As we approach the end of voting, let me rip off Peter King and list a few last-minute predictions and observations.
Popular vote: I predict Biden by eight. A good margin - a little more than Obama’s historic win over McCain in 2008 - but not nearly as bad an electoral whipping as Trump deserves.
We’ll know Biden is the winner if he wins Florida tonight. Trump has no path to victory without it. If Trump does win Florida tonight then it’s on to the rust belt.
The odds of another squeaker Trump victory like 2016, and the odds of an historic Biden blowout in which he wins Texas and Georgia and maybe even Montana and Mississippi, are about the same.
I predict a 50-50 Senate at the very least. MacSally, Gardner and Collins are done, but Republicans should win back the Alabama seat Doug Jones won when the GOP decided to run an accused child molester. Yes, that happened. Democrats then need to pick up one more heavily contested Republican seat, and Cal Cunningham - who survived his own sex scandal this year - looks like he has the best chance of winning. If Dems pick up two more Senate seats - and they have real chances in Georgia, Montana, Iowa and maybe even South Carolina - they win the Senate even if Trump is re-elected.
Democrats will hold the House of Representatives. Really going out on a limb there.
People say Trump and his family will maintain their tight grip on the GOP even if he loses. I dunno. I feel like, a year from now, Goodwill and Savers stores all over America will have more MAGA hats and Trump-train swag than they’ll know what to do with. Trump the loser isn’t nearly as appealing as Trump the winner.
I think - really, hope - that there won’t be nearly as much violence as people are predicting, regardless of who wins. The protests we saw after the killing of George Floyd took many municipal authorities by surprise. By contrast, cities across America have had several weeks to prepare for post-election mayhem.
If Trump loses I think he will try to litigate his way to victory, but it won’t work. Many people predicted that Texas Republicans’ lawsuit to have drive-through ballots disqualified would be accepted by a federal judge considered one of the most devout Republicans on the Bench. It wasn’t. Even on the Supreme Court, the GOP-appointed Judges aren’t nearly as nakedly partisan as people on either side believe.
When this is all over, it will be shy Biden voters, not shy Trump supporters, who really made the difference.
No matter who wins this bitterly contested election, Americans should take the words of Jonathan V. Last to heart:
I want to go off-brand and get a little emo with you today. So indulge me.
We’re all in this together.
I say this simple mantra all the time because I believe it, deep down, in my bones.
But it’s not pablum. Because there’s an optimistic and pessimistic way to understand it. It’s a call to solidarity, yes. But it’s also an admission that we are inextricably linked. And not just to the people we like, but to those we don’t much care for, either.
The Biden voter, the Trump voter, the mother on a civil rights march, and the sheriff pepper spraying her—those on opposite sides, the righteous, and the wicked. We cannot cut one another loose. We share the same land, the same communities, the same government.
Even if we wish it weren’t so, we’re all in this together.
It’s a fact. Like gravity.
And so I would ask you, today, and tomorrow, and the day after that: Let’s try to make the best of it.
There are wicked people in the world and they must be opposed. There are dangerous ideas and they must be fought. But at the individual level of people who are not wicked or dangerous—but who may have made an error in judgment or be mistaken—love them.
I know that’s a little weird coming from me. And I know it’s hard. If loving your neighbor were easy, then everyone would do it.
But it’s the only way out from the place we’re in now.
We are all in this together, for good and for ill.
I think that if he loses, Trump's following will rapidly dwindle, apart from those whose belief in him is at a more or less fanatical level. This won't include most or all of the politicians, judges, etc. out there who have their own beliefs, careers, professional ethics and so on that will ultimately guide their actions; and if nothing else, naked self-interest will drive people away from Trump. (For those to whom the latter applies, it was perhaps also what brought them there in the first place.)
Thanks for including that Jonathan Last quote by the way. Between work and packing things, I didn't get to read his post. I will definitely look that one up. (The Bulwark is one of those things that I ended up subscribing to, which originally came to me from your posts. Always, reliably, level-headed and sensible.)
He's right. We're all interconnected. Many people try to ignore that, and in the process, blunt themselves to perceiving so many important things about humanity - both the best and worst things in some ways. I try to look at the *person* in front of me - who they are at heart - and speak to that. Some people think I'm a little off my rocker for it, lol. But recognizing the humanity in others is important. I believe that it helps us see both the good and the bad and react appropriately to it.
I'm hoping that the better side of humanity will win out down south to restore a sense of sanity to America. Soon we will know....