jd vance doesn’t matter

and neither does donald trump. (or the assassination attempt. or project 2025.)

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if you have been looking at the news of late — and if so, god help you — you may have fallen prey to the media-driven and wholly false notion that some day-to-day plot elements within the soap opera known as american presidential politics matter.

they do not.

there is but one thing that matters in american presidential politics: the economy. if it is tolerable, i.e. we are not in a recession, the party in control of the white house retains such control. the exceptions to this, dating back 120 years, are:

a) 1952, when the guy who won world war ii beat the governor of illinois.

b) 2000, when florida broke and we were, btw, headed for a recession anyway.

now, as i said, we are not in a recession. what we are in is a period of heightened corporate greed, and that is causing inflation to be as much of a concern as it has been in about forty years. the price of eggs has gone up so much that when friends talk about how expensive eggs have gotten, i ask, “real or faberge?”

however, inflation is — while irritating and hurtful, and a reason to break out the guillotines— not a recession, and there isn’t time for us to get in a recession before the election. how do i know? because the yield curve would have to invert for two full fiscal quarters. then, 5–17 months later, we’d get our recession. the soonest we could have one is next july.

so. the yield curve can’t hurt biden, and neither can a world war ii hero. other factors that can’t do anything:

1. trump being shot at. reagan was at 60 percent approval before being shot at. he peaked at 68 after being shot at, then slid to 59 three months after being shot at. he didn’t surpass 61 again until the 1984 election — some three and a half years later. lyndon johnson took office after president kennedy was assassinated and spent the bulk of his presidency hemmorhaging support: two months later, he was already down five points, and that was a faint memory (he was at 36 percent) by the time he escaped losing the new hampshire primary. so the notion that america is going to vote for president bloody ear because of that ear lacks factual merit. again: the economy and the yield curve.
2. jd vance being from whichever swing state. there is no notion that a vice president being from a state matters unless the vice president is iconic to that state and the state is tiny. i repeat: vice presidents do not help win swing states with significant numbers of electoral votes. so the notion that america is going to vote for trump because jd vance has been representing ohio in the senate for a few years lacks factual merit. again: the economy and the yield curve.
3. project 2025. i know “vote because they want project 2025” is the scare tactic du jour, but i want to stress something to you: this isn’t them saying the quiet part out loud; this is them giving the loud part a new title. i was talking abortion with conservatives thirty years ago. they viewed women as incubators back then. nothing has changed. them wanting to gut social security hasn’t changed. them wanting to erase every anti-racism protection in america hasn’t changed. them wanting to run america like a conservative church hasn’t changed. just as joe biden told his rich donors nothing would fundamentally change for them if he won the presidency, nothing about conservatives’ desire to usher in dominionism has changed. any notion otherwise lacks factuality. but again: project 2025, or abortion, or whatever other noneconomic issues won’t be deciding this election. what will? the economy.
4. guy you’d like to have a beer with/nascar dads/electability/other invented notions: they make the vp stuff look credible. ignore the drivel from cable media outlets. stop watching them, even. their goal isn’t to inform you. it’s to get you to watch lots of ads.
5. replacing biden. i realize i am giving half my readers the vapors by even suggesting this, but replacing biden doesn’t matter. at all. the dnc could put forth a ticket with neither its current president nor its current vice president and be fine. why? because it’s the economy, stupid. democrats are in charge of the economy. whichever name is on the ballot is subordinate to the fact that the person holding the ballot is okay economically. most voters don’t even know who their state legislators are. they vote based on being okay or not. based on the economy. based on a few other issues when they’re not voting for president. but there is no notion that “i don’t know this person’s name” or “this used to be somebody else” affects anything.
6. october surprises. former politics and baseball expert turned everything idiot nate silver blamed comey’s letter for hillary’s loss to trump, having apparently missed the part where it was the economy, stupid. as didn’t happen then, and as doesn’t happen generally, october surprises don’t win elections. bush was going to win anyway (the economy was fine), nixon cruised regardless, etc. the only october surprise that could do much would be a recession, and recessions take longer than that to develop.
7. fox/msnbc/whichever news outlet saying whatever. for that to do anything, voters would first have to be watching, and they aren’t:

In primetime in March, Fox News averaged 2.14 million viewers, up 2% from the same period a year ago. MSNBC posted 1.31 million, up 15%, and CNN averaged 601,000, up 27%.

4.05 million people may seem like a lot, but a) spread out over 155 million voters, it ain’t, and b) if you think most msnbc or fox viewers are on the fence about biden/trump before hearing some bad thing about whichever of them, think again. similarly, while a lot of people might view e.g. new york times stories, their primary concern when voting for president, as measured over and over, is the economy (and when it isn’t, the incumbent wins). if it’s fine, the new york times isn’t going to scare them away from the incumbent. if it’s not fine, the new york times isn’t going to save the incumbent. nyt’s endorsement of amy klobuchar didn’t help her stay in the race much, nor did elizabeth warren get much out of it. and more broadly, newspaper endorsements are less common and less effective than they used to be.

there are probably more nonfactors to dismiss, but this should help with some of the bigger ones.

good luck <3