We know what the polls say and we know what our gut says, yet still we can’t help but feel nervous. In almost every election, both sides like to remind us that stakes are high. We’re told that ‘this’ election is different.
We are told we are making a choice between two visions of America that are as unlike one another as cell mitosis is from the philosophical musings of a slice of ham.
Sometimes we drink it in, sometimes we scoff, and sometimes we just ignore it. For the most part though, we just put whatever anti-anxiety measures that work for us on autopilot, and then surf the rhetoric back to shore.
Which is pretty much what Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is trying to do right now.
Things That Go Trump In The Night
It looks like there will be no last-minute reprieve for the GOP’s great Orange Hope. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is on point for a comfortable win. The clouds have lifted from the latest overblown email farce, and only the rabid hatemongers are left to obsess over it via tweeted memes and block-capped rants.
They snap at thin air and bay for her blood, lost to political reality, incapable of rational discourse. It’s best if we let them be.
The majority however, that middle section that cuts across racial demographics, has hit the wall of email fatigue and bounced back off in full sprint mode.
They get it. Politicians are slippery fuckers. Next news flash please.
Just 40 hours before the first polls were set to open, FBI director James B. Comey reaffirmed his position from July that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton. The coyote howls erupted and sang out their frustration across the internet, but most of us had stopped listening.
That’s what happens to background noise.
Stripped of this last roll of the dice, Trump’s eleventh hour rally faded away like a sand pit in a hurricane. According to Jeffrey Pollock, a pollster for the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA, Clinton’s victory is now all but guaranteed.
Speaking to Politico he said:
“While things might have gotten tighter, the fundamentals of a Clinton victory are still strong.”
Anti-Anxiety Party
It appears that this is Trump’s reading too.
An op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times earlier today revealed that he has all but collapsed under the pressure. Unable to sleep, he finds being alone with his thoughts to be an intolerable torment.
Aides are forced to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, talking, soothing, advising. None of it breeds confidence in the man. The pressure of the campaign is nothing compared to the pressures of office.
And so, the man who compared himself to Alexander the Great, the man whose narcissistic bullying defined his campaign, the man who has done untold damage to America’s reputation overseas reaps what he has sown.
He knows how to win — or so he keeps telling us — but it looks very much like he does not know how to lose.
Not that he has that much to do anymore.
His aides finally managed to wrest control of his twitter account off him in a desperate attempt to sever his connection to the real world. His businesses are in decline; the brand that he values so highly is now toxic. Perhaps even beyond repair. His self-image has collapsed in the face of abject hostility to everything he admires about himself.
24-Hour Party Pundits
He still thinks he’s going to win. At least, that’s what he’s telling people.
Deep down? Who knows.
Who knows whether putting on a brave face is yet one more anti-anxiety tactic deployed by a man defeated by his own vanity.
His private jet looks more and more like a private grief hole. At a rally in Minnesota on Sunday, a tired and depressed looking Trump subjected the crowd to complaints that his aides had not let enough people get closer to him. He said:
“Ah well that’s what you have to put up with in life, real geniuses.”
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
It’s sad in a way, or at least it would be, if it weren’t for two things.
It’s hard to dwell on the melancholy of the moment while the election is still on. Clinton’s victory is close but not yet achieved and although the usual post hoc told-you-so pats on the back are imminent, they aren’t here. Not yet. To crow about victory now would be irresponsible. Those who want to see Trump defeated need to get out and vote.
So there’s that.
But any lack of sympathy for the man is also tempered by the fact that he has consistently displayed a lack of empathy for anyone other than himself. Everything he has done in his life seems to have been motivated solely by self-interest.
He refuses to pay taxes. He refuses to respect boundaries. He uses his position of authority for sophomoric sexual gratifications.
Trump placed himself in the spotlight thinking that everyone in the world would see the same shining beacon of masculinity, intelligence, and drive that he did.
Instead, we saw a vain, petty man of middling intelligence and childish temperament. We saw someone who could only ever appeal to the lowest denominator.
We saw someone who we just didn’t want.
Watch Trump complaining to the masses during the Sunday rally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RcHzjQX9ug
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
