I was sitting down to do my “October in Review” post and realized I never got around to September. So better late than never. I’m writing this on November 9, 2024 after the U.S. election but I’ll try to give U.S. politics a rest in this post (update: I almost succeeded although I couldn’t resist an interesting point about the U.S. Constitution).
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Countries around the world update their constitutions about every 20 years on average. They have organized, legal processes for doing this spelled out in the constitutions themselves. The U.S. constitution is considered the world’s most difficult constitution to update and modernize.
I’ve had a few days to process the election now. I’ve heard and pondered a variety of explanations for why it went so decisively in Trump’s favor. Here are a few thoughts.
“A referendum on the Biden administration.” The economic pain felt by a large majority of voters is real. The root cause, somewhat obviously, is inequality. The inequality in turn is the result of decades of poor policy choices resulting in erosion in real wages for working people, regressive taxation, lack of government services and benefits that citizens of other developed countries take for granted, and destabilization of our planet’s biophysical life support system which allows us to grow food and live near coast lines. The thing is, people don’t react strongly to gradual changes. A complex system like the economy can be under stress for a long time and then break when subjected to an extreme event. The extreme event in this case was Covid-19 and the worldwide inflation that followed. This caused a very real and painful reduction in peoples’ disposable income, and they are understandably pissed off. Trump offers simple (but wrong) explanations and people to blame: Biden. Harris. Democrats. Immigrants. China. Then he offers simple (but wrong and counter-productive) fixes like tariffs and mass deportation of foreigners.
Lack of critical thinking. I think there is something to this. The simplistic answers are wrong, and intelligent people should be able to see this but they are not. There is at least some possibility that Covid or testicle-shrinking chemicals in our food/air/water have made us all stupider than we used to be. But I don’t really believe this. So it is clearly a failure of the education system if a large majority of the people, most of whom are perfectly intelligent, are not able to see through obvious illogical claims and false promises.
Democrats’ lack of a clear alternative. The Democrats did not offer any easy to understand, coherent counter-narrative, and they do not have a track record they can point to suggesting they can reverse the decline in disposable income. I’ll let Bernie Sanders say it: “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
Lack of talented leaders in politics. I loathe Trump and everything he stands for. But I went to the polls on Tuesday feeling like I was voting for the less bad of the two very limited options being offered to me. I did not find Harris to be visionary or inspiring. I can say the same about Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush. Barrack Obama was a talented, visionary, inspiring leader even though his policies were status quo in many ways. I find Bernie Sanders inspiring. I personally found Bill Clinton inspiring, although again his policies were quite conservative on any rational spectrum. And that’s it for the last three decades or so! But I see talented leaders at the state and local level, in corporations and non-profit organizations and universities all the time. In a nation of 350 million odd people, there have to be thousands if not tens of thousands of people with leadership potential. Our political system is not identifying these people, inspiring them to pursue a political career, and bringing them to the forefront for the electorate to choose from.
I’m writing on the morning of election day, November 5, 2024. I have cast my personal vote, in-person since my cracker-ass state will take days to count mail-in ballots and that will allow people who want to cast doubt on the results as they “change” to do so. No results are available yet, so I might as well do one last wrap up of the numbers.
