Elon Musk Reveals His Plans for Mars

Every year,  the International Astronautical Federation (IAF),  the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA),  and the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) hold a meeting somewhere in the world called the International Astronautical Congress (IAC).  The latest one was September 26-30 in Guadalajara,  Mexico.  The next ones are:

·         2019 - Washington DC, USA; 70th IAC

·         2018 – Bremen, Germany; 69th IAC

·         2017 – Adelaide, Australia; 68th IAC (September 25–29, 2017)^[1]

Elon Musk of Spacex gave a very astonishing presentation at that recent meeting,  revealing how he plans to enable a settlement on Mars at an affordable price, sooner than anyone ever thought.  I saw the on-line video of his presentation,  and downloaded the slides he used. 

After taking some time to digest both content,  and the comment and criticism this presentation has generated,  here is my best shot at the most-factual summary.  This is not a full-blown colony that Mr. Musk proposes to establish all by himself,  despite what the news story headlines say. 

He is creating the essential practical transportation system that is necessary to enable many entities to participate in establishing a permanent colony.  No one entity can do this.  The timeline for creating such a colony is around a century long.

Some of the comments I have seen claim Musk is living in “fantasyland”,  because his proposals are so vastly different than anything we have ever seen out of NASA.  They look almost like the 1940’s-1950’s dreams of big spaceships that don’t seem limited in their range. 

But I disagree with the critics;  Musk can now take advantage of enabling technologies and materials today,  that were simply unavailable to NASA or anyone else in prior decades.  If he does embark on this plan,  and he can successfully pull off developing these vehicles and flying them,  it will fundamentally and forever change the world of human space travel. 

Can he do this?  His history says that he does what he says he will do,  but just not quite as fast as he wanted to do it,  because space flight is hard,  with many setbacks.  As proof,  I cite the development of Falcon family of launch vehicles that has so very dramatically helped to reduce the cost of expendable launch to Earth orbit.  Musk has already begun to recover those boosters,  and will soon attempt re-flying them (a key feature of the Mars ship he proposes). 

This isn’t something Musk and Spacex can do all alone.  They have to make money by selling rides in this giant vehicle.  This thing offers something like 300 ton capacity to low Earth orbit,  and at a price per delivered ton far below today’s prices.  This completely opens up the field for entrepreneurs wanting to build space stations in Earth orbit for all sorts of purposes. 

Musk’s “big rocket” is really two things,  a giant launch booster based on scaled-up Falcon technology,  and a spacecraft that is also its second stage getting to orbit.  The booster flies back to launch site for reuse,  and the second stage/spaceship is refueled in orbit to enable it to fly to any desired low-gravity destination,  without further staging. 

Musk's 2-Stage Vehicle with 2nd Stage the Interplanetary Spaceship

Data on the Reusable 1st Stage Booster

 Data on the Reusable 2nd Stage Spaceship (there is a tanker version)

Depiction of Booster Fly-Back Similar to Falcon Boosters

There are actually two versions of that second stage/spaceship:  one is the spaceship that must be refueled in orbit to go anywhere else.  The other version is a tanker that does the refueling in orbit,  and then flies home for reuse.  But,  for the spaceship to come home from its trip,  its crew must make more propellant at that destination.

This thing dwarfs the old Saturn 5 moon rocket.  At launch it’s about 400 feet tall,  3.5 times the weight,  and 3.6 times the thrust,  of the Saturn-5.  It also dwarfs NASA’s three-stage Space Launch System (SLS) rocket,  currently in development,  and which is not reusable at all. 

Comparison of Mars Vehicle and Booster with Saturn-5

There are lots of low-gravity places that a vehicle like this can go.  These include Mars,  our moon,  any moon of Jupiter or Saturn,  and the asteroids and comets.  Maybe Mercury.  Maybe the outer planet moons.  But not high-gravity places like Earth without a booster and tankers.  (Venus isn’t a feasible destination for several reasons besides its gravity.) 

Musk’s schedule calls for development and testing of actual hardware beginning 2018,  aimed at a first Mars flight late in 2022.  Personally,  I think it’ll take a little longer than that,  precisely because space travel is hard and there will be setbacks.  There already have been,  with his Falcon rockets.  But I would guess his Mars ship,  tankers,  and giant booster will be flying no later than about 2030,  maybe a little sooner. 

His presentation showed launches out of Cape Canaveral.  But I think he really wants to launch this thing out of his private space launch facility in deep south Texas.

Location of South Texas Private Launch Site

This thing has enough performance to fly a little faster to Mars than an absolute minimum-energy trajectory.  That shortens trip times considerably,  from 8 months to 3-4 months,  one-way. 

Shorter flight times mean we are “OK” with no artificial gravity and no high-efficiency life support systems,  and that the accumulated space radiation dose is much lower.  There’s plenty of room inside the ship for maybe a hundred people to live,  for journeys of that shorter duration.  Only for further destinations would these issues need to be addressed. 

Once at Mars,  the ship makes a direct entry from its interplanetary trajectory and a retropropulsive landing without parachutes.  Direct entry is something NASA has done for decades with its probes.  Doing propulsive landings without parachutes is something NASA has never done,  except on the moon with Apollo,  and never since.  Problem is,  chutes are ineffective on Mars for masses over about a ton.   

This Mars mission architecture depends upon making propellant on Mars,  because the vehicle uses up all its propellants getting there.  In that sense,  Musk is betting the lives of the ship’s occupants that they can make enough propellants on Mars fast enough to refuel it for the journey home.  It needs no booster to do that:  Mars gravity is only 38% that of Earth.  The ship holds over 1900 tons of propellants,  as currently envisioned.  That’s a lot to make in only a few months!

The choice of which propellants to make is crucial for success.  Musk and Spacex have chosen liquid methane and liquid oxygen,  made with the local Martian “air” (which is 98% carbon dioxide),  and local water-as-ice.  There is a chemical process called “Sabatier” that uses carbon dioxide,  water,  and electricity,  to make methane and oxygen.  Then you liquefy them,  which also requires electricity. 

The key to this is finding local sources of ice to melt for the water.  It means the astronauts are going to have to be ice miners when they get to Mars.  The nature of the buried ice deposits will determine the complexity and weight of the tools,  equipment,  and facilities that the vehicle must transport there. 

If there is a massive buried glacier at the landing site,  then one can simply slant-well drill into it,  use hot steam from a steam generator to melt the subsurface ice,  and bring gobs of water right back up the well.  If the ice veins are thin layers,  or separated pockets,  strip mining will instead be required,  with enormous dirt-moving equipment,  and a gigantic facility processing enormous volumes of surface material,  for each precious ton of water. 

Obviously,  selecting the right landing site is critical. 

Musk’s plans begin with what he already has in-hand today.  There is a new version of the Falcon called Falcon-Heavy,  which should start flying in 2017.  This rocket is powerful enough to send a version of his Dragon capsule unmanned to Mars,  for a direct retropropulsive landing,  with 2+ tons of “stuff” on board. 

