We’re in the period of craziness before an election where everyone is arguing about polls and each partisan side is panicking that it hasn’t done enough or isn’t in a good place. I know, we have been for awhile already. This week this all reached a fever pitch on social media and in the news media. The New York Times was obsessing over Harris losing support among voters of color and the few remaining responsible voices on the right started fretting over turnout and the gender gap. Truth is, this is pretty standard and pretty pointless.
What is useful to think about is that this election is so close because neither party is any good. The Democrats are trying to pretend we can go back to the supposedly halcyon days of Clinton-to-Obama balanced neoliberalism, where we pretend the working class isn’t being hollowed out or that a few re-training programs will stop the bleeding. The Republicans, deep-down, are still trying to pretend that tax cuts for wealthy and middle income folks combined with cultural fear mongering will get the job done. When viewed at these levels, this isn’t that unique an election. What’s unique is how far down their rabbit hole the Republicans have gone.
I am not trying to normalize Trumpism. It is abnormal and dangerous and should be treated as such, but the closeness of this election shows how poor both parties currently are at aggregating support. they both need to get better. The first one that does will change things. I just hope it’s the Democrats.