Will the verdict change the election?

I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows!

Hello, situation normies! Also, Kon'nichiwa!

Last Sunday, I tried to pull off the first-ever Situation Normal reader survey. It was an epic fail. I screwed up the settings in Google Forms. The settings are more complicated than they need to be, which is why I sent a strongly-worded email to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. With any luck, Google will unfuck Forms pronto, and as they say in Silicon Valley, I promise to do better. But in all seriousness, thank you for trying to fill out the survey! I’ll run the survey again in a month or so.

Meantime, a big shout out to Nancy A., Situation Normal’s newest paid subscriber! Thank you! Also, I’m sending you good vibes, Nancy, please use them in good health.

Everywhere I went this week, people asked me the same question: will the guilty verdict cost Trump the election? My friends asked. My family asked. The cashier at a burger stand asked if I wanted fries with my order, then added, “will the guilty verdict cost Trump the election?”

I tried telling people that I didn’t know the answer, but that only made things worse. They’d respond to my honest non-answer with their bullshit answers.

“I don’t think it matters,” my gardener told me. “Half the people think the verdict is weed-killer, and the other half think it’s fertilizer. It’s a wash, it won’t change anything.”

My gardener’s analysis may have leaned a little too hard on lawn care references, but his conclusion wasn’t all that different from the talking heads who get paid the big bucks to say things like, “ultimately, the voters will decide.”

No shit.

But try telling that to the lady at the donut shop, when all you want is an apple fritter, and all she wants is your hot take. You’ll get that fritter, eventually, but first you’ll get a serving of side-eye.

“Why do people keep asking me the same question?” I asked Christina. “It’s not like I can predict the future. And if I could predict the future, I wouldn’t tell them who’s going to win the election. I’d bet every penny we have on the biggest long shot I could find, then I do it again and again until we’re rich as fuck.”

“OK, Biff.”

But the answer isn’t just about predicting the future. The question is actually two questions in one. First question: what will be the outcome of the election in November? Second question: what role will a court case play in determining that outcome?

Like everyone else in America, I’ll find out the answer to the first question the night of Tuesday, November 5, or maybe early Wednesday morning, or in the days and weeks that follow, depending on how close it is. Regardless, my plan is to ingest an unhealthy amount of cable news, sit at the edge of my seat, and self-medicate with cannabis and carbohydrates until every state on the big map is either red or blue. That’s just how democracy works.

The second question is one we’ll never know the answer to. Political scientists and historians will likely kick the question around for a century or more. Books will be written. Tenure will be granted. Careers will be made on this question. If I cut back on the donuts and pass on the fries, I could make it to the late 2060s. That means I’ll live long enough for some fresh-faced historian who wasn’t alive when the shit went down to tell me the real story of the shit I lived through. What a treat that will be.

Maybe one of those future historians will use an AI tool to sift through the rubble of today’s internet. They’ll find Situation Normal, and after they stop laughing, they’ll request an interview.

“What were people talking about in the weeks after the verdict?” they’ll ask me.

I’ll tell them what I remember. It’ll probably go something like, “the most important issues of the day were lawn care and apple fritters.” Let’s face it, I’ll be pushing ninety, and after all the cannabis I ingested during the 2024-25 interregnum, my memory might not be so great. But here’s what I hope I’ll say:

Everyone kept asking the same question, but most of the time, people didn’t really want to hear your answer, they just wanted to tell you their answer, even though it was perfectly obvious at that moment that the answer was unknowable.

Also:

We were pretty darn myopic. We assumed that the verdict was everything. Of course, later that summer, we were convinced that the outcome of the election would hinge on Taylor Swift’s endorsement. And then in September, we were positive that the election would be determined by who had the most zingers in the debate. But then in October, we realized that none of that mattered, because it was all about the October surprise, which the media had been hyping since Valentine’s Day.

And finally:

If you really want to know what happened, kid, go back and watch the election night coverage. I was pretty baked, so don’t quote me on this, but the minute the first polls closed, a chorus of talking heads gave us all the answers, and everything they said was on point. And OK, sure, the things they said were just, like, their opinions, man. But those opinions were also facts! It was a great time to be alive, because in those days, you didn’t have to think for yourself, or pay out of your ass for an AI subscription to do the thinking for you. Instead, there was an entire industry of people who told you what to think. For free! (With ads). Those were the good old days, kid.

It’s a mystery!

Life is messy. History is complicated. Thankfully, there are mystery novels to satisfy us by resolving burning questions like whodunit? And whydunit? I answer both those questions, and many more, in my novel, Not Safe for Work. You should read Not Safe for Work, it’ll change your life.

Stick around and chat!

I’ve got questions that can be answered,

1. Who did Taylor Swift endorse in the 1796 election, and what was the October surprise? Wrong answers only!

2. What’s the October surprise going to be this year? Get creative, and spoil it!

3. What do you want future historians to know about this moment?

4. Does my gardener have a shot at landing a cable news contract? Be honest, he can take it.

5. If AI is so smart, why can’t it tell us the future in a voice that sounds eerily like Scarlett Johansson?