British Union of Fascists in America

Political pollsters lie for a living, and he that pays the piper, calls the tune. Actuaries and bookies use a different set of rules: mathematics. Betting odds offered by Irish and English bookies reveal the best possible measure of what political party is likely to win an election. Bookies lose their own money if they are wrong.

Scott Adams over at Dilbert is really bright. I like him, even though he doesn’t vote and is not aligned with the platform of any party. A hypnotist, like Aldous Huxley he has a keen eye for political persuasion and expects Trump to win. So when the headlines began blaring that Trump was leading Hillary I checked the odds. Bookies were (and are) still betting 3 to 1 that the pro-choice party would beat the antichoice prohibitionist party–nothing had changed. This prompted me to ask what George Orwell termed an “awkward question”:

I vote against both entrenched parties, but I do follow the betting odds. The pro-choice party is still the calculated favorite at 1 to 3 odds. Why is that?

By now the ScottAdams blog is pululating with Trump campaign shills, infiltrators, plants, harpies, 5th-columnists, flacks and impostors. Before long this reply rolled in:

This was brilliant propagandizing, worthy of Oswald Moseley. Adding an obvious screaming whack job rejoinder gave the pretext for erasing the awkward question, thereby getting rid of the uncomfortable dilemma fraught with cognitive dissonance (while making it look like the embarrassing post by an obviously insane Warrior for the Babies writing from a Colorado jail cell was simply wiped up, like drool, in good taste).

In George Orwell’s day anyone asking awkward questions at a Mosley rally was simply dragged away and beaten by beefy thugs. Today, in an electronic meeting room, the non-sequitor provides the pretext for hushing up the question. Nevertheless, the message that unless I vote for Trump I am helping Hillary run a Bass-o-Matic for babies lingers in the air. This is progress. The awkward question about betting odds favoring the pro-choice party is conveniently sidestepped precisely when fake odds are posted on shill sites to give the impression the GOP is ahead.

The Hillary-Trump odds have shifted just a bit on some betting sites, but campaigns are fought between party platforms. Irishmen are betting 3 to 1 that if Hillary is struck by lightning, Bernie will win. Incidentally, if Independent meant Libertarian, we would have a 2% chance of actually winning. Texas went 3% Libertarian this last mid-term election, and none of the pollsters predicted that!