Update ** Posted 10 Sep 2016 -

The possibility of Trump becomes POTUS stands at 70% chance. Trump is likely to win by a small Brexit like margin. Specific reasons for this high chance of success are outlined in new posts below.

Do you still believe Donald Trump can win (August 2016)? Why?

Is Trump going to win because of the Orlando shooting?

The BIG MISTAKE of calling half of Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorables”?

Original Prediction Posted - 04 Feb 2016

**Note - I do not support Donald Trump or his policies. Predicting a win for a candidate is not the same thing as supporting them. I like to maintain intellectual consistency in what I think will happen over what I want to happen. The aim of forecasting is to predict the developing future with sufficient accuracy and to develop a strategy to influence the future. Denying the fact that the future is developing in a particular way is self-defeating at the best and delusional at the worst. Denial is not a strategy.

A German philosopher named Isaiah Berlin wrote in his seminal paper “The Hedgehog and the Fox” that smart people do not forecast future events with high accuracy. Smart people are like hedgehogs who know one thing very well but foxes are scavengers who can aggregate a lot of little data which help them see patterns the hedgehogs cannot see. The researcher, Nate Silver, who piggybacked on the the above research to accurately predict the re-election of Obama in second term, himself missed to predict that Trump could rise and emerge. As of the time of writing this post, many election pundits are not ready for the unexpected snow in their backyard.

In Hyperforecasting ©, we assume that the world is a super complex place, full of millions of alternative realities playing out S-Curves which are the language of nature. The time span available for an event to occur and the complexity of the environment creates a challenge for optimal forecasting. We use probability as a percentage in the forecast over a predictive range and consistently update the probability as events unfold. Prolific entrepreneurs use this process to accurately forecast market disequilibrium using a well developed and trained Intuitive Spectrum. A small percentage of outliers can accurately hyperforecast future events. Hyperforecasting is not divination but a technically repeatable process of combining detailed research with intuitive discernment.

There is a big possibility that Trump will win the 2016 election and he may become the 45th president of United States. If this surprises you, please note that smart people did not think that Ronald Reagan would become the President. Related Post : Stop dismissing President Trump: “Smart people” thought we’d never elect Ronald Reagan, too

Here are the reasons why Trump presidency could become a possibility (70% probability as of 04 Feb 2016).

• Emergence Versus Planning - Donald Trump as well as a Bernie Sanders are candidates who are getting traction with people while emerging naturally (unconsciously). In entrepreneurship and reality, emergent strategy leads to higher success rate than conventionally planned strategy. Chess Players use emergent strategy to win at games. Emergent flexibility provides a significant advantage as nothing is cast in stone, strategies are built overnight and tomorrow is another day. Hence, there is a good chance that Bernie or Donald will likely generate escape velocity and create significant stickiness with the public. Unless of course, either of these candidates unconsciously torpedoes their gains. By the time other candidates realize what has happened, it will be too late. For Trump, who has lost this campaign before, this emergent approach removes the fear of failing significantly increasing his chances of succeeding. It also removes the fear of loss and allows one to reboot, recalculate and cover up for lost distance. As discussed in this article “Karma Demystified - Spirituality, Complex Systems and Precession”, when you watch a person, entity or event emerging, it seems like it is destiny playing out.
• Bandwidth Stealing - Trump is known for making controversial remarks and while Trump may lose due to these remarks, another possibility can occur. When people hate you, they are still connected with you and are sharing a portion of their mental and emotional bandwidth with you. A strategic person may be able to convert the hate to love using a well crafted strategy. "I hate you" is one end of the same spectrum while "I love you to Bits" is another end. When people steal bandwidth, they force other competitors to give up their portion of the bandwidth. The media continues to cover Trump providing more oxygen for this eventual climb. I have used this strategy in dating during college days. I used to project myself initially as an obnoxious slob to to the potential mate, drawing their attention and low level disgust careful not to push it too far and then suddenly transform into this perfect guy. Trump is doing the same, but he could go overboard with it and ruin it.
• Convergence post Divergence - True Convergence occurs only once divergence has run its course. A solution or a direction emerges from the divergence eventually. Trump may be leading people to convergence by stirring up discussions on controversial topics by steering clear of being politically correct. Notice that Trump uses the "hot/cold" approach where he throws a spanner in the works, waits for the stirred up discussion to settle down, goes quiet for few days and then plays the same cycle again. People will soon get addicted to this cycle and start noticing what Trump is saying.