That version is called “Red Dragon”,  and will carry as-yet unidentified robotic payloads to investigate multiple potential landing sites.  Musk expects to start these flights in 2018.  NASA is finally participating,  hoping to learn about retropropulsive landings on Mars,  but is too late for them to add any payload items to that first flight.

Depiction of Unmanned Red Dragon Landing on Mars

So,  what would constitute the right landing site?

First,  Musk’s Mars ship is 3-4 times as tall as its landing legs are wide.  That makes it very intolerant of rough ground,  or obstructions like boulders and dunes.   The site must be very flat and clean of hazards. 

Second,  there needs to be massive buried ice deposits directly underneath the landing site.   That’s something remote sensing is just not capable of determining.  Ground truth has always been at variance with remote-sensing claims,  often enormously so. 

It will take real drilling to determine this,  just like it does here exploring for water or for oil/gas/coal.  Whatever payloads Red Dragon carries,  a robot drill rig capable of drilling at least a football-field down is required.          

A Canadian outfit called NORCAT built a robot drill rig that it called “CanaDrill” a few years ago.  They offered it to NASA without success,  my sources tell me.  But,  to me,  it looks like some version of this thing is exactly what Musk needs to ride his Red Dragons to Mars,  looking for that “right” landing site. 

So how will this “play out”? 

Falcon-Heavy/Red Dragon shots identify the right landing site between 2018 and the time the big Mars ship is ready to make its first Mars flight. 

The first big Mars ship flight brings mostly cargo and a small crew.  This crew sets up that first “outpost” as a modest habitat in which to live,  and a minimally-adequate propellant-making plant for the return trip.  They do human exploration of Mars while there,  of course.  As the flights continue every two years when the orbits are favorable,  the propellant plant grows in capacity,  and the habitat also starts enlarging to accommodate larger populations later. 

Based on our history attempting such things so far,  I have very serious doubts that a closed-cycle ecology,  a self-sustaining life support and food production scheme,  is going to be successful in the early years of this outpost.  That means it will initially be dependent upon regular resupply,  as part of the cargoes of these big ships. 

Later on,  this issue will get resolved,  and the outpost becomes essentially self-supporting from a life support/food production standpoint.  That’s the point at which it can first evolve into a real “city on Mars”,  with some serious local production of supplies and infrastructure items (yet to be identified).  By that time,  the ships will be bringing more people than equipment and supplies. 

Eventually,  somewhere in this process,  some sort of Martian exports yet-to-be-identified will be making the return voyages to Earth.  Some sort of interplanetary economy will evolve from that.  That is the point at which you can really call this a proper “colony on Mars”.  I think (as does Musk and Spacex) that’s about a century down the road. 

Comparison to NASA/”Big Space” business-as-usual:

Musk wants people on the surface of Mars by about 2025.  Realistically,  I think he will do this closer to 2030.  Compare that to NASA/”Big Space’s” plans to fly around Mars without landing in the late 2030’s,  with the actual first landing sometime in the 2040’s.  Musk beats them by at least a decade. 

Musk has already begun to develop his fully-reusable spaceships of enormous cargo capacity.  He has already started landing boosters,  he will soon re-fly used boosters,  he already has a good heat shield for entry at Mars or returning to Earth,  he is already starting to test his methane-oxygen rocket engine (see photo),   and he is already constructing his first giant propellant tank test articles needed for the big booster and ship.  Compare that to the cramped capsules and throw-away stages seen proposed by NASA/”Big Space”,  or by any another entity on the planet. 

Raptor Engine Test (Big Methane-Oxygen Engine)

According to Musk’s presentation,  they are projecting around $200 million per launch of their reusable boosters and ships.  They project a price under $200,000 for each ton delivered to Mars,  which is also roughly the same as the ticket price per person.  Compare that to around $1 billion per launch of NASA’s SLS,  and a per-astronaut cost to Mars in the 10’s of billions of dollars. 

What makes this affordable transportation possible at all,  and what makes this plan look like something out of the dreams from the 1940’s and 1950’s,  is this specific list of enabling technologies,  taken right from Musk’s own slides:  
  

Reusable vehicles (NASA doesn’t do this,  Virgin Galactic,  Blue Origin,  and XCOR Aerospace do)

Refueling in orbit (NASA doesn’t do this;  the Russians do,  but not with cryogenic propellants)

Select the right propellant that can be manufactured at destination (NASA doesn’t do this,  yet)

Manufacture of said propellant at destination (NASA doesn’t do this,  yet)

This is a total “leap-frog jump” into the future,  that leaves everyone else behind.  I think it is really possible to do this,  although I also think it will be harder to accomplish than it looks to Musk and Spacex right now.  Being a life-long fan of human space travel,  I can only wish them success. 

Update 10-8-16:  There should probably be a 5th item in Mr. Musk's list of 4 enabling items just above:  gigantic size.  He and Spacex have thrown the artificial,  self-imposed "minimum thrown weight" constraint right out the window.  This is unlike anything proposed since the giant spaceship concepts of the mid-1950's.

The New World was not settled from Europe with small boats.  They used the full-size ships of that time.  The airline industry in the US was not started successfully with small airplanes that had only a few passenger seats.  It took Ford leaping in with the Tri-Motor,  and Douglas leaping in with the DC-3,  to point the right way: that large aircraft were what really worked.  The same is true here:  one of the cost savers with Musk's giant rocket is simple economy-of-scale.  

Update 10-28-16:  Do not be confused by the talk of 100 people to Mars per ship,  or colonies with a million people.  That's "far future" stuff,  some decades after the initial landings,  if not longer time spans.  Musk is concentrating on the transportation system,  not the actual establishment of a colony.  He cannot do all of this by himself.  He will be very lucky just to get the transportation system done. 

There is a timeline disparity in what he presented at Guadalajara:  first giant ship to Mars late 2022,  versus first men to Mars late 2024.  This is preceded by Falcon-Heavy/Red Dragon "pathfinder" unmanned shots in 2018,  2020,  and presumably into 2022.  

To me,  this sort-of looks like the first large-ship shot or two is unmanned.  Presumably,  that would have something to do with the return propellant processing factory,  and perhaps other infrastructure,  for a putative manned base to start around 2022.  

And,  as always,  calibrate this with the history so far.  Musk typically does what he says he will do;  it just takes him about 50+% longer than he wanted,  to actually get it done.  

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If you go to "Mars Mission Outline 2016" on this site,  dated 5-28-2016,  you can see what I had been working on.  Musk and I share the concepts of big ships,  and of re-usability to the maximum extent possible.  Where we differed was (1) I used separate landers rather than a direct landing,  and (2) I did not presume local propellant manufacturing capability from the very first manned landing.

That is why the two transportation systems look so very different.  Assumptions make a gigantic difference.  

Election 2016 As A Turning Point

Update 11-15-16:

Well,  it's over,  and what I had considered the slightly-greater evil won.  Now the GOP has to put up or shut up.  I rather doubt they have any viable replacements yet,  for the things they want to repeal,  they've been barely competent just being obstructive.

