What more is there to say? I don't think it's just my advancing age that has made this election cycle seem worse than its predecessors. If so much weren't at stake, it could have been entertaining: the progressive deterioration of Biden and Trump on live television, the antics of party and personal loyalists as reality kept throwing banana peels in the path of their dreams, the incompetence of most of the Beltway news media, the fecklessness of administration spokespeople trying to defend the indefensible, and so on and on. Watching State Department spokesperson Matt Miller smirk helplessly as he runs interference for Israeli atrocities, or White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre roll her eyes like a bored teenager at impertinent questions would strain credibility of satire, but it's all real, which makes it no fun at all.
Some Biden dead-enders are still fuming that "They stabbed that man in the forehead," though most quickly jumped on the Harris bandwagon. I still see some complaining that Harris was 'forced' on the voters without a primary, though the immediate flood of support she received, both verbal and monetary, ought to be evidence enough that there was massive uneasiness about Biden at least among the Democratic rank and file before he was pried loose from his candidacy. Some continued to lie for months that it was too late to replace Biden's name with Harris's on the ballots in various states, though this was propaganda from the Trump campaign. Even funnier were MAGA complaints about all the campaign material with Biden's name on it that had become useless overnight - all that money wasted, so unfair!
Myself, I felt enormous relief when Biden finally abdicated. I was not, and still am not, an enthusiast for Harris. Her choice of Tim Walz as running mate was probably her best high-profile move. I think it's fair to call her handling of opposition to US support of Israel a misstep, though it's impossible to say how it will affect the election, especially since Trump is even worse on Israel/Palestine than she and Biden have been. Among her supporters there's a tendency to talk as though criticism and opposition come only from Arab-Americans and Muslims, though that is certainly not true.
I think the number of hardcore MAGA voters is dwindling, though again it's impossible to say by how much. One thing that sticks with me is that, in the small town where I live, whose government is dominated by Republicans, the local GOP office did not have a Trump sign in its window until he secured the nomination: instead there was a De Santis sign, which was removed when he ended his campaign. For several weeks, the only signs in the window were downticket candidates. I saw fewer Trump-Vance signs than Harris-Walz signs around town until the past week or so. This bespeaks a lack of enthusiasm for Trump in an area where I expected him to be much more popular.
The abortion issue is going to be important, and may bode well for Democrats at all levels. That's been clear since the 2022 midterms, and Republicans are running scared. Even Trump is trying to distance himself from it, which isn't going to win over many voters and has alienated some forced-birther Republicans.
I wanted to write this before Election Day, just out of guilt for not having weighed in before. One thing that reinforced my sloth was that when I looked at my posts during previous election cycles, I saw that I'd said before everything I wanted to say this time. But I feel bad because in the future I won't be able to look at what I've written this year as a kind of journal, which I can do for campaigns in 2008 and later. I won't be following Election Night coverage this time, any more than I have in years past. One previous post I do want to refer to concerns the likelihood that we won't know who's won for several days. I remember that this maddened many mainstream journalists in 2020, and it's likely to be true this time around as well. But we'll see, and one lesson we all should have learned this year is that events can surprise us. However, I don't think most people have learned that lesson at all; many are determined to know what will happen, what we can expect, in advance anyway.
One prediction I will make with some confidence, though: as they wait impatiently for the results to come in, commentators will be asking: What does this mean for 2028?
