On May 28, Goldman published a note called “The US Election — Debating the Asset Market Impacts.”
Before I read it, I word-searched it. For the term “violence.” Not surprisingly, there were no matches.
I’m sure it’s occurred to the bank’s Dominic Wilson and Vickie Chang — as well as to everyone else on Wall Street — that the biggest risk surrounding the 2024 US election is a disputed vote and, ultimately, violence.
There’s precedent for that. Very recent precedent. America’s last election was followed by a redneck rebellion. A moron mutiny. An idiot insurrection. A jerk jacquerie. Asshole anarchy. An attempt on the part of the outgoing president to usurp democracy on the way to establishing an authoritarian regime.
Trump apologists tend to dance around the issue, but a successful attempt to prevent a democratic transition, particularly one that leverages violence, results in the establishment of an autocracy. By definition. Trump’s pinhead putsch was destined to fail, but if it had succeeded even for a day or two — e.g., if Mike Pence had “the courage to do what should have been done,” as Trump put it — America would’ve become an autocracy. However briefly.
Some Americans — including some of you, which is to say some of my own readers — are apparently fine with that. Fine with authoritarianism. Fine with Trump assuming the powers of the presidency by undemocratic means, including violence and coercion. That reality, plus the 2021 precedent, suggests it’s more likely than not that some sort of violence will ensue later this year in the event of a Trump defeat.
As Mary Ellen Klas, a former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald who now writes a column for Bloomberg Opinion, noted on Wednesday, GOP leaders aren’t just refusing to commit to accepting the results of the vote even if Trump loses (see Tim Scott’s cringeworthy NBC interview discussed here), they’re also refusing to disavow violence.
Ellen Klas cited a Memorial Day weekend incident in North Carolina, where a group of veterans “showed up [at a GOP event] and asked party leaders for a simple pledge: Renounce violence this election.” The veterans, who counted a Navy SEAL among them, were shown the door. “North Carolina GOP leaders had the group swiftly escorted out of the meeting at the Greensboro convention center, saying they had no right to be there,” the linked article recounted, noting that although the spectacle might fairly be described as a “stunt,” it nevertheless spoke to the inescapable reality that the Republican Party “has a candidate for president [who] condone[s] and sometimes promote[s] violence.”
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans are concerned that “extremists will resort to violence if they are unhappy with the election outcome.” Disconcertingly, fewer than half of Republicans expressed confidence that the votes will be fairly counted. Read that again: More than half of likely GOP voters already believe the results are illegitimate. And the election’s still more than five months away.
As discussed in “An Early Word On US Election Tail Risks,” a full-on civil war in America’s quite unlikely, in my view, but if Trump loses, he’s certain to contest the results. If legal efforts to overturn an unfavorable result fail, some kind of violence is a virtual certainty. How far it goes is anyone’s guess, but if Wall Street’s serious about preparing investors for the US election, someone has to speak, however cautiously, to the elephant in the room.
Speaking of election risks no one on Wall Street dares mention, the Supreme Court’s gone rogue. Justice Alito’s painfully belabored “blame my wife” excuse (rendered in excruciating legalese) for flying pro-insurrection flags over both his main residence and his beach house is as absurd as it is cowardly. But more importantly, it belies the fact that Alito’s an ideologue and an extremist. Maybe the brazenness of the flag display counts as surprising, but the sentiment’s not. When considered with Ginni Thomas’s links to Trump’s “Stop The Steal” movement, it’s entirely fair to suggest the Supreme Court’s compromised. At least as it relates to the election, and probably as it relates to a lot of other things too.
All of this raises legitimate questions about the dollar and US Treasurys. If Trump winds up back in the Oval Office under un- or anti-democratic circumstances, the world will have, for the first time since the dawn of US hegemony, a reason to question the bedrock assumptions which underwrite the dollar’s reserve currency status and underpin the sanctity of the “full faith and credit” promise.
I’ve yet to see a Wall Street research team address any of these risks in a direct, let alone a systematic, way. Plainly, the Street’s political economists are constrained in what they can say in that regard, but saying nothing is to render any and all Street election coverage essentially meaningless.
I agree with your sentiment. However it seems that many people treat this like a hollywood movie. Including erstwhile participants.
I am hopeful that a persistent siren song will hold in the ballot box and law enforcement will be up to the task of corralling violence.
The mere threat of arrest is likely to turn this threat into a passing breeze. If so it will be due to people like yourself and Robert De Niro who spare us from the alternative reality.
It sounds like you live in a relatively moderate urban area or college town. Geez, drive less than an hour away and visit your fellow voters. They’re not all irrational kooks.
But sorry, Biden/Harris aren’t winning them over. Because prices are not falling back to 2019 levels and (non-white) immigrants are swarming over the border and overrunning the heartland.
I live in a crimson red area where military jets patrol overhead, ostensibly to shoot down incoming warheads, every time Putin threatens nuclear war. It is however relatively affluent. I like being here just to be a voice of compassion and hope in a toxic sea. That I worked in large projects along with a stint in a national nuclear weapons lab does not hurt my credibility in the local community.
I am hopeful and expect most of the kooks are rational, after all never in the history of man has the privileged class engaged in insurrection against the tyranny of the poor. To do so would be irrational. That some of these privileged kooks sport signs declaring intent to shoot liberals on sight, like we see in signs around here, is likely just a kook trying to be a bigger jerk. The likelihood they will risk prison time away from their family for the 10 minutes of thrill they would get from drawing a bead is low in my estimation. However it is not nil and January 6th was filled with kooks who did not make rational choices.
