SOMERSET, KY. — The nation is six days away from Election Day. The virus is infecting more people than ever before in the United States. The number of daily deaths has climbed above 1,000 again. The president is gathering his cult in super-spreading rallies in swing states, including those with raging disease, and insisting the pandemic is a figment of news media exaggeration.
Joe Biden, campaigning in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania — all states polls say he he is winning — responds with a steadiness that is so welcome: A promise to put in place a national plan that ends the pandemic and opens a path to economic recovery. A promise to slow climate disruption and support the transition away from oil. A promise to end fracking on federal land. A promise to pursue green infrastructure development and create millions of jobs. A vow to unify the country and address injustice.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are articulating a message fit for this time. They are expertly conducting a sincere, inspiring campaign. Their presence in every setting is measured in poise and grace. They are winning and it’s not close.
Think about this during this last week of media-irritating narratives of a tightening race, a Trump comeback, lightning striking in the Upper Midwest swing states. Trump is much closer to losing Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona than he is to winning any of the Great Lakes swing states. His White House is a hothouse of infection. His message is a clamoring birdhouse of tweeted lies. His public appearances are a theater in the psychotic and absurd. His rallies are super spreading events. Trump is losing and will lose.
My friends warn me, “but what if?” What if Russia hacks the voting machines? What if the polls are wrong? What if the Proud Boys and their spawn show up to intimidate at voting stations? What if Trump claims victory whatever the tally shows?
I say forget about it. Won’t happen.
I understand the anxiety. If anything is true about the hotter, harder, illogical and alarming era that we’ve entered it’s this: The world that we confidently imagined at the start of the century barely exists today. The principles of safety, justice, and opportunity that we’ve been holding onto as Americans have given way. The virtues of stable communities, competent governance, abundant resources, truth, fact, and innovation are like rusted parts on a national tool bench waiting to be scrubbed clean and reassembled.
But we haven’t yet yielded to the post-post modern world of apocalyptic conspiracy, lies, and division that Trump and his party are selling. Joe Biden is putting his arm around all of us before we step over that ledge. I envision a powerful tide of reasoned progress starting in January, an era of American initiative to confront and resolve the existential threats to the nation. More on that later.Just be confident about Biden’s election and what it means for our country’s capacity to defeat ignorance and hate, and decide what is just and right for this century.
— Keith Schneider