You can always tell when a politician of either party is lying to you:  their lips are moving.  They do not work for us,  they work for whoever bought their jobs for them.  And that's the real root of all this evil.  Political agendas are largely irrelevant in the face of that ugly fact.

Meanwhile,  it does finally seem to be dawning on some other folks that I was right about angry folks left behind economically.  My prescription for how to fix that still stands,  no matter who is in the White House or controls the houses of Congress.

It's "find a way to end the giant corporate welfare state" or get voted out next election.  Now get on with it.  --  GW

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There are other related articles on this site,  as listed.  In particular,  see the trade study matrix I did on Clinton versus Trump in “Evaluation of Choices for 2016”,  and the descriptions of where the corporate welfare state comes from in “Stuff You Do Not Normally Think About”.   All share the search keyword “idiocy in politics”.  Here’s the list:

8-4-16….Evaluation of Choices for 2016

7-29-16…..Stuff You Normally Do Not Think About

6-5-16…….Trump?  NO!!

4-24-16….Better Choices in November

12-21-15..Facts Must Trump Politics

The Candidates

Donald Trump has proven over and over that he cannot control himself when he talks.  The very serious risk here is that he cannot control himself when he acts,  especially in a pressure situation.  Many who cannot control their speech also cannot control their actions.  We’ve all seen this.

Therefore,  that risk is completely intolerable for a commander-in-chief with his finger on the nuclear trigger.  So,  in my opinion,  no one with two working brain cells to rub together can vote for Trump for president,  regardless of their politics.  The nuclear extinction risk precludes it.  Extremist politics does have a way of killing brain cells,  doesn’t it?

Hillary Clinton may well be an un-indicted felon.  If 30-40 years ago I had done with classified information what she did at the State Department,  I would still be in jail today,  in a windowless cell.  Which also proves that there really is a double standard of justice,  one for the rich and powerful versus another for the rest of us.   Remember that point about two standards of justice,  I’ll get back to it further below.

She is an integral part of the “political establishment” that has left behind us ordinary folks for 6 decades now.  Given a better choice,  I would not vote for her,  either.

But there is not a better choice.  In her favor,  she knows well the job and all the background associated with it.  And she is stable and well-adjusted and (most importantly) self-controlled enough,  not to go off half-cocked on the nuclear trigger.  She is therefore just barely minimally acceptable to vote for,  as the lesser of the two evils.

The Parties

When I was young,  I tended to vote more Republican than Democrat,  although I am actually a fierce independent.  In those days,  both parties were more “mainstream” in their proposals.  I thought that the Democrats gave away too many tax dollars too easily,  and I did not then know that the Republican approach of “trickle-down economics” was a lie (and well-proven to be so,  ever since Reagan’s time). 

Since then,  the Republicans have extremized their economics and their social policies,  driven there by the “right wing” extremists among them,  and the religious extremists with which they allied.  I personally detest extremism,  whether political or religious.  That way lies the path that has led to war and suffering all these centuries. 

“Detest” may be too weak a word:  such deserve death upon detection.

With Trump bringing in the very-numerous blue-collar “left-behinds”,  there has also been a huge recent influx of racism and bigotry within the party,  although this actually started some years earlier.  Most of the email hit-piece forwards I get are sourced from Republican operatives,  not Democrat operatives,  at least since Bill Clinton’s time.  In some of these,  the racism and bigotry are quite overt,  and I find it very disturbing that friends and neighbors forward this crap to me as if it were true. 

The Democrats have drifted toward the center during those same years.  There are very few “flaming liberals” left in that party,  although there are still some notable exceptions,  such as Bernie Sanders.  Their social agenda is generally more to my liking,  except for their gun control ideas (more on that below).

Historically,  Democrats have been viewed as weak in foreign policy,  but I no longer believe that propaganda.  Democrat President Obama has killed more people with drone strikes than his Republican predecessor ever thought about.  That’s not exactly being “weak”.  FDR and Truman were Democrats,  and so was Teddy Roosevelt,  so that record speaks for itself. 

Actually,  when you get right down to it,  what my grandparents used to say about Republicans is still true:  they favor the rich big businesses over the common man.  It’s just worse now than it was then (more about that below).  What my grandparents used to say about Democrats is no longer true:  instead of favoring the common man,  they,  too,  are now also minions of the giant corporations. 

Libertarians?  Nope.  They want to out-Republican the extremist-Republicans economically.  Which means privatizing or destroying things we really need,  like the public schools.  They want to out-Democrat the Democrats socially,  which is no longer hard to do,  since the Democrats have mostly drifted centrist.  As I said,  I detest extremism.  That is not an agenda I can stomach.

Greens?  No way in hell would I vote for a crackpot anti-vacciner.  With a belief like that,  all other initiatives are also equally suspect.  That’s not “green”,  that’s simply insane.

In summary,  there is little today to recommend any of the parties,  including the two big ones.  Although they are still sort-of better than the two little ones.

Bread and Circuses

Back to two standards of justice.  Or two standards of just about anything.  There’s the rich giants,  and then there’s the rest of us.  Didn’t you ever notice that?  Most of us have been left behind,  as the giants prospered.  And you cannot fight them one-on-one:  they can hire lawyers we cannot afford. 

I’m sorry,  but you no longer live free in a representative democracy anymore.  You haven’t in quite a while.  You are living in a giant corporate welfare state,  in which government now does little but pick your pockets to keep the giants rich.  Your politicians do not work for you who elected them,  they work for these giants who bought their jobs for them.  That’s true for a lot of key appointed officials,  too. 

This has been creeping upon us,  step by slow step,  since World War 2.  The takeover became complete only 20 or 30 years ago,  about the time our party politics extremized into the comic-opera buffoonery we have today.  Take a good hard look at the officials you elect:  are they not clownish buffoons,  by and large?  Did you never wonder why?

My friends and neighbors,  these buffoons and idiotic politics are the bread-and-circuses by which those who rule us hope to keep our attentions diverted,  away from what they have actually done to us.  They have no interest in how badly these clowns govern,  they only care about getting lots of tax money fed to them as this-or-that contract,  while not paying any taxes. 

Have you not noticed that the last air force bomber that actually worked right was the B-52,  first flown in 1952,  and whose very last production example rolled off the assembly line in 1961?  That we now build warships without any guns on them?  That none of the high dollar defense programs produces anything that works right anymore?  And hasn’t for some decades now? 

So where did all your federal gasoline tax dollars go?  Certainly not into keeping the highways and bridges up to par!  Somebody’s pockets somewhere,  that’s for sure!  And not any of us common folk. 

It got this way because of an uncorrected mistake made by the writers of our Constitution:  they allowed lobbyists and their money to roam the halls of government,  without making it the crime of bribery that it actually is.  I guess for them our experiment-in-democracy was experimental enough,  without trying to correct that evil,  too.  They didn’t correct slavery either.  Fallible,  like all of us.