• Tricky Semantics - Politicians say a lot of things, then quickly turn around and reframe their communications. If they do this well, they can convince the populace that they really didn't' really mean what they were saying initially. The populace understands that campaigning politicians non-intelligently use the freedom of speech and is quick to forgive indiscretions.
• Calculated Misogyny - Trump attacked Megyn Kelly and if the perception strengthens that Trump is against women as a segment itself, things may go bad for him in this no-go zone. On the other hand, if people start dissecting Megyn Kelly's triggers which lead Trump to attack her and rationalize those triggers as Megyn's fault, then a collective opinion of Trump as anti-women will collapse. Trump carefully picked Carly Fiona and Megyn who come with some baggage and I believe Trump has already won this battle. If Trump keeps on picking on more women, he would be creating a big crater for his campaign. If these were isolated cases, then Trump will transcend.
• Journey from a Xenophobic Bully to a Presidential Candidate - My prediction is that Trump will sound more and more presidential as he gets closer to the campaign after playing out the bully image who makes xenophobic comments. That will be a game changer for him as he may effectively lead other candidates by miles in a short span. This sudden shift in projected persona from bold & cocky to boring & presidential will confuse the populace and combined with bandwidth stealing, Trump's campaign will reach an inflection point. There is no doubt that he will not follow through with xenophobic policies, if/once he gets elected.
• Trend of Contrasting Personalities - David Axelrod, Chief Strategist of Obama's campaign (in 2008) has a theory that in american politics, incumbent presidents are replaced by incoming presidents who are polar opposites in personality. The careful and aloof G.W Bush (Sr) was replaced by the charismatic, connectable Bill Clinton. Then came George Bush who was goofy and gullible. Then came Obama, an overcautious, Bayesian follower and an insular/introverted president who never let others read his mind. Here comes Trump, who is polar opposite, vocal, loud and others can read his mind by his words before even he even thinks.
• Bold Leaders & Elevator Pitches - Americans love bold leaders wearing F16's on their shoulders who can give great speeches, thump the table, use rhetoric in their engagements and clearly outline direct and brute force path to achieving their goals. Majority of the populace is missing this pattern in lawyerish President Obama. Trump has a following of people who are fascinated by brute force project plans. Trump provides them carte blanche' loud and brute force solutions to almost everything such as immigration which is a hot issue right now. During campaigning, people are not thinking about future problems that may be created due sub-optimal brute force plans (Iraq war as an example), they just want to hear loud and sexy solutions (any solutions).
• Selling to Pain - Trump is using a time tested strategy to market to his early adopters i.e Americans who feel a loss of pride due to the relegation of United States on the world forum, the status quo due to the gridlock created by two party system and the lack of action on illegal immigration. The pain is a consistent sense of loss of influence and pride and Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan effectively sells to the pain of the bruised early adopters. Never underestimate the power early adopters wield over the populace. They start as a minority and can make a concept/idea/person viral that everyone else was ignoring. Note : I am a legal Indian immigrant living in North America. I remember the hue and cry my country men used to make when illegal immigrants crossed the border into East India looking for better opportunities. Americans may not be unreasonable in demanding that some action be taken to control illegal immigration into the country.

Here are some additional points why I say the success of Bernie Sanders or Trump is a great possibility :"

• Emergence as a Force - Emergence is very powerful force and automatically unconsciously trumps against the consciously devised strategy. Emergence occurs at the cusp of trends, unconscious decision making, unconsciously timing things right, is effortless and generally takes on a powerful direction of it own. As such, if you look at Silicon Valley, all efforts to create Silicon Valley elsewhere have failed and the reason is that Silicon Valley emerged and was not created.
• Emergence on Quora - Mostly, one will get few upvotes on their answers. Suddenly, one answer will reach an emergent inflection point scaling up in an upvote chain. Try recreating it and it will be very hard; almost impossible. A lot of people will over attribute their upvote success to a great answer, yet, their other great answers would be found parked in the “upvote graveyard”.
• Emergence of Dictators - Almost all of the dictators emerged right from Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Kim Jong-II, Robert Mugabe to Idi Amin Dada etc. If one studies their rise, they all emerged due to the existing civil and political conditions in their countries of origin. No one saw them coming. Everyone ignored them while they were emerging from the flanks. When they noticed, it was too late by them. Here is a list of the most brutal dictators.
• Emergence of Cities, Popular Spots & Business Hubs - Likewise, areas where people like to live and cluster together unconsciously emerge as hot spots while consciously planned buildings and infrastructure remain empty and unpopular. In his book "Obliquity", John Kay makes a great point about this emergence concept that direct approaches and master planning can lead to cities and buildings that look great on paper but do not attract significant buy in from people and are for all practical purposes, unlivable cities. E.g Washington D.C resulted from structured civic planning but people hate to live there. It was created versus emerged.
• Emergence of Crime - Constructive Entrepreneurs, Destructive entrepreneurs (Criminals, Drug Smugglers), Diseases, Economic clusters, Business hubs, Prostitution etc emerges unconsciously. It is very hard to replicate that emergence and even harder to counter that emergence as emerged entities are a step ahead of planning and are immune to containment.

Emergence cannot be countered by smart or cunning strategy or by setting roadblocks for the emergent entities. Emergence can only be countered (if at all) by counter-emergence and addressing/altering root cause issues/features. Contexts and conditions give rise to emergence and not smart individuals with a strategy plan.

ACCURATELY DELIVERED HYPERFORECASTS

• An Obituary - Tech Bubble Burst of 2016
• Twitter stock to spiral downwards after change of CEO

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