I often make a trip an hour away and often talk with the less educated or less fortunate, whether near or far. I find both can be positively influenced by a message of hope. I think I see an economic boom on our horizon. As an energy intensive society, solar driving energy costs to zero is likely to boom our economy over the next 40 years. So if you do not hate your grandchildren you should be cheering that potential outcome. Oil was a great business to replace whale oil, solar is a much better technology to replace whale oil.
I think you are reacting within the framework of your experiences. To label my thoughts as isolated and out of touch is maybe a reflection of your isolation not mine. I have travelled extensively in the USAA, speak two languages and lived overseas for a bit. I have worked in Wyoming, Texas, Mississippi and lived in Florida as well as blue areas. I like people and having grown up in Kansas can calmly relate to rural folk while they talk of shooting my type.
I hope your sanguine view proves correct.
Many of my concerns come from conversations with men and and women at gun ranges and gun counters. Some are sportsmen, many are driven by fear of rampaging immigrants, Muslim terrorists and BLM people.
Why would they or anyone else fear jail when Trump promises blanket pardons for his supporters?
Or pardons from governors like Gregg Abbot who recently did just that?
Rampaging immigrants, muslims and BLM people. I have not yet met one of those nefarious bugaboos. I have met radicals who talk of these bugaboos. One tried to get me outside of a coffee shop in fisticuffs. They are the minority of people, I will wager that most other people have similar experiences. Therefore most will be voting against radicals and not for those who promote more violence. Just a guess.
DP – hope you are right.
As a habitue of gun shops/ranges, @derek, you know that gun folks follow a social greeting ritual. Much like egrets prancing and puffing their feathers, we grouse about know-nothing gun-grabbing politicians, ammo prices and who’s got any in stock, and throw in a few Archie Bunker aphorisms. It takes a couple minutes, then we mutually recognize each other as fellow egrets, and move on with our day. A few actually mean the things they mouth, for others its just a niche subgroup version of “what about that weather huh?”
If there is any good news out there on the election, it is the change in the results of March 2024 Gallop polling of Americans regarding the upcoming election compared to the results in polling of Americans in July/August 2020 election that indicate a growing number of Americans think that neither Biden or Trump would make a good president.
The following was asked:
Which best describes your view of Donald Trump and Joe Biden — both would be a good president, neither would be a good president, only Donald Trump would be a good president, or only Joe Biden would be a good president?
The results in 2024 and 2020 to these questions were:
Both: 5%, 4% (-1% change)
Neither: 25%,29% (+4% change) 🙂
Only Biden: 36%, 30% (-6% change)
Only Trump: 33%, 35% (+2% change)
I am already looking past this election and am looking to the Americans who currently say “neither” to identify and promote worthy candidates for 2028.
1) my biggest conspiratorial fear is that Trump, backed by his global autocrats (Putin, Xi, Kim) will sabotage the vote tabulating system somehow someway, thereby given him cover in the Right wing courts…
2) Biden needs to make this election a referendum on the “Supreme” Court … and imho…as in 2016 and 2020, women voters will be the difference makers…
The number one issue for female voters has historically been “the economy”.
they may buck history with bodily autonomy on the line…
You may be overlooking the risk of violence regardless of the election outcome. The distinction being, if Trump actually does win, it will be state sanctioned violence. I take him seriously when he means to punish his enemies and that he doesn’t need to find “good people” to run his government anymore. There are plenty of takers to go and execute his violent fantasies. But yes, the end of US hegemony is probably accompanied with his bloodying of America.
Agreed. My fear is that when Trump wins it will be seen as a green light to those who would like to take matters into their own hands and “help clean things up”. Without fear of jail time thanks to the “stand your ground” laws which were used to acquit Kyle Rittenhouse and as a justification for Greg Abbot’s recent pardon of Daniel Perry.
The great GOP “southern strategy” has come to fruition. George Wallace and Lester Maddox are smiling in their graves. Soon we’ll be seeing people proudly sporting axe handle lapel pins once again. But those are hard to find: now there’s a business idea for an aspiring MBA student!
I think the important thing here…..is that the stock market will continue to go up.
That was the funniest thing I read on here. Why is it so funny ? Trade, what with what when the infrastructure is being attacked from 18 different directions. This is not really gonna be fought with guns and flags.
Your last point is my real fear. The “people” don’t know it yet but their darling boss-man, if in office, will make their savings and retirements disappear. Authoritarian regimes create inflation, destroy financial value, and those precious rights everyone loves to talk about (as in, it’s my right, blah blah) will disappear. Check the lost and found in your state government. Some are already there.
In keeping with Memorial Day I feel compelled to note that the US army has fought in only three existential wars to gain and protect this country from harm. They were the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, the most costly of them all. Few will approve of my saying so, but the rest were side shows. We helped (at least tried to help) allies but didn’t have to save ourselves. In fact, WE haven’t won any war after WWII. We didn’t have to. However, starting in November we will surely bed engaged for the fourth time. Saving ourselves won’t be easy. I hope our current Commander-in Chief knows that because he will only have 60 days or so to rally the troops to save our democracy. By the way, Main Street (and probably Wall Street), this Christmas season will be a bust.
Thanks for bringing this up. That’s one of the reasons I consider my money well spent here. I honestly have no idea what post-election violence would do to the markets. My concern is that, whoever wins, the actions taken after the votes are counted will have a cascade of unintended consequences. At some point, a few months down the line, a lot of people will be thinking, “Oh, crap! We didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.” At that point there will be no going back. Stay safe out there.
Ken Burns made a commencement speech which is worthy of amplification.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ken-burns-suspends-longstanding-attempt-103055501.html