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?
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment