Our bully-in-chief is succeeding at really the only part of his skill set that distinguishes him – scaring people with unhinged behavior he has no capacity to back up. Yet and still, when you’re POTUS, with a wretched core of supporters, who plum new depths of imbecilic servility every day, the guff you puff is going to be more intimidating. The day that stops is when the Presidency can go no lower and lies mortally wounded.
Two months from Election Day and no MAGA resister worth their salt is comfortable where things stand, regardless of which poll they just looked at. From the drizzles the Michael Moores and Bill Mahrs suffer due to renewed dread of a decisive Trump convention bounce, to an organized criminal conspiracy within the leadership of the US Postal Service to do whatever is necessary to make that surge happen, nothing right now pertaining to November 3 reassures. Add to the list of worries a “red mirage” one group of prognosticators feels increasingly certain will occur and who can be blamed for hitting the benzo vial in a quest for just that wee bit of serenity, no matter how temporary.
What exactly is a “red mirage?” According to Hawkfish, a political data and analytics agency funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, America is going to tune in election night to an apparent Trump landslide, created by only one half of the voting pie, in-person ballots. The theory seems logical given the stark divisions created by MAGA covidiocy. Most all of Trump’s people have no plans or ambitions to vote by mail, the lion’s share of his count will come in on Election Day and be tallied in real time. Biden’s support, however, will lean much heavier on mail-in votes that may not be fully accounted for until days later, depending on the electoral infrastructure of individual states. . “We believe that on Election Night,” predicts CEO Josh Mendelson, “we are going to see Donald Trump in a stronger position than the reality actually is.” The notion makes sense. It also promises national trauma.
Anybody who thinks Trump and the GOP aren’t going to declare total non-negotiable victory if election night returns point to a landslide need only refer back to how they digested Attorney General Bill Barr’s initial roll out of the Mueller Report. Documented and succinct, with ten exhaustively detailed examples of wrongdoing, the stinging indictment was heralded as total vindication by the time Barr finished warping it. Wiggle room became endless expanse for redefinition of facts. Incredibly, to this day MAGA minions deform Mueller’s findings to punctuate Trump’s innocence.
What will be done with an overwhelmingly red election map at 12:30 AM Wednesday morning? Does anyone believe Karl Rove and Brit Hume won’t be projecting him the winner? The OANN bots will be sipping champagne. It will be all the Bunker Duffer requires to declare it a done deal and anything further the “rigged” system trying to steal his “great win.” Trump does not do pleasant surprises; he certainly won’t do one here. We know this.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario that plays more into “deep state” psychosis than a decisive election-night “triumph” slowly chipped away as the ballots 35 percent of America already believes are illegitimate get counted. One can only shutter at the Fox/AM narrative, or House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s take as such a process unwinds. Civil war, anyone?
Meanwhile, when is the last, or first, time national media has discussed what this may look like? Am I the only one who has heard virtually nothing concrete on how this election’s extraordinary dependence on mail-in votes is going to play out, when we can expect a winner to be confirmed? Fact is, most all of America expects to go to bed with a clear idea of who the victor is. If that’s not likely, there better be some serious public education but quick because one thing nobody doubts is how friendly confusion and chaos are to Trump’s shameless disdain for genuine legitimacy. We need a clearer idea about this year’s most likely electoral process chronology yesterday.
The “red mirage” scenario is directly linked to how efficiently individual states count mail-in votes, which is a direct function of when they actually start doing it. Many battleground states, including Florida, New Hampshire and Maine, aren’t allowed to even begin until the polls close. Others make it a point in their voter guides to describe scanning mail-in ballots into tabulation systems before Election Day, while taking care to make clear results won’t be shared until after polls close. Such language implies a faster count.
What’s certain is that how quickly mail-in votes are tallied varies significantly from state to state, and speed can be impacted by everything from technology glitches to the number of people deployed to carry out the task. One doesn’t have to be Alex Jones to imagine how schemes to delay results could play out. Regardless, it’s a no-brainer the American public must possess a set of expectations this year’s extraordinary circumstances are capable of producing. The possibility, or even likelihood, Tuesday evening won’t near determine a winner has to be a sizable chunk of our public discussion. Even a passing thought major networks don’t want to do that because viewer interest and ratings may suffer is simply too vile to contemplate. Resist that urge, while sadly recognizing there’s a reason it exists at all.
The eggs of America as a going democratic concern are all now in the Decision/2020 basket. The continued validity of the most non-credible President in US history will be decided by an electorate addled by millions who refuse to even acknowledge a global pandemic – that will have surely killed a quarter million citizens by Election Day – even warrants special procedures to protect public health. A massive, beyond-question electoral rebuke is what most believe will be necessary to render Trump’s inevitable protestations meritless enough to deflate his ability to pursue destructive transition mischief. No matter how illusory, an election-night Trump landslide that catches everyone off guard because of a failure to adequately prepare the public for how historically high mail-in voter participation may play out will be a disastrous bullet to the foot, and create precisely the uncertainty and chaos MAGA will exploit to the hilt. It can’t happen here… not this election. Don’t let it. BC