Victory

Per aspera ad astra

By Michael D. Shaw Nov 20, 2024 @ Mike's Point Of View

Donald Trump’s victory on November 5th has inspired hope in many, and self-absorbed meltdowns in others. As to meltdowns, I’m more interested in reactions OTHER than the obviously rehearsed histrionic performances that have been all over social media. Somehow, the prospect of “I think I’m going to have a breakdown, but first let me log into TikTok, so I can record it for posterity,” doesn’t exactly ring sincere.

Consider Allan Lichtman. Lichtman’s "13 Keys to the White House" was originally developed in 1981, and is claimed to have predicted nine of the last eleven presidential elections. Lichtman missed in 2000 and famously in 2024. People—including Cenk Uygur—heavily criticized Lichtman for his Harris prediction, and Lichtman went nuts on live TV, accusing Uygur of “blasphemy,” and noting that he didn’t need Uygur to call him “stupid.” Evidently not, since many others had already done just that.

In the matter of the 2000 election, Lichtman waffled by saying that he DID predict the popular vote—as if that matters. In short, he is not a gracious loser.

The 13 keys model utilizes the following precepts:

1. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.  Advantage: Republicans

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.  Argumentative. Biden won the primaries, but to no avail.

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.  Neither

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. Not a factor

5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Controversial, but advantage to the Dems

6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.  Advantage: Republicans

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.  Given Ukraine and Afghan wars, Advantage: Republicans

8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.  Advantage: Dems

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.  Given that Biden was effectively kicked out, Advantage: Republicans

10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.  Per number 7, Advantage: Republicans

11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. Advantage: Republicans

12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.  Advantage: Republicans

13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Advantage: Republicans 

If eight or more of the 13 keys are true for the incumbent party, its candidate will win the election—but if fewer than eight are true, the challenger will win.  Any way you slice it, the willfully blind Lichtman violated his own guidelines, and amazingly blamed his failure on an explosion of “disinformation”—in effect blaming the voters. Uygur, to his credit, criticized Lichtman for this condescending point of view.

But then, this idea of blaming the consumer for the failure of a product is not exactly new. In the wake of its many recent Star Wars and Marvel box office disasters, this has been the go-to strategy for Disney. One wonders just how big a bomb the live action remake of Snow White will be. Will anyone at the House of Mouse admit to being the brains behind hiring the insufferable Rachel Zegler?

As far as I can tell, blaming the consumer dates back to the failure of Sony’s Betamax video cassette format, versus VHS. At the time, purists rightly noted that Betamax had better quality, but did not reckon with the longer available recording time offered by VHS. In the early days, recording time was a factor, since the media were expensive. However, that all changed, but not before Beta disappeared due to lack of sales.

At any rate, Beta versus VHS had nowhere near the arrogant “blame the idiot consumer” vibe. It would take 30 or more years for such self-aggrandizement to develop among the elite.

That’s why the most important aspect of Trump’s victory could be the permanent deflation of the elite and the “expert” class. God knows, they’ve caused enough destruction to last several generations. From Robert McNamara’s idiotic fallacy, to Tony Fauci’s mendacious “Give us two weeks to flatten the curve,” these geniuses have had their mettle tested, and have come up snake eyes.

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