Political Odds — Will Donald Trump Quit The Presidential Race?
Statists like to justify voting and lending support to their oppressive system by using the rationalization that its their responsibility to vote for ‘the lesser of two evils’. The nadir of that doomed philosophy has produced the 2016 Presidential matchup featuring the embarrassing choice between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. The good news is that the outcome–and US politics in general–matters less and less in our digitized and increasingly decentralized economy. The bad news is that both candidates could start some more wars, throw more people in jail and follow the Obama administration ‘war on innovation’. Actually, that’s an unfair rap to hang on Obama–that’s what politics *do*–they hamper innovation in hopes to perpetuate the status quo for their financial benefactors. On an individual level, it doesn’t matter. It’s a big world and as US freedom and economic influence continues to drop there’s plenty of other countries that are embracing the future.
The worst part about the Presidential election and partisan politics in general is that the mainstream media and deluded statist supporters of both ‘brands’ of party oppression a) think that it matters and b) think that we care. The only way to make it through ‘Decision 2016’ is to make it into a wagering proposition. We’ve offered a few interesting prop bets but today we’ll talk about a subject that was downright unthinkable just a few weeks ago–will Donald Trump make it to the general election or will he quit and/or be forced out before then?
DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ODDS
Rules: Any wager contingent on Trump not running or not being the nominee will pay on an official announcement by the candidate or the Republican party. Presidential candidacy must be official with Trump listed on the ballot in at least 38 states. No write in campaigns.
WILL DONALD TRUMP BE A CANDIDATE IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?
YES, THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE -1000
YES, A THIRD PARTY OR INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE +1500
NO, HE WON’T RUN AT ALL +750
YES, THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE -1000
YES, A THIRD PARTY OR INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE +1500
NO, HE WON’T RUN AT ALL +750
Donald Trump had a very bad week. He didn’t ‘get the memo’ that the only way that you can run an ‘outsider’ campaign for the Presidency is to ‘re-embrace’ the political party of your choice once the nomination has been secured. Trump is still throwing the Republican Party under the bus and the GOP has little use for his candidacy. With the growing realization that Hillary Clinton–herself a sorry excuse for a candidate–is trouncing him in the polls. Even Republicans that were willing to ride the Trump bandwagon when he was at the top of his game are thinking in more pragmatic terms–should the party run itself into the ground backing a sure loser?
To be fair, Trump can still rebound and get the party’s support. He needs to make some serious changes if that’s going to happen. So far the biggest Republican name to endorse him is Bush–not George W Bush, not his dad George H.W. Bush and not even Jeb Bush. We’re talking George P. Bush who holds the immensely powerful office of Texas land commissioner. Trump is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, making rapid fire endorsements of the re-election efforts of Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, and John McCain. Trump *did* get one other endorsement–from Rocky Suhayda, head of the American Nazi Party who called a potential Trump presidency ‘a real opportunity’ for white nationalism. Not exactly the kind of endorsement you want.
Supposedly Trump will ‘pivot to the economy’ as his primary issue next week. That should be brilliant. A debate of economic issues between Donald and Hillary could be the highest profile display of utter and profound ignorance in history. Donald doesn’t use computers, Hillary thinks you ‘wipe them with a cloth’. Just the people qualified to discuss the increasingly digital, decentralized and international world economy.
So there are the odds. A Trump GOP candidacy is still the most likely scenario for practical reasons, if nothing else. Even if the GOP did decide to jettison Trump they’d have to find a way to do that and survive a legal challenge. They’d have to find a new candidate and get him on the campaign trail. Most problematic, it’s not like Trump would go down quietly. That being said, an independent or third party run is unlikely. Trump would lose interest when he sees how the deck is stacked against third parties and how the Republicans and Democrats would conspire and work together to keep him off as many state ballots as possible. It’s not like they haven’t done it before with other popular ‘outsider’ campaigns.
In our next article we’ll look at the odds for a potential Trump replacement.