Michael Brendan Dougherty of National Review Online probes concerns about the upcoming election.
Election chaos. That’s the latest thing to fear this week. Trump apparently wants us to fear an inaccurate and fraudulent election, because so many ballots will be mailed in. His opponents apparently want you to fear that the fear he’s ginning up will somehow empower him to reject the election results. And it seems that the media want you to fear an untraditional Election Night and that the counting of mail-in ballots will cause delays, with opportunistic charges and counter-charges of stolen and fraudulent results. Maybe a full-on Al Gore style in conceding could occur.
Ben Smith reports that John Podesta, the former Hillary Clinton campaign manager and blood-drinking cultist — I believe the Internet! — participated in a recent election “war game” in which he, playing Joe Biden, stole some Electoral College votes and depended on the threat of West Coast secession to gain the presidential office he had no legal right to occupy. Hey, maybe the Dems will steal this thing after all! We should fear the process, fear the institutional breakdown, and fear the lack of trust.
Some of these scenarios concern me. But I can’t help but think that all of this is misplaced dread of the election itself.
Here’s what to expect on Election Night: A nation that has grown tired, anxious, and worn out from its own political divisions over the past 20 years, one that is haunted by a fear that its institutions are fundamentally broken and unable to handle geopolitical challenges ahead, will elect a very old man who inspires little more than a sigh of relief that the other very old man didn’t win. …
… The dread is that we are a nation that is divided, but nothing of import can be resolved or reconciled in an election.
