(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Some Final Thoughts: What This Election Will Say About Us [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-11-03 (Given all the barnyard braying we’ve had to put up with in this election, not to mention barnyard byproducts, this photo I took in Latvia the other month seems eerily appropriate.) Now that this eternal election is finally coming to an end, and before the post-election madness starts, I have a few thoughts to foist on the community. My first point is that Kamala Harris has run an almost perfect campaign. Her biggest blunder I can think of, to the extent she has had any, is the time she went on The View and said she wouldn’t do anything different from Joe Biden. If that’s the worst the punditry could come up with, she’s been doing an outstanding job. (Tim Walz does suffer a bit from foot-in-mouth, and comments by Biden, Clinton, and occasionally Biden haven’t always been helpful, but attempts by the Trump campaign to seize on their gaffes have backfired, and the media’s efforts to stretch them into horse-race territory have largely fallen flat.) Harris had a hundred days to accomplish what most candidates get 2-3 years to work out. Her campaign started up with no notice, and her staff has run smoothly and with no hitches (at least, none that leaked into the public, which itself is a measure of their discipline). Given that she is running to be chief executive, this is a powerful advertisement for her readiness to do the job. In short, if Harris loses the election, it will not be her fault. Before moving on to my second main point, I want to add that, by comparison (not just to Harris, but to any other campaign in history), Trump’s efforts have been an organizational, logistical, and theatrical (not to mention medical) nightmare. I’m not going to wade into the muck, but I can’t resist dipping a couple of toes: “Garbage man” and “microphone sex.” And unlike Harris’s disciplined campaign staff, Trump’s is a total chaos charade. Trump has neither executive skills nor presidential character. So, my second point: This election has been portrayed as a choice between normalcy and dystopia. That is unfair to Harris. Harris is not normal; she is exceptional. This is a choice between an extraordinarily competent person and a stunningly incompetent one. If the country cannot see that, and rejects her in a legitimate vote, then it’s not that Harris will have failed as a candidate; it’s that we will be failing as a nation. Third point: This election is being cast as a choice between democracy and autocracy. That’s true, but only on the surface. It is really a choice between accepting reality and succumbing to fantasy — political, economic, religious, racial, and sexual fantasies. Trump has always been a con man, has always lied, has always made things up. There may have been a time when he knew the difference, but as he sinks further into madness it’s all a blur to him now. JD Vance, on the other hand, knows — and has even admitted — that he is making things up. He has a radical religious, racist, and sexist fantasy that he plans to turn into reality if he can get power. Musk has a techno-authoritarian fantasy. And then there’s RFK Jr, whose latest fantasy is that people will be better off if we get rid of fluoridation as well as stopping all vaccination — a scientific fantasy. It’s not just Trump and those in his immediate circle. Those Republicans who have not walked away from the party have gone down the rabbit hole with him. So it won’t be enough to elect Harris. We have to take back the House, keep the Senate, and win state and local races as well. If Harris wins, she will have a monumental, maybe even impossible, task: to restore the nation’s acceptance of reality and the necessity of reason. She will need all the help we can give her. Last thought (not a point, really): I, who am a panicker by profession, am becoming somewhat close to confident that Harris will win the popular and the electoral vote, and by a decent margin in both. I am also hopeful that we will the House and Senate, maybe. That will Trump with nowhere to turn but to try to steal it (or flee the country, assuming the Secret Service allows it). Given everything I’ve seen and read, I don’t think he will succeed, but it will be messy, and it will further traumatize all of us on both sides, and be yet one more mess for Harris to clean up. Let’s give her as many tools as we can — GOTV. 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