Two Weeks Left

Will the Agony Never End?

There has been a not-so-grand arc to this presidential campaign. It began with a long period of stasis—two old guys, Biden and Trump, not much enthusiasm for either, but a slow, barely detectable drift toward Trump because Biden seemed so doddering, so painful to watch. Then came summer, and boom. A month of explosions. Biden gone, Harris heroic, but not all that much real movement. And now—well, I’m thinking of an Arnold Palmer metaphor but I’m not gonna go there—stasis again. We are where we were, polls indecipherable, but a creeping sense of Trump inevitability, a nation sliding toward the unthinkable..

I read the daily pile and the undertow is there. In Politico’s Playbook—my first look at the day’s politics along with John Ellis’s New Items—there’s a long section of speculation about who will be Trump’s chief of staff. Much more speculation, in general—and all over the place— about which creatures will populate Trump’s administration than Harris’s. In the Times, my non-cousin Ezra has a lengthy podcast, amplifying themes I’ve written about here, that Trump’s strength is his disinhibition. His supporters don’t believe for a minute that he’s going to forcibly deport a million illegals—but they think he’d like to and that maybe he’ll round up some Venezuelan gangsters and send them packing. Trumpers get hyperbole; earnest liberals do not. Earnest liberals seem terrified of spontaneity, informality, naughtiness. The New York Post picks up on a gaffe by Maria Shriver at a Michigan town hall “conversation” with Kamala Harris that goes to the heart of the unease about Harris’s candidacy: A woman wants to ask a question. Shriver shuts her down. “We have some predetermined questions here.” Oof.

There’s the contrast. Trump’s gross, infantile spontaneity v. Harris’s smiley, straitjacketed predetermination. Guess which show the folks like better? Well, who knows? Chris Matthews’ brilliant old formulation of the Mommy Party and the Daddy Party seems more powerful than ever now. The polls reveal…nothing, except that Trump is doing better nationally than in the past. The early voting reveals…not too much, except that people seem to be coming out in droves and that more Republicans are casting early ballots than in 2020. But that was peak Covid so, again, who knows?

Will the dam break in the next two weeks? Well, probably not THE Dam, but all that’s needed is a couple of tiny beaver dams giving way in swing-state rivulets. A point in Pennsylvania. A point in Nevada, a hurricane-created rill in North Carolina.

I look forward to Harris’s not-predetermined town hall on CNN tomorrow night. I look forward to her saying in response to a question: Well, that’s something we didn’t do too well the past four years and here’s how I’m gonna change it. Anything! I mean, turn the page on what, girl?

Ruy Teixiera and Yuval Levin, two of our best political thinkers, have come out with a paper that may offer a path to future sanity. It’s called, provocatively, Politics Without Winners. I haven’t digested it yet—it seems something to be consumed slowly, after the election—but I will do so and report my assessment to you. In the meantime you can read it here.

…After the election. Is there such a place? I simply can’t imagine it. For now, the Klein Fever Barometer, dragged down by the weight of conventional wisdom, has lowered Harris’s chances to 3.8. I’m a creature of news and there simply isn’t much positive in the ether.