Election Day: flip a coin, musings on GW Bush, WOPR and civil war

At least it's over, now let's not kill each other over it.

Good morning. If you’re heading to the polls, I hope you got there good and early, or at least you get there, period.

This is a rather random walk through my head, so if you’re lost, it’s not you, it’s me. Flip a coin. That’s the conclusion of Nate Silver’s model, run 80,000 times last night. Of 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won 40,012. Statistically, that’s a tie, if you’re not up on the math. In fact, there’s a decent chance of 269-269 in the Electoral College, according to the model. And a tie goes to the House of Representatives, which means it likely goes to Trump.

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

I am reminded of one of my favorite movies, “War Games,” because it was the job of the WOPR computer to run constant simulations of various kinds of war, and to train its AI to win them. Except in Global Thermonuclear War, the machine’s conclusion was “the only winning move is not to play.” And thus ends the simulation, the lights come up, and the world is safe from Armageddon.

But this is not a simulation. It’s the real thing. The models say this is the closest election they’ve ever modeled. The 2000 election was actually the closest in the modern era. We still don’t know if George W. Bush won, or if Al Gore really won (we will never know, will we?). We do know that CNN followed by ABC, Fox, and NBC, called the election for Gore, then had to take it back. We also know that Gore called Bush to concede, then did a take-back. The only reason we don’t endlessly dwell on the 2000 election is because 9/11 smothered it forever.

Tonight, we’re likely to face the scenario where nobody calls the election, because nobody wants to be CNN. Nobody wants to be Fox News, at 2:16 a.m., calling the race for Bush and then sitting until December 12 when the Supreme Court settled the matter. Then again, it could be a victory of the kind that demands a call. We just don’t know, but soon we will know.

In 2000, the election ended amicably, civilly, in the usual way Americans are proud of, transferring the most powerful job in the world without acrimony or excessive drama. In 2020 and 2021, none of this happened. If it were not for the rock-solid fact that the Secret Service and other organs of the U.S. government were duty-bound to evict Donald Trump from the White House at 12:00 noon on January 20, 2021, I doubt he’d have left, even after the disgrace of January 6th.

And now, we’re faced with the distinct possibility that Trump will move back in on January 20th, 2025. Let me confess something. When I posted my Harris win, 307-221 over Trump, it was not a prediction at all. It was a rebuke to the overconfident MAGA hats who take tiny polling leads over a number of battleground states to be a win. Elections have rhythms, which I’ve said over and over, and sounds like a broken record to my regular readers (thank you all, small but boisterous friends!). I wrote a month ago that the swing went to Trump, and Harris peaked too early. I also wrote that there might be time for a half-swing the other way. May I remind you that’s exactly what has happened.

We have ended the election cycle at mid-swing back to Harris, right where the pendulum is at the zero with no discernible momentum either way. We are on the razor edge, the coin flip. That means if you haven’t voted, you must vote, especially if you live in Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, or Arizona.

When the election is over, I don’t know if the decision will be over, politically. I am reasonably sure Donald Trump will never concede a loss. I am not sure if Kamala Harris will concede if she loses, at least not right away. If the race is close in several states, we could face the same fate as the country had in 2000, not knowing and involving every level of court up to the Supreme Court. And will Trump listen to the Supreme Court at all? (He’s not president today, so I don’t know if he will have a choice.)

And if Trump and his core supporters, bolstered by enemy online bot farms and agitators, decide to turn to other methods, like violence? Remember your history, is what I say.

The Civil War in 1860 began as a political rebellion. Yes, there had been violence on both sides of the slavery issue for years before, even rebellion in Harpers Ferry. But it was when the southern states decided to reject the results of the 1860 election and began to vote to secede is where the war started. Southern state legislatures severed ties with the United States, and their U.S. Representatives and Senators walked out and went home. Then, U.S. Army officers resigned their posts, renounced their oaths, and took actions to build an army to take up arms against the United States.

It took six months before there was any actual “war” in the sense of fighting. But the war began when the political will to go to war rose in the state capitols.

This is what we have to watch, and this is why I voted for a Democrat at the state level in my local election. Ashwin Ramaswami is a 25-year-old law grad who lives in Johns Creek, one town over from me. He looks fourteen. He’s running for state senate against our Republican state senator Shawn Still. Still was one of the people in the secret room in the state capitol who signed a fraudulent slate of electors. He was indicted by Fani Willis in the same case that saw Donald Trump get a mugshot at Fulton County Jail.

I voted against Willis because she’s corrupt and incompetent. She blew that RICO case in so many ways, I don’t have time to list them here. But I can’t abide a state legislator who would commit election fraud, even if he has not been convicted. I can’t abide legislators who would even contemplate ignoring or rejecting the results of a national election. I can’t abide anyone who might even in the most remote way conceivably do what was done on January 21, 1861—when the Georgia legislature voted to secede from the United States.

So I voted for a pro-choice Democrat who probably disagrees with me on practically every major social and government policy, if I cared to go through the list. Georgia’s state senate is safely red, so I don’t think this will turn it blue. But I hope my neighbors will take the same measure I did. This isn’t about policy. It’s about the political will to commit to civil war.

Whoever wins the national election tonight, it’s not about who will be in the White House (though that matters). What matters is that state and local officials who would reject the results be kept away from the levers of power to do so. We cannot have another January 6th disgrace. We cannot have another civil war, because if we do, it will end the nation.

I pray that Americans realize that’s what’s at stake. I don’t care who wins, though my gut is still telling me it’s Trump. I care that we don’t tear our nation apart over it. And that’s why I voted for a Democrat.

ONE MORE THING. I get my election results from Decision Desk HQ. I highly recommend them. If Brandon Finnigan calls a race, it’s called. You’ll find me glued to that site more than any other tonight.

THE RACKET NEWS™ IS NOW ON THREADS: Our scheduling software now supports Threads so we are opening a page on that site. We also have an Instagram account that has been pretty inactive, but you may see us doing more there as well. Check us out at: https://www.threads.net/@theracketnews

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS: You can follow us on social media at several different locations. Official Racket News pages include:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewsRacket

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NewsRacket

Mastodon: https://federated.press/@RacketNews

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@theracketnews

David: https://www.threads.net/@captainkudzu71

Steve: https://www.threads.net/@stevengberman

Our personal accounts on the platform formerly known as Twitter:

David: https://twitter.com/captainkudzu

Steve: https://twitter.com/stevengberman

Jay: https://twitter.com/curmudgeon_NH

Thanks again for subscribing! Don’t forget to share us with your friends!