Washington -- Two weeks from today, we shall know who is to be our next president. Or perhaps we will not know who is to be our next president two weeks from today. It might take three or four weeks. It might take the laborious workings of the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. Actually, we may never know who won the 2020 election. We might have a runoff in 2021. You think not? Well, look how screwed up the 2016 election became. The Democrats were holding out for Hillary for months. Some were holding out for years. Come to think of it, look how screwed up the 2000 election was. Our elections are increasingly decided by lawyers and judges, not by voters. Possibly, the progressives' next innovation will be to leave the election count to be decided upon by the readers of chickens' entrails. Or perhaps by a flip of the coin. Frankly, based on the evidence at hand, our nation's leaders are increasingly inept. Bring back President Warren G. Harding.
How could the land of the free and the home of the brave have fallen on such hard times? At least up until 2000, it seemed like a simple, straightforward matter to hold an election, especially when you only had two major parties competing. Actually, in places such as Nebraska, South Dakota and my own dear Indiana, an election is a straightforward matter. How much would you like to bet that two weeks from today, in the aforementioned states and others like them, we will know who won the election? We should be able to celebrate, and by late in the week, we will all be back to normal - at least in the civilized states.
In the states where politics are a matter of life or death, chaos will prevail until some wise authority figure devises a way to end the election. Possibly, the presence of Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court will now make a difference. Her demeanor and grasp of the law over the past two weeks were very reassuring. Yet she will probably have to deal with Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Moreover, there remains in the House of Representatives Congressgirl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and "the Squad," as she calls them. Incidentally, does the word "squad" bring to mind images of the Fascisti lurking in the shadows? Possibly, it is all for best that the Congressgirl's mother still will not allow her out after 9 p.m. without the benefit of a chaperone.
There is a magic number out there, even now. The polls tell us that 56% of those intending to vote believe that they are better off today than they were last election at this time -- and today we are in the midst of a pandemic. Another 79% of those intending to vote believe that the economy is a very important issue in this election. Those numbers suggest to me that the fellow who has been in charge of the economy for the past four years will be reelected. That is to say that President Donald Trump will, when all the storm and stress subsides, be our president for four more years.
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Yet hold on. This past July, Sleepy Joe Biden roused himself from the slumbers of his basement and took to Twitter. He declaimed: "We're going to beat Donald Trump. And when we do, we won't just rebuild this nation -- we'll transform it." Does anyone other than Congressgirl Cortez, her Squad, antifa and a few thousand cranks on the extreme left want to live in a "transformed" America? America does not need a transformed America. Fifty-six percent have said it.
There has been talk in this election of packing the Supreme Court. There has been talk of bringing in two more states, effectively to end democratic elections for the presidency. There has been talk of reparations for slavery and for other injustices committed by Americans who died long ago. There has been more extreme talk in this election than in any election during my lifetime. Now there is talk of tampering with ballot boxes and a stolen election after a rather blatant attempt at stealing the last election by the intelligence community.
Frankly, though I want President Donald Trump to win, I shall not be saddened if Sleepy Joe walks away with the vote. Let the buffoonery continue.
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the author, most recently, of "The Death of Liberalism," published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. To find out more about R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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