#it is why little supposed scandals have zero effect these days

[thedreideldiaries]

Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Here at FiveThirtyEight, we’ve never built a complete back-to-front model of the presidential primaries before. Instead, in 2008, 2012 and 2016, we issued forecasts of individual primaries and caucuses on piecemeal basis, using polls and demographics. We always thought there were too many complexities involved — how the outcome in one state can affect the next one, for example — to build a full-fledged primary model.

But this year, we’re giving it a shot. We’ve built a forecast that plays out the outcome of the 57 delegate-selection contests (50 states, D.C., five territories and Democrats Abroad) that Democrats will contest this year, simulating polling swings, post-primary “bounces” and candidates dropping out, starting with Iowa on Feb. 3 and ending with the Virgin Islands on June 6. We don’t try to anticipate what would happen in the event of a contested convention or if there are other complications in how delegates are chosen after June 6. But this is still a pretty ambitious project.

Why build a fancy primary model when we hadn’t before? Well, for one thing, there’s actually a lot more data available now than when we launched FiveThirtyEight 12 years ago. The Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2016, and the Republican ones in 2012 and 2016, were all long contests that give us more information on how the latter stages of the primary process play out. Since the current presidential nomination system is a relatively new invention — before 1972, voters had little direct say in how candidates were chosen — the data from these recent elections reduce the degree of difficulty in building a primary model. It’s still pretty hard, but it’s no longer an intractable problem.

Also, I suppose we’re feeling frisky these days. If building a full-fledged primary model presents its share of challenges — some of which I’ll describe here — there are also plenty of problems with publishing a half-assed forecasting product. (Meanwhile, trying to navigate our way through the primaries without any sort of forecasting product would present bigger challenges still.)

Before I run through the steps the model takes, here are a few key things to keep in mind. Even if you read nothing else about our model, please do read these. They’ll likely answer a few questions — or complaints — that you might have later on.

1. Our model is a forecast; it is not an estimation of what would happen in an election held today. Forecasted results in later states reflect “bounces” from earlier states and other contingencies. For example: Upon launch, our model gives former Vice President Joe Biden only about a 60 percent chance of winning Delaware, his home state. Why only 60 percent? Isn’t Biden hugely popular there? Well, yes. And Biden would almost certainly be a massive favorite in Delaware if it were the first state to vote. But in reality, Delaware votes relatively late in the process, on April 28. And there’s the chance that Biden will have dropped out by that time, or that his campaign will otherwise be severely diminished. The model accounts for these possibilities.

2. Our forecast is probabilistic. The degree of uncertainty in the primaries is high, and the process is path-dependant and nonlinear. The nomination process consists of layers of uncertainty piled on top of one another. Just looking ahead at January and February, for instance, there’s the chance the race could shift in the final few weeks before Iowa. Then Iowa itself is not very easy to forecast. Then whatever happens in Iowa will have uncertain effects on New Hampshire. And so forth.

But it’s not as though we’re totally in the dark, either. Candidates who poll well in the run-up to the primaries are much more likely to win the nomination than those that don’t. If you hear things like “the primaries are unpredictable,” what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that former Rep. John Delaney and author Marianne Williamson are as likely to win the nomination as Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders? If that’s what you think, you know where to find me for a friendly wager.

In other words — like most things in life — the primaries exist somewhere along the spectrum between predictable and unpredictable. The model’s job is to sort all of this uncertainty out. And we encourage you to take probabilities we publish quite literally. A 60 percent chance of a candidate winning a particular state means that she’ll win it six out of 10 times over the long run — but fail to do so four out of 10 times. Historically, over 10 years of issuing forecasts, the probabilities that FiveThirtyEight publishes really are quite honest, i.e. our 60 percent probabilities really do occur about 60 percent of the time. With 57 primaries and caucuses to come, there will probably be some big upsets, and it’s likely that a candidate with a 5 percent chance or a 2 percent chance or even an 0.3 percent chance of winning a state will surprise us somewhere along the line.

Because of the path-dependant nature of the primaries — events in one state can affect the results in the next ones — the probability distributions our model generates can be pretty weird-looking. For instance, as of Jan. 7, here’s the range of possible outcomes that our model shows for Sanders in Ohio:

What’s going on here? Why the concentration of outcomes near zero percent? Those cases represent the chance — about one in three, our model figures — that Sanders will drop out at some point before Ohio. If he hasn’t dropped out at that point, Sanders figures to do decently well, on the other hand, most likely winning somewhere between 15 percent and 35 percent of the vote. But there’s also the chance that Sanders will be just one of two or three major candidates left by the time Ohio votes. If that’s the case, Sanders could win 50 percent or 60 percent of the vote there, or more. When you see the probabilities in our model, remember that they reflect this variety of possibilities.

3. Our model forecasts the chance of winning the plurality and majority of pledged delegates — it’s not a forecast of the nomination per se. As I mentioned — but it’s worth repeating — our model is not technically a forecast of the outcome of the nomination process. It does not purport to predict who will accept the Democratic nomination in Milwaukee. Rather, it forecasts the selection of delegates in 57 primaries and caucuses and tallies up the chance that each candidate will have a majority or a plurality of delegates after the last caucusgoers vote on June 6. It does not reflect such contingencies as:

A contested convention.

Pledged delegates (who are generally not legally bound to any candidate) being disloyal to their candidate.

Candidates dropping out and asking their delegates to back another candidate.

The delegate leader dropping out because of health problems or a scandal.

The model does reflect one complication: how certain delegates may be automatically reassigned if a candidate drops out before those delegates are chosen. Specifically, if a state has not yet assigned statewide delegates and a candidate who was entitled to delegates has dropped out, those delegates will be distributed among candidates who remain in the race. (District-level delegates are not reassigned, however.) This gives the leading candidates a little bit of a cushion; they can wind up with a majority of delegates on June 6 even if they wouldn’t have won one based on the delegates as originally assigned.1

4. The primary model is complex — which isn’t entirely a good thing. The primary model is probably the most complex one that we’ve ever built at FiveThirtyEight. That’s not quite the same thing as it having the most lines of code or the most component parts. (Our midterms model had about twice as much code, for instance.) Rather, it’s the most complex in a mathematical sense. It involves a lot of path-dependency and a lot of nonlinearity, and the candidates’ performances can interact with one another in fairly complicated ways.

As we see it, we don’t really have much choice in the matter. Our primary model is necessarily complex because the primaries themselves are a complex process.

Still, the complexity of the model means that there’s more structural uncertainty than there might be in our other forecasting products. To put it another way, there’s a higher chance than usual that we’ve gotten the “physics” of the system wrong and mis-designed the model. Bugs in our code — or inaccurate data — could also have larger effects than they would in another model.

Therefore, especially in the first week or two after model launch, we will be on the lookout for potential errors and will make changes to the code if we’ve messed something up. And please let us know if you see something that looks awry.

Alrighty then. What follows is an overview of the major steps the model takes. We’re keeping this high-level in some places as we plan to publish a series of articles on several of these steps, many of which are pretty interesting in their own right and have implications beyond the design of the model itself.

Step 1. Calculate national and state polling averages and translate them into a polling-based forecast

We released our national and state polling averages in December, which you can read about at more length here. These averages are also the first step in the primary model. Again, go read the article about the polling averages for more, but here are the highlights:

State polling averages are adjusted based on trends in national polls. That is, if a candidate has gained or lost several percentage points nationally and a state hasn’t been polled much recently, the model will assume that the state polls have moved in the same direction as the national polls. It will also assume that, when there are bounces following primaries and caucuses, those bounces are felt both at the national and at the state level. These adjustments can have a large effect if a state hasn’t been polled much recently but will have less of an effect in states with more robust polling.

Our polling averages are adjusted for house effects — that is, for the tendency of certain pollsters to consistently show better or worse results for certain candidates.

Our polling averages adjust more quickly following major events — that is, after big primary and caucus dates (e.g. Iowa, Super Tuesday) and to a lesser extent, following debates and when major candidates drop out of the race. Conversely, the averages will be more conservative when there isn’t a lot going on. In general, one wants to be relatively aggressive about accounting for changes in primary polls — voters aren’t that attached to any of the candidates, and changes tend to stick more often than not. But we’ve put a lot of effort into trying to distinguish real changes in the polls from statistical outliers.

There’s one additional step in translating polls into a polling-based forecast for each race: We need to account for undecided voters. A candidate polling at, say, 17 percent in a certain state is likely to wind up with more than 17 percent of the actual vote there because she can expect to pick up a few undecided voters.

There are two ways that one might do this: Undecideds could be allocated proportionally between the candidates (so a candidate polling at 10 percent of the decided vote would pick up twice as many undecideds as one polling at 5 percent), or they could be divided evenly. Empirically, we find that that a proportional allocation works best until candidates reach 20 percent of the vote, at which point a combination of a proportional and an even distribution works best instead. So that’s what’s reflected in the model.

Step 2. Calculate a non-polling forecast for each state based on demographics, geography and state fundraising

Many primary states have little or no polling — so we need an alternative way to forecast the outcome in those states. Technically speaking, we actually have two such methods:

Geographic method: Take national polls and adjust them for the home states and regions of the candidates. Make further inferences about the strength of candidates in each state based on where their fundraising is relatively stronger or weaker.

Demographic method: Use (i) polls in states with robust polling and (ii) actual results in states once they start voting in order to perform a series of regression analyses that infer which demographic and political factors (e.g. the racial composition of each state, how liberal or conservative it is, etc.) best predict a candidate’s performance. These regressions can then be used to estimate a candidate’s standing in states with little to no polling.

Of these, the demographic method is considerably more precise and it receives considerably more weight in the FiveThirtyEight model. A few further notes about each method:

The geographic method

The home-state advantage is fairly large in the primaries. In some cases, a candidate might be expected to outperform his or her national polling by 20 points or more in their home state, in fact. However, there are a couple of complications:

Home-state effects are larger in states with smaller populations. Steve Bullock (if he’d remained in the race) would expect a larger home-state effect in Montana, where he’s governor, than Sen. Kamala Harris would have had in California.

The impact of home-state effects is fairly nonlinear. A candidate polling at 1 percent nationally wouldn’t expect to get that big a boost in his or her home state. Conversely, a candidate polling at 20 percent nationally might expect to get 40 percent or more of the vote at home. This is a consequence of the fact that polling in general in the primaries is nonlinear — it’s much harder to go from 1 percent to 2 percent than from 11 percent to 12 percent — a topic we’ll revisit in Step 3.

If a candidate is commonly associated with more than one state, his or her home state advantage may be divided between any number of primary and secondary home states. For 2020, the following candidates have multiple home states:

Biden’s primary home state is Delaware and his secondary home state is Pennsylvania.

Former Governor Deval Patrick’s primary state is Massachusetts and his secondary state is Illinois.

Sanders’s primary state is Vermont and his secondary state is New York.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s primary state is Massachusetts and her secondary state is Oklahoma.

In these cases, 75 percent of the candidate’s home-state advantage is assigned to the primary state and 25 percent to the secondary state.

In addition to home-state effects, we also account for a candidate’s home region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West), subregion (e.g. New England, the Great Lakes) and whether or not his or her home state shares a border with a state holding a primary or caucus. These regional effects can be fairly profound; it’s a big help to be from New England if you’re competing in a primary in New England. Some states are divided between multiple regions or subregions, a fun topic about which we’ll have more to say later, but as a preview, here’s the basic schematic we’re using.

Finally, the relative amount of money that a candidate raises in a particular state can tell us something about his or her geographic strengths. By relative amount, I mean what share of the total itemized contributions (among all Democratic candidates) a candidate raised in that state, as compared to how he did in other states. Sanders is a prolific fundraiser everywhere, for instance. But if he raised a smaller share of money in, say, Arizona than he did on average nationally, the model would assume Arizona was a below-average state for him.

The demographic method

As I mentioned, the demographic method works by running a series of regressions, where the independent variables are a series of demographic and political variables that are generally predictive of primary outcomes, and the dependent variable is a candidate’s polls or results in each state.2

A major challenge is that there are a lot of plausible variables that affect primary and caucus outcomes — but relatively little data to test them out on, especially early in the process when no states have voted and few states have reliable polling. In cases like these, regression analysis is at risk of overfitting, where it may seemingly describe known data very precisely but won’t do a good job of predicting outcomes that it doesn’t know in advance.

