Oddbean

At a time of record political polarization, one president candidate survives an assassination attempt while the other experiences cognitive decline in the run up to an election, and drops out via a text-based communication channel he doesn’t control. That’s objectively wild times- one of the most eventful and consequential months in the past century of US politics.

It is also likely that other countries, using their intelligence collection capabilities, had greater insights into the chaos in the White House than the American people. Understanding the decision tree is critical to understanding an adversary’s plans and intentions, which is really the point of intelligence collection. Get that wrong, and a series of unfortunate events can unfold. But at least now we know - the Harris people are in charge, and the vast mechanism of influence the democrats rely on will kick into high gear to make sure that whatever happens from today forward will be in support of her candidacy. And we’ll be not-so-politely asked to forget the last three years of obfuscation and lies.

I would say it’s been pretty wild. I think it was to be expected though. 2020 was just as crazy. I wonder once Trump/Biden off the political scene will things calm down as Trump is a very unique politician that brings a different energy… thoughts?

Agree to it being unprecedented, sure. I wouldn’t say wild. The US and the internet with it are both in their infancy and I expect the future will hold significantly more interesting times. Good morning.