The orange-skinned lunatic is in our heads. We may wish it were not so, but even if guided by the best of intentions there are still too many bloggers, pundits, columnists, politicians, and others who are discussing the upcoming 2020 election in the terms, or the mood, set by the pr*sident.
When trump tweets or rants endlessly about how terrible our elections are, and how the upcoming presidential election is corrupt, we all need to respond in a less cynical manner. We should not let him instill fear or dread in us. We should not give this lunatic such power. We should not let him drive us over to the dark side. But our heads have exploded with dark forebodings too.
And the result is that there are just too many articles and columns and blog posts, from countless different online and print publications, obsessing over possible nightmare election scenarios. Yes, it is good to be wary. No, it's not good to insist that the sky is falling. We should be analyzing; instead we're panicking.
When the lunatic explicitly threatens to steal the election, we should remember that an election cannot be stolen by tweets. Elections are complicated affairs; they have many different moving parts. That means that even as there may be numerous opportunities to throw sand in the gears, there are also lots of checkpoints securing the results.
For the lunatic to actually succeed at stealing the election, there are many things that would aid him in those efforts (and this list is not exhaustive): a national press completely under his control, a majority of the population on his side, popularity, a successful record as president, the esteem of his own political party, a booming economy, a pandemic-free country, the support of the military rank and file, and the cooperation of the military leaders. Obviously he has none of those things. Conservative media outlets may indeed strongly influence anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the population, and that is cause for genuine concern. But those supporters simply do not equal the number of people who are desperate to throw the lunatic out of office.
Are the courts in trump's corner? Certainly not all of them. In the panic over the supreme court, many people seem to forget or overlook the fact that trump has an astonishing losing streak in court throughout his pr*sidency. But what about the supreme court? It was decisive, obviously, in the 2000 Bush v Gore election. But that was only possible in a close election. At this point in 2020, the odds of a situation that could tip the election winding up in front of the supreme court appear to be remote.
But spending too much time agonizing over a possible role the supreme court might play in this election may be entering into excessively speculative, and cynical, ground. And that's exactly the kind of thing that I'm warning against. Because, ultimately, while stealing an election in the USA may in fact be possible, it will not be easy. And it certainly won’t be simple. There are a huge number of state and national laws, legislatures, governors, representatives, lawyers, and activists standing in the way.
So while the many alarmist stories on this topic may be well-intentioned, the deluge of headlines about nightmare election scenarios could in fact turn into self fulfilling prophecies if they deter people from voting. What we need are quite a lot more articles about the strengths of our elections - because we have seen, at this point, more than enough about the supposed weaknesses.
We should not be arguing about this issue from the dark side into which we have allowed trump to lead us. We need to get the lunatic out of our heads and remember that we live in a country that can be and do great things. We all need to stop freaking out because a bully is tweeting his vile intentions. We are better than that.