Things which have never happened before can and do happen. It’s always a surprise, which is the root concept of a “black swan event”. The mind tends to reject unprecedented options. We cling to things we’ve already experienced and reject novel ones.
The media reports: “alternative X cannot happen because alternative X hasn’t happened before”. They say this with a straight face.
Yet black swan events happen. The new thing, shocking and unpredictable as it may be, is neither inherently good or bad. It’s just new. Black swans don’t require tragedy.
The black plague, the bomb, moon shots, polio vaccines, horseless carriages… black swans. (Please indulge me the luxury of painting in generalities.) Before these events happened, they would seem ridiculously unlikely. Nobody sat around in 1345 and said “within the decade I expect roughly half of everyone I know to be dead”. If they’d said it, folks would have thought them insane. Afterwards, it was a done deal.
A “magic cure” for polio? An unrealizable dream until Jonas Salk saved millions in 1955. Humans walking on the moon? Horseless carts? All were ridiculous until they weren’t.
Some good, some bad but all an invitation to expand the range of options in our future. Something we weren’t previously entertaining in our limited noggin is now undeniable.
Please stick with that valueless vibe for a bit ok? Thanks! Because now I’m going to shift from painlessly distant history to a raw burning mess happening right now.
Hang on as I turn my inner eye to 2020…
Did 2020 seem to you like a litany of “events that were unlikely to the point of unfathomably weird”? That’s how I saw it. One odd thing after another happened in 2020.
How many things have passed which would’ve seemed “impossible” in 2019? Let me count the ways… Wait! Lets not. I typed pages about weird events in 2020 and barely scratched the surface. Every rabbit hole leads to another rabbit hole. Better stop that cascade of detours; I deleted it all. I’ll return to the matter at hand:
Something happened on November 4th, 2020 at 3:00 am EST. If you’d suggested the series of events a week or a month or a year before the election, people would’ve called you a loon. I propose that a truckload of black swan events in 2020 culminated in (or at least included) a big and overarching black swan event that has become the most distrusted election in American history.
Officially, the following things happened the night of November 3rd:
- Donald Trump’s second campaign easily matched the 62,984,828 votes he’d won in 2016.
- Then, Trump easily surpassed his previous performance; improving by 17.8% to earn 74,216,154 votes. This would have been the most votes any person had ever received in American history. Neat!
- There was a simultaneous pause in vote counting at 3:00 am in several key states. This was for entirely legitimate reasons.
- By the following day, Joe Biden had set a new record; surpassing Trump’s amazing vote count. Biden hit a home run with nearly ten percent more votes than the previous recordholder! It was a grand slam!
- In the end, Joe Biden won fair and square with 81,268,924 votes; the most votes ever amassed in American history by far! He blew away the second place record that was also set the very same day. Biden not only exceeded Trump by 10%, he exceeded his former running mate and wildly popular Barak Obama by 16.9%. He kicked ass in an epic contest involving the two biggest vote counts that ever happened. The guy just nailed it!
A black swan event is one we haven’t considered. Think back to 2019. Suppose you said “I think Joe Biden is so awesome that he’ll get more votes than anyone in the history of America.” Folks would have thought you crazy. Nobody… not even Joe Biden… expected numbers like that. I don’t need to go into the details. Y’all have been living it just like I have.
One of two things is correct:
Option A: Joe Biden is most popular candidate ever; by a huge margin.
OR
Option B: The election of 2020 was corrupted in a very significant way.
The government, social media, and the press have supported… no, they’ve enforced… Option A. In our formerly free Republic, anything but agreement with Option A will get you deplatformed and damn near entails legal ramifications.
So that’s it. Option A is the official story. What’s done is done. Right?
Apparently not. In America, great strange chaotic mess that we are, you can’t simply order a thing to be true. You can tell us a thing is true. We’ll go along with it as best we can. Alas, if things go too far we just can’t swallow it. Phrases like “Epstein didn’t kill himself” occur when the people just can’t buy the spin.
Things are only over when the people say it’s over. This is why 2021 feels much like 2020 turned into a zombie that refuses to die.
The people haven’t been beaten, cajoled, or sweet talked into accepting Option A. Don’t believe me? Here’s a test. Find some liberal who’s a true believer. They got the president they wanted. They hated Trump. They ought to be delighted . If anyone is going to buy Option A, it’s a true believer who just defeated the Orange Menace with a record win. This isn’t a test for die hard right wingers, it’s for people already primed to buy the story.
Just ask them to say the true fact. Ask nicely… this is an attempt to find truth not bludgeon someone with whom you disagree. Ask them to repeat this sentence:
“Joe Biden got more votes than any other candidate in American history. Joe Biden is more popular than any other candidate has ever been.”
Don’t demand it in a mean way. Don’t leer and frolic about. Don’t ask it as a challenge. Don’t hurl it at them gauntlet style. Just ask them to say it.
Those are the official facts. It’s truth! Do they believe it?
Many won’t want to say it. They’ll bob and weave. They’ll evade. They’ll change the topic. They’ll bitch about Trump or talk about COVID. They’ll complain about Fox news. They’ll blanch like I’m asking them to eat worms.
Eventually most will say it but they look miserable about it. It’s like I’ve forced them to eat mud. Some won’t; simply refusing to say the official truth.
That’s the tell. Nobody freaks out when I ask them to say something that’s obviously true. I ask them to repeat “the sky is blue” and it’s weird but not something they’ll avoid. Nobody has issues when I ask “do bears shit in the woods?” We’re all willing to simply state a fact.
Speaking exactly what is published in every newspaper as the official truth doesn’t go down well. I can get a guy to scream “Yankees rule!” or “Trump’s a shithead!” or “Ford beats Chevy”. No big deal. Getting them to mumble that the 2020 election was a fair count is very different.
Phrasing is important here. There’s a difference in the human mind between “you’re just a Neanderthal that hates the election results” and “Joe Biden absolutely won more votes than any other candidate in history.” Calling me a Neanderthal doesn’t mean shit. For startes, it’s irrelevant. If people really thought the 2020 count was sound “Joe Biden won the record number of votes” wouldn’t sound like a joke about Epstein.
Biden earned more votes than anyone in American history. Even if it’s true… nobody believes it.
That’s the first black swan event… an election that virtually nobody trusts. The folks that got what they want don’t appear particularly happy. They don’t act proud of their honest accomplishment. They don’t buy the story and don’t have an easy “out” for that emotion.
I get it. Folks really wanted to beat Trump and there’s probably always a little bit of cheating. It’s not like we live in a naïve fairyland. However, there’s a difference between a few percent and a broken record. Cheating feels bad. Having a large, obvious, and ugly cheat makes it worse. Cheating to win a close squeaker might feel palatable. Cheating to define a record vote count the likes of which are almost impossible to believe is the black swan.
At least that’s my theory. What unexpected is not cheating… it’s the scale. This leads to my other theory. The resolution to an unexpected thing is often another unexpected thing.
I believe one black swan is about to beget another black swan.
Stay tuned as I endeavor to drag my mental ruminations across the finish line.