Our solution is twofold. First, rather than just one regression, we run a series of as many as 360 regressions using all possible combinations of the variables described below. Although the best-performing regressions receive more weight in the model, all of the regressions receive at least some weight. Essentially, the model is hedging its bets on whether the variables that seemingly describe the results the best so far will continue to do so. Secondly, the model restricts how many of the 360 regressions it runs based on how much data it has. As of launch in January, for instance, because data is relatively sparse, the model will only run regressions containing three or fewer variables. The degree of complexity will increase as more data becomes available.

The variables the regressions evaluate are as follows:

Race, specified in one of four ways:

Method 1: (white, black, Hispanic, other)

Method 2: (white, black, other)

Method 3: (white, other)

Method 4: (black, other)

Socioeconomic status, measured by either the share of adults with a four-year college degree or by median per-capita income.3

The liberal-conservative orientation of a state, as measured in one of two ways: either how Democrats in the state rated themselves on a scale from “very liberal” to “very conservative” on the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) or the margin between Sanders and Hillary Clinton in 2016.4

The population density or urban-rural status of a state, as measured by the average number of people who live within 5 miles of the average resident, based on analysis of Census Tracts. (This is a pretty cool method and something I’ll write more about later).

The religiosity of a state, as measured by the number of people who say religion is very important to them, based surveys from Pew Research and the CCES.

Finally, whether a state held a caucus instead of a primary.

The 360 regressions reflect all possible combinations of which of these categories are included and, if included, how they are specified. Regression No. 286, for example, consists of religiosity, urban-rural and the liberal-conservative balance as specified based on the Clinton-Sanders vote, but doesn’t use the other variables.

Blending the demographic and geographic methods with the polls

Next, the model blends the geographic methods together with the demographic method, with the demographic method receiving considerably more weight.

Finally, the model blends the combined demographic/geographic forecast together with the polling-based forecast from Step 1 (if the state has polling). The model gives more weight to the polling when there is a larger volume of recent polling. Conversely, the model will give more weight to demographics if it deems the demographic analysis to be reliable based on how much data it has and how much the various regressions agree with one another.

In general, however, the model mostly defaults toward polling when there is a decent amount of polling available. In fact, a state’s forecast will be entirely based on polling if there is a lot of recent polling there.

Step 3. Begin simulating the rest of the primary process, starting with day-to-day movement in the polls

Everything up to this point essentially represents the model’s snapshot of the election as it looks today. But, of course, what the election will look like weeks or months from now is another question entirely. So the model simulates the nomination process thousands of times to get an idea of the range of possible outcomes. (As a default, we run 10,000 simulations, although we may run a larger or smaller number in some circumstances.)

The biggest swings in candidates’ standing in the polls tend to come in the form of bounces following major primaries and caucuses, which we cover in Step 5. However, polling swings sometimes do occur for other reasons.

Therefore, the model plays out the rest of the primary process one day at a time in each simulation. It performs three subtle calculations at the end of each day:

The model introduces a small amount of random variance to the polls. Usually, this variance is almost infinitesimal. However, the model accounts for the possibility of occasional larger swings because of stochastic news events. It also accounts for how larger swings sometimes occur following presidential debates.

The model very slightly reverts each candidate’s standing to a mean based on “fundamentals,” where the fundamentals consist of a candidate’s fundraising, endorsements and experience in elected office. The effect of this is subtle, especially over the short run. (If we published a “polls only” version of the model, it wouldn’t be that different from the version with the fundamentals.) But this can capture cases where a candidate’s current standing may not be sustainable on an ongoing basis.

Finally, at the end of each day, the model takes a small fraction of the remaining undecided voters and divides them among the candidates. (See Step 1 for more on how the model handles undecided voters.)

Here’s a bit more detail on this process.

Primary polling swings are stochastic and nonlinear

If you examine charts of primary polls, you’ll generally find long periods of stasis punctuated by occasional, relatively abrupt swings. That’s because news events — or at least, the sort of news events that have the potential to affect primary polls — occur in irregular doses. Google searches of primary-related queries, for instance, reveal occasional, news-related spikes where interest in the primary campaign is several times higher than the baseline. These spikes are often associated with debates, but can sometimes occur for other reasons.

To simulate this, the model randomly draws a “news impact multiplier” for each day from a right-tailed distribution where the average day has a multiplier of 1, but the multiplier may be as low as 0.1 (a day where basically nothing happens) or as high as 6 (where a single news event can swing the polls as much as a month’s worth of regular campaigning). In this way, the model accounts for the small but non-zero possibility of shocks to the polls that occur essentially overnight as voters react to major news events.

We also account for debates using this framework. Rather than being occasional, unpredictable news events, debates are tantamount to guaranteed, medium-impact news events. Specifically, our research finds that debates move the polls by roughly as much as one week’s worth of ordinary campaigning, which is equivalent to a news multiplier of about 2.7. Thus, on dates when debates are scheduled to occur, the model adds 2.7 to the news impact multiplier for candidates who are scheduled to participate in the debate.5 Put another way, debates introduce volatility into the primary process, giving trailing candidates (if they’re able to participate in the debates) a slightly better chance of catching up to the front-runners.

How candidates can get stuck in the low single digits

Another important property of primary polls is that the degree of volatility in a candidate’s polls is related to his or her standing. Empirically, for instance, a candidate who is polling at 3 percent sees their polls move by only about one-fifth as much from day to day as one polling at 30 percent.

What this means is that if a candidate is polling in the low single digits, they tend not to see very big swings in the polls. For a candidate to break out of the low single digits and become a front-runner is quite rare in the primaries, therefore. It usually involves multiple stages, that is, the candidate initially breaks out from, say, 3 percent to 8 percent, and then gets some further boost that takes them from 8 percent to 17 percent and makes them a real contender. (For poker geeks out there: The process is somewhat analogous to a poker player with a short stack having to double her chips several times over to have a chance at winning a poker tournament.) Therefore, such breakouts are also rare in our model, although they may occur once per several hundred simulations.

Two final technical notes:

Daily polling swings — and most other polling swings in our model — are drawn from a beta distribution. Unlike a normal distribution, a beta distribution is asymmetric. This is important because a candidate’s standing in the polls is bound between 0 percent and 100 percent. That is, a candidate polling at 2 percent can gain 5 points and improve to 7 percent, but she can’t lose 5 points and end up at -3 percent.

The model assumes that polling volatility is related to something that we call a diffusion coefficient. We hope to explain more about this in subsequent articles, but basically, when there are no clear front-runners in the polls, the polls tend to be more volatile, whereas they can settle down when there are one or two candidates way ahead of everyone else.

Mean-reversion and “the fundamentals”

In general, it’s hard to outguess the polls in the primaries. That doesn’t mean the primaries are terribly predictable or that polls are especially reliable. But the candidates who rise in polls aren’t always the ones that pundits expect. As a case in point, there were a lot of theories — some with fairly solid empirical backing, some not, many of which we ourselves subscribed to — about why President Trump’s lofty poll standing in the early stages of the 2016 Republican primary wouldn’t translate into his winning the nomination. In the end, those polls were accurate and Trump won, of course.

Still, even accounting for Trump’s victory, our analysis finds that there is some additional predictive power provided by quantifiable, non-polling factors. Specifically, the model accounts for:

Endorsements. A candidate’s share of endorsement points, with recent endorsements weighted more heavily.

Fundraising. A candidate’s share of money raised, with recent fundraising periods weighted more heavily. To calculate this, we take an average of three different fundraising metrics:

Share of small-donor contributions;

Share of all individual contributions;

Share of funds from all sources, including self-funding.

Experience. An index based on candidate’s highest elected office held, on a scale that runs from 0 points (no elected experience) to 4 points (former elected president or vice president). Senators and governors, the most common categories for presidential candidates, get 3 points on this scale. Candidates’ experience scores are discounted if they were last elected more than six years ago.

In testing the forecast, we found which of these factors best predicted polling movement was sensitive to exactly how we specified the model. That is, under some tests, fundraising was highly predictive of polling movement while endorsements were not, while under other tests, the reverse was true. Therefore, we give the three categories equal weight.

As of Jan. 8 (just before model launch), the fundamentals calculation for each candidate was as follows:

Biden leads in the combined fundamentals

The Democratic candidates by the fundamentals, as of Jan. 8, 2020

Share of Candidate Endorsements Fundraising Experience Combined Biden 47.6% 11.1% 13.5% 24.1% Warren 17.0 14.2 10.6 13.9 Sanders 6.6 20.6 10.6 12.6 Buttigieg 7.0 14.1 3.5 8.2 Bloomberg 7.9 8.7 6.4 7.6 Klobuchar 4.6 4.7 10.6 6.6 Bennet 7.2 0.8 10.6 6.2 Booker 1.1 3.2 10.6 4.9 Patrick 0.0 0.0 9.7 3.2 Steyer 1.0 8.0 0.0 3.0 Gabbard 0.0 2.0 7.0 3.0 Yang 0.0 8.7 0.0 2.9 Delaney 0.0 0.9 7.0 2.7 Williamson 0.0 3.1 0.0 1.0

Note that this calculation can be compared directly to the polls. For instance, if the fundamentals calculation implies that Sen. Amy Klobuchar “should” have 7 percent of the vote and she actually has 4 percent (after allocating undecided voters), that would imply that she’s more likely to rise in the polls than to fall. To reiterate, however, the model takes a gentle hand with the fundamentals, so this has fairly marginal effects on the overall forecast.

Step 4. Simulate state and district results — accounting for uncertainty — and allocate delegates

As the model runs through each day of the nomination process, it will occasionally encounter something exciting: a day on which one or more states are holding primaries or caucuses. But forecasting the outcome of these races is another challenge.

The biggest problem is that polls of the primaries just aren’t all that accurate. In 2016, the average primary poll missed the margin between the top two candidates by about 10 percentage points! And that’s the average poll; the margin of error is considerably wider. Leads of 15 or sometimes even 20 points may not be entirely safe in the primaries. Nonetheless, however imperfect polls are, it’s usually easier to forecast primary results with polls than without them, so states with little or no polling present even bigger problems than states with lots of potentially flawed polling.

So the model uses a series of empirically derived heuristics to determine whether its forecast is relatively more or relatively less reliable. The forecast is more precise when:

There’s more polling in the contest.

There are fewer days remaining until the contest.

The contest is a primary rather than a caucus.

The contest is held in a state rather than a territory.

The state has heterogenous demographics that resemble the national average, instead of highly idiosyncratic demographics that may be hard for pollsters to nail down.

So while there’s always uncertainty in the forecast, a prediction about the Florida primary — a large, diverse state that usually gets a lot of polling — is liable to be more precise than one about the Guam caucus.

Simulating district results and assigning delegates

Roughly two-thirds of the pledged delegates in the Democratic primaries are not actually assigned at the statewide level. Rather, they are distributed based on the results in individual districts. Most states allocate delegates by Congressional district, but there are some exceptions:

Montana’s delegates are divided into regions by county.

Delaware’s are divided based on counties and a city.

Washington, D.C.’s are divided into two regions by wards.

Puerto Rico’s are divided by senatorial districts.

Texas divides them by state Senate districts.

New Jersey uses state legislative districts.

And the Virgin Islands divides its delegates by island.

The model estimates the results in individual districts using a variation of the regression technique described in Step 2. That is, we’ve already built a demographic forecast, so just as we can forecast how a candidate’s performance in Illinois might differ from that in Indiana, we can also forecast which districts in Illinois or Indiana are likely to be relatively strong or weak for a candidate. (With that said, the district forecasts are not all that precise.)

Once the model simulates the results in each state and district, it then assigns delegates based on these results. Unlike Republicans, Democrats use highly consistent rules from state to state to allocate delegates, and the rules are fairly straightforward. The key thing to keep in mind is the 15 percent threshold — that is, under Demoratic rules, a candidate must receive at least 15 percent of the vote in a given state or district to be eligible to receive delegates there. (Unless no candidate gets 15 percent of the vote, in which case the threshold is lower.) This makes a reasonably large difference. In a state where, say, Sanders got 40 percent of the delegates and Warren got 30 percent, with the rest of the vote divided several ways between a number of candidates, Sanders and Warren could get 100 percent of the delegates (or close to it) despite “only” having 70 pecent of the vote combined. This is one reason that a contested convention, while certainly possible, is less likely than some people might assume.

