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This really shouldn't be all that extraordinary, but sadly it is. The Department of Homeland Security just issued a warning about the possibility of right-wing violence and/or terrorism. Here are the pertinent facts:
That headline is meant to evoke an earlier phrase from American history which (even before a book and subsequent movie popularized the term) denoted one of the most existentially-dangerous times in not just our country's history, but in that of the entire world: the "thirteen days in October" of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President John F. Kennedy was informed that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear-tipped missiles a mere 80 miles from the United States, and he began a series of moves which could very well have ended up as the start of World War III. This is not an overstatement or exaggeration. If open hostilities had broken out during the height of the Cold War, it is almost certain (especially seeing what caused the crisis in the first place) that there would have been an exchange of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. For 13 days, from October 16 to 28, 1962, the world teetered on the edge of all-out nuclear war. Thankfully, sanity prevailed, and both sides agreed to face-saving measures which ended with the Soviets removing their missiles from Cuba. Kennedy gambled, he gambled big, and he won.
Welcome back to the second part of our annual year-end awards column series! If you missed it, you can check out last week's installment too. But a warning -- for both this column and last week's -- they're long. Incredibly long. Monstrously long. It's been that kind of year, what can we say?
What a year. Seriously, that was a tough one for us all, wasn't it?
Before we begin with the awards, I would just like to thank all the people -- both online and in person -- who helped out by giving me their suggestions and nominations for all of these awards. I have tried to credit individuals where appropriate, but I probably forgot to do so here and there too, so I apologize in advance.
Once again, it's been a momentous week in American presidential history. Right as we were writing last week's column, the Supreme Court laughed President Donald Trump's last-ditch legal effort to overturn the will of the voters of multiple states right out of court. They were entirely correct in unanimously turning the case down, because it was so very laughable a concept to begin with. Texas was essentially arguing that it should be able to have a veto over any other state's election, because they didn't approve of that state's election process (in reality, what they really didn't approve of was who won those states). Coincidentally enough, they only complained about the states which, if their votes had been denied, would have handed the election to Trump -- even though several other states (including some red ones) had done exactly what Texas was complaining about in the four states they tried to sue. It was all nakedly transparent, and not based in any legal or constitutional foundation whatsoever. Which, again, is why it got unanimously laughed out of the highest court in the land.
I just spent a few hours watching the Electoral College vote. Now, admittedly I am a pretty wonky political guy, but I have never before paid even the slightest attention to the formality of each state's electors meeting to cast their official ballots to elect the next president. It was always an afterthought, a mere formality. Something you'd hear about maybe a day or so after it happened, because it was of no real consequence. Even in the midst of the 2000 Bush v. Gore fight, nobody really paid much attention to the Electoral College, because it simply wasn't all that relevant to the legal fight.
This isn't just the Keystone Kops, it's now a full-on Keystone Koup attempt. Before we get to any of it, however, we have to pause to wish Joseph Robinette Biden Junior a happy 78th birthday. Many happy returns, Joe!
Biden is now several steps closer to being sworn in as America's next president in less than nine weeks, as state after state certifies that Biden did indeed beat Donald Trump. Georgia did so today, and several other important states are slated to do so on Monday. By December 8th, all states will have done so and appointed their electors to the Electoral College.
The second (and final) presidential debate tonight was as different from the first as it could possibly be. That will likely be the biggest takeaway for both the press and the public. President Donald Trump -- for the most part -- actually behaved himself and didn't try to dominate every single minute. Joe Biden debated the way he really wanted to in the first debate. It was, in a word, normal. Which is why this will be the big headline tomorrow, because whenever Trump does anything even halfway normal, it is big news.
The second wave of the pandemic now appears to be upon us. Yesterday, over 60,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the U.S. That number has been heading upward all week, in fact. And it's higher than it has been since the last wave hit (some call the impending wave the third wave, due to the two previous spikes, we should point out). And we are less than three weeks away from the presidential election.
This, more than any other factor, may become the key reason Donald Trump loses. Sure, we're all tired of hearing about the pandemic (and have been for quite some time). But then Trump caught it, which relaunched it back onto center stage in the political arena. Although he quickly recovered, for once Trump could not manage to change the storyline. And now it looks like the fall/winter wave is here. This will mean COVID-19 will, once again, lead most news coverage. For the next week (at the very least), stories will again appear about overwhelmed doctors and hospitals. It will be on everyone's mind.
It seems that it is now time to ask a very strange question: Is Donald Trump actually trying to lose the election?
As astounding a question that is, there are really only two answers to it: yes or no. Either Trump is intentionally torpedoing his chances of re-election, or he is just trying to re-run his 2016 playbook in the hopes that it'll produce the same miraculous victory for him. But either way, what is becoming more and move evident is that President Donald Trump is currently losing. Bigly.