Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 28,698]

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-11-04-why-trump-speech-more-violent/

 

As Donald Trump’s closing pitch grows more violent and incoherent, many of my fellow pundits have wondered if he’s just losing it. That presupposes, of course, that he once had it, whatever “it” may have been.

I don’t know about the incoherence, but I don’t think the growing violence of his speech—opining, for instance, that we need a day of unchecked police violence to restore law and order—is the Lear-like meandering of an aggrieved old man. I think it’s a very conscious strategy to turn out those Trump supporters who are least likely to vote: working-class young men. Even if it’s not conscious on Trump’s part, I think his handlers know that their employer’s adding a little ultraviolence to his speeches may prod just enough smoldering incels and other angry young men to bring themselves to the polls.

Trump’s get-out-the-vote problem was well illustrated by a Washington Post poll of Michigan voters late last week. The poll revealed that Trump led Kamala Harris by a 47 percent to 45 percent margin among registered voters, but trailed her 47-46 among likely voters. That discrepancy follows logically from what we know about the candidates’ respective voting bases. Harris’s base is disproportionately female and college-educated, both groups that tend to turn out in higher numbers than male and working-class voters. Much of Trump’s base, correspondingly, turns out to vote at lower rates. And the lowest rate of all is that of working-class young men.

The Trump campaign is aware of this, of course. It’s the reason why the pro-Trump canvass operations—vexed, fraught, and inexperienced though they may be—are focusing on “low propensity voters,” who are disproportionately young men. It’s the reason why Trump is going on every independent media or social media outlet that has built any semblance of a fuck-’em-all young male audience. It’s the reason why Trump and JD Vance sat for a collective six hours with Joe Rogan and why Trump trots out Hulk Hogan at his rallies. If the voters he needs respond best to spectacles of violence, or maybe even real violence, then spectacles of violence—with the threat of real violence—is precisely what he’ll provide.

Many of Trump’s threats doubtless bubble up from his own vast cesspool of rage and are directed at figures who personally affronted him, from Liz Cheney to John Kelly. These people may be almost entirely unknown to Trump’s angry young men. But obscure though Trump’s targets may be, it’s the violent rhetoric that matters. It shouldn’t be a mystery, then, that Trump’s campaign managers aren’t trying (or at least, aren’t trying very hard) to get him to de-escalate his threats. After all, he’s consistently said that he will reward his supporters with “retribution,” which comes as close as anything to being his campaign’s raison d’ȇtre, and most certainly is for many or most of the angry young men he’s trying so hard to move to the polls.

Just as Bill Clinton told voters, “I feel your pain,” so Donald Trump tells voters, “I feel your rage—and that rage will become government policy if you elect me.”

MY COLLEAGUE BOB KUTTNER WROTE last week about why so much open, vituperative hatred now characterizes the American right, at a level that would probably appall such right-wing icons of yore as William Buckley and Ronald Reagan. Bob rightly notes that the bipartisan elite’s indifference to the significantly reduced economic standing of the working class (at least, until Bernie Sanders jolted the Democrats in 2016) surely played a role in this. I’d add that Newt Gingrich normalized the demonization of Democrats among Republican elites during the 1990s, and that Fox News and friends gleefully joined in. And given that a majority of Republicans, having swallowed Trump’s biggest lie, have consistently told pollsters that the 2020 election was stolen, the intensification of right-wing rage should come as no surprise.

I suspect there’s yet another factor that’s unhinged a number of our compatriots in recent years, and that’s the disruptions and dislocations that came with the COVID pandemic. For many on the right, the government’s attempts to stop the spread of COVID were seen as the ultimate assault of liberal elites on their personal sovereignty. That anger, its absurdity notwithstanding, is in large part with us still, and I suspect it’s the wellspring of some of the hatred that is powering the Trump campaign. Only some, to be sure; it’s not like prior to COVID, Trump spoke in fully demure fashion.

The great Menshevik leader Julius Martov had a theory of how the Bolshevik Revolution became so violent. Before they took power, Martov noted, violence hadn’t been an element of the Bolsheviks’ doctrine or playbook. He observed that when they first seized power, they abolished (briefly) the death penalty and freed many of the ministers of the government they’d overthrown.

But the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who’d been on the World War’s front lines and then sided with the Bolsheviks had understandably grown numb to the unprecedented level of violence they daily faced, Martov noted. More pointedly, as their aristocratic officers routinely ordered them to frontally attack German machine guns, to no apparent gain but to massive casualties in their ranks, many of those soldiers came to view those officers as their real enemies, for which reason there were many instances in which those soldiers killed their superiors. Properly redirected, violence was much more a solution than a problem to the soldiers who sided with the Bolsheviks. And in the initial Bolshevik seizure of power in many cities and towns, the violence began with the Bolshevik soldiers who’d left the World War’s front and transferred their own front to their domestic enemies.

If no World War, Martov wrote, then the level of enraged, sadistic violence that came to characterize the Bolsheviks’ battles might have been greatly reduced.

I wonder if the rage that many on the right—very much including working-class young men—feel toward those they regard as part of the liberal elite isn’t also a spillover, at least partly, from the presumable impositions they suffered during the pandemic. It’s absurd, of course, to equate being compelled to wear a mask during a pandemic to being ordered to make a suicidal charge in the face of machine guns, but the decades of fury at liberal elites to which the leaders of the right had conditioned them has almost surely contributed to the levels of fury that Trump is now working hard to stoke. To win those last hard-to-get votes that could put him back in power, Trump’s campaign knows he has to promise and personify violence. Happily, from his campaign’s perspective, that’s something he can easily do.

Edited Monday at 20:48 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,698]

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-11-02-can-sherrod-brown-close-deal-rural-ohio/

 

In any neighborhood in Jackson County, Ohio, somebody’s bound to have a story about U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) helping them. That’s what Lisa Parker, the chair of the Democratic Party in Jackson County, says.

“Anything from their Social Security benefits, to they had trouble with the Postal Service. In my family’s case … veterans’ benefits,” she says. “We have a large [Veterans Affairs] hospital that covers southeastern Ohio, which is kind of a medical desert anyway. Sherrod fought to keep that VA medical center open.”

Despite that, Parker still believes that Brown’s opponent in the 2024 Ohio Senate race, Bernie Moreno, will win the county. However, she thinks Brown will win the seat again in a tight race and more of Jackson’s residents will vote for him than expected.

