The Trump Apocalypse Watch is a subjective daily estimate, using a scale of one to four horsemen, of how likely it is that Donald Trump will be elected president, thus triggering an apocalypse in which we all die.
With the very important caveat that the Trump camp is saying the choice hasn’t yet been officially made, it looks like Donald Trump is going to make Indiana Gov. Mike Pence his running mate. Now, there are some obvious problems with Pence. He tends to stumble when trying to defend controversial positions, and in Trump he would have a partner who takes a lot of those—many of which Pence has already condemned Trump for taking. He could be a veritable gaffe/opposition research machine.
But. He’s also not Newt Gingrich, who hasn’t been politically relevant in 20 years, and he’s not Chris Christie, who’s one of the most unpopular people in America. Pence is at least a politician of average, generic stature. And, as Nate Silver points out, in a race against a Democratic candidate with a divisive record herself, that kind of reassuring normalcy is an asset for Trump. Meanwhile, Trump’s likelihood of victory has crept up to 34 percent in FiveThirtyEight’s forecast. Time to raise the danger level.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