Ranked-choice voting and caucus viability thresholds

A few states do have special rules, however. Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas and Wyoming use ranked-choice voting, so that voters are reallocated based on their second choices until all remaining candidates have at least 15 percent of the vote. To simulate this, the model imputes voters’ second choices based on what is essentially a nearest neighbors algorithm or what we call a proximity rating, where candidates who are more similar along ideological and other dimensions are assumed to be more likely second choices for voters (see Step 6 for more on this).

The Iowa and Nevada caucuses take this process one step further by literally having voters physically realign themselves into preference groups until all candidates achieve a viability threshold, which is usually 15 percent of the vote (although it can be higher in precincts where a low turnout is expected). The model simulates this process also, which tends to improve the position of front-runners while making it harder for also-rans to finish with a respectable share of the vote. We’ll discuss the viability process in more detail at some point before Iowa.

Accounting for correlated errors

Although this isn’t nearly as important in the primaries as in the general election, where accounting for the correlations between states was critical to properly assessing Trump’s Electoral College odds, our model does assume that forecast error is partially correlated from state to state along demographic lines. It does this by simulating random perturbations in the demographic groups described in Step 2. In one simulation, for instance, Sanders might be predicted to outperform his polls among African-American voters, which would cause him to gain ground in that simulation in all states and districts with a large percentage of black voters.

In addition, we find that empirically, when there is more than one primary or caucus in a given day, forecast errors tend to be somewhat correlated across all states that day. For instance, if there were a number of races that were projected to be close on Super Tuesday, it wouldn’t be surprising if all or almost all of those races were won by the same candidate. The model accounts for this type of correlation also, which can affect the chances of receiving a large bounce from a multi-state primary day.

Step 5. Simulate bounces (or crashes) from winning (or losing) primaries

Probably the single most important statistical dynamic in the primaries is the bounce that candidates typically receive from winning or otherwise performing strongly in major primaries and caucuses. Likewise, candidates who underperform expectations can see their standing decline.

Bounces are a subject that we’ll frequently explore over the course of the next few months, so I’ll be relatively brief here. But here are a few heuristics the model uses to assign bounces based on our analysis of bounces following dozens of primaries and caucuses since 1980:

Performance relative to expectations is crucial, where expectations can be fairly well defined by national polls. That is, if a candidate was polling at 10 percent nationally and finishes with 20 percent of the vote in Iowa, that candidate will tend to gain ground in national polls following Iowa. But a candidate who was polling at 30 percent nationally who got 20 percent in Iowa would tend to lose ground. Expectations also account for a candidate’s home state and region — so, for instance, Warren won’t get as much credit for winning Massachusetts as she would for winning North Carolina.

Both winning and a candidate’s share of the vote matters. The model assigns a reasonably large bonus to whichever candidate wins a state, while also evaluating the candidate’s share of the vote relative to expectations. In essence, we’re just trying to replicate the process that the media and voters use to evaluate primaries (and which shows up fairly clearly in the historical data) in which winning or losing is mostly what counts, but sometimes there can be “moral victories” if a candidate substantially outperforms expectations but doesn’t win outright.6

Bounces are larger in early states and when more delegates at stake. Since the model is rather sensitive to the assumptions one makes about bounces, we spent a lot of time working out which states usually produce relatively larger or smaller ones. In general, the magnitude of the bounce is proportional to the number of delegates at stake on a particular day, although with some diminishing returns. In addition, the first four states produce larger bounces than you’d expect from their delegate counts alone, but Iowa usually produces a larger bounce than New Hampshire (about twice as large) whereas New Hampshire produces a larger bounce than Nevada and South Carolina. The relative importance that our model assigns to each day with a primary or caucus in 20207 follows in the table below.

Which states will produce the biggest bounces?

Expected bounce magnitude according to FiveThirtyEight’s primary model

Relative bounce magnitude Date States Based on delegates Early state bonus Combined Feb. 3 Iowa +3 +20 +23 Feb. 11 New Hampshire +2 +10 +12 Feb. 22 Nevada +3 +5 +8 Feb. 29 South Carolina +3 +5 +8 Mar. 3 Colorado, Alabama, Utah, Oklahoma, Vermont, Texas, Tennessee, Maine, Virginia, North Carolina, California, American Samoa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Arkansas +30 +30 Mar. 10 Mississippi, Michigan, North Dakota, Washington, Missouri, Idaho, Democrats Abroad +12 +12 Mar. 14 Northern Marianas +1 +1 Mar. 17 Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Illinois +16 +16 Mar. 24 Georgia +5 +5 Mar. 29 Puerto Rico +3 +3 Apr. 4 Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Louisiana +5 +5 Apr. 7 Wisconsin +4 +4 Apr. 28 Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania +18 +18 May 2 Guam, Kansas +3 +3 May 5 Indiana +4 +4 May 12 Nebraska, West Virginia +3 +3 May 19 Kentucky, Oregon +5 +5 June 2 New Mexico, New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana, District of Columbia +8 +8 June 6 Virgin Islands +1 +1

Bounces are larger when the race is more open-ended. As described in Step 3, polling movement of all kinds is larger when the race is more open-ended, as measured by our diffusion index. Because the Democratic nomination contest is (as of this writing in early January) relatively wide open, that would tend to predict reasonably large bounces in the early states this year.

Bounces have probably gotten smaller over time, but this isn’t totally clear. We’ll tackle this subject in separate article at some point. Bounces appear to be somewhat smaller in the era of robust primary polling, which extends from 2004 onward, and the model’s estimates of bounce magnitude is calibrated based on more recent primaries. However, this conclusion is not without some ambiguity. Recent primary election cycles do seem to feature slightly smaller bounces in the early states, but bounces later on in the contest (e.g. after Super Tuesday) are as sizable as ever.

Following primary and caucus nights, the model will build in anticipated bounces based on the results as best as we can evaluate them as of late that evening or early the next morning. The model will then adjust its expectations once polls come in after the primary.8 The model treats the magnitude of bounces as being fairly uncertain — that is, in some simulations it will apply a relatively large bounce and in other simulations a relatively small one. Nonetheless, this process will potentially produce a lot of volatility following primary and caucus nights if the model overshoots or undershoots the bounce.

Step 6. Forecast the probability that candidates drop out

The final major step in the simulation is accounting for the possibility that candidates quit the race. On the one hand, these dropouts don’t always have an enormous direct effect on the standing of the remaining candidates. Candidates don’t usually drop out unless their situations are fairly desperate and most of their voters have already migrated to other candidates (or they never had many voters in the first place). On the other hand, the winnowing process is essential to the primaries concluding themselves in a tidy fashion without requiring a contested convention. In addition, there can be circumstances where a candidate dropping out works mostly to the benefit of one of the remaining candidates. Although these dynamics can be hard to simulate, the model does assume, for example, that a Warren dropout is more likely to help Sanders than Biden, and a Sanders dropout is more likely to help Warren than Biden, other factors held equal.

In estimating the probability that a candidate will drop out, the model considers the following factors — listed roughly in descending order of importance:

Whether it’s before or after Iowa. Dropouts are much more likely after Iowa.9

A candidate’s trajectory in the polling. Candidates are much more likely to drop out if they’re declining in the polling and much less likely to do so if they’re rising. The model also assumes that candidates anticipate bounces or crashes in the polls following major primaries and caucuses, so it will sometimes have candidates drop out as a result of a predicted decline in the polls even if there aren’t new polls available yet.

Whether a candidate is above or below 15 percent in national polls. Dropouts become much more likely when a candidate is polling below 15 percent nationally.

The highest elected office held by the candidate. Governors and senators are more likely to drop out sooner rather than later, perhaps because they have better alternatives to running for president and face more electoral and reputational risk by running a losing presidential bid. Candidates holding lower offices or, especially, no elected office at all, are more likely to hang on until the bitter end.

How many candidates remain in the race. Candidates are more likely to quit when there are a lot of other candidates still in the race and more likely to hang on when they’re one of just a couple of candidates remaining.

The front-runner’s share in national polls. Candidates are more likely to drop out if there’s a dominant front-runner who polls at or near 50 percent in national polls.

When a candidate drops out in one of the simulations, the model reassigns most of their voters to the other candidates (but returns a small share to the undecided pool). As is the case when the model is assigning undecided voters (see Step 1), the allocation is partly proportional (front-running candidates pick up more of the vote from dropped-out candidates) and partly divided equally among candidates with at last 20 percent of the vote. However, there is also another wrinkle …

Yes, Virginia, there are lanes in the primary — or at least there are proximity ratings

Despite occasional protestations to the contrary, there are pretty clearly are “lanes” in the Democrtic primary. For instance, Sanders voters are considerably more likely to have Warren and Andrew Yang as second choices than you’d anticipate from chance alone, and considerably less likely to have Buttigieg as a second choice.

If we had comprehensive data on voters’ second (and third, etc.) choices, we could incorporate that directly into the model. Unfortunately, we do not; only a few pollsters publish this data.10

As an alternative, we came up with a way to categorize each candidate along four dimensions:

How liberal they are on social policy, ranging from very liberal (1) to moderate (5).

How leftist they are on economic policy, ranging from left-wing (1) to centrist (5).

Where they are on the spectrum between being an outsider (1) who rebukes the party establishment to an insider (5) who has the backing of the establishment.

Where they are on the spectrum between being a middlebrow candidate (1) who strikes broad populist themes and mostly appeals to working-class voters to a highbrow candidate (5) who seeks to appeal to the media and to college-educated voters.

While there is inherently some subjectivity in these ratings, there is plenty of data to guide the characterizations of candidates, ranging from how often the candidates voted with Trump to how many endorsements they have to whether their support comes mostly from college-educated voters. Furthermore, we found that by rating the candidates along these four dimensions, we were able to replicate second-choice data fairly accurately. Finally, we found that in applying these ratings to past primary campaigns, we were better able to predict the dynamics of those primaries, such as how the vote shifted after candidates dropped out.

Here are the ratings we wound up with for the remaining 2020 candidates:

Proximity ratings for Democrats along four dimensions

candidate Social policy (1= LIBERAL) Economic policy (1 = LEFT WING) Insider / Outsider (1 = OUTSIDER) Highbrow / middlebrow (1 = MIDDLEBROW) Bennet 3.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 Biden 4.0 4.0 5.0 2.0 Bloomberg 3.5 4.5 4.0 4.0 Booker 2.0 3.0 4.0 3.5 Buttigieg 3.0 4.0 2.5 4.5 Delaney 4.0 5.0 2.5 3.0 Gabbard 4.5 2.0 1.0 2.0 Klobuchar 3.5 4.0 4.0 3.0 Patrick 3.0 4.0 4.5 4.0 Sanders 1.5 1.0 1.5 2.5 Steyer 2.0 3.5 2.0 4.0 Warren 1.5 1.5 3.0 4.5 Williamson 3.0 2.0 1.0 1.5 Yang 3.5 4.0 1.0 4.0

We are quite certain that some of you will have critiques of these ratings. But we think they’re a lot better than nothing in helping us to replicate the polling data, and — this is key — there is no inherent advantage in a candidate having a high score or a low score along any one of these dimensions.

Rather, it’s the proximity of a candidate to other candidates that counts. The model uses these proximity ratings in various, relatively subtle ways. But in general, candidates with high proximity to other candidates have more upside and downside in their polling (they can be everyone’s first choice and become the nominee … or they can be everyone’s third choice and flame out), whereas candidates who have carved out space to themselves have more stable numbers.

And those, ladies and gentlemen, are the major steps in our 2020 primary forecast. As new data comes in, the model will simulate the primary from that day forward and update its results. We’re hopeful, in fact, that there will be a large volume of polling soon after pollsters were largely dormant for the holidays — in which case the forecast could move a lot.

At the time we’re launching the the forecast, however, that range of possible outcomes is wide. As of 11 a.m. ET on Jan. 9, for example, Biden is forecasted to win an average of 27 percent of the vote in Iowa. But the range of most likely outcomes11 covers everything from Biden winning as little as 5 percent to him winning as much as 49 percent. And while Biden is the most likely nominee — with a 42 percent chance of winning a majority of delegates through June 6 — he’s an underdog relative to the field.

