A Biden landslide?

I continue to think that it was the unpolled voters who usually stay at home on Election Day- the conspiracy theorists, the ultra-ultras, the folks who are farthest outside the political mainstream, the politically marginal people who saw one of their own in Donald Trump- who decided the outcome in the 2016 election. 

Well, now they're being polled. And while it's quite reasonable to let 2016 serve as a warning to anyone considering that it's all over but the shouting in June- they said that in late November when everybody was certain that there was no way the country was going to elect an unqualified, clownish crackpot and Hillary Clinton was as good as inaugurated- it's hard to dismiss the overwhelming consensus of both the polls and of events at this point in the 202 0 campaign,

Margins ordinarily narrow as Election Day approaches.

Ordinarily.

I'm not sure that will be the case this time. I've predicted for a long time that Donald Trump would be defeated in his bid for a second term, perhaps decisively, because he's Donald Trump- a showman, a narcissist, an eccentric with no political instincts beyond the urge to pander to a base he likely holds in private contempt and who never admits being wrong. Other political figures might trim their sails in stormy weather; the current occupant of the Oval Office just doubles down. No matter how clear it becomes that his own behavior is self-destructive, he is unable to significantly change it.

He is radically lacking in judgment, in statesmanlike temperament, in knowledge- and worst of all, in the ability to recognize the gaps in his own knowledge and capacities and to take advice from those who know what they're doing and what they're talking about. The knowledgeable people he initially surrounded himself with quickly realized that. They are now pretty much entirely gone. Mattis, Casey, McMaster, Bolton, McRaven, Tillerson... all of those who tried to turn the course of the Trump administration in a direction that would tend to the nation's welfare and Mr. Trump's own political survival are now vilified by the man they tried in vain to save. Have we ever had a president whom so large a percentage of his former cabinet officers and high-ranking officials have felt compelled to speak out against, either publicly or privately, while he was still in office?

As the waves get deeper and the storm clouds get darker, Donald Trump will be unable to do anything but be Donald Trump. And Donald Trump- as, again, I've insisted ever since the moment he was elected by the demographic fluke that handed him the Electoral College- in so far over his head in the presidency that he can't even see the surface.

If he actually were a good businessman- and his record hardly supports that description despite his efforts at cultivating that image, given the bankruptcy of literally every company he has ever owned and a personal fortune probably smaller than it would have been if he had just invested his inheritance in the stock market- he would know how to delegate, as well as how to defer to more knowledgeable subordinates. But he doesn't. It tends to be the downfall of narcissists that they are unable to recognize- and certainly to admit to- their own weaknesses. For the past four years, the truly loyal members of his administration (whom he would doubtless consider disloyal) have struggled heroically to save him from himself. But he will not be saved. Instead, he doubles down.

As his incredible mismanagement of the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic- denying that a problem even existed until it was ravaging the nation unchecked, appointing a stellar task force to recommend a direction for weathering the storm and then ignoring its recommendations, and reverting to denial about the seriousness of the outbreak despite 120,000 deaths, the consensus of the experts that if we aren't careful the situation could be far worse before it gets better and actually insisting that the virus will simply disappear suddenly without even a vaccine- has demonstrated in terms that it's hard for anyone but the most willfully self-deluded to ignore what would have been obvious from the start if people had simply familiarized themselves with his life story and paid attention: that he is utterly and in pretty much every way unfit for the job he holds and that the very fact that he holds it endangers the well-being of the America and of everyone who lives in it.

His erratic foreign policy has alienated our allies, encouraged our enemies, tainted our national reputation, and brought America's standing in the world to its lowest point since World War II. His base, which he once boasted would stick with him even if he committed murder in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue in New York- has largely stuck with him, just as he predicted. blinded to his shortcomings either by willful and stubborn refusal to notice the obvious or, in the case of the national leadership of the Republican Party and the conservative opinion-makers, by petty partisanship or gutless sycophancy.

But it's falling apart. The arena in Tulsa was half-empty. Older Americans- ordinarily a solidly Republican voting bloc and one hitherto very much in his corner- are unaccountably put off by being told that their lives are expendable if allowing a virus likely to be lethal to them to run wild will help the economy. Mr. Trump's advantage among men has shrunk to the vanishing point. The farm states, which were solidly in the Trump column until the president's unnecessary trade war with China plunged their economies into chaos even before the pandemic, are no longer totally reliable. Mr. Trump trails in all of the "swing states" he parlayed into an improbable victory last time out and even normally reliable Republican states like Arizona and Texas are wavering. Mr. Trump's lead among evangelicals, while still strong, has shrunk substantially. And the lesson that President Nixon and both Presidents Bush learned all too well- that no matter how carefully one selects nominees for the Supreme Court they are ideologically unreliable once they become justices- has gone a great distance toward discrediting the one compelling reason any reasonable conservative had for voting for him last time out. In the wake of last week's decision on the applicability of discrimination statutes to gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans- written by Justice Gorsuch- that argument is looking a great deal less compelling right now.

