Tuesday, October 25, 2016

OK To Breathe?

Is it OK to breathe a sigh of relief now? 

I mean, all the polls have Donald Trump plummeting in a nosedive towards a fiery crash of epic proportions while Hillary Clinton is, well, not quite feeling the love but is at least feeling the acceptance that, OK, fine, let Hillary Clinton be the President if it means we can get this over with and not let the crazy orange man with tiny hands and a tinier brain get anywhere near the White House, OK? 


After months, even years of campaigning, debates, primaries, conventions, political ads, yammering pundits, more campaigning and more debates, two weeks from now marks the end of what has got to be the most irritating, frustrating, befuddling Presidential election campaign ever in my lifetime and perhaps in the history of the republic. Two weeks  from now is November 8th, election day. Two weeks from now. it is mercifully and finally the end. 

So is it OK to breathe a sigh of relief now?


No! Absolutely to the hell no!


As baseball legend Yogi Berra once famously said, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” Yes, I know Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump is fairly solid with several polls putting her lead at double digits. A comeback for Donald Trump to win the election so close to election day and down so far in the polls would be a political victory in defiance of American political history. Yet I can’t relax yet because Donald Trump’s mere presence at the Republican nominee for President is completely in defiance of American political history.


For all of Donald Trump’s diminishing fortunes in this Presidential election, he still commands a solid and passionate core of voters. This is a group that has stood by Trump in spite of (or God knows even because of) all the misogyny and racism as well as all the complete and utter stupidity Trump has displayed in the debates and on the campaign trail.


Meanwhile, Wikileaks continues to release the emails taken from the Democratic National Committee by Russian hackers in a continuing bid to undermine Hillary Clinton and influence the outcome of the American Presidential election. The narrative that powers outside the United States are trying to influence our election process battles for attention with what is being revealed in these leaks. So far, nothing has come across that is overtly or obviously illegal but some of the messages have the potential to be damaging to Clinton’s fragile coalition of progressives and anti-Trump Republicans. 


In short, no, we can’t breathe a sigh of relief yet. We cannot underestimate the power of Trump’s stupidity and the strong appeal he has with his base of supporters. Over all, that base is not large enough to defeat Hillary Clinton but it is solid and if a particularly damaging info dump from WilkiLeaks were to shatter or undermine Clinton’s coalition of support, then Trump’s base may be enough to carry the day.


Whether you really want to see Hillary Clinton as President or you really don’t want to see Donald Trump as President, then consider yourself still on high red alert until election night November 8th. If the polls hold and the actual vote count backs up those polls, only then can we well and truly relax and breathe once more.


Unless Donald Trump refuses to concede and our nightmare continues November 9th.


That’s that for today’s post. I’ll be back with another one tomorrow. Until then, remember to be good to one another. 

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