Predictions about the outcomes of political campaigns go for about a dime a dozen and are worth even less. Most of them reflect the wish as the father of the thought. Still, in a two-candidate competition, there is a fifty-fifty chance of being right. What matters in judging predictions are the reasons for them.
My original prediction for the outcome of the 2024 election was made in early June, before Biden’s disastrous debate performance. I told a few friends with an informed interest in politics that the election would see a “Blue wave” return Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House; maintain, if not enlarge, the Democratic majority in the Senate; and turn the House Democratic with a sizable majority. That prediction was particularly daring because, at the time, Biden was trailing Trump both nationally and locally in the battleground states, and many Democratic candidates for the Senate and House were struggling as well. It is still daring, perhaps foolhardy, but I stick with it.
One reason for my apparently wishful and rash prediction was the closeness of the race at that time. If President Biden, already showing the wear and tear of his age, a long political career, and over three years as president, was close to his rival, then he had significant support. Much the same was true of the many close races at the state level for the Senate and the House. Supporters would stay with Biden and other Democratic candidates, and a majority of independents and many Republicans would vote for the Democratic ticket out of disgust or exhaustion with Trump and his base.
Another reason was a belief that a dispirited party still holding its own against an aroused MAGA base would find something or someone to invigorate them with energy and enthusiasm. I had little faith that Trump, an aging, malignant narcissist, would finally say or do something which would break through what even the mainstream media had normalized about him, and repel those not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (which I impute to his devotees, not his detractors). I had some faith that Biden himself would finally be appreciated for his accomplishments and his character as the campaign made them better understood by the public. I was wrong to think that Biden would begin this later effort in the first debate, but, then, I had no notion that his advisers would be so door-knob dumb in preparing Biden for debating Trump.
Well, that someone has come along and vindicated a theory of mine. We all know the Peter Principle: the advancement of an individual above his or her level of competence. (Local instances are most of the members of the Las Cruces City Council and ranking officials in the City administration.) But the reverse of the Peter Principle is the person who is not well suited to the lower rungs of the ladder, but who by chance rises to the top and finds his or her abilities matched to circumstances.
Enter Kamala Harris. She earned few plaudits for her work as Vice President. She gave signs of improvement in the months before President Biden withdrew from the campaign, in areas in which she, better than anyone else in the White House, could work, like abortion-related issues. But once liberated by her elevation as Biden’s replacement as the presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, she has astonished the world. Her intelligence, her eloquence, her energy, and her charm, once repressed, now released, have become evident to all. Like many women of talent whose self-confidence has survived being put down or held back, she has ascended to her proper sphere as a leader. (No one imagined Dan Quayle or Mike Pence, both Indiana natives, ascending to acknowledged leadership of the Republican Party. No one can imagine J. D. Vance, GOP nominee for Vice President rising to the occasion.) Democratic morale has revived, and Democratic chances to win the White House have risen ever since, and, with those rising chances, the chances of many Democratic Senators and Representatives. I am happy to think her the agent to make my prediction come true.
Unquestionably, there will be difficulties. Of the most highly contested states, the state of Georgia alone will disgrace itself by trying to disallow Democratic votes. The others—North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona—may have some kerfuffles but none putting the will of the people in jeopardy. My prediction—here goes another—is that vote for the Democratic ticket will be so large that the idea of large-scale fraud or manipulation will qualify believers to be pursued by those wielding butterfly nets and providing padded cells. (Come to think of it, Trump would be well served by incarceration, not in prison, but in a hospital for the criminally insane.)
If there is any comfort in the off-chance of being wrong, it is that I shall have a lot of company in the misery of a Trump win. Still, I shall make another prediction on the assumption that my other predictions come true. Contrary to the belief that the defeat of Trump will not be the defeat of Trumpism, I believe that a “Blue wave” will cleanse the country of an organized political movement extending his vulgarity and violence except for scattered incidents. First, no one—certainly not J. D. Vance—will prove capable of assuming the leadership of Trump’s cultish following. Second, petty pretenders will fall to quarreling among themselves and demoralize the Base. Third, and most important, most Americans have had enough of what Trump, represented by Project 2025, means for America. I am surprised that the Democratic National Committee or the Harris/Walz campaign has not resurrected the slogan which Republicans used against Democrats in the 1946 election: “Had Enough?” The answer is “yes,” a thousand times “yes.” Not the best of reasons to vote for Harris, but good enough if the many other good reasons fail.
If my very limited daily experience tells me anything, it is that the support for Harris is greater than the polls reveal. Many who mean to vote for Democrats seem frightened of violence from the Base. Not I. I have been alternately wearing two long-sleeved t-shirts. One says, says “Harris for President”; the other, “Dudes for, like, Harris, man.” People passing me at the supermarket say quietly—they do not want to be overheard—that they like my shirt; some commend me for being brave by declaring myself. One of my neighbors will not post a Harris/Walz sign in her yard lest nearby Trump supporters berate her. One is an ultra-patriot, formerly, back in the Vietnam Era, a pot-smoking, draft-dodger; currently, a more-American-than-thou MAGAloid displaying big flags and red, white, and blue bunting. The threat of vulgarity and violence at the local level is likely widespread and suppresses outward expressions of Democratic sympathies. No doubt, the final vote will come as a great surprise to them and lead to their tiresome charges of voter fraud. But the country will leave the refuse which is Trump, his Base, and the remnants of the Republican Party behind, and move on and move forward.
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