STATE
2020 RESULT
Silver Bulletin (October 1)
Silver Bulletin (November 5)
538 (November 5)
RCP (November 5)
Arizona
Biden +0.4%
Trump +1.5%
Trump +2.4%
Trump +2.1%
Trump +2.8%
Georgia
Biden +0.3%
Trump +1.0
Trump +1.0%
Trump +0.8%
Trump +1.3%
Wisconsin
Biden +0.6%
Harris +1.9%
Harris +1.0%
Harris +1.0%
Harris +0.4%
North Carolina
Trump +1.3%
Trump +0.5%
Trump +1.1%
Trump +0.9%
Trump +1.2%
Pennsylvania
Biden +1.2%
Harris +1.2%
Trump +0.1%
Harris +0.2%
Trump +0.4%
Michigan
Biden +2.8%
Harris +2.1%
Harris +1.2%
Harris +1.0%
Harris +0.5%
Nevada
Biden +2.4%
Harris +1.8%
Trump +0.6%
Trump +0.3%
Trump +0.6%
If we take the Nate Silver numbers as an accurate prediction of the vote, Trump will win the electoral college 287-251. Of course, just flip Pennsylvania to the Harris column and she wins 270-268. If the polling results end up being systematically biased by 1% in either direction, which would be statistically completely unsurprising, it could be a landslide either way. Still, I think I would rather be Trump this morning, because a 1% bias in his direction delivers a huge landslide, whereas a 1% bias in Harris’ direction puts her right on the edge of maybe winning Georgia and Nevada (which Biden won) and North Carolina (which Biden lost). Arizona, which Biden won, would be an even heavier lift. So in other words, these poll numbers suggest she is underperforming 2020 Biden, and that was a close call. It pains me to say all this. And I don’t think it is necessary to even say this: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS A STUPID UNDEMOCRATIC RELIC DESIGNED TO GET 18TH CENTURY SLAVE OWNERS TO AGREE TO BE PART OF THE UNITED STATES, AND WE ARE STILL STUCK WITH IT.
Finally, looking at the betting sites (at 8:50 am EST), PolyMarket is 62% to 38% in favor of Trump, PredictIt is 55 cents to 51 cents, and Kalshi is 60% to 40% in favor of Trump. So whoever bets on these sites seems to agree with the polls more or less. Of course, they are looking at the same polls and other betting sites as everyone else when they decide how to bet, so these are not really independent data points. There may also be shady people manipulating these odds similar to how they are able to manipulate sports odds, who knows.
So I think Harris has a very good chance but I am certainly not confident she will win. We may start to get a sense 12 hours or so from now, or we may not really know for a week or even more.
Do I even need to make my case against Trump again? Well, I will, one last time. These are the really, really bad potential consequences of four more years of Trump.
Climate change has gone from a serious risk that could have been avoided or mitigated to an actively unfolding disaster that needs to be managed to produce the least bad outcome still possible. It is coming for our homes, our cities, and our food supply, and it is going to fuel massive movements of people that are going to cause major social instability. The world can’t afford four more years of denial, propaganda, inaction, and backsliding.
Trump will put incompetent clowns in charge of all major federal departments and programs. Incompetent clowns will not be able to deal with crises and emergencies effectively. The risk of nuclear proliferation, nuclear war, and nuclear terrorism has gone way up over the past decade. This is a huge, imminent existential threat that could bring our country and entire human civilization to its knees. Another major pandemic with a much higher mortality rate among young people, whether bird flu, a Covid relative, or a biological weapon, is another existential threat clowns will not deal with effectively (as they did not last time). Even a major earthquake affecting major population centers, dealt with incompetently or not at all, could deal a body blow to our country.
My list does not include important issues like inequality, health care, child care, education, abortion, gun control, campaign finance reform, or constitutional reform because we can get away with bickering over these things for four more years without the risk of major systemic collapse of our nation and civilization. And neither of the political parties we are allowed to choose from are going to address these issues effectively, although Democrats will attempt some marginal adjustments from time to time. They just make us a little bit poorer and more miserable gradually over time. Hopefully the robot takeover is at least a decade away. What we can’t afford is not having mature, rational grownups running things at a time of growing existential risk.
I am writing this on Halloween, October 31, 2024. You may be reading this after the 2024 U.S. election, in which case you know what happened and I don’t!
Parts of this op-ed in Project Syndicate by a political science professor surprised me.
Others grew alienated during the grueling experience of the Trump presidency. For some Republicans (and independents), the last straw was his loyalty to himself over his party and country when it came to endorsing candidates and dealing with foreign allies and adversaries. For others, it was his pandering to evangelicals, his embrace of isolationism, and his indulgence of racist white nationalists. For still others, it was his attempt to steal the 2020 election, culminating in the uniquely shameful attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Most Democrats and many independents, of course, have resisted Trump from the start.
