On December 21, 2024, my friend Dan Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University, sent an email to a list I’m no longer on, but he sent me a cc: message, with the following offer:
Anyone want to give me an 8:1 chance that Trump will not have been inaugurated by January 21st?
He linked to this message on X. I didn’t even bother clicking the link because those odds seemed good to me. We went back and forth a few times. I was concerned about things like severe storms that could delay it by a day, and Dan very graciously met the deadline of midnight on January 21st.
So I offered $800 to his $100 and he accepted. We both hoped I would win.
I won and Dan already informed me that he sent the check. He gave me permission to post about this.
Would I have offered odds of 20:1? No. A number of things could have gone wrong. Trump could have been killed – he missed one attempt by turning his head. He could have been shot, but not killed and put to bed unconscious. Dan’s concern, which I now know from clicking on the X file (pun intended), is that the Democrats might have figured out a way to slow it down. I thought that was very unlikely. Whatever the reason for the postponement, you can probably understand why Dan and I hoped I would win.
I have rarely had anything nice to say about Kamala Harris. But I thought she showed tremendous grace in overseeing the reporting of the Electoral College votes on January 6.
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