Before I begin, a personal note is necessary. I am somewhat distracted today so this may be a shorter and more disjointed column than the last two. I say this because somewhere between one-third and one-half of the county I live in is currently on fire. Ashes are raining down outside my window, and while I am not personally at risk yet, plenty of others I know are -- they've been evacuated and have no way of knowing if their homes have already burnt to the ground or not. Perhaps such an apocalyptic setting is fitting, as I watch and write about the most important election of my lifetime, who knows?

That "most important election" line is often used -- I've heard it for almost every election I've ever participated in, in fact. But this time the current magnitude of importance actually does live up to the dire billing. This is indeed the most important election for American democracy that I think I've ever seen. Donald Trump is not like any other Republican presidential candidate anyone has ever seen. Back in the 1980s, the election of Ronald Reagan gave rise to very real fears that World War III would soon be right around the corner. These fears were not unjustified (given his anti-communist history), and a bigger existential threat to the country is impossible to imagine. But the fears ultimately proved to be groundless. With Trump, however, the enemy is not without but within. Trump has destroyed so many of the norms of American politics that facing four more years of his misrule would put the future of the American experiment in democracy in real danger.

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In the best of times, Americans like to call our president by a rather grandiose title: "the leader of the free world." This is a holdover from the 1940s post-war era as well as the dichotomy of the Cold War era which followed it. Back then, we were indeed leading the free world -- in direct opposition to the Soviet Union's leadership of the communist world. Since America had not been directly devastated by the ravages of World War II, our economy bounced right back and we were able to get Europe and Japan back on their feet again with generous policies such as the Marshall Plan. From the 1950s through (arguably) the end of the century, American manufacturing dominated most industries. So our political leader was not just the de jure leader of the United States but, by extension, the de facto leader of the free world as well. But Donald Trump has now left this reputation in tatters. The only superlative left to call ourselves is now "the world's best bad example."

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To President Donald Trump, today's Supreme Court ruling was not actually about the hundreds of thousands of young people whose legal residence in this country hung on this court case. Instead, it was about one thing and one thing alone, which is pretty much the same thing that everything is about for Donald Trump: himself. After learning of the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision denying Trump the ability to strip legal protection from the "dreamers," Trump petulantly took to Twitter to ask: "Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't like me?" Once again, Trump reduced an issue of monumental importance to the level of schoolyard gossip (about him, of course). Maybe if the Supremes really really liked Trump, things would be different? Because that's obviously what it's all about, not all that legal mumbo-jumbo or hundreds of thousands of young people's lives.

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We have shown what we consider to be a massive amount of restraint during Donald Trump's term as president, in that we've only used that headline once previously. The line comes from a Talking Heads song ("Making Flippy Floppy") which was referencing Ronald Reagan, at the time it was written. We did consider two other headlines today: "Our National Nightmare Continues: Trump Suggests Injecting Bleach. Or Sunshine," as well as: "Stable Genius Offers Lethal Suggestions: Injecting Bleach Or Sunshine," but upon reflection we decided that the Talking Heads line was more deserved this week than ever before. Because the president is now giving people advice which, if followed, will kill them. In other words: our president's crazy, did you hear what he said?

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It's tough to focus on politics right now, in the middle of a viral pandemic that is sweeping the country. But it's also necessary to step away from the coronavirus news from time to time, so I thought it might be useful to take a look today at where the race for control of the Senate stands.

The current makeup of the Senate is 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats. This means to wrest control away from the GOP, Democrats will have to pick up at least three seats if Democrats win the White House, or four if Trump wins a second term. Luckily for them, the map is a lot more friendly to Democratic chances than it was in the last cycle. Only a third of the Senate is up for re-election in any one election, but the makeup of that third is crucial -- and this time it will mostly be Republicans playing defense, not Democrats.

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It might sound like a strange question, coming from a Californian, but I do have to wonder why California seems to be doing so well in fighting off the coronavirus pandemic, compared to other states. If this is a real difference, it would behoove others to study why we've been so successful, but there is another possibility -- that we just haven't realized how hard we've been hit yet. Either way, the question of why we're doing so well would seem to be an important one to answer.

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There's an old switcheroo-at-the-end joke that goes: "I went to see the fights, but a hockey game broke out instead." After tonight, this can now be updated to: "I went to see the fights, but a Democratic presidential debate broke out instead." In fact, the best word I can think of to describe what we all just saw is "brutal." Maybe for the next debate, we should have a metal detector installed so that nobody can bring any brass knuckles to the podium? Just a thought.

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As I sit down to write my reactions to the State Of The Union speech and the Democratic response, votes from Iowa are still trickling in. That's a rather bizarre overlap, caused by the total breakdown of the Iowa Democratic Party's reporting system. The spectacular failure of the whizzy new app taken together with the equally spectacular failure of the backup phone hotline reporting system meant it was almost 24 hours from when the caucuses started to when any results were made publicly available. And the only saving grace was that there was indeed a full paper trail to follow, so the votes themselves (we are assured) will all be counted accurately.

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Welcome back once again to our year-end "McLaughlin Awards," named for the awards categories we lifted from the McLaughlin Report years ago. We've added a category here and there over time, but it's still the same basic list.

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Tonight we saw the sixth in the series of Democratic presidential debates, and my first and strongest impression is that I for one am glad the field is being narrowed. Seven on the stage was enough, in other words, for me.

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