The Witness Chronicles, 10/31/24
The right is realizing they can’t control their wives’ votes
The News Is Telling Us Nothing About This Election
It’s all over the map
At this point trying to read the tea leaves in the news is about as useful as actually reading tea leaves. One poll says this, one pundit says that, a guy with a pointer and a digital white board pretends he has some idea of what is really going on, etc., etc.
One thing that is pretty obvious is that the Trump campaign is already unleashing its lawyers and laying the groundwork for a long battle over the results, a preemptive strike. He is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania with no evidence at all and this is going to be the constant refrain forever.
Last time it was sixty failed lawsuits, this time it may be six hundred. We are watching a strategy of sorts unfold as his campaign’s attacks have devolved into a ‘kill them all and let God sort them out’ onslaught against basically everyone.
Today he said he will protect women whether they like it or not, then put on a blaze Orange construction vest and after three tries managed to hoist himself into a garbage truck for a photo op. Even his face paint seems to be getting angrier and angrier.
The question here is why? Why are they so mad at everything? I realize that it’s probably just creating a massive smokescreen of disinformation based on the assumption that his followers are fools and rubes. That is the way con men see others.
This divide between sanity on one side and insanity on the other side is brilliantly clear. And it is doing permanent damage to our country, our neighbors, and our collective faith in everything. The cynicism of it is breathtaking and horrifying.
And somehow it is a close race, an impossible to call race.
Today I saw two stories regarding the privacy of the voting booth implying that if a wife doesn’t vote the way her husband wants her to, she is violating their marriage. Both stories came out of right wing media and they tell me that this represents a very real fear by the Trump campaign. They can’t control what women will do when they are alone with an anonymous ballot.
They should be scared. They can’t sue a wife or daughter for voting the way they want to because they have no way of knowing. Privacy is the last protection in our election process and that includes not telling pollsters or reporters what we intend to do in the voting booth.
It’s not surprising that this is driven by fear because the right has been sowing the seeds of fear for years now. And it may come back and bite them in the ass. It isn’t just abortion and women’s reproductive rights, though that issue is the driver. It’s a whole host of things a lot of people are sick of, things that have accelerated out of control in recent days.
The open hate that we saw at the Madison Square Rally, hate that was not hidden from those who don’t obsess about the news. The Puerto Rico jokes, the Latino slurs, the constant insults, and the threats were all out in the open for everyone to see.
Will it change anything at this late point? Who knows? In a normal election environment any of this these statements of racism and hate would doom a campaign but Trump has a weird kind of immunity that makes no sense.
I keep circling back to this voting privacy thing because I think it offers a glimmer of hope that a majority of us are not supporting all this negativity. I have to believe that or I’ll go bonkers. I simply don’t see a mass of fanatical maniacs out there when you get away from Trump rallies. I see normal rational people going about their lives.
Maybe I live in a bubble. Maybe I’m a deluded optimist, but I have to hope that despite the news, this isn’t as hopeless as they make it. The news after all is a business and they need eyeballs to sell ads so they keep pumping this thing up and pulling in news junkies like me who are trying to see hope in those tea leaves.
I think it’s there, but then again I’ve never seen any portents in my teapot either. I think it’s time to go and meditate.
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I believe there is a very real possibility that women and young people will be the secret vote that changes everything. A person can dream!
I feel exactly the same way! Certain that what we see in the polls can't possibly be right because it doesn't add up to what I'd like to believe about my fellow Americans. Hopeful that people are saying out loud what they want their tribe to hear while silently voting the opposite. Next Tuesday can't come soon enough.