Official Betting Pool For the Political Violence of 2024

[Friday]

Get your money in now

[Upthorn]

I'm in between 4 and 5.
Mostly a repeat of 2020. Maybe a little worse. Probably a couple Ammon Bundy type events

I just, I feel like stuff so far has been too directionless and uncoordinated to actually accomplish anything? So it's hard to know going forward how competently any given event will be executed...

[Metal Slime]

My pick is number four. For the tough game a lot of these idiots like to talk, very few of them are actually willing to go to jail or die for the cause. They'd rather other people do that.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I think there's room for another level of violence between 4 and 5.

[Friday]

So the problem I have with picking 4 or 8, personally, is that it smacks of exactly what I was doing in 2016 and 2020: minimizing. Practicing Normalcy bias.

Seriously, go back and ask 2016 Friday if Trump can win. "No way."

Go back and ask 2020 Friday if Trump would incite a coup attempt and have his followers storm the capital. "No. That would be political suicide and he would go to jail. Instead we'll only have some scattered local stuff, everyone be careful."

So now here I am, in 2024, and I ask myself "Will the coup happen again, but worse, when he loses?" And my knee-jerk is to go "No way."

Shrug. Only 10 months to go. I have no predictions. I only know that both times previous, I, the world's biggest cynic and harshest critic of human nature, has not been negative enough.

Yeah, I think there's room for another level of violence between 4 and 5.

While possible, I think 5 is where my money is going. Fuck it. If I turn out to be wrong and it's only 4 or your proposed 4.5, at least I can be happy about being wrong instead of unhappy about being wrong like I was four and eight years ago.

[Thad]

So the problem I have with picking 4 or 8, personally, is that it smacks of exactly what I was doing in 2016 and 2020: minimizing. Practicing Normalcy bias.

Yeah, but assuming the opposite just to avoid normalcy bias is just a different kind of bias.

My pick is number four. For the tough game a lot of these idiots like to talk, very few of them are actually willing to go to jail or die for the cause. They'd rather other people do that.

Yeah, I'm not convinced that 2021's failure and several hundred motherfuckers going to prison for it (including most of the leadership of the terrorist orgs that planned it) makes another attempt more likely.

Plus, y'know, Biden is still going to be president. Somehow I don't think his response to an attack on the Capitol will be to sit and watch it on Fox News and refuse to send out the National Guard.

So I guess it depends on how you define "worse". I think another attack on the Capitol results in a whole lot more motherfuckers getting shot by cops. Or military.

So, y'know, if you're somebody in DC or the surrounding area planning on how to prepare for January 6, you should absolutely assume an attack is going to happen, and be bigger than the last one, and prepare for it. Take that shit seriously in a way the authorities didn't last time.

But that preparation, itself, makes an attack less likely. In the same way that taking the possibility of Trump getting elected seriously makes him less likely to be elected.

And how does somebody get a permit to hold a rally in the mall on January 6, anyway? I have to figure there are other groups out there looking to get whatever slots are available just to stop Trump from doing it.

I think there's certainly going to be violence. I don't think it's going to be as big or as organized as it was in 2021. I am worried about what some of the more unhinged members of Congress might do.

[Mongrel]

And how does somebody get a permit to hold a rally in the mall on January 6, anyway? I have to figure there are other groups out there looking to get whatever slots are available just to stop Trump from doing it.

I'm even less likely to know that you are, but I bet any such requests are going to be scrutinized EXTRA-closely by whichever federal or DC authority has that responsibility.

[Yoji]

I don't like to make predictions, but I feel like SOME kind of violence is a given in a country where it's far and away easier to get a gun instead of healthcare.

[Destynova]

I'm going for 'Darkseid is rescued by his slaves'. Either that or The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

[Thad]

I'll also add that there's kind of this perpetual tendency for people to worry about the wrong things. I had a guy yesterday saying "But what if the Supreme Court rules that the president is immune to all prosecution?" Then Biden has the conservative majority murdered because that's legal now; problem solved. Fucking be serious.

The risk of Trump's immunity claim isn't that SCOTUS is going to take it seriously. It's that he drags out the prosecution against him past the election, gets back into office, and pulls an Andrew Jackson "the Court has made their ruling; let's see them enforce it" and does whatever he wants regardless of what the courts or anybody else say.

In 2020, I kept running across people insisting that Trump was going to cancel the election. Which shows a staggering lack of understanding on how elections actually work.

We don't have a presidential election in November. We have 51 of them. You can't stop 51 elections. But you can meddle with the count in a few key states and try to subvert the certification.

Similarly, there was a lot of "What if Trump won't leave?" talk in 2020, which was nearer the mark but people mostly seemed to be picturing him refusing to vacate the White House on January 20, rather than staging an attack on Congress on January 6.

I foresaw some of what was coming -- lawsuits, attempts to alter the count in swing states, fake electors, objections to the count, encouraging his supporters to violence -- but a direct attack on the Capitol wasn't something I saw coming. Most people didn't.

I think whatever happens after this election, from November to January and beyond, isn't going to look like anything we're predicting in a poll on a messageboard founded by a guy who was Internet-famous for snarking about old Nintendo games.

[Friday]

Image comes from a thread/poll I made in 2019.

So, 5 was correct, even down to the definition of "without massive civil unrest and/or the application of violence." 7 was technically correct, but was sort of a cop out answer. As many people voted 8 as voted the correct answer, 5.

So while I take your very correct point that we probably won't be able to accurately predict what's going to happen, that doesn't mean that we can't, you know, somewhat or semi-predict it.

I'm still voting 5 in the current poll. And I will be absolutely thrilled to be wrong.

Yeah, but assuming the opposite just to avoid normalcy bias is just a different kind of bias.

Point taken, but if no matter what I'm under some sort of bias, then I'd rather no longer be under the one that Trump keeps going against. It's tempting for me to assume the worst, because I am cynical as fuck, but Trump has a proven track record of not being at all normal. So I feel like assuming something not-normal is going to happen is rational. Of course, I'm sure you agree entirely (you're not an idiot), but where we differ is the degree of "not-normal."

[Thad]

So, 5 was correct, even down to the definition of "without massive civil unrest and/or the application of violence."

It's correct because it's vague. The most specific thing it mentions is claiming illegal votes, which was a gimme because he'd already been doing it for three years for an election he'd won.

"Application of violence" is accurate but, again, nonspecific enough that there's a whole galaxy of things that could have happened and fit that description, from another alt-righter shooting up another church (likely) to Trump nuking California (somewhat less likely).

...also, the poll is specifically about what happens in 2024 if Trump is reelected in 2020.

[Mongrel]

...also, the poll is specifically about what happens in 2024 if Trump is reelected in 2020.

Pretty sure the current thread is only about 2024 (and I guess 2025)?

Unless you mean Friday's older thread, but that one was also clearly asking What happens if/when Trump loses in 2016? it specifically mentions conceding to Biden.