Correcting evils is precisely what the amendment process was for.  At least they got that part right. 

You have to take private money out of the campaigns,  too,  or you never will get anyone worth voting “for”,  only “against”.  That’s even true at the primary level.  This will have to be a sweeping change to be effective. 

It’s way past time to fix all this. 

Making Changes

To me,  it appears there are only 3 options:  (1) voting out all the corrupt officeholders,  so that all lobbyist monies actually can be outlawed by new officials,  at all levels and phases of government,  (2) a grassroots Constitutional amendment to outlaw all lobbyist monies anywhere in any governmental process,  or (3) do armed revolution in the streets and just start over. 

Item (1) voting the crooks out doesn’t seem very feasible,  because a majority of the electorate seems to actually believe the idiotic political propaganda.  I guess they’ve heard it too many times,  and so believe it to be true.  Which is exactly how the Nazis and Communists obtained and retained power.  And how the jihadists do it today.  It’s called the “big lie” technique;  somewhere you’ve heard of that!

There’s enough Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders supporters to actually do this,  if they could but get together.  But they will not.  Idiotic politics gets in the way.  They believe the “big lies”.

Item (2) amending the Constitution to make buying politicians and appointed officials a crime would indeed throw the giant corporations out of power.  But getting everyone to actually agree on one (or more)specific amendment(s) will be more difficult than it would seem at first sight.  This is for precisely the very same reason that we can’t just throw the crooked bums out at the ballot box:  people actually believe in the idiocies that are their politics. 

Item (3) armed revolution is the only one the giant corporations actually fear could really happen.  That is why they have made gun control / creeping gun confiscation a part of the Democratic platform agenda.  So they can use the Democrats to disarm us.  Unarmed populations are easy to dominate:  just ask the Germans and the Russians.  Or many of the peoples of the third world. 

Never forget that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to make the threat of armed revolution credible,  so that government would behave itself.  The Founding Fathers did a pretty good job with that one,  because it could still work today,  even with the de facto takeover by the giant corporations already in place! 

The federal government has been quietly equipping all sorts of non-military,  non-police agencies with machine guns,  body armor,  tactical vehicles,  and immense quantities of ammunition.  Agencies like the EPA and IRS.  What do they need such battle equipment for?  Not for their jobs.  Unless,  they are to be employed as adjunct troops to help quell the armed rebellion.  Think about that!

Don’t get me wrong:  I’d much rather do this at the ballot box in one way or another.  There’s a whole lot less mess to clean up afterwards.  But the prudent and patriotic person simply must be prepared to face the possibility that revolution becomes the only option.

Why Do Anything At All?

What if we do nothing?  Well,  the giant corporations’ policies will eventually lead to the destruction of the middle class.  That’s where the bulk of the tax revenues are coming from.  Certainly not the poor,  they pay none,  and could not pay even if levied.  As for the giants,  paying nothing is exactly why they own the politicians and officials.  The smaller corporations and small businesses are less of a revenue source than the middle class. 

Point is,  the money gravy train ends when the middle class dies.

So,  long term,  this system is not sustainable,  and it will fall.  And utter chaos will result.  We may not recover before getting opportunistically invaded by some other country.  Just like Rome.

Why am I certain this will eventually happen if we do not correct it?  Because money is more addictive than heroin.  All addicts become self-destructive.  Even giant corporations. 

It is in your best self-interest to put an end to this giant corporate welfare state,  before its ultimate fall puts an end to you. 

I recommend we try the two ballot box options before resorting to revolution.  But we need to be prepared,  even for revolution.  Keep your guns and ammo hidden.   We who still own guns still outnumber “them”,  and in city-street fighting house-to-house,  that’s all that really matters. 

Evaluation of Choices for 2016

Update 10-13-16 is the image just above.  It's perfect!!!

I have been voicing opinions for some months now regarding the 2016 election.  There are some related articles elsewhere on this site,  one of which seems to be modestly popular with readers (the 7-29-16 article).  Another one is just a funny (the 4-24-16 article).  All share the search keyword “idiocy in politics”.  Here’s the list:

8-4-16....Evaluation of Choices for 2016  (this one)

7-29-16…..Stuff You Normally Do Not Think About

6-5-16…….Trump?  NO!!

4-24-16….Better Choices in November

12-21-15..Facts Must Trump Politics

Those of you who know me are aware that I have often said this:  I haven’t been voting “for” anybody for president in a great many years,  I have been voting “against” the ones I consider to be greater evils.  And that’s true “in spades” for 2016. 

Trade Study Evaluation

Long ago,  I learned how to use the “trade matrix” as an analysis tool for making hard choices.  I’ve done it again:  evaluating Clinton vs Trump.  This did not extend to the third/fourth party candidates.

The Libertarians have some really odd policy proposals,  to my way of thinking,  claiming to be socially more liberal than the Democrats,  but economically more conservative than the Republicans.  They want to dismantle too many institutions that we actually need.  

The Greens are led by an anti-vacciner,  in spite of all the science discrediting her notions.  That’s entirely too crackpot to believe.  

So,  it’s just the Democrats vs the Republicans. 

What I did was phrase a bunch of items,  all as negative statements.  A ”yes” means the negative applies to the candidate,  color-coded coded red.  Otherwise,  it does not apply,  color-coded blue.  I did not rank how severely a negative applies,  only that it applies at all.  The only thing I did with the data was to re-order the items,  so that the color coding is much clearer.  The rationale for assigning "yes" vs "no" is given further below,  for those who love details.  Here is the trade study matrix data:

Results and Recommendations

Quite frankly,  there are two conclusions to draw from this pattern of data:  (1) both candidates are “evil” (severely flawed) as indicated by majority red,  and (2),  Trump is the greater evil,  having no blue at all.  I will be voting for the lesser evil (Clinton),  and encourage all of you to do the same.  My best estimate is that Trump,  the greater evil,  would cause chaos-at-the-very-minimum,  if elected. 

Estimates of the Political Landscape

My best guess is that we are seeing the destruction of the Republican party as we have known it.  It hasn’t been the “party of Lincoln” since the coalition of religious and political extremists gained control of it back in Reagan’s time.  This got worse a few years ago with the national Tea Party extremists,  who do not govern,  only obstruct.  And now there is Trump,  whose supporters overwhelmed all the rest in the primary just concluded. 

We actually do need a “party of Lincoln”.  I can do without the rest.

All the time this was happening,  the Democrats morphed into a very centrist party,  with few of the “flaming liberals” that they used to have in spades.  Not all these flaming liberals were bad:  I rather thought well of Hubert Humphrey,  for one.  This year,  there is a leftward lurch to some small extent,  brought about by Bernie Sanders and his supporters. Actually,  that’s a good thing,  we do not need two conservative parties.  Sameness begets no new ideas in debate.

If it were not so pathetic,  this next would actually be funny:  the Trump and Sanders supporters are largely working class / middle class folks left behind by both parties for about 60 years now.  They do not share politics,  but they share a common problem with a common solution:  end the giant corporate welfare state that has replaced our republic.  There’s enough of them together to vote in the changes needed,  but they will not get together,  because of the irrelevant party politics.  Sad.

Both parties have favored the rich giants with tax breaks and government contract money,  to the extent that these left-behind folks are worse off now than they have ever been in history.  And it’s getting even worse:  the rest of the middle class is now also facing destruction.  That’ll be the end of our country,  because that’s where most of the tax money comes from. 

The giants know this,  but persist in taking all the loot anyway,  because greed overwhelms all common sense.  And that is why we are headed to hell in a handbasket.  So many agree with me,  but cannot say why,  really. 

But  I just told you exactly why.  

Explanation of Items (the promised details)

Chronic Liar

According to the fact checkers I can find on-line,  at least about 70% of what DJT says at any given time is untrue.  Some claim near 100%.  Around 30% of what HRC says is untrue,  same sources.  My trade study does not rank more vs less lies,  only that there are lies. 

Demonstrated Cheat

The DNC has been found out to have favored Clinton over Sanders.  I infer that HRC knew this was going on,  and said nothing,  which qualifies as cheating.  DJT used bankruptcies 6 times to “take the money and run”,  stiffing his investors,  his vendors,  and his contractors.  While legal,  most Americans would consider that cheating (abuse of the bankruptcy process for personal gain).  Severity and number of incidents do not factor into my trade study,  only that cheating occurred. 

Slow to Recognize Bad Decisions

Clinton:  support for a trumped-up Iraq invasion,  still not recognized as incorrect;  and telling lies / obstructing the investigation about the Benghazi embassy disaster.  Trump:  chronic use of bankruptcy laws to enrich himself not recognized as morally repugnant for an elected officeholder,  chronic lying not recognized as wrong in any venue, mishandled campaign not recognized as a whole series of bad decisions,  which are destroying the Republican party.

Connected to Rich Elites

Clinton:  politically connected closely to the giant corporations as election funding sources,  same ones who have taken over our government;  she is intimately connected to the immensely powerful Clinton Foundation business enterprise.  Trump:  connected to the rich business community by being part of it.  This is a bad thing because those elites have taken over our government.  Being connected implies the status quo (giant corporate welfare state) will be supported. 

Connected to Overseas Rich

Clinton:  Clinton Foundation receives large amounts of money from foreign contributors.  Trump:  has connections to Russian elites who have invested heavily in him,  who are a Russian version of organized crime.  These issues inherently affect foreign policy. 

Hides Information

Clinton:  long history – Whitewater,  Vince Foster,  Benghazi,  and the unsecured classified emails are the most infamous.  Trump:  will not release tax returns like all other politicians (presumably because they would show he pays no taxes,  and also that he is financially connected to the Russians).  These issues inherently affect foreign and domestic policy,  and undermine credibility.  The relative egregiousness did not figure in to the evaluation,  only that any information was improperly hidden at all. 

Hurts Others

Clinton:  Whitewater was a real estate scam that bilked oldsters out of their savings,  Vince Foster died,  inattention to embassy security got 4 killed in Benghazi,  and she voted for the trumped-up Iraq war that got hundreds of thousands killed for no useful purpose.  Trump:  6 documented bankruptcies that enriched him at the expense of his creditors,  completely stiffed many vendors and contractors,  and sold worthless degrees for lots of money via Trump University.  The relative egregiousness did not figure in,  only that other people got hurt at all. 

Supports Bad Policy Ideas

Clinton:  supports unworkable ideas for more gun control at a time when the public needs to be better armed to retake their country from the giant corporations,  free/cheap college ideas not well thought-out and probably have side effects worse than what is to be “fixed”.  Trump (to the extent that he has any policy ideas at all):  completely unworkable ideas for border control (wall to be paid for by Mexico,  when cheap ladders and shovels easily defeat a very expensive wall),  and immigration security (denying all Muslim immigrants entry is both illegal and immoral). 

Purveyor of Division and Hate

Trump says all Hispanic immigrants are rapists and criminals,  says all Muslim immigrants are terrorists.  Has chronically made atrocious and denigrating remarks about political rivals.  Encourages supporters to get violent with opposition at his rallies,  sometimes directly.  Clinton at least talks inclusive.

Unaware of/Disregards Constitution/Law

Trump wants to temporarily (?) ban Muslim and Mexican immigration in violation of the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.  He wants to do this with or without Congress,  in violation of the separation of powers in the Constitution.  He wants to abrogate the NATO treaty collective protection if the nation involved hasn’t paid enough.  Clinton has said nothing like those things. 

Ignorant of Foreign Affairs

Trump chronically says egregiously incorrect things,  such as:  Russia isn’t in Ukraine,  Crimea wants to be in Russia,  and many more.  Clinton lied by omission,  not about the facts,  with regard to Benghazi. 

Manipulatable:  Cannot Control Self

Trump is a verbal counterpuncher,  and quite evidently cannot not respond.  If Putin crosses him (and he will,  because that’s his nature),  Trump will respond,  and if commander-in-chief,  could order a nuclear attack.  Putin will manipulate him by this mechanism to bog us down in more foreign wars that we don’t need to fight.  Clinton may be a shyster lawyer and a bitch,  but she isn’t manipulatable in that way by our enemies. 

Stuff You Normally Do Not Think About

There is a group of voters that Donald Trump has brought to the Republican party which has overwhelmed both the extremist-Christian / extremist-conservative (“tea party”) base,  and the “traditional” or “establishment” Republicans.  This is how he became the party nominee for 2016. 

The extremist-Christian / extremist-conservative groups had already overwhelmed the “traditional” or “establishment” Republicans enough to dominate party agenda for the last few elections.  But they,  in turn,  have been completely overwhelmed this year by the Trump supporters. 

So who are these Trump supporters?  It varies,  but largely they are working class and lower middle class folks who work in the trades.  They have been left behind economically by the Republican party,  which is largely in-hoc to giant corporation management,  but these Trump supporters have voted for Republicans generally because of “trickle-down economics” promises,  which have since proven to be lies. 

60+ years of being left behind economically have left them very angry,  and this anger actually extends to both parties (equally guilty).  Trump promises to do something to help them,  although his actual business record denies that he will. 

However,  you have to look very hard to find out about that discrepancy,  which is something non-college-educated folks seldom do.  And that is how Trump won the Republican nomination:  he tells the “conservative” left-behinds what they want to hear,  and they look no further.  They outnumber the rest of the entire party.

The Other Side

 There is also a group of relatively-strident voters that Bernie Sanders has brought to the Democratic party.  They are a considerable plurality,  or Sanders would not have come anywhere near as close as he did to being the nominee.  And he did. 

A plurality that large must be taken very seriously,  and I think the Democrats-as-a-whole did,  when adopting their platform.   Even so,  Hillary Clinton has become the Democratic nominee for 2016.  But,  a lot of the issues addressed in her acceptance speech actually came from the Sanders campaign. 

So who are these Sanders supporters?  A coalition of multiple groups,  actually.  One group is non-college-educated working class people left behind by both parties for 60+ years,  exactly like the Trump supporters,  except for opposite political leanings.  They are very angry,  at both parties. 

Another group is college-educated middle class people also left behind by both parties for 60+ years.  These are somewhat-similar to the Trump supporters,  but have opposite political leanings.  They are also angry at both parties. 

Most of the rest are college-educated and relatively-young (under-30) folks.  There are some older folks who also like what Senator Sanders had to say.  Most of these folks are not “angry” so much as just looking for real change. 

Net Effect from Both Sides

All share a problem with being left behind economically for 60+ years.  That’s the common element among them all,  whether Trump or Sanders supporters. 

Here’s the funny part,  if it wasn’t so pathetic:  between the Trump supporters and the Bernie Sanders supporters,  they are a majority of the electorate.  If they could ditch the opposite-party political propaganda,  there’s enough of them to vote in the changes that would correct 60+ years of being left behind economically. 

How Did This Happen?

That being left behind comes from three dominant sources:  (1) improperly-regulated globalization,  (2) improperly-regulated automation,  and (3) the very richest entities not paying their fair share of taxes. 

Improperly-regulated globalization sends jobs overseas to slave-labor economies,  because the short-term labor costs are lower.  Improperly-regulated automation reduces the number of properly-paying jobs at home,  because robots get paid no salaries or benefits.   Super-rich entities buy politicians in order to pay no taxes. 

Globalization:  this must happen,  but it demands proper regulation to avoid sending jobs overseas to the slave labor markets.  This is a moral imperative,  because slavery anywhere is wrong.  Simple as that. 

If the overseas job is a slave labor job,  then there needs to be a real economic disadvantage to sending that work overseas to that slave labor market.  The first thing that comes to mind is far bigger taxes when outsourced jobs go to slave labor. 

Automation:  this will happen,  but it doesn’t need to be as cheap as it currently is.  This again is a moral imperative,  and a constitutional imperative in the United States! 

The way automation currently happens in this country,  a large number of manual labor jobs are eliminated in favor of a very few robot-supervision / maintenance jobs.  So how is allowing net job elimination for enhanced profit in accord with “promoting the general welfare”,  as the constitution has it? 

Just what in hell are all 330 million of us supposed to do for a living?  Our government is supposed to be managing that question “for the general welfare”,  and obviously has not.  Not since at least WW2.

Tax avoidance by the richest:  if you can buy enough representatives and senators their jobs,  they will write laws for you that enable you to avoid paying taxes.  Only the real giants can afford to do this really effectively,  so there is a spectrum of tax avoidance effects that completely leaves out small businesses and individuals.  Again,  how is that fair?  Or in accord with the constitution?

My Conclusions

Yet,  there is nothing surprising about that outcome.  We have allowed it to happen since the founding of the Republic by allowing lobbyist monies in government.  This has been going on “big time” since WW2. To end it,  all lobbyist monies must be outlawed.  It’s really that simple.

Why have these three problems been going on for so long?  In a word,  money talks far too loudly in the halls of our government.  That’s both elected officials who work for whoever bought their jobs for them (not we who elected them),  and appointed officials who get rich the same way.

They follow the money. 

Fix that,  and a lot of our problems go away. 

Update 8-4-16:

There are some related articles elsewhere on this site,  one of which seems to be modestly popular with readers (the 7-29-16 article).  Another one is just a funny (the 4-24-16 article).  All share the search keyword “idiocy in politics”.  Here’s the list:

8-4-16….Evaluation of Choices for 2016

7-29-16…..Stuff You Normally Do Not Think About  (this one)

6-5-16…….Trump?  NO!!

4-24-16….Better Choices in November

12-21-15..Facts Must Trump Politics

What the Gun Violence Data Really Say

Update 2-16-18:  The latest school shooting incident in Parkland,  Florida,  exemplifies exactly the two big-ticket things this article demonstrates:  (1) we have a leak in the background check process that allows crazy people to get guns legally,  and (2) we are utterly failing to defend adequately our gun-free zones.  If you wish the lost kids' lives to have any lasting meaning,  then do something about those two problems!

Update 7-9-16:  It is too early to have the facts about the mass shooting of police officers in Dallas.  My hunch is that extremized politics-of-race and more-than-a-little-craziness both played roles.  We'll see,  soon enough.  When we do know,  I'll add it to the database.

Meanwhile,  my article stands,  just as it is,  just below.  I do not see sanity in spending the effort and resources doing things that demonstrably produce little or no benefit.  I prefer to consult the actual data for suggestions as to what might produce large beneficial effects.

Update 7-14-16:  Preliminary data suggest my hunch was exactly correct.

Update 7-5-17:  The recent attempt at a mass shooting of Republican congressmen at a baseball practice proves EXACTLY my point made in this article about defending the gun-free zones that you declare.  There are perfectly good reasons to have such gun-free zones,  but they are sitting-duck targets if left undefended!  In this case,  there were two armed and qualified peace officers right on the site.  The only death was the gunman.  QED.

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Every time there is a mass shooting incident,  there are calls for stricter gun control,  and disappointment when nothing effective is done.  Few agree on exactly what to do. 

This time is no different:  the Senate just voted down 4 proposed gun control bills offered only days after the Orlando bar incident.  As well they should,  nothing effective or fair could possibly be worked out that quickly.  Better no change than the wrong one,  because they are so hard to undo. 

If one gets control of one’s emotions and takes a very hard look at the data,  one can easily see that most gun control proposals beyond what we already have in place would be quite ineffective.  In point of fact,  places where access to firearms is very restricted actually have higher rates of violent crime.  That is because the “bad guys”,  who scoff at laws restricting access to weapons,  enjoy a plethora of sitting-duck targets in those venues.  So,  too,  do the terrorists in Europe. 

The Real Data

I found an excellent database of US mass shooting incidents available from motherjones.com as a downloadable spreadsheet,  which goes back 3 decades.  It is too large to republish here,  so I abstracted from it the bare essentials of all incidents with a 10 or more death toll,  plus two other incidents that didn’t have that high a death toll,  but are nonetheless infamous. 

I added to my short list whether or not religious or political extremism played a role.  I specifically included whether the shooter was known to have mental problems,  although sometimes this took looking through the detailed notes to determine this.  The motherjones data included whether the weapons were obtained legally or not. 

I did not include weapon type:  most were semi-automatic.   Only some were so-called “assault” weapons,  some were not even semi-automatic. 

The short list data follows.  I highlighted yellow the cases where the shooter was known to be crazy and still got weapons legally.  I highlighted green those few cases where a religious or political extremist got their guns legally.  I highlighted orange those cases where the incident took place in an undefended gun-free zone. 

Conclusions

If you follow the highlight colors,  the proper responses jump right off the page at you.   They have little to do with most gun control proposals.  Truth may be painful,  but it sets you free. 

We have a serious mental issues leak in our background check system,   as the yellow highlights indicate so very clearly.  People known beforehand to have mental problems are getting guns legally.  This is because the background check is a go/no-go gate based a court judgment of insanity. 

None of these shooters met that standard.  Fix that,  and half the incidents in the table go away.  That’s worth the effort to address. 

How about a tiered response,  where unease on the part of the seller triggers a real investigation by a real law enforcement person,  and not just a paper records search for a court judgment?  Columbine,  and Red Lake,   might have been prevented by that.  Probably not Newtown,  where the shooter killed his own mother to get her guns for his spree. 

Religious and political extremism is starting to come to America.  That’s the two green highlights in the table.  This is what Senator Cornyn’s FBI watch list proposal (that was voted down) was intended to address.  This isn’t a big problem yet,  but if Europe is a guide,  it will be,  soon. 

The orange highlighting shows the dominant problem,  the one nobody wants to face.  That is the inadequately-defended gun free zone,  the sitting-duck target.  This is the common element in nearly every single incident,  regardless of whether caused by mental issues or extremism.   The two exceptions not highlighted are government facilities,  but it was unclear to me whether those areas were actually open to the public. 

My point is that if these victims hadn’t been sitting ducks,  they probably would be alive today.  The lesson is quite clear:  gun free zones (and there are good reasons to have them) must be defended. 

The Most Important Recommendations

What constitutes an adequately and properly defended gun free zone has been known since the 19^th century American frontier towns.  There are only two requirements:  (1) you need a properly trained peace officer as your guard,  and (2) he must be able to respond within about 60 seconds. 

About requirement (1):   anyone called upon to defend a gun-free zone against attackers will have to do the job of a peace officer.  Therefore peace officer training is required.  Concealed-carry training is not peace officer training.  Period.

About requirement (2):  this was demonstrated in frontier towns that went gun-free,  for over 50 years.  Those were small towns geographically:  a deputy at a dog trot could reach anywhere in town in 60 seconds or less.  When the towns grew,  longer response proved inadequate:  more died. 

What that means today is twofold:  (1) you need one or more guards qualified as peace officers on your gun-free zone site,  and (2) these guards must be able to reach anywhere in the site within 60 seconds.  I doubt we need any federal laws about how exactly to do this,  that should be determined locally,  since every region is different.  But those two broad requirements could usefully be federal. 

Popular knee-jerk things like clip size limits and “assault” weapon bans won’t do any significant good.  A tiered response to mental issues,  and a proper defense of gun-free zones would obviously do a lot of good right now.  Using the FBI watch list to slow-up gun acquisition by the amateur class of religious or political extremists might soon be something that could help,  although real terrorists will get them illegally,  just like real criminals.

But if you defend your gun-free zones,  the terrorists will have to look for other targets!  That's the big effect here.  

About Weapon Types

I didn’t include weapon types in my abstracted data.  Most of these were semi-automatic weapons,  some of those the so-called “assault” weapons like the AR-15.  A few were not even semi-automatic. 

Semi-automatic is a World War 2 technology (M-1 Garand and M-1 Carbine).  No modern soldier would live long in battle with an AR-15 instead of the fully-automatic look-alike M-16 (a real machine gun). 

Calling semi-automatic weapons “assault weapons” just because they resemble machine guns is nonsense,  and usually indicates either a gun control political agenda or utter ignorance about firearms. 

Conclusion (as an update 7-4-16):

I offer these things which might actually help (dealing with the mental issues background check leak and the sitting-duck undefended gun free zones) as truly data-driven,  and therefore very probably worthwhile to do.

Most of the other knee-jerk proposals are demonstrably ineffective at best,  and we know this,  because we've already tried them.  Why waste the effort to do them again?

Spend your effort and your resources on something that might actually work,  to do otherwise is insanely stupid.  

Gun Articles as of 6-21-16 (this one highlighted):

6-21-16 What the Gun Violence Data Really Say 

10-7-15 Oregon Mass Shooting and Gun Control

5-31-14 On Calls for More Gun Control

10-1-13 Government Shutdown,  Default!  Again?  No!!!

9-20-13 More Gun Control?  No Way!

2-5-13 Real Problems with the Proposed Gun Control Legislation Items

12-20-12 On the Tragedy in Connecticut

12-14-12 School Shooting in Connecticut

8-9-12 Mass Murder Shooters and Gun Control

1-13-11 On the Shooting Rampage in Tucson

Trump? NO!!

Update 1-31-17:  The chaos continues and continually gets more intense.  This man Trump will do in one form or another what he said he would do during the campaign.  He will do it exactly the way he said he would:  bypassing Congress to make law by executive order.  I cannot yet tell how the clash between Trump-wannabe-king and the actual powers of the presidency will be resolved.  But resolved it must be,  or we will descend into tyranny.  

Mr. Bannon (Trump's closest advisor) now characterizes "the media" instead of the Democrats as the opposition party!  Talk about your Orwellian NewSpeak!  And he has just been made part of the National Security Council,  where politics has no place.  The man is an obvious neo-Nazi,  if you look at the Breibart "News" (fake news) organization that he ran.  Maybe still does,  surreptitiously.  

This extremist immigration ban sparking all the protest flies in the face of facts:  we already had extreme vetting in place.  But this president does not like facts,  because they conflict with his opinions and beliefs (and look at who has been feeding him his "facts":  Bannon/Breitbart).  So this immigration ban is the most egregiously xenophobic thing we have done since the internment of the Japanese-Americans during World War 2.  And it is giving the Islamic terrorist groups recruiting aid by giving them something to hold against us.  This is aid to the enemy we fight,  whether intentional or not.

The Constitution defines treason as either making war against the US,  or as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.  It requires three or more witnesses to convict.  Millions are witnessing this unfold,  and unfold as "aid and comfort to the enemy" it will.  Treason is certainly a high-enough "crime and misdemeanor" to warrant impeachment.  

We'll soon see whether a tea party-dominated Republican party can still do its duty for the people.  They control the House and Senate where such proceedings must take place. I just hope there is enough buyer's remorse among the millions of Trump supporters to force their representation to act.  Act before the tea party-dominated Republican party finishes morphing into a right-wing-extremist xenophobic clone of the Fascists,  Bolsheviks,  and Nazis who caused such trouble during the last century.  Our freedom is at risk.

Update 1-20-17:  Mr. Trump is now the president.  He has already sown a little chaos with his Republican party colleagues in his inauguration speech,  by promising things in his speech that they really don't want to give.  Good for him.  That gives me some hope,  at least.

That's a good thing,  since I think a party in control of both the Senate and the House that has been hijacked by the tea party extremists (and it has been for several years now) is the more dangerous threat to our country than Mr. Trump himself,  as fact-challenged and unaware-of-his-duties-and-powers as he is.

In any event,  I wish him well as president (I always wish that for all our presidents!!!),  and I hope he continues to hold his own party accountable in addition to the minority opposition,  just as he effectively promised in his speech.   

