This Week’s News
At the risk of downplaying it, can one presidential campaign get any…weirder? That doesn’t feel like the right word. Concerning? Troublesome? I don’t know, I’ll let you pick the word you prefer. “Weird” doesn’t do it justice as it seems to dismiss what should be a very concerning trend in society and American democracy these days. Well, two trends actually. On one hand we have campaigns referring to their competition as nazis, socialists, dangers to democracy, etc. and on the other we seem to regard the very predictable violence that follows this with a collective shrug. The press isn’t helping (surprise, surprise).
On Sunday, a Secret Service agent, “stationed one hole ahead of Trump on the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach spotted a rifle sticking out of a fence...300 to 500 yards away from the Republican presidential nominee.” The agent opened fire on the suspect who then fled only to be apprehended a short time later. This is the second assassination attempt against Trump in a little over 2 months. Well, that is what I’d call it anyway, but what else would you call it? To their credit, the New Yorker called it an “assassination attempt,” but to the NY Times and many other news organizations it was an “apparent” attempt.
I’m sorry, “apparent?” Is there another conceivable reason for hiding in the bushes for 12 hours with a rifle at a golf course owned by the former president? Words matter and the press knows it. NPR, known to some of us as the organization that fired an editor for accusing them of liberal bias, did the NY Times one better, referring to it as “the Trump golf course incident.”
Putting aside media bias, which is no surprise at this point, one does have to wonder what’s going on with the Secret Service. The first attempt was an absolute fiasco which I’ve examined before so don’t plan on reexamining here. This one? On the one hand no shots were fired so you could generously call this a success. On the other, the guy was in the bushes for 12 hours so shouldn’t they have found him sooner? According to the acting director of the agency, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the SS did not sweep the course ahead of President Trump’s game. Not good. He has also stated that “the agency needs to undergo a complete overhaul of how it protects presidents.” Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem as they say. How big is the problem? Well, US and British intelligence sources claim “that the problem is very big, warning that aggressive social media rhetoric and the ease of buying firearms has created a threat for both presidential campaigns too large for the US agency to deal with alone.” Put simply, “US Secret Service can’t guarantee Trump and Harris safety from more gunmen.”
Election Tracking
I’m a little surprised by this weeks data. I had thought that another assassination attempt would work in Trump’s favor but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Current PredictIt leader board:
Harris +1 cents
Trump -2 cents
A larger than normal swing this week as Harris sees here odds to win increasing by almost 2%:
Harris – 52.9 (+1.9%)
Trump – 45.9 (-1.7%)
National aggregated polling moved in Harris’ favor as well this week as the spread increased from 2.6% to 3.3%. Harris is up 0.4% and Trump down 0.3%.
For the first time in what feels like months the Electoral College predictions map has changed. RealClear Polling has moved New Hampshire (4) and Virginia (13) into the “Leans Harris” column putting her in the lead by 6 votes.
The folks over at AllSides.com currently have it as Harris 226, Trump 218 and give Harris a 55% chance of winning the election in November.
I’m not going to dispute RealClear pollings red/blue calls (for the moment) but I did take a look at the undecided states the polling numbers show that it’s still anyone’s game. Most recent polling numbers show:
Arizona – Trump 1.8%
Georgia – Trump 0.7%
Michigan – Harris 1.0%
Nebraska District 2 – Harris 8% (note: only one poll and it was in August)
Nevada – Harris 0.5%
North Carolina – Trump 0.4%
Pennsylvania – Harris 0.6%
Wisconsin – Harris 1.1%
One thing is clear though, Trump needs to win more than the states he’s leading in. If he picks up only the states he’s currently leading he’ll finish with only 262.
Canadian Election Tracking
It’s been another bad week for the Liberals. The Bloc Quebecois won the byelection in d LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, “that's been held by the Liberals for most of the last century.” More troubling, polls show that the Liberals may be in a “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” situation as a new poll shows that the Liberals may fall to fourth place in the next election. It’s one poll so the Liberals shouldn’t panic (that should have started months ago), but it’s not good news for their future.
Is there a Canadian Election on the horizon?
Once again, the answer appears to be “no.” Once again, the Bloc has stated that it won't back Poilievre's non-confidence motion scheduled for next week. This is hardly surprising as:
The Liberals want to maintain power as long as possible
The NDP think they can turn things around before next October (and Singh wants his pension)
The Bloc figure (probably correctly as demonstrated by the recent byelection win) that the longer the Liberals are in power the better it is for them next election
This means only the CPC (and Canadians) stand to gain anything from calling an election asap.
The polls moved a little more this week with the CPC rising by 1%, the Liberals and NDP dropping by 1% each, and the PPC dropping 3% (yikes!). These changes resulted in the following changes to projected seat counts:
Conservatives +7
Liberals – 9
Bloc +4
NDP -2
Green – N/C
PPC – N/C
Source: https://338canada.com/federal.htm
The Nanos preferred Prime Minister poll has not been updated but fortunately they’re not the only game in town. Ipsos has one from this week and it’s about what we would expect.
In the last year we’ve watched the Liberals start focusing on the housing crisis long and immigration well after most Canadians had expressed concerns with both. It appears that the carbon tax may be the last policy that they refuse to give up on. And as we can see, maintaining it is not on the list of what Canadians want them to focus on. I suspect at some point we’ll see the Liberals do something along the lines of what the NDP did last week and suggest a “temporary” halt to it to “help Canadians.”
What I’m Reading
An Article V Convention – the US Constitution is over 200 years old and there have been 27 amendments to it. Ok, the first ten were only 2 years and 81 days after the constitution was first ratified but since then there have been 17 in about 233 years or about one every 13 years on average. That seems indicative of a society that sees change as important. One might argue that society has become calcified given that two since I was born (to pick a somewhat arbitrary period), the 26th, in 1971, which prohibits the denial of the right of US citizens 18 years of age or older, to vote on account of age and the 27th in 1992, which delays laws affecting Congressional salary from taking effect until after the next election of representatives (it only took 202 years to ratify this one). Many argue that the Constitution is due for some changes and are “frustrated by the slow pace of the amendment method often,” they dream of a national convention outlined in Article V. This has never happened in part because some fear it would veer from the original purpose and become a “run-away convention” resulting in drastic changes to the existing constitution. An interesting idea.
Non-Political Item(s) of the Week
Who needs privacy? – Last week during Oracle’s financial meeting, Larry Ellison, the company’s founder shared his vision of how AI would ensure that everyone is always “on their best behaviour.” Ya, you guessed it, "Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on." As the article notes, “Ellison's vision bears more than a passing resemblance to the cautionary world portrayed in George Orwell's prescient novel 1984.”
Ellison excitement for this future not only ignores the warning of Orwell, but also that of Benjamin Franklin:
‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’
You can file this brilliant idea alongside Central Bank Digital Currencies and social credit systems. The government already has too much power, I’m not in a rush to give it any more.
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
I had no problem finding my recommendation this week, it’s Lex’s Fridman’s interview of Gregory Aldrete. Why? Because Aldrete is an historian of ancient Rome and military history. When you get a chance to listen to either of those topics you take them. This actually reminded me of a series of articles and social media posts from about a year ago that had women asking men how often they thought about the Roman Empire. Women were surprised to find that it was quite a lot actually. Answers ranged from every day to three or four times per month. I don’t know how often I think about it but often enough that when I saw this podcast I knew I had to listen. So, what are you waiting for? Go listen!
Lex Fridman Podcast - #443 – Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire – Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome