This weekend is the last weekend of August and the presidential election campaigns will soon be going into the home stretch. It’s just two months until the general election and I suspect for most Americans the election couldn’t happen soon enough.
I think the greatest likelihood is that Hillary Clinton will win with a decisive number of electoral votes but, possibly, a much less decisive percentage of the popular votes (and still less decisive proportion of the potential vote), maybe even a minority of the popular vote.
If Hillary Clinton wins I suspect that very little will change. She’ll continue most of the Obama Administration’s policies, possibly with a few flourishes of her own. In all likelihood we’ll have a recession early in her first term, at best the present phlegmatic growth will continue (phlegmatic as in 1%).
What happens if she loses? It’s not impossible and keep in mind that the econometric models mostly point to a Trump victory. Some econometric models have been jiggered recently so they don’t predict that because their authors won’t accept the possibility. I suspect that if she loses we will see an outpouring of vituperation unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime from both sides of the Atlantic and, possibly, the other side of the Pacific as well. There may well be social unrest unlike anything we’ve seen in the last fifty years. I know people who think that alone is sufficient reason to vote for Clinton and will vote for her despite their opposition to all of her policy positions and for her as an individual.
As I have been saying all year, the outcome will depend on turnout.
I don’t know why some people are convinced Clnton has this locked up. She is still the second worst candidate in the last 50 years, and his a bad campaigner to boot.
The world won’t end if Trump wins. No Hollywood celebrity is moving to Canada, and if they do it is no loss. I don’t really think Trump will be that interested in governing. It will be left to Congress and his subordinates. Expect a lot of gridlock unless the GOP has a wave election.
Steve
That’s a pretty fair assessment of what I think is likely to happen. Illinois is proof positive that Democrats can produce gridlock all on their own. A responsible legislature here would either have enacted the taxes necessary to balance the spending they want to do and overridden the governor’s inevitable veto OR have overridden the governor’s veto of their unbalanced budget (in violation of the state’s constitution). They won’t do either.
Some are predicting if Clinton wins her presidency is already tainted badly. That being the case, they predict she will do something to rally people around her. I would suspect however, Putin is ready for anything from this corrupt Goldwater Girl Russophobe.
I suspect that if she loses we will see an outpouring of vituperation unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime from both sides of the Atlantic and, possibly, the other side of the Pacific as well. There may well be social unrest unlike anything we’ve seen in the last fifty years. I know people who think that alone is sufficient reason to vote for Clinton and will vote for her despite their opposition to all of her policy positions and for her as an individual.
Really? Civil rights? Vietnam? You were alive for both of those I presume. And they involved groups responding to actual material reality, not the winning or losing of a presidential candidate. If Hillary Clinton wins Georgia, Ohio or North Carolina, it’s not going to be due to the fact that voters were terrified of the response of the losers to a Trump victory. It’s because they fear a Trump presidency and what that will do to the country. Not the other way around.
All good reasons to vote for Johnson.