As for the minority Democrat opposition,  turnabout is now fair play.  I encourage them to raise hell and oppose everything the tea party wants to do,  which so far bodes some real improprieties,  such as their attempt to gut the House ethics committee their first day on the job this term.  

But when something sane shows up,  I encourage Democrats to work with the other side.  Continue trying to do what was said during the campaign:  "when they go low,  you go high".  And communicate what you are doing to the public.  

Shed some very harsh light on attempted tea party improprieties (they will repeatedly try to do bad stuff).  That has been their history all along,  since the party takeover. 

Update 12-7-16:

Since the election,  a lot of folks seem to be looking at this article.  It was written early in the campaign,  during the primaries,  actually.  It illustrates something about the character of the man,  confirmed by his own words and actions in public many times since.  

As for the election,  look at my 8-4-16 "Evaluation of Choices for 2016" article.  Prior to the election,  I evaluated both major party candidates by means of a little trade study matrix.  I found two important conclusions:  (1) both are quite thoroughly distasteful candidates (as is well known by all),  and (2) I thought Clinton was slightly the lesser of two great evils because she would bring less chaos with her.  

Clinton was the only Democrat that Trump could possibly beat.  Trump was the only Republican that Clinton could beat,  notwithstanding that Trump is a RINO,  not a real Republican.  Having a bad choice like that was no accident.  This bread-and-circuses charade was meant to distract us from what the rich elites have been doing:  destroying the middle class for profit.  This is borne out by the hacked emails confirming that the Democrat primary was rigged against Bernie Sanders.  We have no evidence yet that the GOP primary was rigged for Trump,  but I believe that evidence will eventually surface.  

Both of these candidates are actually rich elites who would maintain the giant-corporate welfare state that is destroying us.  We were not meant to see that,  we were meant to be distracted by the bread-and-circuses.  But I see it,  and I have told all of you who read these postings.  

Since the election,  these conclusions of mine about Trump have been borne out,  and I do not forsee that changing after the inaugural.  The electorate chose Trump by an extremely narrow margin in key electoral-vote states,  an outcome at odds with the popular vote.  But I don't see that outcome changing,  recounts and faithless electors notwithstanding (if it did,  that would result in even more chaos,  something we really don't need).  

I predict:  (1) the racists have been emboldened and will spill out into mainstream life and cause serious trouble,  unfettered by Trump from his bully pulpit,  (2) Trump will renege on his promise to help the angry left-behinds who elected him,  as foretold by the selection for many of his government posts of the same sort of rich elites that have caused the problem,  (3) the chaos will continue into his first term because he knows nothing about being president,  only about being "king",  and that is not what the presidency is about,  (4) he will face early tests from one,  some,  or all,  of these:  Putin/Syria,  Putin/Ukraine,  ISIS,  Kim Jong Un,  and the Iranian mullahs,  and (5) he will fail that test or tests,  because he is an insecure,  compulsive counterpuncher,  who is vulnerable to being manipulated by that mechanism.    

Update 12-24-16:

The chaos I predicted in item (3) just above is already definitely here.  Trump has no clue about accountability,  never having been accountable to anyone but himself,  and having been bailed out by the banks he was supposed to be accountable to,  as the more lucrative choice for them (6 bankruptcies as a matter of public record,  in which he stiffed his creditors to enrich himself).  

He is unable to comprehend the concept of an absolute truth,  in sense that demonstrable fact may be at odds with what he wants to believe.  That explains why he is a science denier,  in several documented topic areas so far.  Which denial shows in some of his cabinet selections,  most notably Education and EPA.  It also explains why he dismisses the entire intelligence community's conclusion that the Russians hacked US domestic email sources,  to influence voters in this last election. 

Trump demonstrably has no self control,  which is in part traceable to never having been accountable to anyone but himself.  This is the source of the destabilizing tweets,  over which the media obsess so much (too much,  actually,  you'd think that by now they'd know that nearly 100% of what he says is somewhere between "factually challenged" and an "out-and-out lie").  

The latest tweet threatens to restart the nuclear arms race,  and for no reason available or apparent to the public,  or anybody else.  I wish we had a public figure capable of calling him to task for this unrestrained behavior.  It would take a superhero to do this,  though. 

I have never liked his propaganda queen Kellyanne Conway,  precisely because she reminds me so much of Joseph Goebbels,  which actually classes her in a category I despise VERY intensely.  Yet,  at some level,  I still feel sorry for her,  for having to "explain" his idiocies,  which are fundamentally unexplainable.  In some ways,  even at age 70,  Trump is nothing but a very spoiled child,  behaving as if he were still of single-digit age.

Update 11-15-16:

Well,  it looks like I may get my wish that was expressed below. Tammy Duckworth will be an incoming US senator.  Sooner or later,  she and Trump or his admin figures will cross swords over something stupid.  --  GW
  

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This from our local paper about Donald Trump:

In a 1997 interview with radio disc jockey Howard Stern, Trump, who used student deferments and a “heel spur” medical deferment to get out of military service during the Vietnam War, said the danger he faced from getting sexually transmitted diseases when he was sleeping around in the United States was his own “personal Vietnam.”

“I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era,” he said. “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

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I'd like to see what US Rep. Tammy Duckworth would say to Trump about this egregious statement he made.  She very effectively took another congressman down,  right there on the floor of the House,  for saying something similarly stupid.  

For those who do not know,  Tammy Duckworth was a 1991 Gulf War vet who lost both legs in the explosion,  when the helicopter she was flying was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.  

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Although my own service time was short and I never went to Southeast Asia,  I did join up during Vietnam.  Even with my limited service,  I find Trump’s comments EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE.  Offensive and egregiously stupid.  That man has no business commanding anything,  much less US military personnel. 

My recommendation:  DO NOT ELECT TRUMP TO ANY OFFICE WHATSOEVER. 

GW

Update 6-12-16:  What this shows is a longstanding pattern with Trump.  19 years,  at least.  He will not change.  He is clearly unsuited to be commander-in-chief.  

Update 7-27-16:  Today Trump publicly appealed to (state-supported) Russian hackers to uncover the missing Clinton state department emails.  Considering the bad state of affairs between the US and Russia,  due largely to Putin's ambitions for a new Russian empire,  this is borderline treason on Trump's part.  

"Aid and comfort to the enemy" with 6+ witnesses,  per the definition.  Putin wants Trump to win and hates Clinton.  He is trying to sway our election for his own purposes by releasing hacked Clinton files.  I really do not like that.  And I really hate the prospect of a president the Russians can influence so easily to their own ends.  

Update 8-4-16:

There are some related articles elsewhere on this site,  one of which seems to be modestly popular with readers (the 7-29-16 article).  Another one is just a funny (the 4-24-16 article).  All share the search keyword “idiocy in politics”.  Here’s the list:

8-4-16.....Evaluation of Choices for 2016

7-29-16…..Stuff You Normally Do Not Think About

6-5-16…….Trump?  NO!!   (this one)

4-24-16….Better Choices in November

12-21-15..Facts Must Trump Politics