Thus, the reason Trump isn’t running away with the 2024 election is Trump himself. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Republicans would be the favorites in a normal year with a normal candidate. But 2024 is not a normal year, because Trump is not a normal candidate.
The American electorate’s decision is being influenced both by the quotidian concerns that usually structure election outcomes and by one outsize personality. Never has the latter been such a key consideration. Hundreds of thousands of voters – perhaps millions – are putting aside their party loyalty, policy priorities, and complaints about current conditions to stand against a candidate they consider unfit for the presidency and unworthy of election. We will soon know whether politics as usual or unusual politics will carry the day.
I am surprised by the idea that a “more normal” Republican would be running away with the election. I think it is more likely that an “average Republican” would be hard to distinguish from Kamala Harris who, other than a mildly interesting personal history consisting of being a mixed-race childless cat lady, is a very “average Democrat”.
The Democrats delivered Social Security almost a century ago and Medicare more than half a century ago. These programs are hugely beneficial to voters. However, they have been around for so long that voters take them for granted and do not connect them to the Democratic Party. Since enactment of these programs, Democrats have made many promises to middle class voters and almost entirely failed to deliver on them. (Obamacare might be the biggest success from this period – it was certainly the absolute most that was politically possible at that moment, and much better than nothing, but also much less than fully satisfying. My family would have to pay about $2500 a month out of pocket for coverage, just for the privilege of then paying more when we go to the doctor. This is not affordable or acceptable to the people who need the program most, which are middle income people in the gap between corporate employer-provided coverage and piss-poor quality but free Medicaid for low income people.) So from the Democrats we get positive messages coupled with utter failure to deliver. The Republicans promise nothing and deliver nothing to the middle class. The Democrats’ failure to deliver allows Republicans to focus entirely on negative messaging around things like taxes and immigration, which connects the middle class with people and policies to blame for our misery. The connections are logically and empirically almost entirely false, but the misery is very real. So the election ends up being a referendum against a bland average administration people connect with that misery. My guess would be Trump’s personality turns people on and off in about equal measure, so I suspect substituting a bland average Republican for him (see 2020 Joe Biden) would still result in a near-tossup election.
Don’t get me wrong. My fingers are crossed for Kamala Harris and a Democratic majority in Congress. Another Democratic administration will not deliver for the middle class, but it is much more likely to inch us in the right direction on climate change and manage risk created by the various international crises. These are existential risks, and re-electing Trump just fans the flames of some very, very bad possibilities that could bring down our nation or even our global civilization. To deliver for the middle class, we would need to modernize our constitution, end the control of government policy by wealthy and powerful corporations and billionaires, and get rid of the current insurmountable barriers for candidates outside of the two dominant parties.
It’s interesting that the U.S. Census is conducted every 10 years, presidential elections are conducted every four years, and census results affect the number of electoral votes apportioned to each state. So the 2020 Census was too late to change electoral votes in the 2020 election, but it has changed them slightly in the 2024 election.
From Newsweek (and I haven’t confirmed this from other sources):
Texas was the biggest gainer, according to the Census numbers that were released in 2021. The Lone Star state gained two more votes in Congress and the Electoral College for the next 10 years. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon also each gained one seat, while California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia lost a seat each.
I count 3 votes shifted from states that voted Democratic in 2020 (Colorado +1, Oregon +1, California -1, Illinois -1, Michigan -1, New York -1, Pennsylvania -1) to states that voted Republican (Texas +2, Florida +1, Montana +1, North Carolina +1, Ohio -1, West Virginia -1).
It doesn’t seem like this will matter in 2024, but with the election possibly coming down to just 2 electoral votes in the Democrats’ favor (if they win Pennsylvania-Michigan-Wisconsin and lose Georgia-North Carolina-Nevada-Arizona), transferring 3 more points after the 2030 census could make all the difference in the 2032 election. But that is pretty far away and a lot of things can change in 8 years. For example, the actual people moving from “blue” to “red” states could take their “blue” politics with them and eventually shift their new state into the blue category or at least the swing state category. Maybe 8 years could be long enough to do away with the idiotic electoral college itself, which was created to convince 18th century slave owners to join a rebellion against an 18th century empire. But no, I am not this optimistic.