And as the nation experiences a sudden and almost miraculous moment of conscience amounting almost to an epiphany on matters of race unaccountably occasioned by one more in a long series of African-Americans killed by excessive and inappropriate force by the police, a tone-deaf president- perhaps reading his base correctly, but utterly out of touch with the country as a whole- chose to play the law and order card and, instead of joining the rest of us in our national soul-searching, emphasized the violence of a small minority of demonstrators and tried to make a very small and decentralized far-left coalition called ANTIFA the scapegoat for it, thus treating a symptom as if it were the disease.

Scapegoats do not solve problems, and neither do straw men. Yet they seem to be all Mr. Trump- lacking as he is in empathy, competence, and leadership ability- can muster. He cannot reconsider mistakes once made. He cannot admit to being wrong. And he lacks the knowledge, the temperament, and the ability to change course in a constructive direction even if he were able to admit that a change is needed.

And neither the president nor his campaign seems to have any notion of how to deal with the situation. A president renowned for being consistently rambling and inarticulate can do no better than attacking his opponent for occasionally being inarticulate. An erratic president who is likely to say almost anything at any moment, who heralds the virtues of Clorox as a medical treatment, makes wild and unsubstantiated charges about his opponents, can contradict himself in the space of a single paragraph, and whose public pronouncements on just about any issue are more likely to be inaccurate than otherwise thinks he can score points by calling Joe Biden's mental status into question. It isn't simply that Mr. Trump is unable to change. He and those who are most loyal to him are oblivious. While there are signs that Mr. Trump, at least, is beginning to sense which way the wind is blowing, his hardcore supporters seem to still think that he's likely to win a second term.

The empty seats at Tulsa spoke volumes. It's happening considerably later than I thought it would, but people are wising up. Not all of them, to be sure. Not by a long shot. But the odd coalition that manages against all odds somehow to install a manifestly unfit president in office is disintegrating before our very eyes,

In politics- especially in this chaotic age- nothing is utterly impossible. But it seems highly unlikely that Mr. Trump could stage a political comeback strong enough to win himself a second term at this point even if he were capable of admitting that he can be wrong and changing course, and even if he had the empathy and the insight to understand what has gone wrong.

Nothing is impossible. But it's looking more and more like November will see a Biden landslide.  Ironically, there is an outside chance that it could save the Republican Party if enough of the Republicans who have compromised their own principles and become Trump sycophants dare to admit their mistake despite lacking the courage to avoid it. A thorough enough repudiation of Donald Trump at the polls by the American people might inspire a determined effort by the Republican Party at large to disavow and distance itself from the last four years.

Of course, it might not. Some might not be able to admit such a colossal mistake, and some have become true believers. Even in the best case, the nativists, the racists, the isolationists, and the crackpots who came out of the woodwork in 2016 are here to stay. How the Republican Party reacts to them- how it reacts to Trumpism without Trump- will determine whether or not it will be able to return to its pre-2016 status as a responsible and credible alternative to the Democrats.

Conservative journalists and opinion-makers will also have to come to terms with their behavior during the last four years. Some will doubtless simply try to ignore them and pretend that they have never stopped being in favor of free trade, free speech, a free press, fiscal responsibility, and a willingness on the part of the United States to fill the role history has assigned us as the leader of the international order and as the foremost in an alliance of equal and free nations seeking to defend the interests of freedom around the world. Those who admit their mistake have some chance of retrieving their reputations. Those who, Trumplike, double down on having climbed aboard the Trump Train will henceforth have to be satisfied with the consequences of being unapologetically associated with Mr. Trump and become comfortable with their new place on the right fringe.

We are still amid this aberration in our history. It will not end until January 20 regardless of the outcome in November. While I have no doubt that Donald Trump will continue to sew discord and division among us right up to the very end and whine that he was cheated and that everybody is being mean to him, I do not fear that he will barricade himself in the White House or do any of the other crazy. coup-like things the lurid imaginations of some of his critics suggest. For one thing, he lacks the guts. For another, the moment Joe Biden takes office, the Secret Service and the Armed Forces will take their orders from him.

But while 2016 may serve as a cautionary tale, a warning against assuming at this early date that we know what will happen in November, and while Biden's lead may shrink before then (though his greatest weapon- Mr. Trump's own ego, ineptitude, and inability to learn from his mistakes- will work to keep it from shrinking too much), we would also do well to avoid learning the wrong lesson from 2016.  Contrary to the myth, the polls were pretty close to being on target. The margin was slightly smaller than predicted, but Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote by fairly close to the predicted margin, and the popular vote is, after all, what the polls measure.

Flukes happen. And a great many things may happen between now and November. But at the moment, it looks very much like I've been right all along: Donald Trump will be a one-term president. Being Donald Trump, once elected he could not be anything else. So, in all likelihood, will Joe Biden be, though there remains the possibility that he could seek re-election despite being 78.

Contrary to what we've been hearing these past four years, the polls are almost always right, and it's worth remembering that they were essentially right even in 2016. Very likely January 20 of next year will mark a return to something resembling normality. I expect to remain in opposition. What alliances are made from that point going forward depends on the willingness of Republicans in general, having acquiesced to one of the greatest blunders in the history of the party, to face up to their mistake and begin to rebuild the Republican Party as a beacon of honesty, decency, common sense, and responsible government. And the future of the conservative movement rests upon its ability to turn its back on the grotesque aberration of the last four years and stand on its fundamental principles again.