When Trump heads to jail, Banana Republicans will forever be known for their corruption and criminality. With this election, they will now showcase their unlimited talent for skulduggery.
While markets explode...
If it's one thing we can expect from Trump supporters it's heinous criminality and corruption. In 2016, they used every KGB election-rigging trick in the book to barely win. Trump himself admitted that the election was rigged. But when he won, the rigging no longer mattered:
In 2018 they timed the tax cut for right before the election and Mnuchin rigged tax withholdings to give the illusion of a larger tax cut. What the middle class thought was a tax cut in their paycheck was actually just their next year's refund pulled forward:
January 2018:
"The agency is under pressure to take as little as possible so people will see big increases in their take-home pay ahead of this year’s midterm elections. But that would come at a cost: smaller or even nonexistent refunds next year, though millions rely on them to plug holes in their family budgets."
In 2019, when the Mueller report found no direct evidence of Trump's participation in the rampant election interference that took place in 2016, his people rejoiced. They totally ignored the fact that Russia was now running U.S. elections, and instead focused on Trump's exculpation in the process. Who cares about democracy as long as your own tinpot dictator gets elected? Feeling vindicated, Trump picked up the phone and called the Ukraine to demand they fabricate dirt on Joe Biden's son in exchange for U.S. military aid. For that admitted act of corruption he was impeached by the House of Representatives.
The key risk in this election are the record mail in ballots that were made necessary by the COVID virus. All year since the pandemic began, Trump has been undermining the trust in mail-in ballots, even though he himself has used them in the past. People outside the United States can't believe the level of criminality taking place in broad daylight with the dumbfuck-in-chief:
August 2020:
"President Donald Trump frankly acknowledged Thursday that he’s starving the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election"
On election day this coming week, the opportunities for disruption are far greater, although they vary on a state by state basis. Each state has a different process for counting the mail-in ballots. Some states count them ahead of time. Other states count them only AFTER all of the in-person votes are counted. Since mail-in ballots skew Democratic, many fear that Trump will pre-emptively declare himself a winner before all of the mail-in ballots are counted. There are many other ways the GOP can interfere with this election, but we would have to be criminals to understand them all. What we know for certain is that there is no level they won't stoop to in order to steal this election.
"Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks, describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won"
Trump's team is preparing to falsely claim that mail-in ballots counted after Nov. 3 — a legitimate count expected to favor Democrats — are evidence of election fraud."
Many market pundits are using the 2000 year election between Bush and Gore as a template for how this could all play out. However, there are a few things they have neglected to mention. First off, Al Gore graciously conceded on December 12th even though he still had legal options to pursue. He felt that it was not in the best interest of the country to drag out the election. Had he known at the time the level of criminality that was about to ensue under GWB, Gore would have pursued the presidency to the ends of the earth. How many people in the Middle East and U.S. military are dead now because of that election? Nevertheless, we need have no fear that Trump will graciously concede until every possible obstruction of demoracy is exhausted.
The other major difference these Y2K comparisons omit is the fact that the Tech bubble back in 2000 peaked in March and was well off the highs going into the election. Whereas the work-from-home Tech bubble peaked just two weeks ago.
Here we see the Y2K scenario:
This time around, as we see below, the market was pricing in a contested election in September. But then shorts got rinsed at wave '2' in October, which is why the contested scenario is not anywhere near priced in:
This past week, despite the largest decline since March, S&P futures net speculative reached a two year crack high ahead of the election. Since the RNC in August, futures positioning turned from net short to net long into the decline:
I predict the market will be hard down until Biden is confirmed. A record dislocation generated by record GOP criminality, bringing record COVID deaths and record financial and economic collapse.
Every single day Banana Republicans will be reminded of the true cost of criminality.
When the smoke clears, not one clown will be left smiling.
October 20th, 2016: