"So you see, I'm not naive
I just would like to believe
Ah, what you tell me.
You see I, I don't want
To be hurt by love again."
Frederick Knight, sung by Leonard Cohen,"Be for Real," 1992
I am used to being disappointed at elections, but I am not good at it.
Democrats on TV's talking panels are trying to suppress their giddiness. The polls look good. Democratic voters are hearing about waves. No, better yet, tides. No, plan for a tsunami! I am not thinking about tsunamis. I am repressing thoughts that perhaps, finally, Americans have had enough Trump. I remember election night 2016, when Trump, despite nearly every poll to the contrary, won the election. I don't want to be disappointed again.
I try not to live in a news bubble of people disgusted by Trump’s character and policies. I watch enough Fox News to know that a great many people consider him a picked-on hero. They know nothing about his crypto grift, his "sale" of pardons, the conflicts of interest deals with his family. They know the Bidens were shamefully corrupt.
Trump defines our era. I saw it coming and I think I see it ending, but he is still the center of action. On the morning of Election Day, 2016, amid every consensus report predicting a Hillary Clinton victory, I published a blog post titled “Prediction: Trump.” It was a lucky guess based on the observation that Trump intrigued people. They liked his frank, spontaneous, give-’em-hell talk. He had some of what people liked about Archie Bunker. And about Hugh Hefner. And about Tony Soprano. I predicted that there was a silent group of people out there who would not be captured in polling data.
Now there is a silent group of people who have decided Trump is a malicious crackpot. I predict we will see that opinion in the vote this evening.
Democrats should prepare themselves for what is to come.
-- It will still be the Trump era because he is still president and he is still more popular than Congress. He can operate decisively. He will make executive orders while Democrats in Congress will be in hearings. I expect the basic template of political battle to be Democrats trying to legislate and Trump confounding them. Plan to be frustrated that Democrats cannot do more.
-- Plan, too, for the very real possibility of peace and prosperity, and Trump taking personal credit for it. He won’t be miserably unpopular forever. The magic of a capitalist economy and markets is that eventually the system resolves itself and people find a way to make a living. And eventually wars end, the one between Russia and Ukraine, and ours with Iran. In the aftermath of some end to the fighting, the public will sense things are better. Prepare for people applauding Trump.
-- Make one last preparation: Democrats are deeply divided over the war that will not end because God is fighting it on every side, the wars between Israel, Palestine, and Israel’s neighbors. There is probably no way a Democratic presidential candidate can thread a needle on the issue of our best policy toward Israel. Some Democrats have given up on Israel and decided it is a dangerous, rogue state. Others think it the set-upon good-guy victim, just trying to defend itself. The mess in Michigan with the fiancé of the AIPAC-supported Haley Stevens endorsing a Republican over the Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed is a harbinger of the future. The Democratic Party may split up like the Whig Party.
Whatever the news tonight, it ushers in problems. There will always be problems. Young people in school and in first jobs will look back on this period as those exciting years of youth. They won’t have a sense of fatigue and hopelessness. The political ones among them may remember this day as they looked forward to election news with a hope for the open-ended future when all good things are possible.
"Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'
And stay right here 'cause these are the good old days
(These are the good old days)"
Carly Simon, "Anticipation" 1971
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