Premature calls are really dangerous because you get loss aversion shock when it doesn’t actually work out. Last night AZ looked like it was so safe, Fox called it for Biden (in despair? Bracing for a shock?). Now it looks like the expected flip might be flipped. Flip-flop state.
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I think I’ll wake up to AZ and GA being called for Trump by a whisker and NV going from safe to dicey for Biden like AZ did today, and it coming down to PA and a courtroom battle.
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Maricopa is continuing the count despite the nazgul buzzing themhttps://twitter.com/maricopavote/status/1324223330912669696?s=21 …
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Calling it a night. Now for another chapter of The Hydrogen Sonata. First Trump term I read all of Pratchett. If he wins again I’m reading all of Iain M. Banks. If Biden wins I’ll have to get back to work since a slim shot at a non-sucky future will be briefly back in play.
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Good morning. I see nothing has changed. The universe is still expanding, entropy is still increasing, Trump still hates Edmond Dantes, and the race has narrowed everywhere. I guess the ooga booga will continue until morale improves.
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The market isn’t doing anything particularly interesting or intelligent that I can see. It’s such a delightfully mediocre superintelligence. Doesn’t even harbor a basilisk.pic.twitter.com/F0WZV7kqCT
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Haven’t really been following senate or house either, but that’s doing what I thought it would. I had some hope of a more decisive rejection of Trump but never believed in a blue wave for congress, and am not sure I even was in favor of it. The party hasn’t earned it.
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So looks like a divided Congress by a very slim margin in both houses. Aka gridlock for a president who will be a lame duck on day 1. Which would suit either of them fine. Biden won’t try to be bold with a narrow mandate, Trump has no big ideas now that the courts are secured.
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Big picture: Monarch (emperor = potus): weaker First estate (clergy = media): weaker Second estate (nobility = congress): weaker Third estate (“commoners” = stock/home-owning wealthy): stronger Fourth estate (social media): stronger Fifth estate (under-the-API workers): weaker
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Commercial break: This part of the tweetstorm is sponsored by Sirius Cybernetics. In the grimdark future there will only be robots with Real People Personalities™ to look forward to.pic.twitter.com/xpWdMB0P9m
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Thought: there are elections that change everything (1980, 2016) and ordinary elections that convince you nothing can ever change. There are false positives (2008, 2020) that you think will change everything but reinforce nothing-will-change-itis. And false negatives (1964?)
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In the US, only presidential elections seem to have global equilibrium shifting powers. Congress is important mainly for optimizing locally within a new region of attraction set by a narrative shifting president and locking in gains.
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Ok, must save lessons learned for later. Back to meditating on the hive-mind present-moment stream. Nothing continues to furiously happen in AZ, GA, NV, PA. I don’t think NC and AK are meaningfully in the decision matrix.
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Hot take: Contra take that Trump will stick around as a power center even if he loses, because he fueled a red wave to shape congress races... no. He’s done the job the party needed to shift the equilibrium and is too much chaos to keep around. He’ll be kicked to the curb.
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They’ll find some face-saving sidelined role for him and a different way to keep the activated new base engaged and enraged. He was the booster rocket. They’re in orbit now. He’s no longer needed and a serious liability for the exercise of actual political power.
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Again I’m not sure. His past TV appeal was based on camp. The audience was mostly laughing at him, not admiring him as he thought. His POTUS rhetorical style was based on whining and evasion and posturing which does not translate well to even Sean Hannity style commentary.https://twitter.com/LukeThinksShow/status/1324472590832861184 …
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He likes to be the center of attention, not comment from the sidelines or merely own the media empire from the back room like Murdoch. Also note that a lot of his charisma is derived from being in office. It’s not clear to me his base will see him the same out of it.
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When people go out on top on their own terms, like star athletes who retire at the right time, many doors are open. I think people are underestimating the effects of even a narrow loss all around. He’ll milk the “unfair theft” shtick for a while but it’s not a career.
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I’m not writing him off. He’s more of a live player at 73 than I am at 47. Runs on pure bile which seems to act as an astonishing elixir of life for him. He’ll find some way to matter. It just won’t be the 2 obvious possibilities of offstage kingmaker in politics or media.
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True. The birther thing was a major kayfabe win. I’d expect something along those lines. Producer and booster of conspiracy theories. Maybe even documentaries like Al Gore.https://twitter.com/mkbdrx1/status/1324481815667761154 …
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Typo, I’ll be 46 in a few weeks not 47. Anyhow, still no news huh?
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If he wins with PA, it will be vindication of the value of technically correct and statsistically conservative strategy in a game with a long history. He bet on the boring play of rebuilding the Blue Wall that Trump breached in 2016. No fancy narrative. Just do the math right.
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It would be poetic justice if a figurative “rebuilt wall” kept Trump from a second term. Tactical fumbles like the Latinos-against-Socialism stuff in Florida foreshadow future strategic concerns, but in the short term, betting on the proven strategy seems to have been wise.
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A good question in this context. I think "wise" political strategy in US elections is not just making historically data-driven decisions (that's merely smart), but also tuning out all massive noise levels about all sorts of things that just don't matter.https://twitter.com/muzkmuzkmuzk/status/1324526374736982016 …
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This might be the first time I've noticed NYT baldly use the word "lies" in a headline about Trump instead of euphemisms like "claimed without evidence" ... has this happened before?pic.twitter.com/YPzLXu2Ifp
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Nothing happening at go brrrr rates on CNNhttps://twitter.com/daretorant/status/1324497396848447491?s=21 …
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Getting bored by this. That’s a good sign. We’re not going back to normal, but we can potentially go back to boring for a while.
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