible scenario – a weird one, for sure:

Democrats re-take the Senate, reinforce the House, and…

Trump is re-elected.

What then?

Having put that question to several friends of varying backgrounds, ages, sexes, locations, ethnicities, and political stripe – some who don’t even vote – here’s a sampling of the responses.

• All HELL breaks loose AND CHAOS!

• 4 years of not much getting done due to gridlock along with a whole lot of factionalism seeping out of our pores and filling the air. But, in the way of silver lining, the Left would stop Trump extremes and the Right would stop Left extremes. And yet, it could just exacerbate tensions and lead to some kind of “civil” war.

• I have no idea

• We pray

• Scary times, Total unrest or total nothing. It’s possible though.

• He’ll be impeached, and this time, there will be a real chance he will be convicted.

• Bloodshed. It could surely happen. Nutty country.

• Nothing gets passed. Trump declares war on them (the senate and house) and calls in the national Guard to lock them in until they bend to his will, then calls Putin for advice.

• Trump is impeached again. It’s that simple. With a comfortable majority he won’t be able to avoid justice a second time. In all likelihood he’ll be prosecuted by district circuits once out of office anyway.

 

Your responses are requested and will be appreciated!