Brown has served in his Senate seat since 2007 and has won re-election easily thus far, with vote counts over 50 percent in each election cycle. This year, alas, seems to be different. In early September, a Bowling Green State University poll showed that Brown led Moreno by five percentage points, as compared to his eight-point margin in 2018. Then a poll from early October conducted by The Washington Post found an even tighter margin, with Brown up by only one point.

In 2012, Brown won multiple rural counties in the south and southeast of the state. In 2018, he won the major cities and northeast suburbs, but only won a single county in the southeastern, Appalachian part of Ohio, namely Athens—and that only because of its liberal-leaning college town. His declining margins in rural areas are reflective of a larger trend for the Democratic Party, and it might be why he loses.

The rural vote is the difference between another Trump administration or maintaining a blue executive office. Declining news organizations in rural America led to an absence of voter participation. Since rural Ohio, among other states, is without reliable, high-speed internet, face time between candidates is crucial.

For the past two decades, rural voters have steadily shifted farther right. In 2000, the Republican Party held a narrow advantage over Democrats in non-metro areas—only 51 percent. Now, the GOP holds a 25-percentage-point lead over Democratic candidates.

In The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America, the largest, most detailed set of surveys on rural voters to date, agricultural towns say they feel discarded by the Democratic Party.

In the Prospect’s coverage of Project 2025, Janie Ekere found that under past Democratic administrations, neoliberal trade and regulatory policy benefited corporations at the expense of the rural working class, deepening the population’s mistrust of outside politicians. Economic production and good jobs flowed to a handful of booming cities. In rural regions, the Democratic Party became synonymous with expanding metropolitan areas.

Under past Democratic administrations, neoliberal trade and regulatory policy benefited corporations at the expense of the rural working class.

Since 2009, 77 percent of rural Ohio communities have lost population as 700,000 residents, mostly prime-working-age adults, relocated for better jobs. Aging cities were left with many fewer working residents to fund community infrastructure and benefits.

Approximately 160 rural Ohio hospitals have closed since 2010—or about three-quarters of the total—and the 25 percent that remain are on the verge of bankruptcy. Most clinics have cut back their services to save money, leaving women’s health, including maternity wards, on the chopping block.

Medical staff in Holmes and Tuscarawas Counties attribute growing mortality rates to inaccessible health care. Fewer doctors complete their fellowships or establish roots in the countryside. With scattered communication services, unreliable transportation, and underfunded social programs, rural Ohio cannot sustain its population in the long term.

As a result, there is little remaining trust for Democrats as an institution.

So, how did billionaire Trump foster trust among rural voters? The easy answer is to write off these communities as bigoted, and certainly, there are many voters drawn to Trump’s racism. And it’s also true that most Republicans voted for the same trade and deregulation policies that have devastated rural Ohio.

However, Trump is seen as an outsider, and, led by him, conservatives began seizing the opportunity left by prior Democratic administrations. Republicans convinced voters that liberals cannot understand the needs of rural voters because urban, blue-state politicians do not live working-class lives.

At the same time, Trump used all the usual tools of the demagogue to whip up anger and grievance among rural whites by blaming their plight on immigrants, urban minorities, and other out-groups. He saw an opportunity to use non-urban communities as tools and feed on white rural resentment to further divide rural and urban communities.

Trump’s pitch was and is mostly lies. Republicans falsely promise economic prosperity to rural residents, but when it comes time to pass legislation, they do the same thing they’ve done since the 1980s.

Trump claimed his 2017 tax cuts would boost incomes for those making less than $114,000 by $4,000, but in reality they did almost nothing for that group, while corporate profits and executive salaries soared. Just like his predecessor George W. Bush, Trump oversaw a dramatic rise in the incomes of the top 1 percent, while the bottom 66 percent stagnated. The median income for rural Ohioans, by the way, is around $49,000.

BUT BROWN IS ONE OF THE FEW IN EITHER PARTY who have consistently fought against neoliberal policy, and he has prioritized constituent services for all Ohioans, no matter where they live.

He’s one of the few U.S. senators who really do champion the rural working-class voter. He makes it a priority to show up for constituents, not only with a handshake or a smile, but also in his work. And the reason he’s been tenured so long is practically everyone in the state has heard of how he’s helped Ohio communities. That’s a good example for Democrats across the board.

Interestingly, the Biden administration seems to have learned from Brown. The Inflation Reduction Act and other marquee Biden policies do direct billions of investment into rural communities. Unlike Trump’s tax cuts, the red-hot labor market created by the Biden stimulus package actually has reduced wage inequality. But there is a large legacy to overcome, and the investment is only just starting to bear fruit.

“Rural areas have experienced decades of systematic disinvestment and a slogan or a campaign stop is not going to suddenly erase that reality,” Shawn Sebastian, director of organizing at RuralOrganizing.org, says.

Democrats need to show their support for rural communities in more ways than just a campaign speech, because both urban and rural populations are critical to winning elections. Now that the majority in the Senate may hinge on this race, it’s good to have a candidate like Brown, who appeals to rural voters, running.

In the wake of the uncertainty this election cycle has brought, one thing is certain: Brown is not to blame for his race being as close as it is. Being on the same ballot as Trump, in a state where Trump is expected to win handily, against a Trump-backed candidate doesn’t bode well for any Democrat. This is especially true when simply seeing a “D” next to a candidate’s name can turn away so much of a state’s rural population because they feel abandoned.

“Sherrod Brown has always put Ohio over partisanship or politics,” Isaac Wright, co-founder of the Rural Voter Institute, said. “It’s the Democratic brand, not our candidates, that’s the problem.”

[Vesper 28,698]

Tucker Carlson says "human forces" did not create nuclear technology. Instead, it was demons.

[Vesper 28,698]

https://prospect.org/environment/2024-11-04-climate-crisis-cost-of-living/

A cargo ship sails through the Panama Canal, in Panama City, June 13, 2024. Canal authorities recently had to restrict vessel transits due to drought.

 

Bewilderingly, Donald Trump is still perceived by a large chunk of the electorate as a relatively good economic policymaker, even though his proposed across-the-board tariffs and cruel mass deportation plan would dramatically increase the cost of living in the United States. (Voters don’t seem to penalize him either for his promise to preserve his highly unpopular 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the rich.) Indeed, companies are already planning price hikes to offset his global tariff scheme if he wins, making clear that U.S. consumers—not foreign countries—will be the ones who pay more. Moreover, if Trump follows through on his sadistic, fascist pledge to expel millions of immigrants, prices would soar even higher, as immigrants make up a huge fraction of both agricultural and construction laborers.