Here we go – if I stick to my once a month poll review, there will only be one more just before the election.
STATE
2020 RESULT
Silver Bulletin (September 1)
Silver Bulletin (October 1)
538 (October 1)
RCP (October 1)
Arizona
Biden +0.4%
Trump +0.6%
Trump +1.5%
Trump +1.5%
Trump +2.1%
Georgia
Biden +0.3%
Harris +0.9%
Trump +1.0%
Trump +1.3%
Trump +1.5%
Wisconsin
Biden +0.6%
Harris +3.2%
Harris +1.9%
Harris +1.6%
Harris +0.6%
North Carolina
Trump +1.3%
Trump +0.4%
Trump +0.5%
Trump +0.7%
Trump +0.7%
Pennsylvania
Biden +1.2%
Harris +1.3%
Harris +1.2%
Harris +0.6%
Trump +0.1%
Michigan
Biden +2.8%
Harris +1.9%
Harris +2.1%
Harris +1.9%
Harris +1.4%
Nevada
Biden +2.4%
Harris +0.9%
Harris +1.8%
Harris +1.0%
Harris +1.1%
The first thing that stands out is there is no disagreement between the weighted poll averages (Silver and 538) on the more likely winner of each state. They also agree with the RCP unweighted average with the exception of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania just looks dangerously close, with a 1% polling bias towards Harris (vs. how people in the state end up voting) making it a tossup. Still, you would rather have that polling average in your favor than against you. The difference between the weighted averages and RCP suggest that there either a lot of polls of Pennsylvania voters that the weighters consider Republican-biased garbage, a big recent trend toward Harris in Pennsylvania (because they rate more recent polls higher), or a combination. I can tell you from personal experience that the Democratic get-out-the-vote operation in my home city of Philadelphia is in hyperdrive, but I also assume the Republicans equivalent is in hyperdrive in Republican-leaning counties (like my old home county of Luzerne in Northeast Pennsylvania.)
If the polls are reasonably accurate, Georgia and Arizona might be moving out of Harris’s reach, and it is hard to believe North Carolina and Georgia are that culturally different (think about the Charlanta mega suburban sprawl cluster-f which is basically one thing).
If Harris wins Pennsylvania, she seems likely to win Wisconsin and Michigan and the electoral vote as a whole. Nevada would pad the score a bit for Harris, but it would not offset the loss of Pennsylvania.
Polymarket gives Harris 50% to 48% odds. Predict prices her at 56 cents to Trump at 48 cents, with other candidates given about 8 cents.
So all the signs kind of point to Harris, but if there is a systematic error of 1-2%, Trump could still pull it out.
I would tend to agree with Jeffrey Sachs’s description below of U.S. foreign policy as “arrogant”.
Here is not the place to revisit all of the foreign policy disasters that have resulted from US arrogance towards Russia, but it suffices here to mention a brief and partial chronology of key events. In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections. In 2003, the US and NATO allies repudiated the UN Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. In 2004, the US continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic States and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans. In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the US pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine.
In 2011, the US tasked the CIA to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi. In 2014, the US conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. In 2015, the US began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe(Romania), a short distance from Russia. In 2016-2020, the US supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. In 2021, the new Biden Administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. In April 2022, the US called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia.
Looking back on the events around 1991-93, and to the events that followed, it is clear that the US was determined to say no to Russia’s aspirations for peaceful and mutually respectful integration of Russia and the West. The end of the Soviet period and the beginning of the Yeltsin Presidency occasioned the rise of the neoconservatives (neocons) to power in the United States. The neocons did not and do not want a mutually respectful relationship with Russia. They sought and until today seek a unipolar world led by a hegemonic US, in which Russia and other nations will be subservient.
