Republicans Have a Lot More to Worry About than We Do

 

It took a full eight years to indelibly etch the word ‘fascist’ into Trump’s forehead, but better late than never. It needs to be called what it is.

Fascism is not a popular pastime, anywhere in the world. Just in the last two years, in countries where more-or-less free elections are still conducted, overwhelming numbers of voters stared into the abyss of institutional fascism, and said hell no.

In Poland, a fascist regime had been in place for ten years, yet against all odds it was emphatically shown the door. In France, a dozen famously fractious parties came together to give a collective middle finger to Marine LePen and her far-right minions. In the UK, the ongoing catastrophe of Brexit finally led to the overwhelming rejection of the Conservative party — not exactly fascist, but close enough — which had been corroding the underpinnings of the nation for decades.

The common denominator in all three of these electoral thumpings was massive turnout, driven by a coalition of normally quarrelsome factions who put aside their differences to defend the greater good against an even greater bad.

It seems to me that’s exactly what’s happening here. People from every demographic have, in a shockingly short time, formed a vast coalition around Kamala Harris.

Black, white, Brown, urban, suburban, old, young, veterans, drag queens, Swifties, and, especially, legions of pissed-off women are all on board. And they are, right now, turning out to vote in soul-stirring numbers.

Republicans have much to worry about. Harris’s campaign has hit them with a barrage of urgent existential issues, and they have no coherent answer to any of them.

Then, in the past week, it seems they’ve driven off a cliff, just in time for the election. First we heard that Trump had been in regular contact with Putin since leaving office. Then we found out that Elon Musk had done the same, which was somehow even worse. Then it came out that John Kelly had told Bob Woodward about Trump’s admiration for Hitler’s generals.

But when Trump capped an insane week with that insane rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, he took fascism to a whole other level. Downward.

The event — which we couldn’t believe would actually happen when it was announced a month ago — was a poorly-calculated homage to the famous Nazi rally held in the old Garden in 1939. The sheer audacity of the racism on display — generally against Hispanics, but specifically against Puerto Ricans — was enough to get even swine like Rick Scott running for cover.

Not that any late-breaking revelation about Trump’s depravity is likely to change any minds before next Tuesday. The votes are, I think, pretty much baked in. The only questions are how and when they get cast. And, strangely, how and by whom they get counted.

But if we can assume — and I think we can — that the country still has enough guardrails in place to produce an election that can deliver a clear result, Kamala Harris will be the next president.

I hesitate to call this a prediction — more an educated guess — and I’m not prone to climbing out on limbs. Then again, if I’m wrong, my personal embarrassment will be the least of our problems.

But I can see no plausible scenario in which Donald Trump wins the presidency. Even with the vagaries of the Electoral College, even with the fuckery from Russia and China, even with the weaponized lawsuits, even with the threats of violence coming from the MAGA fools, I feel that Trump — and Republicans in general — are about to get a thrashing. How big a thrashing I can’t say.

Republicans have seen nothing but thrashings in every major election since 2018, and it got exponentially worse for them when the Dobbs decision came down. All they’ve done since then is double down on the lies and lunacies that got them thrashed in the first place. So why would we expect this time to be different?

Obviously, the legacy media doesn’t want us to think this way. They want us on the edge of our seats. They are fully invested in the “nail-biter” narrative, and they’re basing it on polling averages they know to be deeply suspect.

I am not the only one screaming that we mustn’t be fooled by what are now being called “red wave” polls. They’re a scam happening in plain sight, and Democrats — having been burned by the same tactic in 2022 — are wise to it now. The word is out that Republicans are flooding the zone with over 80 junk polls, all designed to drag the polling averages to the right. It’s so two years ago.

As Simon Rosenberg points out every day, Democrats have been outperforming the legitimate polls ever since Dobbs. Whatever those polls have shown before elections, Democrats have done much better when actual votes were counted. There is no reason to think this will be different.

We need to stop seeing this election as a horserace of poll numbers, and see it instead as a massive coalition that has come together every time it’s been needed, ever since the calamity of 2016. That was the year Democrats all over the country were shocked out of their habitual apathy. Trump’s victory was a collective dope-slap to people who knew they’d taken their democracy for granted.

They haven’t made that mistake since, and their turnout numbers are already setting records. Especially in swing states.

Not that there isn’t cause for concern. Republicans are working overtime to gum up the electoral works in any way they can. They know they’re losing, so they’re using their junk polls for yet another nefarious purpose: laying the groundwork for Trump to declare, once again, that the election was stolen. It’s so four years ago.

There are any number of doomsday scenarios out there sketching out the myriad ways MAGA thugs will try to cheat Trump into office. Some are scary, some are plausible, all are unlikely.

And many, if not most, will be illegal. Which points to the biggest difference between 2020 and now. This time, all the tools of federal law enforcement are in the hands of grownups.

Yes, there are too many rogue judges out there, and you never know when one of them will rule that “there are concerns” with the vote count. And no, I can’t swear that a few of them won’t end up delaying a certification or throwing out some legitimate votes.

But that said, every MAGA troll involved in this election will need to step very carefully. From the skinhead “poll watcher,” to the pugnacious county sheriff, to the sleaziest district judge, they will all need to be careful about the laws they bend, and how many they break. They are being watched, and they could be looking at real jail time.

But even with the various snags and snarls that might or might not happen, I think we all understand that the momentum is with us, and that the Harris campaign is finishing exceptionally strong.

I know that this cautious optimism will be greeted with much knocking of wood. As Democrats, we are by nature uncomfortable with good news. It distracts us from worrying.

Which means we’ll take little solace from knowing that Republicans have far more to worry about than we do. Or that they’re playing a really bad hand, really poorly.

So let’s keep it simple. Do I think Harris will win? Yes.

Will I stop worrying in the next week? No.