I’d like to stroll directly into a place where angels fear to tread, which is speculation regarding the forthcoming election. If you don’t like political discourse, just skip it and tune in when we start the trading day tomorrow morning.
Allow me to preface this with two important facts. First, I’ve had a lifelong interest in politics. I have zero interest in sports, the Superbowl, March Madness, the Grammys, or any of that other stuff. However, I find U.S. elections absolutely riveting, and I’m already excited about this one, particularly since it is bound to be the craziest and potentially most consequential election of our lifetimes.
The second point to make in this preface is that long-time readers are probably screaming at their computer monitors right now, wondering why in the world I am talking about politics when that very topic came close to tearing Slope to pieces back in 2020. I have rarely experienced as much mental exhaustion as I did during that era, and it took a lot of very supportive and thoughtful Slopers to keep this place intact through all the fighting, which I tried ceaselessly to quell.
The fact of the matter is that the election is coming, whether we like it or not, and it’s a near certainty that these two candidates, whom nobody really likes or wants, are going to be the contenders. I think very few people are actually passionate about either candidate. I do, however, think there’s a lot of passion against “the other guy”, which is the gasoline powering this entire race.
Still, I can’t help myself. I’m in the business of trying to see the future, and this is a very important future to see. For newer readers, I won’t be coy about my political beliefs. I’m a libertarian at heart, but I’ve abandoned that political philosophy since I came to realize most citizens are airheads and incapable of living in that kind of society. I think Trump is a blowhard criminal dumbass whose entire family should be imprisoned for life, and I think Biden is a pathetic mumbling old man who should be enjoying retirement doing bass fishing and nowhere near any position of power. Thus, I’m not a fan of either one, so I’d like to think I’m coming at this fairly objectively. Putting it another way, I don’t like either of them at all.
Having said that, here’s my shot-in-the-dark about what I think may be coming in the next few months:
Election Day (Tuesday, November 5th) – Trump wins. He wins because the majority of people are sick of the weirdness. The fifty-seven genders, the men dressed as women pretending to be admirals, the celebration of career criminals as some kind of heroes – – all of it. There are other reasons, of course, such as the utterly misguided notion that Trump is somehow going to make this pathetic country “great” again, but they’ll wise up sooner or later. This moment, incidentally, will be the peak optimism of the MAGA crowd. They are going to be absolutely ecstatic. If that feeling could be securitized, I’d want to short it.
The Lame Duck Era (November 6th through the Inauguration in January 2025) – There are going to be two sharply divided camps during this time. The Trump camp is going to be absolutely dripping blood from their fangs with anticipation about the Revenge Agenda. It’s going to be all about Hurting those who are perceived by Trump to be any kind of enemy or threat. Every single plan is going to be focused on creating a monoculture of power and executing the equivalent of ethnic cleansing to everybody else. In the waning days of the doddering Biden administration, they are going to do everything they can do get-while-the-getting-is-good, typically through executive orders, to shape the nation’s agenda as far to the left as humanly possible, since they know it’s going to be just as quickly dismantled once they’re out of power.
The First Few Months – The MAGA optimism is going to be riding high, as the true believers embrace the notion that this is the dawn of some kind of new era. Little by little, day by day, and week by week, it will slowly sink through the extraordinarily thick skulls of these bozos that not a goddamned thing is going to change. Their lives are going to be a frustrating and vapid as ever, and their savior doesn’t give two shits about any of them.
Spring Awakening – by the time that April 2025 rolls around, the honeymoon is going to be totally and utterly over. What’s sad is that there’s going to be about four years of unchecked insanity left. As a person who believes the U.S. is pretty much doomed anyway, I say, just go ahead and get it over by someone who’s going to wreck it that much faster.
Looking past the spring of 2025 is, for me, impossible. It’s sort of like trying to imagine infinity. My mind is simply incapable of doing so. One thing is for sure: what is going to happen over the next twelve months is going to be unimaginable, unprecedented, and, I believe, irreversibly destructive. Ain’t nothing getting made great again, people. But, for a very short while, people will actually think so.
The good news, of course, is that, with all of this happening, maybe I’ll finally get the honest-to-God bear market I’ve been dreaming about, particularly since we haven’t had once since literally 2008. It’s long, long, LONG overdue, folks, and Slope will be the best place to watch it.
It’s a pity to contemplate on this Memorial Day that this is the situation for which 1.2 million brave men gave their lives.