U.S. foreign policy has been a playground bully. Nobody likes or trusts a bully, but they fear and respect the bully. This works okay for the bully as long as they are perceived as strong. But as soon as they are perceived as weak or at least weaker compared to competitors, they have a problem. They can’t keep others in line through fear or respect any more, and they don’t have friendship or trust to fall back on.
It’s hard to imagine repairing the relationship with Russia right now. Their action in invading a sovereign neighbor cannot be excused no matter what we have done. We can manage the relationship to try to make it less bad going forward, and we can try to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them with China and other (relatively, perceived to be) increasingly powerful countries. We can first put policies in place that can build trust over time. Nobody will trust as at first, but if our actions were to match our promises over a period of decades we could slowly rebuild our relationships. Here are a few ideas to bandy about: (1) a no-first-strike nuclear policy, (2) serious commitments to nuclear weapons reductions, and re-entering or re-establishing of treaties and agreements with other countries that have or potentially seek nuclear weapons, (3) nuclear power for countries that want it, in exchange for a commitment not to seek nuclear weapons and submission to a strict inspection regime, (4) a commitment not to invade sovereign UN member states ever again without a Security Council resolution, (5) a commitment not to interfere in other countries’ elections or seek “regime change” ever again through covert action, only through public diplomatic channels. There are plenty of things I leave off here (biological weapons and pandemic preparedness, food security, carbon emissions to rattle off just a few) but these are some basic war-and-peace ideas, and we need peace to have a shot at solving the other complex problems the world faces right now. Getting politicians to make these commitments or similar ones would be hard, and sticking with them for decades would be harder, but it needs to be done.
Flexible things can bend without breaking, while strong, rigid things can withstand a lot of force up to a point, then break catastrophically. Is the U.S. Constitution the latter? This Lawfare podcast on the Constitution made some interesting points, and I wish they would post a transcript.
The U.S. Constitution is just outdated. Countries around the world looking to write a new constitution used to look to the U.S. Constitution as a model, but this is no longer the case. One U.S. Supreme Court justice in an interview suggested South Africa’s latest constitution as a good modern model.
Constitutions around the world are amended on average about every 20 years. Some even lay out regular time tables for review and updating.
The U.S. Constitution is the world’s hardest constitution to amend. Newer constitutions tend to make the most important rights hard to amend, but less important details easier to amend, with a few tiers of how large a majority is needed to approve various proposed amendments.
The U.S. Constitution mostly lays out negative rights, in other words things the government can’t do to you like take away your gun. Newer constitutions include positive rights, like a right to health care or a clean environment.
Interestingly, individual U.S. state constitutions are much more modern in terms of rights, and many are updated regularly.
The Congressional Research Service did a report in 2016 on the constitutional convention process, which is one way the constitution can be amended, theoretically by the states and outside the direct control of Congress. Here are a couple interesting paragraphs:
From the 1960s through the early 1980s, supporters of Article V conventions mounted vigorous unsuccessful campaigns to call conventions to consider then-contentious issues of national policy, including a ban on school busing to achieve racial balance, restrictions on abortions, apportionment of state legislatures, and, most prominently, a requirement that the federal budget be balanced, except in wartime or other extraordinary circumstances. Although they came close to the constitutional requirement, none of these campaigns attained applications from 34 states.
With the failure of these efforts, interest in the Article V Convention alternative declined for more than 20 years, but over the past decade, there has been a gradual resurgence of attention to and support for a convention. Advocacy groups across a broad range of the political spectrum have embraced the convention mechanism as an alternative to perceived policy deadlock at the federal level. Using the Internet and social media to build campaigns and coalitions that once took much longer to assemble, they are pushing for a convention or conventions to consider various amendments, including the well-known balanced budget requirement, restrictions on the authority of the federal government, repeal of the corporate political contributions elements of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and others.
