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.
It’s official: Donald Trump has selected Mike Pence as his running mate. The process wasn’t pretty—according to some reports, Trump tried to call off his Paul Manafort-arranged marriage with the Indiana governor late last night—but the end result was generally considered the best (or, more accurately, least worst) of the possibilities for a candidate who would benefit greatly from uniting the GOP at next week’s national convention. Pence by himself won’t allay all (or even most) of the fears of Trump-skeptical Republicans, but his selection may ease some of them if for no other reason than it suggests that his new boss is actually capable of denying his worst political instincts, at least on occasion.
In other news:
- Team Dump Trump’s efforts to unbind the GOP delegates failed late last night, meaning that barring an act of God, Donald J. Trump will indeed be the official Republican nominee next week.
- Trump unveiled his new campaign logo—now with 100 percent more Pence—which Slate’s J. Bryan Lowder explains “very accurately conveys the attributes Trump wants associated with his political and personal brand—namely that he has a penis and he uses it to screw people.”
- Based on the latest polling, Nate Silver and his FiveThirtyEight team peg Trump’s chances of victory in November at 33.3 percent, down a few ticks from yesterday but up more than 10 points since the start of this month.
- Newt Gingrich, a wannabe VP who theoretically is still well positioned to land a plum gig in a Trump administration, wants the U.S. government to deport any Muslim who believes in Sharia law. The plan is plainly unconstitutional (see: Amendment, First), while also painfully counterproductive, sure, but it’s also in line with Trump’s worldview.
- France continues to investigate Thursday’s deadly truck attack that killed 84 in Nice.
- There appears to be a coup attempt currently underway in Turkey, the result of which remains unclear at this very moment as does the larger implications for the region and the world.
What to make of all that? I have no idea! There are a lot of unknowns out there: How will Pence perform on the national stage? How will Trump, a frighteningly effective political showman, stage-manage next week’s convention? What the hell, exactly, is happening in Turkey right now and how will the region react? But the only things we know for certain today that we didn’t know when we last counted horsemen roughly 24 hours ago is that Trump will indeed be the GOP nominee, and someone not named Newt Gingrich will be joining him on the ticket. That’s enough for me to raise the danger level by half a horseman.
