#nevertrump was always a fantasy. The real option for #nevertrump is #imwitthher
— Kevin Glass (@KevinWGlass) June 1, 2016
I think that even if Clinton may in most scenarios make a worse POTUS than Trump, she is preferable, because America is already great.
— Kevin Glass (@KevinWGlass) June 1, 2016
As the novelty value of President Comments-Section-Made-Flesh fades, the not-actually-brain-damaged Conservatives are beginning to see reason. Josh Barro, for instance:
In investing, risk requires compensation. Investors will expect a higher return from a risky bet, and — conversely — will pay for certainty. It’s why you pay double-digit rates on your credit cards, while the federal government can borrow for next to nothing.
Let’s apply this analysis to the election. A Hillary Clinton presidency is the safe bet. She offers, more or less, an extension of the Obama presidency. You might think that that’s a bad return, but at least you know almost exactly what it is.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a wild card. Who the hell knows what he would do if elected?…
Because the distribution of possible Trump-presidency outcomes is wide, you’d have to expect him to be a better president than Clinton on average in order for him to merely be equally as good a pick as Clinton. That is, if Trump were a stock, then you’d be demanding a risk premium to buy him.
In fact, Trump calls for a huge risk premium because, while he probably wouldn’t be a disastrous president, the low-probability disasters that he might cause would be immensely costly. Some of them involve nuclear weapons and global mass deaths. Pricing those risks in properly should push his share price comfortably below Clinton’s, even if you think she is very bad…
Maybe President Trump would default on the national debt. Maybe Chinese officials wouldn’t love Trump’s insult-comic shtick as much as New York Republican primary voters do, and he’d manage to blow up a minor diplomatic incident into a nuclear war. Maybe he’d dissolve the military alliances that have helped keep Europe out of war for 70 years. Or maybe he’d just go ahead and nuke Europe.
I don’t think that these outcomes are terribly likely. I think Trump is probably sensible enough not to fire a nuclear weapon at Europe. But if he won’t rule it out himself, then why should I?…
People are failing to price in the small risk that a Trump presidency could cause us to lose everything we value, and that scares the hell out of me.
So you can share this with your “But HILLARY… “ social media acquaintances: Don’t think of it as voting for That Woman; think of it as voting against Risky Investment Trump.
Open Thread: Pro-HRC Argument from the OppositionPost + Comments (212)