I’m sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to use the awful word-ish "Brexit." It’s not that I’m opposed to portmanteaux just in general, mind you; it’s just that "Brexit" is positively hideous. It’s neither clever nor funny, it certainly isn’t the least little bit mellifluous, and the two words don’t even join together properly. At least when everybody was saying "Grexit," ugly as it was, the two words actually did have a letter in common — "Brexit" is bits of two utterly dissimilar words artlessly smooshed into each other to no good effect whatsoever. The worst thing about it is that it’s completely soured me on "Texit," which on its own would be sort of clever and cute.
That’s not what I came to talk to you about today, though. I came to talk about prediction markets. Michael Rozeff had been watching the prediction markets on the British secession question for some time, and only a few days ago, they had "leave" at only 36 cents, to 64 cents for "stay" — in other words, the markets had stay nearly 2:1 over leave. This was directly in contrast to the opinion polls, which were reporting an expected leave victory.
What’s the difference, then, between the two? Opinion polls are conducted by pollsters asking people which way they plan to vote, and then aggregating everything together and assuming the sample they polled was both honest and representative. Prediction markets are a totally different animal; these are places where people go to bet on the outcome of an event, and the odds are managed by professional handicappers whose goal is to turn a profit. As such, they need to keep the action healthy on both sides of the line, so the bets get covered whichever side wins (plus room for the vig). What this tells us about the market for British secession is that most people were betting "stay," even though, at the same time, most people were telling pollsters they personally were planning to vote "leave."
Note that the prediction markets consider things that aren’t considered by the "dumb democracy" model used in opinion polling; in particular, prediction markets incorporate the level to which people believe the political elite will be able to control the outcome. It’s no secret that the elite were all pulling for the UK to stay in the European Union; notable citizens of the United Kingdom like president Barack Obama and dilapidated hag Hillary Clinton went out of their way to persuade their fellow Britons to remain under the thumb of the plutocrats in Brussels, while esteemed public intellectuals like Lindsay Lohan had some type of seizure in real time on Twitter. It appears that a sizable majority of people believed that these creeps would be able to engineer things in their favor, which, in all honesty, is probably the way I would have bet as well.
But they all lost. The creeps failed. What can we learn from this? The most interesting takeaway to my mind is that things really do appear to be changing; the European Union, painstakingly built by the OSS (later the CIA) as the cornerstone of president Truman’s foreign policy, seems to be coming undone, and the least overt methods of keeping the pesky citizens in line have begun to fail. Don’t get me wrong; I’m staking no bold claim that the elite in London and Brussels (and, let’s be honest here, Washington) will be unable to cheat their way around this vote. The easiest way, of course, would be to pretend to begin the secession process, tie the whole thing up in red tape, and then invent (or repurpose) a crisis that requires putting the process off for a time — perhaps indefinitely. They may very well still do something of that nature, and I’m not saying otherwise. But their attempt to stop the secession process at the popular vote level failed, and that has some meaning.
In particular, it makes me wonder about Donald Trump. It’s no secret that I’m far from being a Trump supporter — sometimes it seems that all I’ve written in half a year is articles distancing myself from the so-called "Libertarians for Trump." The interesting thing, though, is that the prediction markets show Clinton beating Trump by almost exactly the same margin they showed Britain voting to stay in the EU; 68 to 31 on the same day secession was 64:36 (69:33 as I write this). A lot of this advantage stems from the feeling that "they" will never let Trump win; they’ll find a way to cheat him if they have to. I think there’s a good case to be made for that, but recall that "they" failed to stop the stubborn Britons from voting to leave the EU. It appears that "their" ability to control public opinion is now teetering on the edge of collapse.
Remember: electoral politics is a sham, but the mood of the electorate itself is important. It’s a promising sign that governments don’t seem to be able to get the general discontent under control.
“A lot of this advantage stems from the feeling that “they” will never let Trump win; they’ll find a way to cheat him if they have to.”
[citation needed]
I think predictions markets have all kinds of problems but what on earth makes you say that? That Trump is polling way behind Clinton, has done almost no fundraising, has no traditional campaign operation, and has unfavorables that eclipse even Clinton’s historically high unfavorables all make him a long shot.
That Trump won the GOP primary basically proves that “they” aren’t really capable of stopping him; whatever the “Establishment” is it’s clearly not a monolithic entity that’s able to do whatever it wants.
Wikipedia joke: 6/10
Spelling of own name: 9/10
I think you’re misreading me. I’m not saying Trump will (or would need to be) be cheated out of the election, I’m saying that many people believe so. Have you really not heard anybody say that?
That said, Trump winning the primary proves nothing of the sort. He took a massive early lead while nobody was taking him seriously, which is clearly not going to happen again. He was facing a massive crowd of opponents among whom the GOP “insiders” couldn’t seem to settle on just one to support. His schtick was new and fresh and nobody quite knew how to handle it (though, come on, you have to give him props for coming back against Ted Cruz’s lame-o Trump University attack with the good ol’ “your dad killed JFK” bit). These are some pretty major differences to my mind.
Though your conclusion — that the establishment is "clearly not a monolithic entity that’s able to do whatever it wants" — is exactly what my post was all about. The British secession vote passed, after all, directly over the objections of pretty much absolutely everybody who could possibly be considered "establishment."
It’s me in B form. GET IT?
I really haven’t heard anybody say that. Aside from you, now. I certainly heard that a lot about the primary — and god knows Kasich’s entire campaign strategy hinged on a brokered convention where the orbital mind control lasers would cause the party to select the guy who won one state over literally anyone else — but since the results crushed “the party decides” theory, who’s saying this?
Here’s some fan art I totally made of you in B form:
Now that you’re a bee, start writing articles, drone!
The best thing about the Kasich campaign was that bit at the end where he made a deal with Ted Cruz that they’d split up the remaining states and not campaign against each other, and the length of time it took both of them to betray the other was measured in beats of a bee’s wings.