Ask A Genius 1162: Twin Paths of Political Blockading
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/11
*Interview conducted in September, 2024.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, let’s say we do two paths. If Trump wins, what happens immediately? If Harris wins, what happens immediately?
Rick Rosner: The election’s November 5th, which means you’ve got two and a half months before Trump takes office if he wins. He’s been found guilty on 34 charges of fraud in state courts. I don’t think he can pardon himself from state charges. He can keep appealing, and he’s got another 54 or so charges in three indictments, some of which are federal. I don’t think those cases will move forward before he’s president. Once he’s president, he’ll immediately pardon himself.
In terms of enacting his agenda, he’s talked about more tax cuts for rich people and deporting tens of millions of undocumented immigrants. He probably won’t be able to do much of anything without some bipartisan agreement because we now have the least effective House of Representatives in history—it’s so evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and there’s no political will to work together. Trump will be in the same situation. He can do things by executive order, but the immediate political implications of him being elected won’t be drastic. His language will probably continue to be drastic.
He hasn’t been conciliatory at any point in his political career. He’s never said he’ll govern for all Americans. So, he’ll continue to be a dick. But at least in the first couple of months of his administration, he won’t be able to make vast changes. At some point in his administration, Alito and Thomas will probably retire from the Supreme Court because they’re old, and they can be confident he’ll appoint people of their political stripe who are younger.
That could happen at any time once he’s in office. That could be an immediate thing. He hasn’t released his medical records, and he’s been looking and sounding pretty shitty. So at some point, he could resign for health reasons and have Vance take over. Again, that won’t be immediate. The most immediate thing is how bummed most Americans will be if he gets reelected because it’ll be four years of shitty governance, lies, no progress on climate change, and maybe hanging Ukraine out to dry. Excuse me. It’ll be a not very attractive place to attract foreign talent to come here to do business.
The U.S. needs to stay competitive with tech, especially with AI disrupting everything. If we want to continue to lead the world technologically, we need to draw talent from the rest of the world. We’re only 4% of the world’s population, but with Trump in charge, we’ll be unwelcoming to foreign talent. That’ll hurt us with regard to AI. Becoming the leader in AI and robotics and other disruptive technologies is one key for us to grow our way out of a tremendous national debt. With Trump in charge, we won’t even be able to do that. It’ll be a kick in the balls, and it’ll be bad for the U.S.’s standing in the world. It’ll be bad for Ukraine. But the immediate, fascistic deals won’t happen.
If Harris is elected, she’ll have the same problem of a paralyzed Congress that Trump would have had, because it’ll be fairly evenly divided. She’ll also have the additional problem of all the MAGAs claiming the election was stolen. She’d have to win by a lot to tamp down any of that, and she likely won’t win by a lot. She’ll probably win the popular vote, and probably by a larger margin than Hillary Clinton did. I’m guessing she’ll win by about 5 million votes, which puts her in the middle between Clinton, who won by less than 3 million, and Biden, who won by 7 million. She’d narrowly win the electoral college?
But there will be several states in which she wins by fewer than 30,000 or 50,000 votes. The MAGAs and Trump will claim fraud, and they’ll take to the streets and to the courts. We’ll have 2020 all over again. Maybe not an assault on the Capitol, but there’ll be all sorts of shitty MAGA activity. She likely won’t be able to appoint any Supreme Court justices as soon as Trump would have been able to because the guys closest to retirement hate Democrats and will try to hang in there, hoping they can stay on the court until there’s a Republican in office again.
Some of the legislative basis for things she wants to do, like the $25,000 grant to first-time homeowners to help with their down payment or the $50,000 tax deduction for people starting a business, all these things are going to need to be the result of legislation. I don’t think she’ll have the power to get this stuff passed. So, I guess with either person getting elected, we’re looking at gridlock. If she gets elected, the prosecution of Trump will move forward over the next year or two.
And he won’t be able to pardon himself from any of the prosecutions. I don’t have much insight into any of that, but that’s the deal.
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