Sure, Citizens United has to go. Rather than the ghosts of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson whispering in the ears of our nine unelected Supreme Leaders to tell us what the First Amendment and all the other amendments mean in 2024, we should come to consensus on new words that say clearly what we want them to say. But even more fundamental would be to amend the constitution to make it easier to amend in the future. Reviewing constitutions around the world for modern best practices sounds like a great idea. Instituting tiers for the level of consensus needed to pass various types of amendments sounds like a great idea. And adding a time table for regular review of the constitution seems like a good idea. For example, maybe Congress would have to vote on amendments proposed by the states at least once per session or once every X years, or else a constitutional convention would automatically be triggered.
Here’s my “official” take on the U.S. election for September 1. Sure, I admit I look at the polls almost every day. But I figure writing down the numbers and puzzling over them a bit once a month helps me to filter out some of the noise. So here goes. I still lean on the “Silver” numbers as probably reflecting the most well-thought-out adjustments of poll numbers to something close to reality. The 538 numbers are interesting to give a sense of how much small decisions about these adjustments matter, and the RCP numbers show what unadjusted (i.e., heavily biased) numbers would look like.
STATE
2020 RESULT
Silver Bulletin (August 1)
Silver Bulletin (September 1)
538 (September 1)
RCP (September 1)
Arizona
Biden +0.4%
Trump +2.7%
Trump +0.6%
Harris +0.3%
Trump +0.5%
Georgia
Biden +0.3%
Trump +2.2%
Harris +0.9%
Harris +0.5%
Trump +0.2%
Wisconsin
Biden +0.6%
Harris +0.4%
Harris +3.2%
Harris +3.2%
Harris +1.4%
North Carolina
Trump +1.3%
Trump +2.2%
Trump +0.4%
Trump +0.3%
Trump +0.6%
Pennsylvania
Biden +1.2%
Trump +0.2%
Harris +1.3%
Harris +1.2%
Harris +0.5%
Michigan
Biden +2.8%
Harris +2.6%
Harris +1.9%
Harris +2.4%
Harris +1.1%
Nevada
Biden +2.4%
Trump +2.2%
Harris +0.9%
Harris +0.7%
TIE
So going with the Silver numbers, the electoral college would be Harris 292, Trump 246.
Both Arizona and North Carolina have been in the Harris column during the month of August and flipped back over, while the numbers in Pennsylvania (>:-() seem like they might have tightened over the past two weeks. On the other hand, Georgia and Nevada are huge wins for the Harris campaign if they come through. Move Nevada and Georgia back into the Trump column and Harris still wins 270-268, with recount hilarity likely to ensue of course. This happens to match the RCP polling results above, if you give the Nevada tie to Trump. Surprisingly, she could lose Pennsylvania and still win the electoral college if everything else in the map above were to hold. But these things tend to be correlated and any event that moved Pennsylvania a whole point toward Trump would tend to move other states too. Unless we are talking some serious voter suppression or outright cheating by people in Harrisburg with pointy white hats in the back of their closets.
In the betting markets, PredictIt has Harris at a 56% chance of winning (the electoral college) vs. 47% for Trump (well actually $0.56 to $0.47 with about $0.08 given to other candidates, so apparently they don’t intend for these to add up close to 100%). Polymarket however has Trump at 51% to 48% for Harris. So whoever is betting on that site thinks they know something the rest of us do not.
So, my overall verdict is things look pretty good for Harris at the moment with two months to go. I think this election is hers to lose.
We’re not going to get Bernie Sanders as President of the United States. If we are lucky, we are going to get the next-in-line representative of the pro-big-business, pro-war center-right consensus, rather than the nuclear war and climate change treaty breaking, science denying, bigoted serial rapist. We are not going to get health care, child care, and education for the vast majority of hard working citizens any time soon.
Who is the next Bernie Sanders? It is not Kamala Harris. I don’t think it’s a member of the “squad”, who seem mostly caught up in rhetoric and symbolic action around race and gender, not benefits for working people. Bernie is not the most articulate or charismatic politician out there, he is just extraordinarily authentic and straightforward. He showed us the formula, now some talented leaders should be able to emerge and follow his example.