Yet it gets even worse: Trump’s hostility to climate action also threatens to saddle ordinary people with rising energy, food, and housing bills for years to come. Readers surely remember the quid pro quo offer that Trump made to fossil fuel executives gathered at his Mar-a-Lago palace back in May: Give him $1 billion and he’ll reverse Biden’s electric-vehicle and clean-energy policies, and gut a slew of environmental rules. As reported recently, Big Oil has dutifully readied a road map to undo Biden’s admittedly mixed climate legacy should Trump prevail. The upshot would be derailing the incipient American clean-energy transition, and even more fossil fuel expansion in a country that’s already the world’s top producer and exporter of oil and gas. Scientists have been unequivocal: New dirty-energy projects are incompatible with limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius—and damages grow exponentially with warming.

Even setting aside the devastating social and ecological consequences of climate change, Team Trump’s reactionary blueprint to fry the planet is sheer economic madness. Recent research found that the global macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously estimated. According to the authors, “a 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12 percent decline in world GDP.” For context, the world has already warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial era, and the United Nations warned recently that the world is currently on track for roughly 3 degrees of warming by 2100. A U.S.-focused study came to a similar conclusion: Under a high-emissions scenario, national GDP would shrink by 1 to 4 percent per year by century’s end.

A separate peer-reviewed paper projected that the world in 2049 will suffer $38 trillion in economic damages from climate change, based on likely policy pathways, with losses unjustly concentrated in poorer regions that have done the least to cause the crisis. According to this grim forecast, trillions of dollars in global annual income reductions are already locked in due to extant greenhouse gas emissions, and trillions more will come with every year that nations fail to zero out emissions.

A big way these economic damages will be felt is inflation. Climate disasters will damage or destroy land, factories, transportation networks, and so on—essentially, harming the economy’s supply of goods and services, leading to bidding wars over what remains. Therefore, the right’s opposition to climate action is objectively pro-inflation. The left and the center ought to communicate this point to voters as clearly as possible.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who is leading a joint investigation of Trump’s quid pro quo offer to Big Oil, has suggested some pithy language: “Republicans are corrupted by fossil fuel money, they’re lying to you about climate change, and you’re about to get an economic punch in the face because of it.”

Disasters interact badly with global supply chains, left fragile by decades of neoliberalism and corporate concentration.

What do these economic punches look like? For one thing, increasingly frequent and severe heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods are leading to ever more “billion-dollar” disasters each year. Those are economically ruinous for the direct victims, with pain dished out disproportionately to the poor and the nonwhite. But they also tend to lead to local shortages and price hikes.

More slow-moving disasters such as drought also jeopardize food security and wreak havoc on supply chains. A few days ago, barges started running aground in the Mississippi River due to a lack of rainfall, impeding U.S. farmers’ ability to deliver crops. Over the past year, an El Niño–linked drought has also slowed the passage of container ships through the Panama Canal, a critical node of global trade.

We may be a quarter-century away from living through some of the more horrific effects of our current warming trajectory, and yet climate change is already being experienced as a pocketbook issue—contributing to higher grocery bills, fueling a property insurance debacle that makes housing even more expensive while heralding far-reaching real estate devaluations and financial meltdowns, and more.

Disasters interact badly with global supply chains, left fragile by decades of neoliberalism and corporate concentration. This effect can be seen in the sellers’ inflation that began in 2021. Powerful firms exploited real and perceived supply issues stemming from multiple crises—including the COVID-19 pandemic, bird flu, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—to justify price hikes that exceeded increased input costs.

Writing about the shortage of intravenous fluid last month, the Prospect’s David Dayen explained how Hurricane Helene flooded a North Carolina factory that’s a key producer of IV solution, less than a decade after Hurricane Maria did the same thing to IV bag factories in Puerto Rico. As Dayen put it, the storm “is only the surface-level cause; it’s really about America refusing to learn the lessons of monopoly fragility.”

That’s why, amid COVID-era inflation, progressives argued against the Fed’s job-threatening interest rate hikes and for a more relevant mix of policies, including a windfall profits tax, stronger antitrust enforcement (the greater supply is dispersed, the more resilient the economy), and targeted price controls. Unlike the blunt tool that Jerome Powell wielded ineffectively, those customized solutions to profit-driven inflation can diminish the power of price-gouging corporations without hurting workers.

Meanwhile, the Roosevelt Institute has shown that in addition to heating up the planet, the price of fossil fuel energy is highly volatile and contributes to inflation. Anyone with an EV knows that (so long as you can charge at home) they cost much less to charge than a similar tank of gas. More broadly, renewable energy is so cheap, and so consistently getting cheaper, that shifting from fossil fuels to renewables will permanently reduce inflationary pressures. Dovish monetary policy can help increase investment in wind, solar, and other forms of green energy.

While insufficient, Biden’s decision to pause the approval of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals as his administration updates its public-interest criteria is a sound move, from both a climate standpoint and an economic one. Industry-backed arguments about the supposed emission-reducing benefits of LNG have been thoroughly debunked. Trump and other proponents of increased LNG exports, including the fossil fuel executives he made promises to, should be forced to answer for the fact that shipping fracked gas around the world contributes to higher domestic energy prices.

Though much more needs to be done to address the housing affordability crisis in a way that also advances decarbonization, a modest Biden rule requiring homebuilders to improve energy efficiency standards to qualify for federal financing will save Americans more than $2 billion on utility bills. Contrast this effort with Trump’s spiteful defense of outdated light bulbs, toilets, showerheads, and dishwashers, all of which waste resources and eat into wages.

A report out last month from Evergreen Action contrasts two futures: one in which the Trump-aligned Project 2025 agenda is implemented and one in which the achievements of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are protected and built upon. What it found, unsurprisingly, is that “Project 2025 will result in significant job and GDP losses, higher household energy costs, and higher climate pollution by 2035.”

The left should make clear the economic stakes of climate action. To that end, the Climate & Community Institute last week outlined the contours of a progressive climate agenda, including major investments in green public works projects that would provide good infrastructure and employment, and a redirection of federal resources from militarization to equitable climate mitigation. One of the memos focuses specifically on lowering the cost of living through greater public investment in housing, transportation, utilities, and social safety nets. The left must also make clear that the right’s opposition to such measures will result in economic misery.

Unfair though it may be, inflation remains an albatross around Kamala Harris’s neck. If she loses, widespread anger over rising prices from 2021 to early 2024 will be one key reason why. Democrats have tried—though not as hard or often as they should have—to explain to voters that the recent bout of inflation was caused to a significant degree by corporate profiteering, particularly in highly consolidated industries like Big Oil and Big Ag.

That’s an essential message that ought to be repeated moving forward. Survey data shows that Harris’s vow to crack down on price-gouging is broadly popular. This is especially true among working-class voters, who researchers have found respond well to left-populist criticisms of billionaires and corporate wrongdoing.

It wouldn’t hurt to add a new argument to the repertoire: Global warming is already making your life more expensive. Among other things, curbing planet-heating pollution and investing in green public goods is about protecting you and your loved ones from catastrophic disruptions while moderating the costs of essentials. Anyone who doesn’t take the climate crisis seriously doesn’t care about your material well-being.

[Vesper 28,698]

Who’s going to win on Election Day? Here are 8 columnists’ predictions.

Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Which party will control Congress? Here are our best guesses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/04/election-predictions-harris-trump-congress/

The election is on a knife’s edge. It’s mind-blowing how close this race is, according to the polls.

Nevertheless, seven of my colleagues and I gave it our best to come up with predictions for what will happen on Election Day. I also joined Karen Tumulty and Eugene Robinson to discuss what’s informing our expectations.

🔮 🔮 🔮

First, our predictions. Here are our best guesses for the presidential swing states:

And for Congress:

James Hohmann: Gene and Karen, thanks for chatting. I’ll confess that I hate to make predictions about this election and have low confidence in the outcome. It feels so fluid. I have thought Donald Trump would win for months, but he seemed to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the final week — with his Madison Square Garden rally and more.

Karen Tumulty: May I remind you that, in 2016, I was supposed to write the paper’s lead election story, and all I had ready at 7 p.m. on election night was a 50-inch story on how America had just elected its first woman president?Follow

Eugene Robinson: Predicting is hard, especially about the future.

Karen: I don’t have any confidence at all in my own prediction.

James: In retrospect, it’s all going to seem glaringly obvious — just like it did after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Karen, you posted something on X that showed how 15 states were in play on Election Day that year. This year’s map is much smaller — really only seven states are in play. Why do you think the map has shrunk?

Karen: It’s amazing, isn’t it? Fifteen states, including Florida, Ohio, Virginia and … Utah … were in play in 2016. None of those are this year. The map has shrunk because polarization in this country has gotten even worse.

Gene: There aren’t that many true swing states. At least we don’t think there are.

James: Third parties were also a big factor that year. Utah was in play because Evan McMullin was threatening to split the Republican vote. Gary Johnson was a real factor. And Jill Stein arguably cost Clinton the presidency. Third parties aren’t really a force this year.

Karen: Not for lack of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trying.

Gene: I guess I would say the shrinkage has to do with Trump. The arguments aren’t so much about policy, as they are about Trump vs. not-Trump. It becomes terribly binary.

James: I hate to ask you to assign percentages, but how confident are you in your predictions? Gene, how strongly do you feel that Harris wins? I’m somewhere close to 50 percent sure — maybe 55 percent — that Trump wins. But no outcome would surprise me.

Gene: I’m a little confident. Maybe a bit more than a little. My theory is basically that reproductive freedom is an issue that has legs beyond the 2022 midterms and will have an under-the-radar effect like the shy-Trump-voter phenomenon had in 2016.

Karen: Harris is running against some structural headwinds: President Joe Biden’s low approval rating and the fact that, for the first time in 30 years, more people identify with the Republican Party than the Democrats.

Gene: True, there is that, Karen. That’s why I’m not more than pretty sure of my prediction.

Karen: The economy is also top of mind for most voters. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised by any outcome at this point — except, perhaps, a blowout by Trump.

James: Nevada is interesting. Karen thinks Harris will carry the Silver State, but Gene thinks Trump gets it. On paper, it should be a Trump state: rural Republicans, very low percentage of college-educated voters, larger populations of Latinos who are drifting to Trump. But the Culinary Union and the late Harry Reid’s machine remain strong. Jon Ralston, the smartest journalist in Nevada, thinks the early vote bodes well for Trump. How do you each see it?

Karen: I think the Zombie Harry Reid machine and the unions might pull this off, but the housing crisis there has been horrific.

Gene: My prediction for Nevada was partly a reaction to Ralston’s analysis. It should go to Harris, but I just have a sense that Trump will take it narrowly. “A sense” is no way to make a scientifically sound prediction, but that’s what we’re left with at this point.

James: Yeah, no one should make investment decisions off our educated guesses. Another thing that surprises me about our colleagues’ predictions is that everyone guessed Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) wins. No one thinks Eric Hovde will pull it off.

Gene: I’d worry if I were Baldwin. I mean, can we all be right?

James: Totally. Harris was there multiple times last week. If Trump wins Wisconsin by two to three points, I think Hovde might ride his coattails. It just feels like split-ticket voting is declining, which is why I’m bearish on Tester, Brown, etc.

Karen: The Wisconsin race was, until recently, not even supposed to be in doubt for Baldwin. If she loses, Schumer is going to be sorry he was gallivanting around Texas and Florida. Speaking of which, Gene, really? You think Ted Cruz loses? Texas is the burying ground for Democratic hopes, cycle after cycle.

James: (Karen, a native Texan, wrote a great column on the race there. You can read it here.)

Gene: This is Lucy and the football. Every time, it looks as though the Dems have a chance to knock Cruz off, and every time Cruz pulls off a fairly comfortable win. But the polls have been even closer this time, and Cruz might have worn out his welcome. For Colin Allred to win, my theory about reproductive rights lifting the Democratic boat has to be true. But, of course, Karen is the Texas expert.

James: Texas will be red right up until it’s not. Stranger things have happened. I just don’t know how many Trump-Allred voters there could possibly be, even though Cruz is so unlikable and hasn’t faced voters since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection or his trip to Cancún during widespread power outages in his state.

Karen: I was down there quite recently, and the energy of the Cruz events I went to was pretty intense. Allred had a rally in a community center near Houston — his only event in that very blue area that weekend — and was barely able to fill half of a basketball gym.

Gene: Exactly, on Cruz’s unlikability. My impression (again, deferring to the sage of San Antonio) is that people do remember Cancún.

James: Gene, I appreciate you laying that flag on abortion. ProPublica reported last week about women who have died because of Texas’s ban. And early vote data suggests that women are turning out at significantly higher rates in the swing states than men.

Karen: Women always do. This is what happens when you give us the vote — we use it. But I’m not sure abortion is going to be the determining issue, even for women.

Gene: Right. Keeping in mind that early vote data can be entirely misleading, this is an issue that affects so many people in such an intimate way. Those stories are horrifying, and I just don’t think the issue has died down, politically.

James: The Post on Friday published its final poll in Pennsylvania, with Harris at 48 and Trump at 47. What’s wild is that it is unchanged from six weeks ago, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent there. 🤯

Karen: Couldn’t get much closer in Pennsylvania. But the Democratic registration edge there has been cut in half since 2020, when Biden barely squeaked by in the state.

Gene: Aren’t all the polls unchanged for the past six weeks, basically? They all say this is a margin-of-error race in basically every swing state. And one does wonder how so many polls can so consistently agree on such a tight margin — again, everywhere. It would be human nature for pollsters not to want to publish outliers that could later make them look foolish.

James: Yeah. It’s not just ours. The race looks shockingly static in polling, even with daily firestorms. Do you think Trump starting to falsely claim that Democrats are cheating in Pennsylvania is a sign of desperation? Or is it just his standard MO?

Karen: That would seem to be a tell …

Gene: Republicans do seem genuinely worried there.

Karen: I wonder, though, whether Trump’s premature (and false) claims of election fraud might backfire on Republicans, like they did in the Senate runoffs in Georgia four years ago.

James: To wrap this up, what will you two be watching for these final days?

Gene: On election eve, I’ll probably be watching Monday Night football. A bit of a break before it all gets really real.

Karen: I hope there’s something good on Turner Classic Movies.

Gene: I don’t think TCM has “2,000 Mules” …

[cosmicway 1,313]

Are there going to be more terror attacks under a Trump presidency like 9-11 and the London tube, or less ?
Chances are 99.95% that there will be more.
To understand this one should try to enter the mentality of the immigrant populations in America and Europe.
There are many popular myths about those populations.
But the truth is they can be divided into broadly two groups:
Politically friendly and politically hostile to the host country.
I 'm not talking about those who are into common crime. Common crime by immigrants or anyone else is of course not something to be tolerated, but it has nothing to do with politics.
Thus a successful house burglar or cheque forger after doing his tricks for some years may stop it and become a respected citizen - even enter the house of Lords.
So it's the politically friendlies and the politically hostiles the two important groups in what regards terrorism.
A politically hostile immigrant was something of an oddity several decades ago. Why emigrate to America or Britain if you don't like America / Britain ?
They existed but it was an oddity.
Nowadays a fair percentage are hostiles, thanks to the fanatical muslims and also thanks to their antisemitism.
Those are dangerous.
Under a Trump administration who is calling ordinary people "garbage" what will happen then ?
The 15 say percent will become 30%, not 5%.
So a cycle of violence and inevitable counter repression is under way.
There are also the old style urban guerrilas of the left and it's a golden opportunity for them to start again. They are in any case outlaws (were - they will be) so the whatever new laws don't deter them.
Putin - Iran - Hamash - North Korea are relishing in the mud, to borrow a horse racing expression.

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:09 by cosmicway

[Vesper 28,698]

Vesper's final predictions

 

As you may know, for ages I was super concerned about a 269-269 tie and NE-2.

This was my map showing by far the most likely scenario it would happen:

 

Trump wins NV, AZ, GA, NC, ME-2, and NE-2.
Harris wins WI, MI, PA, NH

I was very worried that the NE unicameral (only one in the nation) state legislature would wait until ME's legislature could not undo their split EV scheme (due to the time limit in their ME constitutions for law changes to take effect), and then NE WOULD undo theirs.

That almost happened, BUT just like the last time (several years ago) ONE Republican refused to go along with the rest and so it was stopped.

Now, I am relieved in terms of NE-2, as Harris is up there 8 to 12 points in the latest legit polls.

That said, as it stands, my map above (but with NE-2 flipped to Harris, so she wins 270-268) may damn well be exactly how it plays out.

This is why:

(and I NEVER count the dozens of RW polls, so there is no false elevation of Trump from them in any of my calculus)

We are a in big trouble in NV (the NV guru, John Ralston, had said we are in deep shit due to the early returns and the fact the Rethugs have gained a lot in net registrations, plus the early voting doesn't look good, plus a huge union there just endorsed the Rethug governor today, for the 2026 election). Now he says Harris wins it but BARELY, by 0.3 per cent, but even there he said it is absolutely possible Trump wins there.

ME-2 is basically a lock for Trump.

It looks bad for us in AZ.

A bit less bad in GA and NC, but they still look (atm) like they both go Trump.

Harris has NH locked up.

I think she wins (atm) WI, and MI.

PA is a pure toss-up, but (atm) I think Harris pulls it out. HUGE state to watch, IF she loses PA we are in serious shit more than likely.

So, that leaves us with (my final prediction):

 

270 Harris, 268 Trump.

 

But we are not out of the woods at all yet.

All it takes for Trump to win, is ONE faithless elector to flip from Harris to Trump.

IF an elector flip from Harris to Trump, we are back at 269-269 tie and Trump will win in the House.

WE cannot pull the Rethug-controlled state delegation under 26 (26 are needed to elect a POTUS in the US House, each state gets 1 vote), especially as NC will likely go from a 7 7 tie to 10 R 4 D or even 11 R 3 D, under their new RW gerrymandered maps.
But even if NC stays tied, we still have no chance to pull them under 26 states, due to gerrymandering (for years) in WI, and FL.

AND, even IF one Harris elector flips to anyone other than Trump, Harris still loses, 269-268-1, with the House electing Trump. There are still 538 total electoral voters so she still needs 270 to win.

Harris would win IF a Harris faithless elector refuses to vote at all.

Then, the total EVs are 537, and 269 left for Harris and 268 left for Trump. Per the 12th Amendment 269 is a majority of the 537 EV total.

BUT, IF 2 Harris electors refuse to vote, Trump wins in the US House, as then the total EVs are 536 and Harris, at 268, does NOT have a majority (it would be a 268-268 tie).

Now, here are the states that the Rethugs will try and get one Harris EV to flip to Trump, or 2 Harris electors to simply refuse to vote:

It is simple to see them (given my map above)

It has to be a state that Harris won AND a state that either:

1. A state that Harris wins AND a state that automatically counts the vote from a faithless elector (those states are HI, OR, WI, DE, VA, MD, VT, CT, and MA, plus DC)

OR

2. A state that Harris wins AND it is a state with no laws on the books for any scenario (those states are IL, NJ, PA, and NH)

OR

3. (least likely) A state that Harris wins, the vote is counted, but there is a penalty for the faithless elector. The only state like that is NM.

Here is the map of states' faithless elector laws:

The Rethugs will likely try and covertly offer billions of dollars (and maybe some covert threats) plus a potential POTUS pardon (or a Rethug governor pardon if the Harris-won state has a Rethug governor, like NH or VA do, plus VT, but little chance for Rethug shenanigans there) to a Harris elector to flip to Trump, OR get 2 Harris electors to refuse to vote.

Another gambit they may well try is to get an entire state that Harris won to not certify its entire slate of electors, or flip it to Trump (flipping it would be harder).

They would need either:

1. A state that Harris wins, BUT has a Rethug Trifecta (Gov and both state chambers). The only 2 states that could happen in are NH and VA. Even tiny NH would work, as even though it only has 4 EVs, IF it refuses to certify, the that takes the total EVs down to 534, and Trump's 268 are a majority.

OR

2. A state that Harris wins, but even though it has a Dem governor, it has Rethug super majorities in both state chambers. The only state that could happen in is WI.

Finally, IF the Rethugs retain the US HOUSE (a fairly decent shot they have at doing so in theory), they may block certification of a key state that went for Harris.

 

US Senate predictions:

Democrats lose control.

They lose WV and MT for sure, and atm I think OH (horrid loss as Sherrod Brown (D) is one of the best Senators).

The Dems also could lose WI, MI, NV, and PA, but I think they hold on to them.

Rethugs retain all their US Senate seats, including the only 3 in any remote danger (TX and FL, and especially NE, where an independent, Dan Osborn is so close to Deb Fischer, the R incumbent).

IF NE flips to indy, Osborn will NOT caucus with either party, but the Rethugs will regain the US Senate 51 R - 48 D and 1 indy anyway (if my Dem losses in WV, MT, and OH are correct, with WV and MT basically locked in as of now as D to R flips).

Even if Brown wins in OH, and Osborn wins in NE the Rethugs would still have control 50 to 49 with the indy Osborn not caucusing with either party.

 

US House predictions:

Democrats regain control

[Vesper 28,698]

Best possible REALISTIC outcomes for Harris and Trump (closing momentum for Harris v hidden voters for Trump)

HARRIS maximal EV outcome

 

TRUMP maximal EV outcome

[NikkiCFC 7,926]

15 hours ago, Fernando said:

One thing about people, well not everyone as that is generalizing. But I would say a good amount of people tend to be rebellious. 

You tell them not to do this and they would do it. 

The New York Times with that article is going to pushed a lot of rebellious people to do the opposite. 

 

As a Trump voter and pro Israeli aren't you concerned that he may not continue supporting them the same way as this administration?

[Fernando 6,447]

2 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

As a Trump voter and pro Israeli aren't you concerned that he may not continue supporting them the same way as this administration?

I think it will be more of a concerned with Harris then Trump to be honest. 

[Fernando 6,447]

28 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Vesper's final predictions

 

As you may know, for ages I was super concerned about a 269-269 tie and NE-2.

This was my map showing by far the most likely scenario it would happen:

 

Trump wins NV, AZ, GA, NC, ME-2, and NE-2.
Harris wins WI, MI, PA, NH

I was very worried that the NE unicameral (only one in the nation) state legislature would wait until ME's legislature could not undo their split EV scheme (due to the time limit in their ME constitutions for law changes to take effect), and then NE WOULD undo theirs.

That almost happened, BUT just like the last time (several years ago) ONE Republican refused to go along with the rest and so it was stopped.

Now, I am relieved in terms of NE-2, as Harris is up there 8 to 12 points in the latest legit polls.

That said, as it stands, my map above (but with NE-2 flipped to Harris, so she wins 270-268) may damn well be exactly how it plays out.

This is why:

(and I NEVER count the dozens of RW polls, so there is no false elevation of Trump from them in any of my calculus)

We are a in big trouble in NV (the NV guru, John Ralston, had said we are in deep shit due to the early returns and the fact the Rethugs have gained a lot in net registrations, plus the early voting doesn't look good, plus a huge union there just endorsed the Rethug governor today, for the 2026 election). Now he says Harris wins it but BARELY, by 0.3 per cent, but even there he said it is absolutely possible Trump wins there.

ME-2 is basically a lock for Trump.

It looks bad for us in AZ.

A bit less bad in GA and NC, but they still look (atm) like they both go Trump.

Harris has NH locked up.

I think she wins (atm) WI, and MI.

PA is a pure toss-up, but (atm) I think Harris pulls it out. HUGE state to watch, IF she loses PA we are in serious shit more than likely.

So, that leaves us with (my final prediction):

 

270 Harris, 268 Trump.

 

But we are not out of the woods at all yet.

All it takes for Trump to win, is ONE faithless elector to flip from Harris to Trump.

IF an elector flip from Harris to Trump, we are back at 269-269 tie and Trump will win in the House.

WE cannot pull the Rethug-controlled state delegation under 26 (26 are needed to elect a POTUS in the US House, each state gets 1 vote), especially as NC will likely go from a 7 7 tie to 10 R 4 D or even 11 R 3 D, under their new RW gerrymandered maps.
But even if NC stays tied, we still have no chance to pull them under 26 states, due to gerrymandering (for years) in WI, and FL.

AND, even IF one Harris elector flips to anyone other than Trump, Harris still loses, 269-268-1, with the House electing Trump. There are still 538 total electoral voters so she still needs 270 to win.

Harris would win IF a Harris faithless elector refuses to vote at all.

Then, the total EVs are 537, and 269 left for Harris and 268 left for Trump. Per the 12th Amendment 269 is a majority of the 537 EV total.

BUT, IF 2 Harris electors refuse to vote, Trump wins in the US House, as then the total EVs are 536 and Harris, at 268, does NOT have a majority (it would be a 268-268 tie).

Now, here are the states that the Rethugs will try and get one Harris EV to flip to Trump, or 2 Harris electors to simply refuse to vote:

It is simple to see them (given my map above)

It has to be a state that Harris won AND a state that either:

1. A state that Harris wins AND a state that automatically counts the vote from a faithless elector (those states are HI, OR, WI, DE, VA, MD, VT, CT, and MA, plus DC)

OR

2. A state that Harris wins AND it is a state with no laws on the books for any scenario (those states are IL, NJ, PA, and NH)

OR

3. (least likely) A state that Harris wins, the vote is counted, but there is a penalty for the faithless elector. The only state like that is NM.

