I’M CALLIN’ IT

NOVEMBER 1, 2024 – Allow me to kick back for a moment and savor the thought that not only will the Duly Defeated soon fade from the national consciousness, but for the first time America will elect a woman as president. As if that alone isn’t cause for celebration, we’ll be in bonus territory in that the woman will be what is rather oddly (I think, but that’s for another post) referred to as a “person of color.” And if we’re to take the “person of color” to its absurd but logical extreme, extra bonus territory of 100% “person of color,” as opposed to Obama, who was only 50% “of color.”

I mean how cool will it be for our nine-year-old, “half person of color” granddaughter and our slightly older grandnieces to be coming of age in this break-through era of Kamala Harris? Answer: very cool.

What’s regrettable, of course, is that it will have taken a quarter of a millennium into the life of the nation before we’re mature enough to elect a woman president, let alone a woman of color as president. And despite our chronological age, our body politic has reverted to the impatience and impertinence of an early adolescent. It’s about time for us to reach our “age of majority.”

Since I’ve all but state explicitly my prediction for Tuesday, let me now announce it out loud: I’m callin’ it for Kamala. On what basis? I know a lot of people who voted for her early and often[1]. Just kidding. Though based more on hope than on hard data analysis, here’s the tripod of my hunch:

1. The secret ballot allows people to vote furtively for Harris without having to reveal to Trump supporting spouses or members of social circles. Pollsters might well not receive accurate responses from these Harris voters, thus skewing the polls in ostensible favor of Trump.
2. The Trump vote in 2020 was a high mark. His “performance” since then has grown more crass, chaotic and negative. However strong his grip on his core base appears, he’s not expanded it since. From the time Harris replaced Biden, Trump’s campaign strategy has been to alienate people who might otherwise support him. Much of his crazy talk works as a “two-fer”: spurned by his negative, threatening stances and rhetoric, tepid supporters have bailed from his noisy bandwagon and joined Harris’s “promise train,” widening the gap between Trump and Harris. I can offer no evidence, just a hunch, that this trend has not been fully reflected by the polls we all hear/see.
3. At crunch time a critical majority of first-time eligible voters will realize ever more acutely what’s at stake in this election and turn out to vote. They will surprise us by their numbers, and the math will split decidedly in favor of Harris.

Sure—Trump will declare victory no matter what transpires Tuesday. Psychologically, he can’t bear to lose because he’s deathly afraid of the world perceiving him as what he fears he is: a loser. At 79, lugging around the weight of cumulative and habitual baggage, there’s next to no chance for change; his only hope is to continue the only tactics he knows: bully the hope out of opponents and hurl boisterous denials and vicious attacks. This might appeal to a conspicuous minority but not to the more significant majority. He’ll go down swinging but landing no knockout punches. When his chin hits the ground, the first things he’ll worry about are the lifts falling out of his shoes.

He has plenty of surrogates in the corner of his wrestling ring, but that support won’t have much clout when the winner of the match has already taken the prize and moved on to the serious matter of governance. The base can count to 10, pound the mat all they want, raise the arm of the Defeated, and shout among themselves the tired phrase, “We’re number one!” But in the end enough of that same base, even, will see that calling a frog a prince won’t turn the frog into one, just as repeating a lie will never transform a falsehood into the truth.

As dangerous as Trump could be, just as Joe McCarthy was, when the air is let out of the balloon, the Duly Defeated will plummet to earth and fade into history’s darker pages—just as McCarthy did.

If I’m wrong? We’ll cross that Rubicon if and when it must be forded. Meanwhile, embrace hope—and vote early and often.

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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson

[1]This famous phrase has been attributed to several origins, including Al Capone; most recently, Mayor Daley—both of the Windy City, of course. The “vote early” part hearkens back to an age before the late 19^th century when balloting was wide open for all to see. The vote count was updated frequently on election day, and political bosses took full (and legal) advantage of the system by pushing for supporters (often with “incentives”) to vote early so as to boost the boss’s numbers, discouraging opponents from voting—and alienating themselves: Why be on record for having supported the loser when the boss takes or holds power? The “vote often,” half of the phrase was the more nefarious, since voting more than once in the same election was officially verboten. Depending on the place and era, however, all sorts of electoral shenanigans were an integral part of the process. By yesteryear standards, modern voting systems and methods in America are phenomenally safe and secure from fraud and error. Few processes in our daily lives are more reliable. The biggest offense committed by Trump has been his ongoing baseless attack on the integrity of the electoral system. By his irresponsible claims of voter fraud, he has spawned material distrust, undermining the very foundation of our Constitutional government. This offense, more than any other charge or conviction or adjudicated liability against him, ought to give his supporters pause.