[flagged]
Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too.
Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong.
I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, but in my opinion, it is unlikely.
The real skeptical in me says it doesn’t even matter, no matter who you vote for, you’ll get John McCain.
I have never died before, not once in my life. The most likely outcome is that I will live forever.
They didn't say that this is always true for every situation forever. They said "The best predictor of future events is past experience".
Keyword is "best".
You being alive today is the best predictor of you being alive tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.
An unprecedented glioblastoma diagnosis would predict otherwise. When the facts in evidence become extraordinary, one must adapt the adage accordingly.
No one has ever lived 150 years. Therefore there is nothing that can be predictive of living 150 years. One is starting with something that is known to be incorrect and then working backwards to phrase it in a similar way.
If you're in the middle of a nuclear winter do you still insist summer is just a few months away based on past experience? And if you hear someone saying it will you believe it's anything other than disingenuous or ignorant?
In the absence of any other data, sure. But we have lots of other data here. The first being that he didn't leave peacefully last time.
Even if we accept that extrapolation is the best you can do, you'd still need to justify why the domain of "past experience" is exactly wide enough to generalise across current and previous US presidencies, but not so wide as to include even one of the numerous populist strongman takeovers in non-US political history. Proof by American Exceptionalism, perhaps?
Except for the most impactful things.
I saw another comment here about a month ago that said many people tend to round a very small risk down to zero risk. The comments were related to driving and the risk of serious injury or death that most people discount, but I think it also applies to other areas of risk in life, too, for many people.
Exceptional events are low probability by definition, and thus people tend to ignore the possibility, assuming instead that the status quo will continue to exist.
That is false. On January 6th 2021 the sitting president fomented a mob to violently keep him in power.
If we’re going off your rule of past events being the best prediction for future events then we should all be shitting ourselves over the fact that this guy isn’t leaving peacefully
> Every US president in history has left office peacefully
Considering the current US President tried to have his VP and Congress killed by an angry mob if they didn't hand over a second presidential term to him, we should expect the same this time, but better organized and with ~8 years of planning.
I think you are forgetting a date that happened on the 6th day after the start of 2021. I would most certainly not call that pieceful in any way shape or form (and yes, I count that as part of leaving office, being the certification of the next president). By your logic this would mean that it is unlikely that he will peacefully leave office.
The events of January 6th 2021 suggest otherwise.
Every president except the currently sitting one. Yes, past behaviour is often a good predictor for future behaviour.
As far as I know, this is the first time a president has completely disregarded civility, declared marshall law under false pretenses (not false alarm, specifically false pretenses), talked about crowning himself king, and various forms of rigging future elections.
So the fact that some people (allegedly) thought Clinton/Bush/Obama/Biden would crown themselves is pretty irrelevant.
That's why you're currently reading HN with Internet Explorer on your IBM desktop running OS/2 2025.
The adage about history as an indicator only applies to the steady state. It compeltely breaks down when with events that are so rare as to be unpredictable when they have extreme - good or bad - consequences.
ex:
"The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology."
And I would argue the world today isn't even close to the edge of the spectrum when it comes to lack of predictability or how extreme the outcomes may be.
That's not how I would describe Jan 6 2021 not to mention Trump's other efforts to subvert the election results, and refusal to accept the results to this day.
> some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power.
Really? When has there been such a public outcry before? There have never been "No Kings" protests before, because they weren't needed. Even if you hated Reagan, Clinton or Obama, you knew he wasn't going to try to run for a third term, whereas Trump keeps publicly saying he might.
> Every US president in history has left office peacefully
I guess you consider the J6 riot/insurrection "peaceful"? You're probably in a minority if you think that way.
Trump did not leave office peacefully last time. The most probable outcome is that he will not leave office peacefully next time.
What's going to doom US democracy is all the people in denial that an authoritarian coup could and is happening in America.
Have they memory-holed "Jan 6, 2021" from your history books?