Back in 1996, I was a government careerist employee -- a civil servant. I had learned belatedly that OPM's use of the expression "merit promotion system" was about as believable as the Easter Bunny. Positions would become vacant; low-level political favorites would apply. The civil service was slowly being corrupted. But that was a long time ago.
But again -- 1996 -- an election year. I watched the State of the Union, and saw Bob Dole's rebuttal to Clinton. I had a hunch. The following morning, I went into the office and visited just about every Republican holdover from the Bush years that I knew of.
I bet them $100 each that Clinton would win in November. And he did. And they all had taken the bait. And faced with the option of hiding my winnings from the tax-man, I reported them anyway.
If Trump wins in November, it will be a matter of multiple causation. First, there's the reason he "won" in 2016: Russian assistance coupled with bitterness, racist vendetta for a black president, ignorance and stupidity.
The economy in normal times is a bellwether. Bellwethers are often misleading. It is true that many people vote their self-interest as they see it; they vote against their real self-interest thinking that they even know their self-interest as they may see it. Whether or not enough people vote for the collective public interest -- "enlightened self-interest" if you want to call it that -- is a question of national character. Consider how sad it either is or might be, that the national character only depends on steaks on the dinner-table, a car and Winnebago in the driveway, a rising home appraisal value, and low unemployment.
Got "stuff"? Screw everybody else . . . I once knew a biologist who had proven that ants walk faster with rising ambient temperature, and they walk slower when it's colder.
I guess we'll find out if 'more stuff" and enough jobs to go around lead to a second term for the most disgusting piece of Filth ever to be on TV since the ground-breaking broadcast of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
And I know a lot of people who aren't ignorant or stupid, and they all say that they don't think the nation will survive a second term of a Criminal-in-Chief.