Here is the map of states' faithless elector laws:

The Rethugs will likely try and covertly offer billions of dollars (and maybe some covert threats) plus a potential POTUS pardon (or a Rethug governor pardon if the Harris-won state has a Rethug governor, like NH or VA do, plus VT, but little chance for Rethug shenanigans there) to a Harris elector to flip to Trump, OR get 2 Harris electors to refuse to vote.

Another gambit they may well try is to get an entire state that Harris won to not certify its entire slate of electors, or flip it to Trump (flipping it would be harder).

They would need either:

1. A state that Harris wins, BUT has a Rethug Trifecta (Gov and both state chambers). The only 2 states that could happen in are NH and VA. Even tiny NH would work, as even though it only has 4 EVs, IF it refuses to certify, the that takes the total EVs down to 534, and Trump's 268 are a majority.

OR

2. A state that Harris wins, but even though it has a Dem governor, it has Rethug super majorities in both state chambers. The only state that could happen in is WI.

Finally, IF the Rethugs retain the US HOUSE (a fairly decent shot they have at doing so in theory), they may block certification of a key state that went for Harris.

 

US Senate predictions:

Democrats lose control.

They lose WV and MT for sure, and atm I think OH (horrid loss as Sherrod Brown (D) is one of the best Senators).

The Dems also could lose WI, MI, NV, and PA, but I think they hold on to them.

Rethugs retain all their US Senate seats, including the only 3 in any remote danger (TX and FL, and especially NE, where an independent, Dan Osborn is so close to Deb Fischer, the R incumbent).

IF NE flips to indy, Osborn will NOT caucus with either party, but the Rethugs will regain the US Senate 51 R - 48 D and 1 indy anyway (if my Dem losses in WV, MT, and OH are correct, with WV and MT basically locked in as of now as D to R flips).

Even if Brown wins in OH, and Osborn wins in NE the Rethugs would still have control 50 to 49 with the indy Osborn not caucusing with either party.

 

US House predictions:

Democrats regain control

Awesome work. With this tight race we might need to wait till Wednesday morning to know the results. 

[Vesper 28,698]

Just now, Fernando said:

Awesome work. With this tight race we might need to wait till Wednesday morning to know the results. 

IF my 270-268 Harris EC win map actually occurs, we will not know for sure who the next POTUS is until January 20, 2025, when Harris is sworn it (or Trump actually overturns the EC outcome and is sworn in).

IF my map happens, we are likey in for the shitshows of shitshows before there is resolution.

It also could happen if I am only off by one or two states or so, with Harris winning, but not by much, just more than my 2 EV margin).

So many things could kick off a violent kinetic civil war, the extent of which could become nationwide, especially at guerilla warfare level.

I laid out a lot of them, but there are some more remote things that are even more crazy (multivariate assassinations (potentiaslly by either side but FAR more like to come from the RW if a narrow Trump loss goes down, a corrupt SCOTUS literally handing power to Trump, a military coup d'état that deposes Biden, blocks Harris, and installs Trump (which also could happen the other way later on down the road if Trumps wins and then does INSANE things that are clearly unconstitutional and illegal, but backed up the corrupt SCOTUS), etc etc etc.

The world is on tenterhooks atm.

[Vesper 28,698]

44 minutes ago, Fernando said:

With this tight race we might need to wait till Wednesday morning to know the results. 

Also MANY states will perhaps not have their final numbers (especially if they are close) until the weekend or so (maybe later).

Beware of the Red Mirage, which happened in 2020 (for but once instance).

Same day voting is often dominated by Republicans, and in multiple swing states THOSE vote will be announced first.

Then, as the mail-in ballots are counted, a state can easily flip for Trump to Harris, like states in 2020 started out with Trump leads, but then ened up, when all the votes were counted, went for Biden (GA, MI, WI, PA, AZ, NV did thsi to varying degrees).

No matter what happens, Trump will immediately claim he has won, and won decisively.

In 2020 Trump wanted the vote counting to STOP, completely, when he was ahead in the swing states.

This time, if that happens, he will be so so much more strident in his calls to stop the count (if he is ahead) and will immediately ratchet it up to calls for potentiasl armed violence as a legitimate tool to 'stop the steal'. Of course the only 'steal' attempts of ANY true import, will be made by the RW.

IF Harris is clearly defeated (by regular voting means), she will NOT try to engage in illegal actions, I would bet any amount of dosh on that.

IF the Republicans actually flip Electoral College voters (via illegal means, be it bribery or threat-based coercion, etc etc), or they wipe out Harris-won state's entire slates of Electors, or block certification in Congress to the extent it goes to the rigged, gerrymandered US House, who will elect Trump, then the ball is in old Biden's court, as until noon EST on January 20th, 2025 he is still POTUS, and thus still the Commander in Chief of the US military.

It could get fucking crazy, I am sorely afraid.

Edited Tuesday at 02:44 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,698]

The yanks have erected a nightmare system of governance (and elections), as the long-wave (some 200 plus years in the making) constitutional flaws are now (and some have already come) coming to the fore and quite possibly becoming prime instruments in the the dissolution of the Union of the States.

The US system of governance is a supertanker (and one the size of a small nation-state).

It takes ages (easily decades and decades) and olympian efforts, at myriad levels of interlocked mechanisms, to turn it in one clear direction, but if that direction is steering into an ill wind of malice and chaos, discord and authoritarian superstructures, it is almost impossible to right the ship of state, given the system (a system that brought about stabilty for centuries, barring the US Civil War) of checks and balances now being turned on its head and then used to increase the tyranny of malign actors and their penumbras of dark power and freedoms destruction (and at a multicipity of levels of those cherished freedoms, from the everyday mundane ones, all the way up to the all-encompassing systemic core ones).

Those seemingly benevolent checks and balances could well become the ultimate chains and prison walls, the manna for totalitarianism, not just across their fruited plain, but indeed projected out onto a global stage.

Edited Tuesday at 03:11 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,698]

Joe Rogan Endorses Trump, and Trump Calls Him ‘the Biggest There Is’

Mr. Rogan has hosted Donald J. Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk for lengthy and friendly interviews in recent weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/us/politics/trump-joe-rogan-endorsement.html

The podcast host Joe Rogan endorsed former President Donald J. Trump in a post on social media on Monday.Credit...Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC, via Getty Images

 

Joe Rogan, the enormously popular podcast host who brought Donald J. Trump onto his show for a three-hour episode last month, endorsed the former president in a post on social media on Monday.

Mr. Rogan, who also spoke at length with Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, and Elon Musk, a prominent Trump surrogate, on recent episodes of his podcast, said Mr. Musk made “what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”

“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Mr. Rogan, host of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” wrote on Monday evening.

