Political Betting–Donald Trump Presidential Specials
–Trump Presidency will be unprecedented in many ways.
– His non-traditional background and the prevailing political dynamics mean anything can happen.
– Like him or not, the Trump Presidency is unlikely to be boring.
As someone who legitimately didn’t care who won the election I have a different ‘personal agenda’ than most Americans. The only ‘hot button issue’ or criteria I had for a President was sheer entertainment value. Translation–I want a President that isn’t boring and keeps me entertained with the spectacle. Once Trump and Hillary were nominated I figured I was in a ‘no lose’ position. Had Hillary won her Presidency would have been a freak show. She’s obviously not in good health and there would be one scandal after another to watch her fend off. The big element of entertainment value in a hypothetical Clinton Presidency is obvious: Bill Clinton as ‘First Man’.
A Trump presidency has so many completely unprecedented elements. Not only does the opposing party’s organization and supplicants in the media hate him the majority of his *own* national party organization and their media supplicants hate him. The United States has never had a real estate developer/casino owner/reality TV star serve as President before. In many ways he’s the first legitimate celebrity to win the Presidency. Ronald Reagan was an actor but his show biz career was far off in the rear view mirror when he took office. The bulk of his show biz career was over by 1960. His final film–an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Killers’–was shot in 1964. Reagan had made the ‘career move’ into politics long before he was elected President serving as the head of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and as Governor of California from 1967 to 1975. At best, he was a ‘celebrity from a different era’. More realistically, he was a politician that had been in movies ‘in a previous life’. He did a good job of adopting the role of the ‘outsider’ during his Presidential years but that wasn’t exactly true.
THE FIRST CELEBRITY PRESIDENT
Trump was a well known ‘personality’ long ago particularly in the New York City area. He became a legit celebrity due to his 11 year run as the public face of ‘The Apprentice‘ reality TV show. This gig ended in 2015 meaning that he actually made a seamless transition from reality television to the less respectable profession of politics. He has no political experience which can be seen as an asset or a liability depending on your world view. There’s plenty of places to read ersatz experts dissect the Trump Presidency and how it happened but here’s something that’s impact can’t be underestimated: While the political establishment was chortling about the very existence of his candidacy he was playing the trump card (no pun intended–OK, it *was* intended) of name recognition. For the majority of political candidates this is a huge struggle and one of the reasons the playing field is tilted toward incumbents and political insiders. Everyone recognizes Hillary Clinton due to her career in politics and her husband’s presidency. But unless you’re a political geek or a constituent would you *really* recognize guys like unctuous South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham or former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal if they were walking through your front yard right now? Not sure about Jindal but if you *do* come across Lindsay Graham in your front yard run him the hell off before he hurts property values in your neighborhood.
Trump was already one of the most recognizable non-incumbents in Presidential history before the race started. The perceived ridiculousness of a reality TV star as a Presidential candidate was crazy enough that he got even more coverage (in reality, his qualifications look good against the usual garden variety lawyers and ‘community organizers’). It’s not my job nor my interest to break down the essence of his support but for whatever reason he began to resonate with a support base. You no doubt know what happened then. He was treated as a joke by the ‘respectable’ candidates of his own party. He and his campaign were depicted as a ‘dumpster fire‘ by not only the left leaning media but by media outlets that typically portray Republicans in a favorable light. Ironically, the negative media coverage is essentially how he ended up as our President-Elect.
SMUG SUPERIORITY DOESN’T GET VOTES
I’ll preface this again by saying that I’m not a Trump fanboy or supporter. I didn’t vote for him. Like I said, my hot button issue is entertainment value. The fact that I have to repeatedly make this disclaimer underscores the utter stupidity of partisan politics. I find the Trump ascension to the White House fascinating and worth further analysis. Since I don’t have a pathological need to see ‘my party’ hold power I can say that it’s going to be a unique experience. I’m expecting his actual Presidency to be nothing if not interesting. Unfortunately, the people that still invest their identities in a sick obsession with partisan politics can’t accept this. In their myopic and misguided world, I don’t have the right to try and objectively understand Trump. Anything short of ‘furious anger’ that he merely exists is ‘complicity’ with whatever crackpot hypothetical ‘evil’ they’ve dreamed up to ascribe to Trump. It definitely works both ways–were I trying to make an objective analysis of Hillary Clinton I’d get the same thing from the right. It’s funny that saying that you find Trump and his presidency ‘interesting’ gets you insulted as a ‘neo-con, racist, homophobe, ignoramus, facilitator of evil, domestic terrorist and a terrible person’. I’ve been called all of these things during the past few days for having the temerity to suggest that it’s really hard to imagine that a real estate developer and TV star has a blueprint for the subjugation and genocide of (insert your favorite victim group here).
What really makes them blind with rage is when you point out that no one knows anything about how Trump will govern. And at this point–unlike Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with their never ending wars and drone killing of random civilians and children in the Middle East–he doesn’t have a body count. Hillary had the ‘statist Super Bowl’ in the bag and just had to take a knee. Instead, her arrogance wouldn’t let her do that so she ran a double reverse flea flicker that got intercepted in the end zone and run back for a touchdown. My observation that a) Trump isn’t the AntiChrist and b) he didn’t so much win the Presidency as Hillary lost it seriously infuriates some people. On the other hand, if I had seething, irrational hatred I’d be treated as a ‘serious political observer’. I guess I’m not serious since I just can’t divorce myself from logic long enough to make the case that Trump is the second coming of the Armenian genocide (despite never holding political office and thus having no demonstrable policy positions) bent on the enslavement of every (insert victim group here) with a sinister blueprint for murder and mayhem (that he presumably pulled together on filming breaks on ‘The Apprentice’) that will certainly lay waste to the world country after country (unlike the current President who has been involved in more wars and has a bigger body count than every other Nobel Peace Prize winner combined).
The utter craziness of the Trump Presidency combined with the complete denial and lack of self awareness of Hillary supporters who can’t wrap their head around the fact that a lot of people just don’t like her creates a ridiculous range of possibilities. These are some scenarios that I’ve heard tossed around and I’ve come up with betting odds for them. We’ll have plenty of other prop bets in the coming days covering more realistic possibilities like cabinet choices, Obama’s actions in the final days of his Presidency, etc. And get ready because early next week I’ll have some proposition betting odds on which celebrities will leave the United States due to the Trump Presidency and where they’ll end up.
POST ELECTION DONALD TRUMP PROPOSITION BETTING ODDS
Will Donald Trump serve all four years of his Presidential term?
Yes: -750
No: +500
Will Donald Trump serve two full terms as President?
Yes: -600
No: +450
Will Donald Trump visit Great Britain before the end of 2017?
Yes: -300
No: +225
Will Donald Trump visit Mexico before the end of 2017?
Yes: -210
No: +175
Will Donald Trump visit Russia before the end of 2017?
Yes: -175
No: +150
Will Donald Trump still be President at 12:01 AM Eastern on January 20, 2018?
Yes: -750
No: +500
Will Hillary Clinton be arrested on state or federal charges by 12:01 AM Eastern on January 1, 2018?
Yes: +500
No: -750
Will Donald Trump be impeached or resign before 12:01 AM on 1/20/20?
Yes: +750
No: -1000
Will a wall be built spanning the entire length of the US/Mexican border (1,989 miles) by 1/20/20?
Yes: +750
No: -1000