Background
The commander-in-chief of the US Army is the president, and this is basically meant to be an objective measure of the US presidency that would work even if the legal/formal power works differently in the future.
If I understand correctly, Donald Trump would mainly remain president if he overthrows the current democratic system in some way?
I assume it might lead to some sort of fracturing, so I will specifically consider the largest fragment of the military.
Resolution criteria
As a big picture, in order for this market to resolve:
Donald Trump must become president during 2024-2028, otherwise the market resolves N/A.
He must hold onto this power until the next step, otherwise the market resolves NO.
Donald Trump must through illegal or questionably legal means remain in power after the term in 2024-2028, ...
...at least in such a way that he is the top executive for the greatest faction of the American forces in 2031, otherwise the market resolves NO.
Greater detail can be seen below.
1: Donald Trump must become president during 2024-2028
There are multiple legitimate ways Donald Trump might become president during this time, such as:
He might be elected president in the 2024 election.
He might dispute the 2024 election and legally be granted presidency through some sort of process I don't understand.
He might be appointed vice president after the 2024 election, and become full president by succession.
There are also illegitimate ways Donald Trump might become president, such as:
He might dispute the 2024 election and violently overthrow the government.
He might cheat in the 2024 election.
In order for this market to resolve YES or NO rather than N/A, he must somehow become president during 2024-2028, such as by any of the methods above, or some method I haven't thought of.
2: Donald Trump must hold onto power
There are multiple ways Donald Trump might lose power:
He might die.
He might be impeached and removed from office, and not have much ability to dispute it.
He might have come to power as a vice president late in the 2024-2028 term, which might make him eligible for a reelection in 2028, which he might lose and concede.
He might lose interest in politics.
If something like this happens, and he stops being president and looks unable or unwilling to regain the power (by e.g. disputing his removal) for indefinite periods, then this market resolves NO.
3: Donald Trump must through illegal or questionably legal means remain in power...
If Donald Trump gets elected in 2024, or something sufficiently similar happens, and Donald Trump holds onto power until 2028, then that will be the end of his presidency, and he will be ineligible to run in 2028 by the term limits. However, he might attempt to stay president, for instance by:
Refusing to resign by the end of his term.
Doing questionably-legal constitutional changes to remove term limits.
Starts a violent rebellion after he is removed from office in order to regain power.
If in this situation he does not do something like this, or it does not succeed by 2031, this market resolves NO.
Donald Trump might also become president through other means which makes this more complicated. For instance I imagine there could be some technical difficulties in the 2024 election which shifts it to 2025 or something, in which case I imagine a 4-year term would continue until 2029, and so we should shift the requirement by a year to have him need to succeed in 2032.
Another possibility is that he becomes president by being a vice president and succeeding the president near the end of the 2024-2028 term, or that he legally repeals term limits, in which case Donald Trump could run for reelection in 2028.
If Donald Trump wins this election legitimately, this market is shifted to concern the 2028-2032 presidency, with resolution in 2035, by the same rules as before.
If Donald Trump loses the 2028 election, again he might attempt to stay president, both with some of the previous methods and for instance by the following possibilities:
Doing the electoral college scheme he attempted in 2021 which Mike Pence stopped.
Otherwise legally challenging the election results.
Obviously interfering in the election, for instance by having the army threaten people to vote for him, or hacking election machines to get him 99% votes in favor. (This has to be very obvious; I expect that if he did interfere in the election, he would do so in sufficiently subtle way that I would not be certain enough to grant this point.)
Doing questionably-legal constitutional changes in the election processes to remain in power.
If in this situation he does not do something like this, or it does not succeed by 2031, this market resolves NO.
Another possibility is that he is removed from presidency during the 2024-2028 term, for instance because of an impeachment. Again, if he doesn't successfully resist this using methods like the above, this market resolves NO.
4: ...at least in such a way that he is the top executive for the greatest faction of the American forces in 2031
If Donald Trump becomes a dictator by 2031, I imagine this could lead to changes in the structure of the US Government. For instance the leading post might no longer be called "president", or maybe the responsibilities change, or something. As an objective criterion, I will therefore consider the power over the physical threats which sustain the American government, i.e. the military and the police. In order for this market to resolve YES, Donald Trump must be the top executive for these forces in 2031.