The model isn’t “playing it safe” by having such large confidence intervals; it’s simply capturing the uncertainty that exists in the real world. Primaries are far more fluid than general elections. There is still plenty of time before Iowa.

In the meantime, though, please let us know if you see anything amiss. We’ll be on the lookout for bugs and fine-tuning things, especially for the first one or two weeks the model is running. (Did we mention that this is the first time we’re forecasting a nomination race?

) We’re also planning on recording a podcast answering reader and listener questions about our primary forecast — so if you have any, please send ’em in.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

[q--uee--n]

So, here’s Part 1 of my shamelessly pandering, fluffy Post-Zero Requiem headcanons/notes because I just want everyone to be happy and content and I don’t care how unrealistic some of these are. fuck

(Note: the following 999.9% disregards Re;surrection and falls in line with the events of the original series.) 

Suzaku (Zero)

• at first throws himself into being Zero and protecting Nunnally, not at all thinking he deserves anything but the misery that’s been placed upon him. 

• mistakingly believes Nunnally hates him for murdering her brother. She ultimately sets him straight, and though they’re fairly close, there are still moments where Suzaku’s guilt becomes an obstacle to their relationship.

• for the first few months, he is cold and stoic as Zero, but as time passes and he grows into the role, he begins to soften. Still, his Zero is relatively distant and mute compared to Lelouch’s grand, theatrical version. 

• misses the hell out of Euphemia and Lelouch (even if his relationship with the latter was more complex than a Rubik's Cube) but, over time, slowly reconciles with their deaths. Slowly especially applies to Euphy’s case. It took a while, but he eventually limits his visits to Euphy’s memorial from once every two weeks to once a month to once every other month to once a year (in the distant future). 

• formally reconnects with Kaguya after she brusquely informs him that she’s aware of his identity. She manages to swindle him into having tea with her. Every week. It’s at one of these meetings where he breaks down and apologizes for all the pain he’s caused her, but she reassures him that she’s just happy they’re together again. They often simultaneously laugh and gag at the fact that they used to be engaged, and Suzaku becomes so attached to her, Kaguya’s guard detail starts to become suspicious of his intentions.

• on the subject of his relationships, he, against all odds, becomes close to C.C. and even closer to Kallen. He and C.C. have a weird understanding based on their love for Lelouch, and he bonds with Kallen (once she maneuvers around her own issues) over their mutual painful experiences, which is where they find common ground. 

• Gino discovers his identity by accident. Milly does so on purpose. Both are rather bizarre, cautionary tales, but as a result of them, Zero’s personal associates are up by two. 

• ironically has a large following among small children, who are at the receiving end of his softest interactions with the public. Mothers everywhere adore him just for that. As do stores that make the most profit selling Zero birthday cakes. 

• unironically has a large following among horny young adults. Is the topic of a popular tabloid, Zero Weekly, which mostly speculates about his sex life and what he looks like underneath the mask. He’s scandalized by the magazine, as are Kallen and Nunnally, but C.C. and Kaguya love it.

• utilizes multiple disguises, in part because Kallen refuses to be seen in a public setting with him while he’s Zero for a second time and the rest is because Nunnally just likes putting together outfits for him. 

• in the little free time he has, his hobbies consist of feeding the stray cats he’s accumulated over the years, reading poetry (it reminds him of Lelouch and a kinder time when they were friends), and watching the ridiculously bad American soap operas he swears he doesn’t watch. Their content should make bad memories surface, but they’re just so horribly acted, the effect falls flat.

• only after years of it being drilled into his head, he eventually accepts that he doesn’t have to be alone if he doesn’t want to and that the whole Zero thing doesn’t have to be completely miserable. 

• still healing from, well, everything but has acquired a loyal support base in the few friends he has, and though he still doesn’t quite think he deserves any happiness he’s found, he’s in too deep to reject it (and there’s no way in hell that anyone will let him). 

• cries the first time someone says they love him, halfway out of disbelief because he doesn’t think he’s worthy of anyone’s love and halfway out of relief because he’d never imagined there’d come a day where the phrase was directed at him again.

C.C.

• hangs around after Lelouch’s death because she can, not because she, god forbid, cares about the people in her life. Nope. Not at all, thank you very much. 

• lives in Suzaku’s quarters in the palace until he gets so frustrated by the pizza boxes piling up in his room that he asks Nunnally to give her her own space. C.C. is more than happy to move when she learns the room is Cheese-kun-themed. 

• formally befriends Kallen after the realization that they’re both assholes with trust issues. They have bi-monthly girls’ nights of epic proportions, ones that usually culminate in a single whopping bad decision. 

• is both intrigued and gobsmacked by the fact that Suzaku is still so cordial to her despite the circumstances and the things she puts him through daily. He’s the opposite of Lelouch in every way, but that’s what draws her to him the most. 

• may or may not be attracted to Suzaku. It’s hard to tell. 

• is online friends with Milly. Neither is aware of the identity of the other, but they’re nonetheless a powerful force that troll the internet with spam and shitposting.

• no one knows her real name. Except for Kaguya, of all people, and no one knows how or when or why they became close enough to be on first names basis, and it just doesn’t make sense at all, to the point where Kallen loses sleep at night thinking about it.

• once recounted the time Benjamin Franklin told her off to Suzaku after he returned from a particularly despondent assignment. Afterward, they stayed up eating pizza and reminiscing over fond memories they had of Lelouch, which allowed Suzaku to see a kinder, more vulnerable side of C.C. for the first time. It also marked the beginning of their weekly sleepovers, though they don’t refer to them as such.

• sometimes goes riding with Nunnally on weekends. The younger girl reminds her of her brother, and like his, Nunnally’s heart is pure and kind. She gives C.C. a warm feeling similar to the one she got from Lelouch.

• is constantly traveling and moving about but always returns to Nunnally and Suzaku’s side at their residence in Japan. 

• is well aware of the fact that everyone she’s come to accept as friends will die while she’ll remain living. This is her biggest point of contention, and she contemplates leaving more often than not, but she stays because she can’t leave.

•  "I said that Geass was the power of the king which would condemn you to a life of solitude. I think, maybe, that's not quite correct. Right, Lelouch?"

• has stopped accumulating experience and started living.

Kallen

• finishes her last year of high school and, soon thereafter, becomes a full-time college student. Focusing on her education, she takes time off the Black Knights but still works as a reserve officer and is never without the key to her beloved Knightmare Frame. Because just in case, and Rakshata is always updating the Guren. 

• resented Zerozaku for months following the Requiem, even though she knew everything that happened was all according to Lelouch’s plan. She overcomes her negative feelings after coming across Suzaku at Euphemia’s grave and realizing he knows the pain she’s suffering. She finds that maybe they aren’t as different as she thought.

•  proves vital in helping Suzaku heal and vice versa. They’re both disasters, and they’re opposite in every sense of the word, but all that means is that they never manage to stunt each other, even when they just can’t understand each other.

• after they become friends, C.C. is her second most contacted person. Milly is her first because that woman cannot be trusted. 

• begins a charity in her brother Naoto’s name with the help of her mother. The charity is dedicated to reuniting families displaced by the war. 

• discovers she has an extremely high alcohol tolerance once she’s of age and could outdrink anyone at any time (”yes, Tamaki that also applies to you. ...Please, Ohgi’s son has higher tolerance than you”) but generally doesn’t fuck with alcohol because she doesn’t like the idea of becoming dependent on it. She makes enough bad decisions on her own, thanks. 

• is, like various other members of the original Order of the Black Nights, a hero of the rebellion and a bona fide celebrity, though she still has to work to support herself and her mother and is a tad bitter about that. Especially considering she has all the other “privileges” of celebrity such as sporadic street interviews while she’s on her commute to work.

• because of that one time she danced with Zero at that one party, everyone assumes they’re together, and the media plays it up. She can’t count the number of times she’s had to call in to news stations falsely referring to her as “Zero’s paramour”.

• “True or false? Are you involved with Zero?” “...Involved with–I’m not–who said–” “Ah. You hesitated. Does that confirm our suspicions?” “I didn’t hesitate because that shouldn’t have been a question” “Well, a source close to you informed us of the fact that–” “Source? What source–?” *cue the moment she realizes that the source is C.C. Or Milly. Or both.

• Gino is the source.

• sleeps over at the palace at Nunnally’s invitation when her mother isn’t home and she’s feeling particularly lonely, sometimes sandwiched between C.C. and Suzaku in his room but the bed is more than large enough. It’s weird but it’s comfortable and it makes her feel that much more secure.

• grows out her hair. By the time she’s twenty-two, it’s almost as long as C.C.’s.

• still loves Lelouch with all her heart, but does eventually become open to pursuing a relationship. (”Gino wants to go out with you, doesn’t he? Why don’t you just say yes?” “Just because I said I was open to dating doesn’t mean I want to date Gino, C.C.” “I suppose you’re right. Although that could be because you want to fu–” “One more word out of you and I’ll put Cheese-kun in the shredder.”)

• changes her legal surname to “Kozuki”.

#code geass #code geass: hangyaku no lelouch #code geass r2 #kururugi suzaku #zerozaku #c.c. (code geass) #kallen stadtfeld #kallen kozuki #headcanons #my notes #you don't have to take this post seriously #but i do

[carlynagisa]

Secret Valentine fic~ I didn’t fall for you you fucking tripped me!

Summary: How to get one Nakahara Chuuya to agree to a Valntine's date: Fall for him. Literally. Or how Dazai Osamu broke his ankle and miraculously healed in the span of an hour.

Pairing: Dazai/Chuuya Rating: G - General Audiences Warnings: no warnings apply :)

Notes: Dear @nakaharali-chan I’m your Secret Valentine and I hope you're happy with this happy fluffy skk piece! Unfortuately you didn't give me any prompts so I kinda winged it? Also greetings to the entire SKK Trash discor server, you guys are pretty damn cool!!

Hope you like it and enjoy!!

AO3

“Who in their right mind thought that class at 8 am in the fucking morning was a good idea?” Chuuya grumbled while basically slumping into his seat, just seconds before the bell rang. His head fell onto the table in front of him with a loud thud, body and mind too tired to lift himself up.

Tachihara next to him only raised his brows slightly before sliding his spare coffee in front of his tired friend. “I much prefer this to Fukuzawa-san’s 8 pm class. Now that’s suicide.”

Regaining his senses enough to smell the heavenly scent of the freshly brewed coffee in front of him, Chuuya dragged his head up, bleary eyes turning to the other redhead while blindly groping for the beverage in front of him. “Okay, who are you and what happened to Tachihara? Did you murder him?” He yelped after taking a generous sip of the coffee, belatedly noticing that it was still quite hot – definitely freshly brewed. At least he was awake now, albeit slightly.

“You’re way too cheery.”

Tachihara’s fingers drummed on his table. “Dude, isn’t it obvious? Today is Valentine’s Day!” He gave Chuuya an incredulous look once realizing that the other wasn’t impressed at all. “Don’t tell me you forgot about this, mister popular?”

Was it already too late to reassign to another class, preferably later in the day? Chuuya could kick himself in the shin for his naivety while deciding on his college classes.

He chugged down the rest of the coffee – albeit it was still too hot and surely burned more of his taste buds than it should – finally able to face his classmate and the rest of what was to come.

“You mean the overly commercialized fake holiday that is supposed to celebrate love but rather celebrates capitalism in all its glory? How could I ever forget about that?”

“So you forgot about it.”

“Entirely.” Chuuya let out a deep sigh before bending down and sifting through his backpack. “Imagine my utter joy when I was nearly jumped by a freshman that tried to shove chocolate down my throat. Or when an entire group of sophomores literally ganged up on me.”

Finally he found what he was looking for. Without a word he threw a bundle over at Tachihara’s confused face. “You can have it.” He rolled his eyes in annoyance at the thought of those stupid hopeful girls that declared their undying love to him without ever talking to him, let alone getting to know him. Was everyone going crazy today?

Unclasping the bundle, Tachihara let out a whistle while studying the amount of chocolate that was wrapped in it. “And imagine that the day only started. Give me some of your popularity?” He said while inspecting a piece of especially colorfully decorated chocolate. “Think I can give this to Gin?”

“You want to ask her out?”

“Yeah.” Poor guy, he’d never stand a chance.

“She’ll eat you alive.”

“That’s why the chocolate! She’ll hopefully be busy with it. And let’s hope her brother doesn’t find out first… He won’t only eat me alive but rather roast and cook me before that.”

Chuuya laughed at the image of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke letting out his wrath because his little sister was being courted. That wouldn’t be the first time, Gin was rather popular these days.

Chuuya snatched a piece of innocently looking chocolate which he held out for the other redhead. “Then you should give her this. Dark chocolate is her favorite.” She’d kill him for the fancy colorful one. “Although. isn’t it pretty impudent giving her chocolate that isn’t even self-made?”

“We don’t want to let it get to waste, huh?” Tachihara winked. He wanted to say something else but the professor used this exact moment to make his entrance. Chuuya knew that he was in for an interrogation later. He slumped on his desk once more and let out a deep huff, this was going to be a long day.

*

“Sooo,” Tachihara began after the two left the room to get to their next class. “Mister popular.”

“Stop calling me that,” Chuuya groaned. He hated that nickname. It wasn’t his fault that the female student body was way too hormone ridden to just leave him alone and became especially obnoxious during this time of the year. He wasn’t even that good looking! And definitely not nice enough to them to warrant such behavior. Why they were so fixated on him was still beyond him.

At least he was not first place on the popular bachelor scale, and yes such a thing did exist. This arguable honor went to a true idiot who might have sported the good looks and the brain but had a rather rotten character. That guy cut a swath through girls’ hearts and completely acted on their foolishly adoration towards him. Chuuya was always very adamant not to get thrown into one pot with the likes of him. Stupid bastard.

Dodging another incoming underclassman who surely wanted to give him even more chocolate, Chuuya hurried through the corridor. “I still don’t know what they want from me.”

Tachihara was hurrying along next to him. Chuuya noticed the bewildered look with which the other fixated him even without turning towards him. “Um, hello? Maybe because you’re quite hot? Ah, no homo, you know?” Chuuya rolled his eyes at that but snorted regardless. “Seriously, you’re one of the best-looking guys here. And it seems like you’re forever single, so you’re not only available but they also want to be the one person to break your unattainable bad-boy status.”

That statement stopped him. Chuuya would like to defend himself for the last part – while he dressed rather scandalous, leather jackets and chokers were among his favorites, and yes, he liked to smoke – he wasn’t a bad-boy by a long shot. He even helped out at volunteering jobs, thank you very much.

But the first part was much more concerning. They stood in the middle of the hallway in front of the stairs now, effectively blocking the way.

“Tachihara… available? Seriously? You do know I’m gay right?” The redhead was pretty sure that the whole college knew about his sexuality by now. He wasn’t keen on hiding it, what was the point of it anyway? Which made it even more surprising that the girls seemingly tended to flock towards him.

Tachihara next to him laughed awkwardly. “Of course I know! I’m pretty sure they also know about this. It’s just…”

“Just what.” It was a growl now.

“It’s just,” and now the other was definitely looking away on purpose. “Don’t explode, Chuuya, okay? It’s just that they have this weird fantasy about you. You know, making the gay man falling for them, being that special girl and all that shit.” What the fuck?! “And then there are the yaoi fangirls of course, who just have those weird fetishes.”

What. The. Fuck.

If Chuuya’s mood was bad before, now it was below zero degrees. “What the fuck? I’m not some fetish come true? What is this Fifty Shades of Bullshit?”

His friend pointedly looked at the ground now. “It’s just what I heard. Apparently people fall for this kind of set-up. B-but I’m pretty sure that people just love you Chuuya, you are pretty awesome. So, just accept some of those Valentine gifts and give them a chance?”

Fuck this shit. Fuck this entire day. He had enough.

He couldn’t help letting out another growl while twirling towards the stairs. Chuuya had enough.

“Fuck this shit. I’m going home.”

“B-but we still have class?!”

He. Had. Enough.

“I don’t give a damn! I’m going home, avoiding this entire Valentine shit. I’m tired of people proclaiming their baseless love and people ‘falling for me’.” Because he knew this wasn’t true. Chuuya had been unloved for his entire 22 years of living and it wouldn’t change just because he was giving chances. So far nobody had really fallen in love with him anyway.

“And for your information-“

“Watch out!!!”

Chuuya’s tirade was cut short rather abruptly by a loud ruckus and an even louder voice yelling before he was hit with what suspiciously felt like a steamroller and fell to the floor with a crash.

Thanking his quick reflexes that supported himself on his elbows, thus saving him from most injuries, Chuuya still found himself face-front on the cold floor which surely hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long while. Absolutely great.

Even better, the heavy weight on his back indicated that whoever had the genius idea of flinging themselves down the stairs a little too fast and therefore tumbling them down instead of using the proper way had landed much more comfortably than himself.

“Oops,” the person on his back laughed. “That’s not the downfall I was expecting.”

“And what did you expect instead?” Chuuya grumbled, still lying helplessly on the ground. The nerve! Whoever this was, they clearly were in no hurry to get up and moving.

The person – definitely a guy – hummed. “If I had landed only a little bit more face-first I could’ve easily broken my neck; if you wouldn’t have stopped my fall that is.”

“What a wonderful thing that I was in the right place and cushioned your fall, huh? And I still do by the way!” If Chuuya was close to erupting earlier, now was the perfect moment to finally let it out. Which guy would be this obnoxious to-

“Wonderful?? More like tragic! You ruined my opportunity!”

Ah. Dazai Osamu then. Just peachy.

Was it something about today or was it just the universe or whatever karma there was that decided it would be fun to fuck over Chuuya completely on this so called holiday? Who else could have done such a stunt and accidentally fallen down the stairs at the exact same moment Chuuya was passing them but Dazai freaking Osamu, school’s resident genius slash lunatic and to the redhead’s begrudging admittance the real number one heartbreaker of their college.

Accidentally my ass, Chuuya thought, this was definitely another one of Dazai’s famous suicide antics. Could he not have jumped down the building instead? And he surely must have seen Chuuya, right? So why not wait until the smaller male had been out of the way.

Oh yeah, Dazai was an asshole, that’s why.

Said asshole apparently found Chuuya’s still lying form rather comfortable, at least he made no indication to move.

“Ah! Is that you chibi?” Another thing about Dazai: Chuuya couldn’t stand him. School playboy or not, his character was just obnoxious and generally off-putting. “What are you doing down there?”

“Obviously I’m enjoying the view. The ground is rather comfortable, why don’t you join me, bastard?”

That finally got Dazai to move. Even if it meant that the brunet was suddenly appearing up close in his point of vision.

Dazai cocked his head to the side, studying Chuuya with a one eyed glance. It seemed like the idiot had hurt himself again, half his face was hidden under bandages and a big plaster. It matched his appearance wonderfully, with all the other bandages around his arms and neck and god knows where else. Either Dazai was the unluckiest person on earth (and that was rather impossible, since Chuuya was positive that he currently took that spot) or he was even more freakish than everybody thought.

The girls seemed to like it at least.

The redhead couldn’t figure out if the other found what he was looking for, but Dazai suddenly shook his head while his gaze finally left Chuuya. “I think the floor is nothing for me, chibikko, but whatever floats your boat.” Still he made no attempt to stand up.

Hushed whispers harshly broke Chuuya’s own stare and brought his attention back to his surroundings. While definitely not a shy person and generally immune and uncaring towards any kind of gossip, it was hard to ignore the whispers about how two of the most eligible bachelors – who couldn’t even stand each other all that much! – of their entire college were randomly lying in the middle of the corridor together.

Shoving Dazai away from him for good, Chuuya hastily rushed back to his feet, brushing off imaginary (or not so imaginary, the grime on the ground was very real after all) dust. Tachihara next to him chuckled. “So now it’s not only the girls falling for you, huh?”

“Oh shut up, you asshole.” It was in good nature though. Tachihara wouldn’t make fun of him in earnest. Hopefully nobody else in the perimeter would. They wouldn’t dare.

All except one.

“Which girl would ever fall for someone that small? They’d have to bend down all the time like they’re talking to a child!” Thankfully Dazai was still in a wonderful position seated on the floor, perfect for Chuuya to kick him in the hip.

“You shut up as well, bastard. What are you still doing there on the floor?”

The other made no motion to move at all. Instead he only raised his arms at Chuuya expectantly, depicting a strange picture of a one-sided hug.

“Waiting for you to pick me up, obviously. I might have twisted my ankle during the fall and can’t walk, silly.”

Chuuya’s ears were growing hot, a clear sign for the upcoming blush that threatened to erupt on his face and that would clash horribly with his hair. He was overly aware of the student body that still watched the scene playing out attentively. The gossip would only grow worse and worse now.

After still not being picked up, Dazai started sporting a very obvious pout. “Since it’s your fault, chibi, you should at least help me up.”

His fault?! What the hell? That idiot had fallen on him!

“You fell on me!”

Tachihara next to him mumbled “Don’t you mean for?” Chuuya gave him a nasty look.

“But Chuu-yaaa!”

“Don’t Chuuya me!” Embarrassment now fully visible on his face, Chuuya hastily dragged Dazai up towards him, ignoring how the other rather tried to hug him. “I’m going to drop ya!”

Apparently the other male had really hurt his ankle in some way, – or he was acting fantastically, this was still Dazai they were speaking of – he heavily winced once Chuuya tried to let go and his right foot gave out under him. “Ouch ouch ouch!”

With a heavy sigh Chuuya moved one of the taller one’s arms around his shoulder. Fucking lanky people. “Stop acting like a baby, it’s your own fault.”

Dazai hobbled rather unsuccessfully on one foot. “I already said that it’s your fault! If it hadn’t been for you I would have fallen on my neck, hopefully breaking it, and I would not have a broken ankle now!”

“Hell, it’s not broken! But I’m still letting a doctor check you up.”

By now there was at least some movement regarding them. Dazai was even more useless than before but Chuuya slowly got them moving, albeit slowly. Not quick enough to escape the ever growing crowd around them. At least nobody would try to give him chocolate now…

He waved Tachihara goodbye, promising his friend to catch up with him once he delivered the annoyance on his shoulders to the doctor’s office.

Except, they did not go there.

Oh no, after half the way freaking Dazai suddenly decided that he would rather not see a doctor at all. Possibly broken ankle or not.

“You even get another stupid bandage for your growing collection!” Chuuya was exasperated. But Dazai wouldn’t budge, weight suddenly slumping around his shoulder, threatening to drag him down like a sack of potatoes.

“Nah. Don’t wanna.” Stupid pouting child! Chuuya should just drop him-

“I know!” Dazai suddenly beamed, picking up his weight again. “Since you hurt me, chibbiko, you should make up for it. You can take me out for a consolation date!”

What the-

*

And that was the story of how one Nakahara Chuuya suddenly found himself roped into a Valentine’s Day date with his worst enemy after falling flat on his face.

He wasn’t sure how Dazai had gotten Chuuya to agree at all. Maybe it was the puppy eyes… maybe it was Dazai acting like a sack of potatoes again. Anyway, he ended up seated opposite of one Dazai Osamu, hesitantly sipping on his coffee while the other happily slurped on an overpriced latte abomination.

Dazai suspiciously didn’t mention his hurt ankle anymore.

Instead, he talked about everything and nothing. After an hour, Chuuya already knew everything about Dazai’s latest obsession with Instagram food blogs (yes, of course the brunet took a picture of their drinks), how boring his latest literature classes were ever since Oda-sensei left to teach grade schoolers instead (Chuuya found their current literature topic, European poets, rather fascinating) and how drowning was apparently a less painful suicide method than asphyxiation via plastic bag (Chuuya had NO opinion on that one).

It was rather fascinating.

At first, Chuuya had felt utterly uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than leave. What was he supposed to talk about with a person who shared none of his interests, moved in entirely different social groups and with whom most if not all his conversations so far consisted only of jarring insults and merciless teasing?

It turned out that there was no need to think up topics to talk about at all. Dazai kept up a pleasant flow of talking, even asking Chuuya questions and for his opinions rather often, initiating a real conversation after a while.

