[markoman]

Hard disagree on 'forever be an asterisk', if you're referring to the 2020 election itself. You really think a 7 million vote margin leaves room to question this election yet another time after all the audits and Krakens, etc.? Negative sentiment on Trump was strong going into the election, especially considering the economic conditions brought on by COVID. This, being the COVID that he was seen to have mishandled, largely with his own concern at heart, wanting testing curtailed so that ever-higher cases wouldn't hurt his election chances. I guess he loved America so much that he just didn't know how to express it.

Why Trump lost in 2020 and then won in 2024 is clear. Biden's election win was no fluke. The 2024 election was about going with the devil-that-you-know, hoping that kitchen table concerns could be alleviated, and still delivered no landslide (unless you're Stephen Miller).

Just wait until all these Trump voters have to swallow the totality of merely the last 2 weeks of changes (and recissions, in some cases), and they'll find that wanting a bull in a China shop has severe consequences. After 100 days, when actual results will be expected, all the fun Trump & Musk had as they had their way uprooting bureaucrats will be over. As recriminations flow, whether Trump can hold together the crew he started with will be a major question. Interesting times.

[kcplate]

I am saying that the pandemic caused an statistical outlier election shift that year and Trump’s election in 2024 where the stats sort of reset to baseline makes it seem pretty likely that without the pandemic and with his ability to increase votes in every election, the 2020 election would have been much closer. Frankly with the weak dem field in 2020 and without the pandemic, I would have bet on Trump winning.

I am not sure what the first 100 days of his second term will bring and I will make no dire predictions (literally all of the dire predictions people made in 2016 were wrong). I have never voted for Trump, but I am not tribal enough to automatically assume that everything he does or is doing is bad either. Short of the last 9 months of his first presidency, his first time in office had zero negative impact on me.

Truthfully, my bet is this second term will likely be as equally uneventful…at least for me and my family.