What is it that I’m so anxious about? It’s probably not what you think. Regular readers of this space know my opinion of the two candidates. I consider Donald Trump unfit for public office of any kind for a whole host of reasons. His opponent is too old, too feeble-minded and a lifelong government employee who after collecting his salary from the taxpayers for the past 47 years now says he’s just the guy to fix what’s wrong with government. Faced with so impossible a choice, I have made the decision to hold my sizable nose and pull the lever for the career politician over the career grifter, not exactly a shining moment for democracy. It is my opinion that Biden will win. Practically every pollster in the country tells me so. Yes, I am aware of the silent Trump voter theory. Trump could pull the upset. It is, after all, 2020. But who wins the election isn’t what’s keeping me up at night. It’s what happens afterwards. Here are a couple scenarios...
Biden Wins In A Landslide
This is the best case scenario. Why? Because the outcome will have been predicted and certain. The results will reflect accurately the polling data collected over the past six months. It will, for the vast majority of Americans be, believable. Trump supporters will be disappointed, but the outcome will not have come out of the blue.
Trump Wins In A Landslide
This is the second best case scenario. Why? Although the winner will be a surprise as it will have made all the pollsters look ridiculous again, The margin of victory will have been wide enough to make even a surprise victory believable. It will have been the second time that Trump has pulled a rabbit out of his hat on Election Day.
Trump or Biden Win In An Agonizingly Close Election
This is the stuff of my dystopian nightmares, the worst of all outcomes. First of all, the sitting President has spent the last year claiming that the 2020 election would be rigged and illegitimate, hinting at some shadowy deep state conspiracy to rob him of his rightful reelection. Any close outcome will feed nicely into the conspiratorial mindset of his voters. Biden supporters will never accept any outcome other than a Biden landslide and will claim that an equally Byzantine conspiracy involving the Post Office, Russian Bots and Amy Coney Barrett has subverted the will of the people. What happens next will be the ultimate test of our fragile and increasingly strained democracy.
It’s hard to admit that your country has gotten to the place where a violent response to an election outcome is on the table for discussion. This is what happens in banana republics, not the most powerful nation in the world. But America feels at a precipice of some kind, teetering on a ledge, everyone on a hair trigger. COVID hasn’t helped...we have all had more time to consume news, more time to get mad, too much time for our anger to simmer and ferment. We have all seen the violent clashes between far right Proud Boys and the far left Antifa. We’ve watched it and thought, “just a bunch of radical goons in the street.” My fear is that a tight election outcome will result in an outbreak of violence not restricted to a few radical goons. When the stakes are this high, the rhetoric this hot, the divisions this deep, with social media serving as the fire-stoker, America could find itself in the middle of the greatest social unrest since the 1960’s.
So yes...This week has me worried. If none of this turns out to be true, if each side accepts the outcome peacefully, no one will be more relieved to have been wrong than I will.
This week, I pray for my Country, and hope against hope that this blog will sound ridiculous and overwrought a week from today.
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