Dazai himself suddenly seemed to bloom, his entire posture was more relaxed than Chuuya had ever seen and the disinterested and cold look in his one visible eye slowly grew more and more warm and cheerful. Chuuya on the other side felt more and more comfortable and dare he say intrigued by the enigma sitting in front of him.

All in all it was… nice.

At least until the implications of the calendar date changed their dynamics in the form of a cheerful server in a dreadfully pink apron.

“Hello you two!” The light-haired server beamed, holding a plate in one hand. “And a happy Valentine! You two make a wonderful couple! Treat’s on the house!” With a beaming smile he placed the plate onto their table, winked and skipped back to the counter towards a disgruntled dark haired male who sported an equally awful pink apron and who hit him on the head after the waiter tried to jump him.

Dazai’s eye became impossibly big as he studied the chocolate mousse in front of them. Chocolate mousse that was shaped like a heart… Chuuya’s stomach suddenly jumped.

Ah yes. He totally forgot about Valentine’s Day. It was rather nice not being flogged by pushy girls for once. But this…

“Say Dazai…” Said brunet raised his head in question after taking more pictures of their dessert. “Did we just go here because you wanted free food?”

Dazai laughed – Chuuya couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. Dazai wasn’t easy to figure out.

“Of course!”

Ah, so that’s how it was. It was too suspicious after all that Dazai would suddenly go on a date with Chuuya and have fun with him without any ulterior motives. Even if those ulterior motives were just free food, the smaller male couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappoint and… hurt?

Pff, as if, Dazai and he weren’t even friends. They were more like enemies, not being able to stand the other for longer than a few minutes. Of course the other was only playing around. And if he got a kick out of playing stupid gullible Chuuya, all the better for him. Consolation date, my ass.

Deeming the pictures he took good enough, Dazai decided to dig into the chocolate mousse, very visibly enjoying its flavor. He even moaned a little in satisfaction.

“Aren’t you eating?” Chuuya didn’t even touch his own spoon. He was not hungry any more.

“No you can have it.” Well, he had taken the other out and even paid for their drinks, that was good enough right? Then he could leave now and let the other be, his ankle seemed good enough to get going.

Standing up, Chuuya reached for his jacket when a hand suddenly gripped his wrist tightly.

“Don’t go,” Dazai murmured, spoon and dessert abandoned.

“Didn’t you get what you wanted?” Chuuya mumbled, trying to drag his wrist back towards him. “You don’t need me anymore, I already paid-“

“I said what I meant.” Dazai’s grip tightened, the look in his eye now determined. Chuuya noticed how its warm chocolate brown color turned dark. “I wanted to go on a date with you. I want to be here with you.”

“Yeah right, you just wanted me to pay for you.” He knew that he sounded bitter but Chuuya had his fair share of disappointing dates so far, guys and girls alike who were either in for his looks or just to use him to pay for all their commodities. “It’s fine, I had fun and this was probably the best Valentine’s Day I had so far. To think that a commercial fake holiday and your company could be fun! Thanks for that I guess. No need to play nice anymore.”

The hand on his wrist finally loosened its tight grip, instead Dazai used it to shield his mouth and chuckled.

“Oh my god, Chuuya’s cute.” It took said person a moment to realize that he had not misheard and he seriously got called cute by Dazai Osamu. And judging by his earnest laughter and again warm eye, he was serious about this. That was quite the step up from being called short or a slug. Cute, huh?

Sensing Chuuya’s surprise, Dazai elaborated.

“I literally fell for you, doesn’t that account for nothing?”

Fell… for him?

Wait a second.

“You didn’t fall down the stairs by accident?” Could Dazai really be such an idiot?

“Of course not! I already told you I did it on purpose.” He was really such an idiot. “I just didn’t do it to try to kill myself for once though, it’s rather that I saw you standing there and was like ‘why not?’”

Why not? What. An. Idiot!

“You flung yourself down a staircase just to get a date with me?”

Dazai even had the nerve to look proud. “I sure did!”

“And you couldn’t just have asked me out like a normal person?”

The proud smile faltered. “… I could have?”

With a deep sigh, Chuuya slumped back down onto his seat, finally taking his spoon in his hand. Deliberately ignoring his opposite’s gaping stare, Chuuya dug into the rest of the previously abandoned chocolate mousse, letting out a small moan himself when the sweet taste exploded in his mouth. This was heavenly! He decided to let Dazai hanging until he finished off the rest of the dessert on his own, not even throwing as much as a glance at the more and more restless brunet.

Only after he dropped his spoon and licked off the leftover chocolate on his lips (Dazai’s eye followed his tongue; Chuuya did do it deliberately of course) he turned towards the hopeful male.

“Maybe. I probably would have said no, who knows. But your plan was not really nice.” Chuuya raised an eyebrow, Dazai’s hopeful look did not falter though, he knew the smaller one well enough to know that he wasn’t serious.

“I’m sorry!” Dazai whined, playing along.

Hook, line and sinker.

With a big grin on his face, Chuuya stated. “If you’re really sorry, you should prove it.” His confidence was finally back and it felt good.

Dazai was sporting an equally wide grin now. “How?”

“Take me out on a real date. No stupid Valentine’s Day, no scheming and lying.” Chuuya motioned towards Dazai’s now clearly fake ankle injury.

“And you’re paying. I have expensive tastes.”

Everything today had tried to piss him off as much as possible. Chuuya deserved some piece after such a day – who knew that Valentine’s Day might turn out to be more than a fake commercial holiday?

“Who would’ve thought…” Dazai mumbled under his breath, still not low enough not to be picked up by Chuuya.

“Last chance,” Chuuya shook his head. “How about Friday?”

Dazai slowly held out his hand, with that warm smile on his face again that made Chuuya’s stomach flutter.

“It’s a date.”

#bungou stray dogs #soukoku #nakahara chuuya #dazai osamu #skk #bsd #secret valentine #writing #fanfiction

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Carnage Moon

Warnings: graphic, blood

At that hour, with the promise of a thunderstorm in the air, all that was heard in the house was the clink of the little music box, resting in its accustomed place, next to a large jar of honey with scribbles on the back and a gauze handkerchief. The box had no more ornament than delicate lines of flourishing along its sides, and on the box, carved much more carefully, a name: Edith; inside, the mechanism seemed to be bathed in silver, how neat it was, and it moved without any difficulty against the pink satin lining. It was a very economical music box, without the beautiful velvet covers or the colors in the designs that were so fashionable in the wealthiest cities; there in Little Derry, that was what most wanted the five or six families who really had money.

The room was very narrow, bathed in the timid orange light of the candles; was almost a gut, rectangular in shape and the walls that had been dingy until the nanny drew on them, who knows how, almost divine countryside landscapes, claiming that it was necessary to brighten even the baby's room a little. Thus, along the two largest walls, there were trees, flower beds, a cottage in the background with its corral and well, and beyond, the sky that was growing dark, to the ceiling where he had painted, also, a endless stars and a shamelessly huge white moon, just above the cradle.

The walls were not the only thing that was arranged at the request of the babysitter; without apparent logical reason, asked the gentlemen to place, just inside the window, a string of pastel flowers, which she herself changed more or less twice a week. The riste consisted of lavenders, baby’s breath, baby roses ... anyway, all in a style so childish and at the same time feminine that the parents accepted, just to see how the desolate room turned into a place of fantasy.

The nanny had warned them shortly after placing the string, above the tarnished curtains: “The only thing I can not decorate, Mr. Landon, is Edith's cradle. That will be up to you.”

Abigail and Elderich Landon nodded, bewildered; Evangeline, as her nana was called, cradled Little Edith with a fervent, almost obsessive love, and rarely separated from the child while she was awake. They supposed it was because, as Edith had been born so weak, Evangeline, the daughter of the deceased former cook had managed to skip the doctor's and midwife's orders and fought to preserve the creature; no less, at the beginning of the autumn, so many children, aged zero to three years, had succumbed under mysterious circumstances to the length and breadth of Derry. It was said that the children appeared cold in their beds, and with the appearance of one who has been attacked by a vampire ... but who believes in vampires? And to all this, where were the bite marks, where the signs of venomous and cruel fangs sucking the life of innocence?

That time Evangeline, who had lost a nephew in early September in the same strange circumstances, whispered, “It does not suck their blood. It sucks the desire to live.” On that occasion Mr. Landon turned to her and asked, half-frightened, half curious: “Do you believe in those things, silly girl?” Evangeline, with her large dark eyes and permanently haggard, turned and said: “I believe in ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of jungle creatures and cemeteries like you believe in the Sun and the Moon.” “What nonsense ... we can see the sun and the moon, do you want to tell me that you ...?” There was no need for words, that heavy look confirmed it, and Mrs. Landon had crossed herself, nervous; she was to give birth at that time.

Whatever it was, Edith survived, the care of the young servant was so effective that she ended up naming her her nanny, and more than a month ago; the people in the village, seeing her leave with the little girl in a stroller (well covered with a bridal gauze that served as the screen so that the sun did not burn and the wind did not cool), used to comment that it seemed that Edith was more of her daughter than of Abigail, the real mother, who since her sixth birth was more taciturn and nervous than normal. Actually, Edith was more of Evangeline than anyone would have ever suspected. It was not her daughter, of course, Evangeline was barely 16 years old, and far from what any black talk might say, the reason for her stay in the house at the death of her mother was for real kindness. Edith was hers because, although no one knew, she was feeding her. Not with goat's milk as everyone thought when she came up with the bottle still warm to the bedroom. It was with her own milk.

To the rhythm of the clink of the music box, Edith sucked quietly from Evangeline's virgin breast; the girl covered her body with a blanket, not out of modesty but out of fear, and every night she drank goat's milk so that no one suspected anything, because a legend fell upon her that was dangerous to confirm. Because both she and her mother were witches, witches, who did not like to hide in the woods and kill biting ravens like so many others throughout this dreadful country; they believed and called the benign spirits of trees, mushrooms, streams, and practiced more the art of healing than fortuitous divination. The only feature "witchcraft" they both had was to go out from time to time, especially on the equinox, to bathe in the light of the first moon of autumn, and thus renew their promise to the world.

That night in November 1769, Evangeline gently pushed away a long-slept Edith and placed her in a cradle of simple carving and white cotton everywhere, and seeing the baby dressed in the same color with her hair blond and curly, finally sprouting from the egg-head she had from birth, she felt a shiver in his heart. She reached out and barely brushed her blushing cheeks, biting her lip.

“I do not want to leave you.” She muttered, caught in sudden anguish. Maybe it was the storm that started, maybe it was that the day before the rumor was heard that everything that was killing the little ones was the plague, arrived at the town by a Jewish immigrant that now was entrenched under his house, or perhaps it was that a week ago he discovered that the well, the only well on the outskirts of the town, was exuding a foul liquid, which could not make out whether it was pink or yellowish, and smelled of corpse, abandonment ... fear ... Maybe it was all at once, but before she left, Evangeline did what she promised herself not to do since she came in contact with the little girl: spell the cradle.

The goat's milk that was left in the bowl mixed with her hair, as black as the storm night that roared outside the window, and also with Edith's nail (that morning she had cut them), and also with the dry petal of the window-string, and silently scattered that makeshift potion at the feet and head of the cradle, wishing it were enough.

When she finished, she retired to sleep, putting out all but one of the candles, which she enclosed in a rudimentary glass globe with a simulated lamp. Closed the music box, gave Edith one last look, and closed the door.

The storm grew to such a degree that the doors and windows of the house creaked with fury. In the service room another one of the girls commented that it seemed the wind was trying to break in by force, and only received nervous snarls from the rest of her companions, three in all counting Evangeline, who had an open eye hanging from the window; no, she thought after a while, at least the wind did not try to get in there with them. In another side…

The creak increased, and this time they all sat up staring at the ceiling; they seemed to hear a strange noise, one deaf but so sudden and so strong that it made them all alert. "Will the lords have risen already?" Asked Charlotte, whose main job was to cook and order Bessie, the fattest goat in the house. "And why should they?" Asked Marion, who had said that comment about the wind. "No, no ... sounds like something different, as if something had fallen. "Maybe a piece of furniture."

