Also interesting was this question that I just shrugged aside:
If a candidate succeeds in winning a nomination and goes on to win the election and reside in the White House do they have to give up their business interests as these would be seen as a conflict of interest? Can a US president serve in office and still have massive commercial business interests abroad?
What part of your model (mental or otherwise) was so wrong that caused you to think that he would never win? The kind of voters who historically turned out vs the kind that actually turned out? Just curious, because if I have a historically good predictive model, then the most interesting and informative thing that can happen is not another solid prediction but rather a spectacular failure.
Jd:
Yeah, good point. I guess I was making the error of not taking the question seriously in the first place. I was already on record as saying that primary elections are hard to predict. My mistake was in classifying Trump as a non-candidate, or as not a serious candidate, or something like that.
Me, too. In 2015 a relative in Illinois predicted a Trump victory for the GOP nomination. I disagreed. At that time, I believed that the nomination always goes to the candidate with the largest purse. At that time Jeb Bush had the most money.
I now think that fund raising ability is an important predictor, just not the only one.
BTW, whatever happened to Jeb?
“fund raising ability is an important predictor, just not the only one.”
Fund raising ability and election outcomes are akin to RPM and MPH: that is, they are driven by the same engine: popularity. It’s already been shown that candidates who have previously lost elections rarely win in the same position the second third or fourth time around just because they have more money. Unpopular usually means less money and it always means fewer votes.
Actually, since Andrew was seemingly so spectacularly dismissive back then in 2015 regarding Trump, this should be inspirational to the rest of us.
Many have tried to explain the rise of Donald Trump. Below is a lengthy quotation from Norman Cohn’s 1966 book. As you can tell from this brief excerpt, Cohn was a powerful writer and you would do well to read his book.
“Yet, it is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility. And it occasionally happens that this underworld becomes a political power and changes the course of history.”
–Warrant for Genocide: The myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Norman Cohn
Cohn was kinder than I am when he says, “usually sane and responsible people.” But he is absolutely right when he indicates, “There are times…” which emerge seemingly at random, by chance alone.
Thanks for sharing
Alper and the quote from Norman Cohn I am afraid give the accurate portrait of the situation from the beginning.
The liberal fantasy that people are motivated by their so-called rational self-interest may explain the day-to-day course of unexceptional events.
But it is the exceptions that we must suffer through; and when they can be foreseen, the pessimists do a poor job of persuading the optimists not to shrug off the prospect. It was of no use for me — say — in Christmastime of 2015 to warn my Michigan friends. And later on besides they made all manner of excuses for having sat on their clean hands when they might have made a difference. They were — so they protested — too upset with “politics as usual” . But I suspected something worse: a generation schooled not on the idealized heroism of Gary Cooper or Spencer Tracy portraits, but instead, the “honest” Soprano (who knows how to get things done, after all) they were thrilled secretly that the opportunity had arrived; where they might enjoy the not-so-secret-pride the little gimp feels when he’s got a “gangster” supposedly on his side.
Wow, you have busted me for being wrong also. Your comment was in response to me writing, “Trump would probably put his assets into a blind trust.” Trump put management of the business into the hands of others, but he did not put it into a blind trust.
To be fair, you did qualify it with “probably.”
Around the time Andrew was dismissing Trump’s chances, I confidently told a friend that Trump’s chance of becoming president was no higher than my chance of becoming president.
So when are you running?
On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-même que de n’en point parler.
-Rochefoucauld