Election Eve

 

Over the weekend, groups of Trump supporters stopped traffic on several bridges and roadways in the NYC area – the Whitestone, the GSP – parking their pickup trucks and SUVs across all lanes of traffic and waving flags and whooping while the traffic stacked up behind them.  I wonder what motivates a person to do that.  I plumb the depths of my empathy stores, and I cannot see a shred of equivalence between these people and a BLM protestor, much less your run-of-the-mill Biden/Harris canvasser.  This is no more than trolling in real life: annoying and inconveniencing people for the sake of, what exactly?  To convince someone to vote for Trump?  I suppose one could stretch the rationale to its thinnest and argue that this could show the “silent” Trump supporter that they’re not alone.  But let's be honest: this gesture is not about making a case for a candidate, it’s about people giving the finger to anyone who doesn’t want what they want.  It also sends a not-so-subtle message to anyone who might be looking: we are prepared to break the law, to put people in danger, to create problems for you and anyone else who might be behind us, in order to show our loyalty to the Great Leader. 

Seeking succor, I consulted the Economist election poll aggregator, which currently gives Biden a 19-in-20 chance of winning.  Of course we’ve been here before, with Nate Silver in 2016, etc.  My college friends and I are planning on Zooming Wednesday night, and I have made mental plans to chill a bottle of champagne to open during the call if (and only if) it’s called for Biden beforehand.  I try not to think about this too much.

In any case, you could argue that we’ve survived the past four years, so, if the unthinkable were to occur, we can survive another four, right?  Unless of course you’re one of the 231,182 people who didn’t.