Minutes later, Mr. Trump promoted Mr. Rogan’s endorsement from the campaign trail in Pittsburgh, falsely suggesting that Mr. Rogan had never before endorsed a political candidate. Mr. Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020.

“He’s the biggest there is,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Rogan, adding, “Somebody said the biggest beyond anybody in a long time.”

Mr. Rogan’s conversations with Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance and Mr. Musk were overwhelmingly friendly, often full of praise for the former president. In his appearance, Mr. Trump courted Mr. Rogan’s audience, largely young and male, with talk of eliminating the federal income tax, mixed martial arts and speculation about life on Mars.

Early in his interview with Mr. Vance, Mr. Rogan said American presidents “age radically” and “dramatically” once they take office.

“Everyone but Trump,” Mr. Rogan quickly added. In his interview with Mr. Trump, he had noted that the former president’s meandering speaking style — which Mr. Trump calls “the weave” — appeared to be intensifying. “Your weave is getting wide,” Mr. Rogan had said. “You’re getting wide with this weave.”

This year, Mr. Rogan had earned Mr. Trump’s ire by supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had been running for president as an independent and who at one point was poised to draw support from Mr. Trump. Mr. Rogan had said that Mr. Kennedy was “the only one that makes sense to me.” Facing criticism from Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Rogan clarified that he was not endorsing Mr. Kennedy, who ultimately dropped out and backed Mr. Trump.

“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, in August.

[Vesper 28,698]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/us/politics/election-2024-voters.html

I spent my weekend driving around southeastern Pennsylvania in a rented minivan. And if the interviews I did there are any indication, there is one thing everyone in this divided nation can agree on: The uncertainty is getting to us.

In Lancaster County, Persida Himmele, a 58-year-old college professor, told me something that might resonate with a lot of you. It feels, she said, as if life is on hold through the election.

She hasn’t graded papers. She plans to teach her classes online rather than in person this week. She is urging everybody she knows — particularly friends and family who are Puerto Rican, as she is — not to vote for former President Donald Trump, and she has been knocking on doors in Latino neighborhoods, hoping to have those conversations with strangers, too.

She can hardly imagine what the country might look like after tomorrow, regardless of whether her preferred candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins.

“I think that even if she wins, we are going to see violence,” Himmele told me on Saturday at a canvassing launch in downtown Lancaster. She worries that a Trump victory could drive up racism and threaten the future of democracy.

The next morning, I attended Trump’s rally in Lititz, Pa., where Melissa Thomas, a 49-year-old Republican, made an even more ominous prediction. She told me that she thought Harris could not win without election fraud — and that it might be a precursor to a civil war.

“I will not take it gracefully, and I will not take it laying down,” Thomas, a resident of Lemoyne, Pa., said.

“I can see the capitol of Pennsylvania and Harrisburg from my front porch,” Thomas said, “and I will be there, and I will be letting my people know, my representatives, my congressmen, know that this isn’t going to fly.”

With one day to go before the election, the polls are practically tied. Voters on both sides of the aisle feel a deep sense of foreboding, as my colleagues Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck wrote today. And everyone seems to feel as if they’re staring into an abyss.

Voters burned by years of polling misses don’t know what to make of narrowly divided polls, or whether to trust them at all. But I spoke to Harris supporters who deeply believe she will win, and Trump supporters who are just as sure about their candidate’s victory — especially because Trump has primed them to believe that the only way Harris can win is if she cheats, even though that is not true.

The real uncertainty I heard from voters was less about the result, and more about what comes next.

“We’re going to win, but I’m concerned about what’s going to happen afterwards, because there’s so much hatred for Trump,” Shirley Rust, a real estate agent from Lancaster County, told me before Trump’s rally in Lititz.

“I worry about what happens when we’re still counting the vote, and the other side doesn’t like what they’re seeing,” Leann Hart, 39, a data analyst and the vice chair of the Bensalem Democratic Organization, told me in Norristown, Pa., while she waited for the former first lady Michelle Obama to take the stage at a rally for Ms. Harris.

None of us know who will win the election. And we don’t know whether worrisome events in recent days, like arson attacks on ballot boxes, are aberrations or an indication of more instability to come.

But what we do know is this: People are voting, and the system so far has functioned largely as it should.

Tomorrow night, the polls will close. The nation’s election workers will do their jobs. Results will be reported. There could be a flurry of lawsuits, and it could be a while before we get any clarity, especially if it is close.

Over the past six months, I’ve tried to use this newsletter to help you understand an election that became even more of a roller coaster than any of us expected, to bring you to the states and the voters who will shape its final outcome and to help make sense of the moments where everything changed.

Now, voters are on the precipice of changing the country again, either electing the country’s first female president or returning to the White House a former president whom voters rejected after one term.

I’ll be back in your inboxes early tomorrow, with a primer on to how to make sense of the day. And in the days to come, I’ll be guiding you through the results and what it all means for the country.

Thank you for reading — and see you tomorrow.

 

the moment

Two photographs that stuck with our photographers

Over the past few months, we’ve spent some time with the images made by New York Times photographers on the campaign trail. Today, I asked Erin Schaff, the photographer assigned to cover Vice President Kamala Harris, and Doug Mills, the photographer assigned to cover former President Donald Trump, to each share one image that stuck with them from their months of coverage.

 

This was the vice president’s first campaign event with former President Barack Obama. In this photo, they are taking a quiet moment to speak before heading onstage. I am most interested in seeing who the candidate is when she or he is not performing for the public.

— Erin Schaff

So this picture here is of Donald Trump just about to exit what he calls “Trump Force One,” his private plane that he flies to campaign stops. He was just about to leave the aircraft and walk out to thousands of people waiting on the tarmac.

I was standing in the doorway, and all of a sudden the former president walked right through the aisle. I kind of lifted up the camera to make sure it was going to be OK. And he looked at me. He goes, “We’re good, Doug, go ahead.”

There is no question that Donald Trump knows when every camera’s around him. And that is one thing that is unique to him. He’s very much about the imagery and the entertainment part of it.

— Doug Mills

[cosmicway 1,313]

I don't  expect Harris to win.
Trump was ahead before that first debate that went badly for Biden.
Then the margin became wider.
Then Harris took over and managed to regain some ground.
Past experiece with similar situations as well as the current polls indicate Trump.
Of course we will know in 48 hours but to change my prediction something really dramatic must happen.

[Vesper 28,698]

and so it begins