"I hope no one is hurt!" Said Angelique, who was crouching on her side of the bed like an anxious cat. They all knew that he hated the storms because years ago, in one of them a tree fell on his house and broke the roof in half. "I do not think it was a piece of furniture." Marion continued. "Have not you noticed?" It was a dry blow, I did not hear anything fall. If it was a safe piece of furniture we would have heard it fall ... I do not know, the clothes, the little lady's boxes ... something.”

"Shut up, Marion, you're making Angie nervous.” Charlotte grumbled. She said it like that but she was the one who was the most scared. "Yes, well ... I only say what I think.” She shrugged and looked suspiciously at Charlotte. "It's not my fault that in this house the ni ...” “Watch out!” "Pardon ... that in this house certain girls have so much smoke in the head.” There was a snort. Angelique, who was the daughter of blacks, understood the reference, and nervously brushed a hand through her hair. "Listen ..." Evangeline, who had been silent all the discussion, reached a hand to the ceiling, pointing. “What is that thing?”

They all knew that Evangeline was looking better than anyone in the dark, so they hurried to light a candle and directed it as best they could to the place she pointed. On the ceiling, made of wood and bare of any coating or paint, a dark stain of considerable size had appeared, so irregular, and its edges so fuzzy that they could not measure its exact length. "Oh, for heaven's sake, I told you that something had fallen.” Growled Marion. “Can you see? It must have been the lord's dig.” -Why do you say that?” Angelique asked.

"Does not it show?That's a damp spot. Oh, when they see tomorrow ...!” Evangeline shook her head; indeed, a trinchador of the upper part of the house kept a few bottles of liquor, but where had the natural rumble of the glass been broken? And why did not that scandal seem to have awakened Landon, who happened to sleep next to that piece of furniture? "Hey, what's this?" Charlotte, who was holding the candle, stood on the bed and drew the wick so close together that they feared to burn the ceiling; the gigantic stain was not the only one now, another one appeared, much smaller, narrow and elongated, and which accompanied its appearance with a timid creak. "Another stain? Will a bottle have been rolled?” "And look!" Angelique pointed a little further to the left of the second spot. Another had just emerged, like that, out of nowhere, and once more they heard the creak.

The terror gripped them and they continued to murmur incoherently about floating bottles of liquor, unconnected prayers they had half learned in the church, and even the possibility that the wind might have broken a window and those were birds, strange birds that parted by the storm and fell there, to die in a zigzag line along the top floor. Evangeline tried to remain calm, and tired of glimpsing the way the stains went their way ("way," she thought, "as if they were moving somewhere"), took the candle to Charlotte and got out of bed. The stains were lost little by little to a corner of the ceiling, and the last one of these, bigger and clear than the previous ones, awoke their attention.

"They've stopped." Charlotte whispered a moment later. "No, they've just gone somewhere else.” Evangeline explained. Her chest hurt so much it seemed like it was going to explode, where did those spots come from and where were they going? "Oh-hey-" Angelique, with great difficulty, had gathered the courage to rise, and pointed the trail with obvious nervousness. "Do not they look the same to ...?"

Footprints. They were footprints! They all thought it, but nobody wanted to say it out loud. “What do we do?” "There’s a thief in the house." "The sirs are upstairs!" The sirs were upstairs ... their room was on the opposite side of the footprints, next to the furniture and opposite ...

Quick as ever, Evangeline dropped the candle and ran. She heard the confused cries of her companions behind her, but she did not have time to attend to their silly thoughts; the footprints went to the left side, where the wall was bounded by the Derry field, the only chamber from which the well was pouring muddy water. She staggered up the stairs, on all fours like a guard dog excited by the presence of an enemy, and did not stop to look at the damp, filthy tracks. She rushed to Edith's room, which was still closed; opened the door and entered like an exhalation.

"Edith!" Nothing was out of place. The deaf lamp was still there, illuminating the cradle, the music box was in its usual place, tightly closed, and Edith ... She went to the bed and saw the spongy jumble of blankets and reached out a hand, breathing relieved, looking for the little baby's head to caress her and swear she was safe because she was there ... But her hand closed around the sheet, and discovered that it was empty. There was no sign of the creature. “Edith ... Edith!”

Evangeline lifted the sheets, careful not to do it too abruptly because the little girl might be there and hurt her unintentionally, but nothing. Horrified and fearing the worst, she looked down the edges of the cradle, wondering how she could spend so much time with Edith lying on the floor, surely hurt and crying ... "But you did not hear any tears, all you heard were those ... footsteps." She sat up, rubbing her hands nervously; Where was Edith, what the hell was he going to do? That ... thing ... she saw walking from below, could it be responsible?

"The sirs ..." she muttered, and turned away. She was going to wake up Mr. Landon and immediately make a departure to look for Edith. Mr. Landon was a great lover of the hunt, and the coachman who slept outside could also help. Who knows why, as she turned her body, her eyes locked on a corner of the room, the corner that always darkened as she opened the door. There, an irregular figure stood out on the floor, and when it noticed the look of Evangeline stretched a foot and closed the door, so quietly that the young woman heard a dry paf! So it was "that". She looked at him like the boy who sees the door of his closet imagining a nightmare monster sliding out of it; The bad thing is that Evangeline did not imagine it. It was real, horribly real.

It was a man, or so it seemed, dressed in a dirty clown suit Evangeline could not decide whether it was white or silver; from his head came out a messy hair and even dirtier if it was possible that the clothes, the color of the fire, and the face ... that face had nothing human, however much it resembled. It was all white and the only thing visible besides the nose and mouth painted in bright red tones were the shadowed eyes that flashed a yellow light.

"Demon". Evangeline thought. Her mother had told her that demons take very unnatural ways to intimidate lonely travelers or anyone who is unlucky enough to stumble over them. Then the creature (Evangeline had decided that "that" was not human, she knew with just that glance) opened its mouth and said cheerfully: "Hello, young lady! What a beautiful girl you are ... would you like to help me?”

Nothing he said sounded coherent, but she needed time. Time ... and a weapon. Silver knives were good for hurting nocturnal enemies, her mother told her, and she had hidden one under the table where the honey and the music box were, so she replied: “Help? Who?” "To me, of course, if it's not too much trouble ... Evangeline Harker." “How do you know…? Who are you?” She restrained herself from asking the real question, "What are you?" The creature shook its head frantically, still smiling, and Evangeline felt a faint tinkle coming from it.

"Let's not go into details now, my child. Just tell me ... will you help me out? I think ... yes, I'm afraid I've made more noise than necessary to come here ... I do not want anyone else to see me, it would be ... hehehe ... awkward.” The creature stared at Evangeline's. Its eyes were big and yellow, like two October moons, but much more hollow and horrendous; slowly, she had reached the table and rested her hand on it, feigning great embarrassment (or even so feigned). "Can you not ... go where you came in?" "I can not if I'm carrying this."

It raised its arms and showed her something that made her heart squeeze in her chest. Edith was there, still asleep, with the pretty blanket and the nice nightgown dirty in its hands (were they hands? Evangeline felt like big claws). "My God ... Edith!" "A beautiful little girl, I believe." it whispered, rocking the baby almost tenderly. Evangeline took advantage of that oversight to fumble under the table, but almost immediately stopped when she saw that the eyes of the supposed clown turned to her. "Well, Evangeline?" "No ... do not take her, p-please ..." she whispered. "... Do not take Edith, s-she's just a baby ..." "Do not take her, you say?" The creature gave a horrible laugh. "But we're not trading anything!" I said I'll take it, and I told you that you will help me out, or else...

It tightened Edith against its chest and  stretched its neck. Evangeline could see from its lips that what looked like fangs appeared, all in a disorderly line and looking more than ready to bite. "Why does not anyone come? I can not do this alone, not now ... "she thought, anguished. No one else had heard the din except her and the other three servants, and now she seemed to be all alone. She dropped to his knees, feigning an almost uncontrollable cry. “Do not! P ... please ... leave Edith, I ... I'll do anything ...!”

She covered her face with both hands, so that she could look sideways beneath the table; she saw the silver glow of the knife not far from her reach, and tried to make a few false spasms to get closer. Then, as fast as she had reached the top floor, she reached for the knife and faced the creature, who was still comfortably lounging on the floor. "Leave Edith." She said, pointing at the blade and pointing it between its eyes. "You have no idea who you're getting into ..." To her dismay, it smiled with some irony.

"I do not know, you say, Evangeline? Oh, I know as well as I know your name, and the name of every soul in this town. I know as well as you what you really are ... I know that you prepare whiskey secrets to take them to Mrs. Chill to the source, to recover her sanity, I know you brush the goats with a silver comb and velvet so they do not be stolen ... I know that ...” and when it said this it ran through Evangeline from head to toe “I know you feed this precious little girl with your own breast ... I know because I've seen it, you witch!” And at that word it laughed again and kicked, as if it were an excellent joke.

“Witch!” It repeated. "Yours are a very interesting breed! But ... do you think that you would win me with those enchanted contraptions? No, Evangeline, I've been sleeping here for centuries ... hunting here for centuries and no human weapon has been able to with me ... no man's hand could have hurt me!” "How about the hand of a woman?" As she said this, Evangeline charged the clown, raising the knife and dropping it with all her might on the creature's face. She felt the warmth of blood and heard a groan, and then ... The door opened. Landon came in a rush, and Abigail uttered a cry of horror. Evangeline turned to ask for help, she was not entirely sure she'd hurt it.

But she found herself holding the knife in one hand and Edith in another, and she had her nightgown splattered with blood, blood pouring from her mouth as well. And Edith was crying, and she had blood staining her sweet face too. With a nudge, Mr. Landon pushed her to the ground and yanked Edith out of her arms, discovering the girl and looking for any sign of injury. Abigail was still crying, but now she sobbed as best she could, her voice choked with panic: "You ... crazy ... witch! We entrust you to our Edith, our little Edith!”

At the end of the corridor were other things, the cries of the children and the murmurs of the maids. Evangeline dropped her knife, bewildered by the clatter of noises and lights. "No ... no ... I do not ..." she pointed out as if she was crazy behind her back. It had been there ... that thing had been there! “Has been…” "I refused to accept the gossip of the town, but everyone knew, you know?” Continued Mrs. Landon. “You and your mother, a couple of witches ... Surely it was you who killed the other children too!”

These accusations were completely new, and Evangeline felt a shadow, a hideous shadow, fall upon the eyes of the sirs. That's why they said so many atrocities? Abigail Landon came out sobbing still. Mr. Landon only paused a little longer to look at Evangeline and sentence her: "Do not you dare move from here. Tomorrow I will accuse you to the people's court. "

He slammed the door and Evangeline heard them dragging something; she approached and trying to open it she ran into the fucking carving that had so excited the imagination of the other servants blocking the exit. She looked out, where the storm was abating, and it occurred to her that she could walk out the window and escape ... into the woods. But if she did she would be accusing more, and if they found ... "They'll throw me into the water in a chair ..." she whispered. "They'll stab me in the chest ... They'll hang me or worse, they'll throw me to the stake ... God, no, God, no!" She covered her head with her arms and lay down on the floor, in a fetal position, moaning in terror.

"Evangeline Harker, stand up." She heard a strange voice, one she had never heard, claiming it from afar. But she did not move. "Evangeline Harker, I repeat, stand up!" Missing, the young woman discovered her head. She was no longer in Edith's room, she was somewhere else, a place high and narrow, almost without light, and around her she could feel the cold and the murmur of hundreds of voices.

"Evangeline Harker, this Derry Court has been able to prove with many great proof that you are a devil-worshiper, a witch who has dedicated herself to poisoning our children.” “No, that's not true!” she exclaimed, terrified in the sweltering darkness. More murmurs rose. "And how do you explain that your breast fed Edith Landon? Has the devil given you that power? Where is your relative?” "Here's the witch's knife." Someone dropped at her feet with a tremendous roar   the silver knife. "She used it to make her potions and tear our little ones apart." "I tell you it was not me!" I swear, I would never ...!”

But a same echo began to rise, more and more thunderous, more horrible. "Kill the witch, kill the witch, kill the witch ..." "Evangeline Harker, this Derry Court has ruled that, as a practitioner of sorcery, you must be executed today.”

“No! No! NO!” Evangeline, on her knees, could not help but hear that cry in which the echo had become; tried to cover her ears but that did not help. "Kill the witch! Kill the witch! Kill the witch!”

Evangeline stood up, staring into the rolling darkness, her eyes filled with tears, her fear creeping up her belly, burning her breast like a bonfire, clutching her throat like a rope. She had to flee, flee far, would not let her get caught, she would not die like that. She ran into nothing, desperate steps. “KILL THE WITCH! KILL THE WITCH!”

And then she hit something rough, cold and undulating. She raised her face and ran into it ... It was who was to blame for everything! She tried to look at the court behind her and shout, "This is the one who wanted to kill Edith Landon! This is the one who has killed the other children!” But she discovered that there was nothing, only Edith's poorly lit room, and the murmur that sentenced her. Her arms clung to her body and the floor disappeared from her feet. The creature had lifted her without any difficulty, bringing her face close to its, smiling with satisfaction.

"Kill the witch," it whispered mockingly. Evangeline felt as if hundreds of knives were stuck in her throat, and the hot liquid of her blood running through the wounds. She gasped, unable to make a sound, her cheeks covered with tears, her body shaking uncontrollably; her pupils dimmed after a few seconds, and it was all just shade, and rain, and a gurgling monster satisfied with the taste of blood in its mouth. Her eyes twitched inside her head. And then her body fell to the ground, her head almost detached from it, soaking in blood the beautiful white cradle of Edith Landon and the rain, now kind, as the only sound in the village.

#it #pennywise #fanfic #pennywise fanfiction #gore

[titheguerrero]

Dander Still Up. Drowning in Great Dismal Swamp. Film at Eleven.

Maybe this is the last in my series of dander-raising essays, as recent national and world events have most definitely left so many of us with a raging case of TDS. (Trump Derangement Syndrome, look it up it's a thing). So many damned browser tabs open. So little time. Or maybe not. Who knows. Where are all these suicides coming from? My editor keeps telling me, "don't let it make you paralytic." Hey, I'm trying. Just sensing a kind of coalescence in all the corruption our bloggers keep writing about. How do we even differentiate these activities across so many sectors of society. We were going to see our swamp drained. He promised. But instead there's just this big brand new bodacious cesspool. There it is in all the revolving-door sectors. Federal government. Private sector. Health care non-profits and even academia. Just read back over recent weeks and months of this, your favorite blog. The coalescence of corruption is certainly made easier by our enjoyment of a remarkable and possibly quite barmy Confabulator-in-Chief. He's just sort of paved the way for what one pundit recently characterized as a sort of race-to-the-bottom. No corruption (cone of silence? nifty office furniture? wipe our environmental health? Big Pharma gets another bye?) is too small. Or, of course, too large. None of this is terribly new, just the way it's all melded into what the cancer biologists call a syncytium. There are no winners and losers in all this. Just a lot of organelles swimming around and causing havoc at our expense. Just a bunch of top-level narcissists and then, under them, a phalanx of careerist stronzi streaming out of academic backwaters and think tanks to grab their fifteen minutes of ... what? Surely not fame, unless you're looking for a spot on an SNL cold open. Microphone time maybe? Let's call out a few of them. Fifteen minutes, max, by the way. The turn-over in government, especially, in the federal executive, is many times that of any previous administration. Everybody seems to be trying to find their own inner Scaramucci. For now, it seems, it's just all one great big scandal. Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: "there is only one scandal." While the Chest Thumper-in-Chief runs around doing what he does best--sullying the western world and laying down cover for his army of swampy miscreants--the careerists continue to run up a debt whose bill will surely come true. Of course by then, so many of them will have cashed out. Guess who'll be left to pay the tab. You, me, our sickest, our poorest, and Mother Earth. In the private sector it may take years for the ins and the outs to get in and then back out. But of late in both Big Pharma and in Health IT, both the revolving door and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (aka baleful effect of activist investors and hedge funds) have taken their toll and we pick up the pace. Most recent casualty: Bush family scion and alleged wife-beater Jonathan B, thrown out of possibly the most innovative, but not quite profitable enough, athenahealth EHR company he once founded. Offed just now by the Elliott organization, which is headed up in turn by ultra-right political donor Peter Singer. (Here and here and pretty much everywhere--don't get stuck in his cross-hairs.) Ah, yes, these are the glory days for the Big Families. Donorship gets you a whole party of your own. The Prince-DeVos family, the Koch family, the Uihlein family, the Mercer family. And Las Vegas Gambling Tycoon Sheldon Adelson, who almost single-handedly handed Binyamin Netanyahu an unearned win in Jerusalem. Their common goal: effacement of government, Ron Reagan's great "problem child," in favor of its replacement the Great Dismal Swamp.  (In fact much of the real GDS, out of North Carolina, was actually bought up by Betsy DeVos's brother Erik to train Blackwater mercenaries.)  So now, on to the Great Dismal Swamp of outsourced everything. Outsourcing, along with the revolving door and the Anechoic Effect, these form the inner dynamic, the secret history of what's happening now. Outsource security. Outsource VA health care. (See my earlier blog on a secretary's attempt to resist that.) Outsource public education. Outsource, or at least deregulate, clinical trials of unproven drugs. Privatize, don't shade your eyes (apologies to Tom Lehrer). (Note that in the course of all this privatizing the common weal, these Big Dogs not infrequently can turn on each other. Singer turns on Bush. Koch the Elder turns on Koch the Younger. The dollar is king and the beat goes on and Throw Momma From the Train.) Other major features of this secret history:

The Scorching of the Earth. Both literally (health consequences of climate change), and figuratively: the flaming rhetoric of the careerists. The most glaring recent example, albeit outside of our health purview, White House National Trade Council Director and temporary-in-from-the-cold academic Peter Navarro, awarding "a special place in hell" to Canada.  (Canada?!?) Why? Because it dared to cross his new boss. Cross the boss, thump the chest. Ten points for the thumper, zero points for the country. We'll learn later this year, and again in 2020, whether there's enough of the vaunted "base" left to be snookered by all this guff. The chest-thumpers may discover a special place in hell meted out to folks closer to home.

The Swamp-Ooze of the Careerists. Navarro's one high placed example. Another newly high-placed with a more direct impact on health care, and also flaming the air waves, is National Economic Council Director and former CNBC correspondent Larry Kudlow. In the recent presidential travels Kudlow did not speak cosmologically of heaven and hell, but only politically. He called Canada's measured response "betrayal." On health insurance, he's agin it. It kills jobs, per Mr. Kudlow. And he ought to know how things really work, right? In 2007 he famously predicted the continued success of an earlier deregulatory GOP economic policy suite in that once-great organ National Review. William Buckley turned over in his grave. The headline read: "Bush Boom Continues." The following tag line: "you can't call it a recession." (Emphasis his.) The date: December 10, 2007. (Despite which, get well quick Larry. Maybe find a less stressful job would help.)

Health and the Environment. Ah, yes, and in environmental health we have Scott Pruitt heeding HMV while lining his own pockets and lobbying for his wife's Chick-fil-A franchise (honest I can't make this stuff up), all the while dumbing down any expertise on health. This dumbing down and anti-science motif pervades the Great Dismal Swamp. Never before has there been such a dearth of scientific, pedagogical, or health expertise in any of the departments that so direly need those capabilities. Interestingly, the small-bore corruption of these characters seems more prominent in the upper, Pruitt-like, echelons than in the Small Fry. Or are we just not hearing about the little guys?

Lesser Careerists. You can't have a syncytium without both big and little organelles. The little guys are actually among the more damaging, as they tend to be true believers with claimed expertise that goes poof when examined closely. Among the most famously wrong-minded recent ones we have the Press Secretary herself, Ms. Sanders, who from the depths of her health policy experience pronounced last fall that “I can’t think of anything worse than having the government be more involved in your health care instead of less involved.” Oh, Miss Sarah, I can. Even more peculiar is the role of the rather more obscure Ms. Katy Talento, of the White House Domestic Policy Council. She gets to act as conduit and house pundit for the new HHS secretary Alex Azar. It's fascinating. In several easily-reached venues she's described, by self or others, as "an epidemiologist." Harvard's master of science (not MPH) degree in epidemiology and public health can be obtained, as she did, in something between three and twelve months. Not exactly a board certification. Then she went on to build her career in ideological rightist causes and organizations, including anti-abortion campaigns and one notable set of pronouncements on the supposed link of birth control to miscarriage. Came the time for Azar to prep his new boss on last month's Big Speech on reducing drug costs, Talento broadcast the news that "no ox would be gored." Said she, "This is a fearless president and he doesn't know or care why things have always been done. It's not like your typical Republican authorizing committee that protects this model that they helped write for decades...." Wait, one little thing. It didn't happen. The big play available, as I said in a previous post, would've been having Medicare bargain for prices. Instead--and clearly Azar could've tried and failed to get this--the Caregiver-in-Chief declared that drug prices in the US should come down by having other countries pay more. What so strange about this is not merely the absurdity of such a statement, coming from a former Pfizer top exec. It's the fact that here's a lower-level careerist who went straight into RNC speech writing and working for a right wing southern Republican (Tillis, NC), Hold the phone. Among all the young staffers willing to sell their souls to get the Big Show on their CVs--don't they know it's a shabby little show?--what about the wonderful lady who dissed the ailing John McCain as inessential (he's just now incredibly essential), because, after all, he's going to die soon? Out the door she went, but of course her Republican friends got her a soft landing. Her name is Kelly Sadler, a real comer. Or goner.

The Rise of the Druggists. Last but not least, part of the secret history that, now I see it, has really got the dander way up, is how in health care and health policy, Pharma's now fully the tail-that-wagged-the-dog. CVS is moving into health care--see Dr. Poses's recent posting on just how well that organization understands their responsibilities. Actually having pharmaceutical and pharmacy folks elbowing out health care professionals who understand professionalism, it's not a new thing. Philadelphia Big Donor Leonard Abramson founded U.S. Healthcare and made a mint when he discovered how easy it was to make Managed Care actually Denied Care, then, with this proof-of-concept, cashing out and selling to Aetna. That goes way back. More recently, though, the pace of They Come at Night has picked up, viz. the firing of David Shulkin MD at the VA and the hiring of Alex Azar at HHS. These clearly result from both the privatization motive and the Pharma tail wagging the dog. At least two of the three branches of the federal government understand the business model of Pharma. They don't come anywhere near understanding the professional ethics of doctors--even while relying on their personal physicians to exercise such ethics.

Business ethics in medicine, as practiced by Pharma, have been laid out in many, many places in this blog. I and others have laid the blame for a big chunk of the opiate crisis at the door of Purdue pharma and the Sackler family. I regret to remind that the early Sacklers were physicians. But they were first and foremost business folk, possessed of a truly novel business model, which may be called outright dissimulation. (For a fascinating and harrowing description of one high-functioning Ivy-League opiate addict's experiences at Yale, with all its Sackler money and Oxy pills traded on the New Haven Green, see this Guardian piece.) Actually, I've talked to a lot of pharma execs and they're often quite ethical and responsible. They have their hands full fighting off the PBM companies. They get singled out for their K Street spending, but many of them actually have rather low budgets for that, the recent Novartis scandal notwithstanding. Other execs blush at this Novartis nonsense and want nothing to do with it. I say all this mainly to point out some dreadful outliers. It's not just the brand name drug makers, either. Teva, the Israeli generics giant, is allegedly a real problem. As I write this, good old Ron Wilson, the Wisconsin Republican who just keeps on giving his gifts, is blocking his Ranking Member Claire McCaskill from obtaining information Teva's contributions to the opioid crsis. He's saying leave it to the courts.

OK, as I just hinted, I agree with you. None of this recent stuff is really secret. Not even really novel. It's just coalesced like never before into into a dismal swamp. (Orwellian doublespeak: yes, we've seen the swamp drained. Of what? What was he promising to drain? Yes, drained, if that meant getting rid of people ("Deep State"?) who know stuff. So people who don't know stuff can get on with the business of ripping us off.) Hence in my current rant I just wanted to point to those commonalities that are, right about now, more egregious than ever. Honestly, they are. When the history is written, it will prove me right. Oh, wait, Alexander Hamilton wrote it already, hundreds of years ago.

When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Article source:Health Care Renewal