Final Thoughts on the 2024 Election

I have some interesting thoughts going into the big day tomorrow, and I wanted to try to capture them concisely.

The best overview debate (Harris vs. Shapiro)

But first, here’s the best debate to listen to if you want the strongest arguments on each side. It’s Sam Harris against Ben Shapiro—with Bari Weiss moderating (and asking some extraordinary questions herself). Can’t imagine a better debate from better people.

The power of Framing

Anyway, one of my first thoughts is that they’re all—even Ben—missing something massive in all this.

Vibes. Or in the language I’ve been using lately—Framing.

Basically, I think people largely exist in a world of ideology and emotion right now, and that they use this as a lens to interpret reality. So it kind of doesn’t matter what is actually happening. What matters is how people feel about what they think is happening.

So the battle is largely about narratives and beliefs—not policy or outcomes or whatever.

Which means—strangely—that Trump could win, implement a bunch of policies that actually make things harder on people (like tariffs on American companies that force them to raise prices) and people could still feel like things are better.

This is pretty cynical, but I honestly believe that like 50-70% of the country might just instantly feel things are better if Trump wins. Largely because of this. And even if bad things happen as a result of his bad policies, they’ll still feel things have improved because of framing.

I don’t think enough people realize how powerful this effect is, and how much work it can do in shaping how people see the world. Crime stats. Economy. Immigration. Everything. For people who aren’t super informed, and who aren’t policy wonks, the data doesn’t tell the story. The stories they hear tell the story.

I think the pro-Trump framing for MAGA people is the most powerful example of this effect, but something similar happens in the opposite direction with die-hard Harris people if Trump wins. And when he did win. Their framing was, and would be, completely negative, which would make it nearly impossible to see any positive at all coming out of his administration. Same with Trump people seeing positive in anything Harris will do if she wins.

Multi-layer Inception

The next idea I’ve been having over the last couple of months is around different ways of being wrong about Trump. I feel like there are multiple onion layers of inception around this whole thing. Here are the main three layers I’m seeing.

Inception Level 1 — The media has been massively unfair in their analysis of Trump (which sounds strange coming from me who can’t stand him). The “very fine people” thing, for example is an own-goal by the left. Because it’s not true. It was taken out of context. And once an independent sees the lie from the left, they might switch anti-left immediately. And it’s an uneeded lie! There are plenty of real things Trump has done that can be talked about instead. But the point is, Level 1 is that if someone watches say the Joe Rogan interview with Trump, they’ll realize he’s not what the media has been saying he is. That he actually makes decent points. He’s not Hitler. He’s somewhat likeable. And that many of his policies are quite sensible and moderate.

Inception Level 2 — If you’re paying close attention to notice Level 1, but you also aren’t a hardcore MAGA person, and you have read/watched what Trump’s actually done—you’ll know that Trump is far more dangerous than the right understands—even acknowledging that Level 1 is true. So it’s true that the left has lied about Trump, and it’s true that Trump has some decent takes on things. And it’s true that he’s quite moderate on a lot of issues. But his flaws massively outweigh this fact. His vulnerability to flattery. His lack of curiosity about how the world works. And his inability to hire and retain talent that disagress with him in any way. These are really, really bad. So it doesn’t matter that Level 1 is true, because Level 2 is as well!

Inception Level 3 — Inception Level 3 is that none of this might matter much because of the vibes / framing issue. In other words, the success of the country over the next four years might not come down to policy or facts—but rather perceptions and the actions that people take as a result of those perceptions. Perceptions held by Americans, and perceptions of America held by the world, and perceptions of America held by our enemies and allies. They might respond to Trump’s perceived strength and Harris’ perceived weakness far more than actual policy. And those actions the big players take in response to their perceptions—like signing a treaty, or withdrawling support for a war, etc.—will end up being what really matters.

So, as we head into the election tomorrow, I’m holding all three of these in my mind simultaneously. I believe they’re all true. 1 and 2 are somewhat in conflict. And all are true at the same time. Trips me out.

Prediction(s)

My overall prediction is that Trump will win by a surprising margin. Not a landslide, but enough where it’s super clear that the left is lost. I mean, that’s already clear, but this will crystalize it. And my reasoning is that people are just really tired of anti-US, anti-West wokeism, and they see Harris as a continuation of it. That’s it. Trump is anti-woke and that’s the whole election. I think everyone’s been overthinking it.
Confidence Level of Trump Win: 80/100 (High)
Confidence Level of Trump Conclusive Win: 65/100 (Moderately High)

— EDIT: 14:22 Pacific, November 5th—

Additional Cause Analysis

I woke up with some additional thoughts on what I perceive to be the overwhelming mystery, and simplicity, of Trump’s popularity. I want to spell this out even more than I did above. Walk with me here.