It seems likely to me that these forces could fracture into multiple conflicting parts if this was to occur, and in this case we should consider the top executive for the largest such faction. By "largest fraction", I mean e.g. if there is a stalemate where Donald Trump controls 30% of the military, the original US institutions control 20%, and the remaining 50% are dissolved, taken over by terrorists, or otherwise under small and uncertain control, then the question is about the 30% under Trump's control.
If the election and attempts to hold onto power happens as described in 1-3, but he does not succeed in holding onto power as described in point 4, then this market resolves NO. If he does hold onto power, then this market resolves YES.
This includes some intuitive ways the market could resolve NO:
Donald Trump peacefully resigns from the presidency.
Donald Trump is successfully forcefully removed from the presidency.
Donald Trump rebels but the rebellion is only a minority of the power.
It also includes some counterintuitive ways that the market could resolve NO, e.g.:
Donald Trump rebels but his rebellion turns on him and replaces him with someone else.
Donald Trump successfully rebels, but dies of natural causes before 2031.
Related questions
Changed
> Another possibility is that he becomes president by being a vice president and succeeding the president near the end of the 2024-2028 term, in which case Donald Trump could run for reelection in 2028.
to
> Another possibility is that he becomes president by being a vice president and succeeding the president near the end of the 2024-2028 term, or that he legally repeals term limits, in which case Donald Trump could run for reelection in 2028.
All these rules and yet you don't cover 1) Donald Trump Jr, and 2) which presidential position you are talking about.
Classic attempt to write rules for a long complex market and fail to address the basic issues (this is big problem in prediction markets - longer rules are often worse than shorter ones).
I'd try cutting this down by 80%. If you cannot do this, then the market shouldn't exist.
There are many presidential jobs that one can have. You are probably talking about the United States (federal government) presidency, yet fail to mention this explicitly.
Donald Trump Jr is one of several people who are named Donald Trump in the US. We don't know the number of people who share this name.
@MaybeNotDepends You could have expressed your criticism in a nicer way, especially given that it's market as a draft.
I don't think the failures you point to are meaningful: it is very unlikely that anyone else named Donald Trump becomes the president, and it is in my opinion very clear that the context here is the US (with the first paragraph containing the phrase "US presidency").
I also think it's totally fine to have long descriptions (as long as there's a summary). This seems particularly good when creating Big Serious Markets about Big Serious Issues.
@MaybeNotDepends Your critiques seem wrong to me, as e.g. "the top executive for the greatest faction of the American forces" and "he will be ineligible to run in 2028 by the term limits" (as well as common sense/common convention) make it pretty unambiguous what I am referring to.
It would seem like this doesn't require a coup or an amendment to term limits to resolve YES.
Suppose the following happened. Biden becomes president in 2024, and appoints Trump as his vice president. Biden dies one year before 2028, and Trump succeeds him. The twenty second amendment places a two term limit on presidents, and says that if someone becomes president for at least two years out of the original term, then that counts as one of their terms. So he'd have served one term, and served one year of another term, which would make him constitutionally eligible for a third. If he got elected again, and stayed for three years, then he'd be the commander in chief in 2031.
How would this market resolve if that happened?
@Nick332 Ah hm, as stated in the conditions, I think this would resolve YES according to the first rule, which is obviously incorrect, so the conditions should probably be updated.
I'd be inclined to say that the first rule should have a condition that he should either be ineligible to re-run due to the term limit, or (in cases like yours) that he should be disputing a 2028 election loss rather than legitimate win the election.
However, this makes the rule too complicated, and also it's kind of concerning that this issue happened, so I will look into refactoring. Might take a bit of time.
Good market, and good resolution criteria as far as I can see!
My one suggestion would be to make it clear that this resolves yes if he reorganizes the republic into the first galactic empire completes an autogolpe and remains commander in chief but renames the office of President to something else or appoints someone else as the "official" president but keeps all the actual power for himself.
@Joshua Is there some place you think it should be made more clear? I feel like it is explicitly mentioned in the title and the resolution criteria, and that the background explicitly points out the logic, so it seems pretty clear to me.