Washington, DC, October 1, 2024 --  

The future of American democracy is on the line in the November election. A contest that should not be even close remains frighteningly so.

With just a month remaining before America's presidential election, polls are uncomfortably close. Despite a significant shift toward Vice President Kamala Harris since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party candidate, national polls show her just three percentage points ahead of former President Donald Trump. Given the stakes for America and the world, that margin is frighteningly narrow.

Harris has performed much better than President Biden in taking on Trump. Her intelligence and competence were on clear display during the September 10th debate between the candidates as a smiling Harris effortlessly goaded and angry and spitting Trump into one self-destructive rant after another, including his widely discredited claim of immigrants eating cats and dogs. But competence and intelligence may not be enough -- a large number of Trump supporters clearly aren't thinking with their heads. It is the bitterness and anger in their hearts that leads many of them to blindly follow their destructive cult leader.

Election models by the Economist magazine and election forecaster Nate Silver give Harris a 60 percent¹ and 55 percent² chance, respectively, of winning the election. That's clearly better than back in June when Trump enjoyed a mirror image of those odds. But many liberal-minded Americans, enthralled with the star power of Kamala Harris, risk becoming complacent. Would you walk out your front door in the morning if you had a 40 to 45 percent chance of it ending in death?

And the risk of death is precisely the right metaphor. To this day, Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge his loss in the 2020 election. He directed Vice President Mike Pence to illegally block certification of Biden's electoral college win. After Pence refused to do so, a pro-Trump mob began chanting "hang Mike Pence" near a makeshift gallows on the National Mall, and two While House staffers recounted the Chief of Staff saying Trump said maybe the chanters are right.³ The mob soon stormed the Capitol building as Pence was rushed into hiding by his Secret Service detail.⁴ Trump then attempted to join the mob at the Capitol building, but was blocked by Secret Service agents who refused to take him. By one account, Trump even grabbed the wheel of the presidential limousine and agents had to restrain him.⁵

These accounts by former President Trump's own staff clearly describe a ham-fisted coup attempt by a leader who refuses to abide by the Constitution If given the chance, there is little doubt that Trump would try to subvert America's democracy again, and if given a new term where he would surround himself with true believer loyalists rather than technocrats, the death of America's 250-year-old democracy would be terrifyingly likely.

Tragically, the cult-like hold that Trump wields over nearly half of America means that his supporters will not listen to the evidence. Ugly facts are ignored. No matter how many of Trump's own military leaders, diplomats and spy chiefs say that he is unfit for office, Trump supporters just won't listen. Who could possibly question the truth, wisdom and holiness of their messiah?

Fortunately, there is no need to convince die-hard Trumpers to prevent his victory next month. The convincing must be done to the non-die hards who are adjacent to the Trumpers. These are include the Trumpers' wives, friends and neighbors who quietly go about their lives in the midst of a sea of Trump flags, but are still able to see the ugliness of the cult leader.

For all her abilities, Harris may have missed key opportunities to reach out to swing voters in her vice presidential pick. Instead of choosing a Republican to unite an anti-Trump coalition, she chose a fellow Democrat. Instead of choosing a Pennsylvanian to help secure a key rust-belt swing state, she chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, an affable politician, but one who brings little Electoral College benefit to Harris' chances given that Minnesota already leaned Democratic.

Harris' strategy is to reach out to the political center, particularly to women who are understandably concerned about the erosion of abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022. Will this strategy work? Time will tell. On the evening of November 5, after initial results are in, pundits with 20-20 hindsight will not hesitate to declare her a genius or a fool. Few will acknowledge how much simple luck played into the election results -- the election day weather, the last minute news events, the timing of some future and yet to be revealed gaffe.

Hopefully we will be lucky and democracy will not die. But even if all goes well, it will not diminish the shame that American democracy's survival was left to dumb luck.

Related Web Columns:

Democracy's Hairy Edge, January 23, 2024

Notes:

1. Economist, Kamala harris and Donald Trump are Neck and Neck, October 1, 2024

2. Newsweek, Nate Silver's Latest Projection Shows Key Swing State Shifts, September 30, 2024

3. Guardian, Donald Trump Said Maybe Mob was Right to Chant 'Hang Mike Pence' – Report, May 25, 2022

4. PBS, Pence Made it to Secure Location on Jan. 6 'Barely Missing the Rioters,' House Committee Says, June 17, 2022

5. NBC, Former Meadows aide: Trump Lunged at Secret Service Agent, Tried to Grab Steering Wheel on Jan. 6, June 28, 2022