• I think tangible things matter more than intangible things

• Dirty and unsafe cities are tangible

• Feeling like the economy is bad is tangible

• Feeling like the left hates America, and ambition, and success is tangible

• Feeling like Trump is the only one fighting against this is tangible

• Trump beat this same opponent in 2016, when he wasn’t supposed to

• Trump would have easily won 2020 if not for denying and then getting Covid

• Basically, Kamala is an incumbent that people hate and consider anti-American

• Trump is (perception-wise) the pro-American candidate—on crime, immigration, foreign policy—everything

• Again—it’s that simple. Woke anti-American vs. Anti-woke Pro-American

And I’m not talking about Kamala herself. It’s not clear what she is. But what’s clear is that she represents what Trump defeated in 2016 and almost easily defeated in 2020.

So why would we expect something different now? I think there’s a good argument that the woman vote on reproductive rights could make a difference, and potentially even win it for the Democrats. But my gut still says it won’t be nearly enough to counter the larger force of pro vs. anti-American sentiment.

— END EDIT —

That’s my main prediction, but it could go lots of ways. Here are some longer-term outcomes that I can see happening over the next days, weeks, months, and years based on whether Harris or Trump wins.

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Harris Wins And Shits the Bed

The thing I’m most worried about with Harris is her winning and then floundering. She doesn’t give us a vision. She can’t articulate the problems or any solutions. She stays subordinate to all the woke stuff. And she basically becomes a non-President. Not only would that suck for the country, but it’d set back women President conversations by another 20-30 years. This is like the worst.
Confidence Level Assuming Win: 60/100 (Moderately High).

Harris Wins And Does Really Well

She gets in, flounders for a bit but finds her feet and becomes a strong leader. She pushes back against the woke stuff, and comes out highly principled and strong. People might not agree with her on some stuff, but that doesn’t matter. At least she’s being
a leader, and people will respect it. Even some Republicans.
Confidence Level Assuming Win: 40/100 (Moderately Low).

Trump Wins And Goes Authoritarian / Evil

I feel like there are too many variables at play with Trump to make good predictions here, but I’d say there’s a decent chance that he does actually try to do a bunch of stuff that Regean or Bush or Romney would consider authoritarian / fascist. You have to use them as the benchmarks because the word is used too loosely today. But I can see him going after personal enemies, trying to limit free speech, trying to remove guardrails that stop him from staying in office, etc. But I can also see him being advised not to do this and/or just being too busy doing other things. I think he’s very random and thus so is this prediction.
Confidence Level Assuming Win: 60/100 (Moderate).

Trump Wins And Does Really Well

I think there’s also a moderate chance that the winds (and the narratives) favor him, and he gets in, moves a bit towards the center, doesn’t go after his enemies too much, doesn’t try to ban abortion countrywide, and the stock market and investors go insane. Most of the country starts thinking it’s Trump who did all this. Crime goes down because the police are empowered and funded, people feel safer, and there’s a general feeling of improvement in like 40-70% of the country. Most of this will be vibes/framing, and it could come at the cost of inflation or other negative effects, but that might not matter much. This is basically a Regean moment where an optimistic and positive person about America takes over after people being depressed for a long time. Again, this is vibes stuff, not policy stuff.
Confidence Level Assuming Win: 70/100 (Moderate)

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Some other point predictions:

• Chances Trump oversees the end of the Ukraine war by 2026: 80%, by 2027: 90%

• Chances Trump oversees a strong treaty between Saudi And Israel by 2026: 70%, by 2029: 90%.

• Chances Trump tries to extend his term or otherwise stay in office after a second term: 45%

• Chances Trump tries to ban abortion nationwide: 40%

• Chances of widespread riots/violence if Harris is elected: 40%

• Chances of widespread riots/violence if Trump is elected: 60%

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Notice that my confidence levels don’t add up to 100% or 1. The vibes I have about all these vibes are also vibes. Nobody has any idea what’s going to happen—not just in the election, but after someone wins. And that includes me.

I do these exercises so that I can see how good or bad my thinking was looking backward, so I can diagnose it and improve my thinking going forward.

NOTES

1. I am locking these predictions in place, so I will only make updates in a separate section below the main post. Or in these notes.