While every presidential campaign is exhausting, this one has fallen into the kind of lunacy that has afflicted only four other campaigns in American history. The 2020 election has joined the elections of 1800, 1824, 1876, and 1968: times when nearly everyone in the country said, "Let's not do this anymore!"
The president is now in the hospital with Covid-19. We are getting scant and confusing information about how serious it is for him. He Tweets that he's okay to walk out any minute now. One of his doctors suggested he tested "positive" for the virus a day earlier than we were told and is just now entering "the woods."
This campaign started out with 24 credible Democrats vying for their presidential nomination: a field that was the most diverse in American history. The Republicans, in as much angst and conflict as a party in power has ever been, cancelled most of their primaries so that the president would not have any challenges or dissent. The result? Two old white guys, mid to late seventies...and we aren't positive either of them will even live to the election...to say nothing of living out a full four year term.
We have a sitting president who could not control himself during a simple debate, interrupting his opponent (or the moderator) 128 times in less than 90 minutes, usually with a barrage of accusations, sneers, and name calling. (Biden, a bit slower, interrupted Trump about 30 times.) And it's only been a week(1) since this same sitting president was exposed on the tax front as having paid little to no federal income taxes...and presiding over a failing business empire. The press, either fawning over him or apoplectic with Trump-Derangement-Syndrome, has turned his whole presidency into one exhausting reality show...that is anything but the reality the rest of us know.
On the other hand, the challenger is going to be 78 years old next month. He is a decent man, but showing clear signs of his age: re-living the past more and more, defensiveness, and a slowing response time to how the world is changing once again in his lifetime. Previously, Ronald Reagan was the oldest person to serve as president, leaving office in 1989 at the age of 77. At the time, Reagan was showing obvious signs of not being up to the job. No one has ever been as old as Joe Biden and tried to occupy the oval office.
Plus, in the midst of all this, a Supreme Court justice died just 46 days before the election. Mr. Trump rushed a nomination through in time to load the Supreme Court before November, and Mitch McConnell (orchestrator of the Senate) has indicated that he will see that the nomination is approved before we start counting votes. Mr. Trump indicated at the debate the other night that he expects the Supreme Court to perhaps invalidate any victory Joe Biden might claim in the upcoming election.
The Supreme Court is certainly going to be more conservative, but they won't be in Mr. Trump's corner as he thinks they will. Nevertheless, everyone is going crazy. Next month we will have nine sitting Supreme Court justices. And five of them will have been selected by men who lost the popular vote. And they were confirmed by senators who represented far fewer constituents than the senators who approved them. Crazy?
After this is over, the one thing sensible people on both side can surely agree on is that we can't do this again. The country is too raw and wounded. I don't know how we'll find a path forward, but neither did people know in 1800, 1824, 1876, or 1968. After those elections, the first efforts at reform were not perfect, but they did help put us on pathways of improvement. I'll share more in future days about some of that history.
As for this election, I think this was a very, very bad week for Mr. Trump. Between the taxes and the childish debate performance and the Covid-19 diagnosis (after refusing to wear masks and belittling those who do) he will be hard pressed to gain any voters. He likely lost a few, perhaps enough to push this election into a landslide against him. While all of us who are decent human beings wish him well in his affliction, he's not the kind of guy who will garner a pity vote.
So...checking out for now...and I'll tune in and write again in a couple days.
--Mike
