Trump Bets: One Actual, Ten Potential
An anonymous reader and I have agreed to the following bet on Trump’s presidency:
If Donald
Trump resigns, is removed by the Senate after impeachment, or otherwise
is permanently removed as per the the 25th Amendment, or if it never happens
that he takes the Oath of office as POTUS on Jan 20, 2017, the BC owes [redacted] $350.
Otherwise, [redacted] owes BC $100″.
Given Trump’s unprecedented age, the most likely losing scenario for me is that he dies in office of natural causes. Since he seems to be in fairly good health, this still seems like a good bet.
By the way, whatever you think of Scott Alexander’s verdict on Trump’s racism, give him credit for ending his musings with a bundle of possible bets:
1. Total hate crimes incidents as measured here
will be not more than 125% of their 2015 value at any year during a
Trump presidency, conditional on similar reporting methodology
[confidence: 80%]2. Total minority population of US citizens will increase throughout Trump’s presidency [confidence: 99%]
3. US Muslim population increases throughout Trump’s presidency [confidence: 95%]
4. Trump cabinet will be at least 10% minority [confidence: 90%], at
least 20% minority [confidence: 70%], at least 30% minority [30%]. Here
I’m defining “minority” to include nonwhites, Latinos, and LGBT people,
though not women. Note that by this definition America as a whole is
about 35% minority and Congress is about 15% minority.5. Gay marriage will remain legal throughout a Trump presidency [confidence: 95%]
6. Race relations as perceived by blacks, as measured by this Gallup poll,
will do better under Trump than they did under Obama (ie the change in
race relations 2017-2021 will be less negative/more positive than the
change 2009-2016) [confidence: 70%].7. Neither Trump nor any of his officials (Cabinet, etc) will endorse
the KKK, Stormfront, or explicit neo-Nazis publicly, refuse to back
down, etc, and keep their job [confidence: 99%].8. No large demographic group (> 1 million people) get forced to sign up for a “registry” [confidence: 95%]
9. No large demographic group gets sent to internment camps [confidence: 99%]
10. Number of deportations during Trump’s four years will not be greater than Obama’s 8 [confidence: 90%]
If you disagree with me, come up with a bet and see if I’ll take it.
On reflection, I might want to bet against Scott on a few of these, but he’s in the right ballpark. Disagree? Why get angry when you can profit – materially and reputationally – from his obtuseness?
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