Ruth Bader Ginsberg's last wishes included, "My most fervent wish is that I
will not be replaced until a new president is installed." She may not have
thought that through; it implies holding her vacancy open longer than 4 years.
I fully intend to vote for Joe Biden. But Donald Trump is going to win this one and
there will not be a new President until 2025. I believe this ugly prognosis for the following
reasons, ranked from least quantitatively important to the most:
1. Reluctance to change leaders in a crisis. Yes, he has done a horrible job
but there is a thin slice of voters that would rather face the known horrors than
let a new broom brush up new ones. Overall, I believe this only affects a few Trump
leaners who will think of this as permission to vote their leanings.
2. The power of incumbancy is real and alive: events at national shrines
from the White House to Fort McHenry to Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills,
open the purse strings for Puerto Rico, media must-coverage
around the clock, and so on. This was very effectively wielded at the Republican
convention. It will certainly have at least its usual impact on the electorate.
3. The staggering political incompetence of the Democratic party. The impeachment
fiasco left us with a "not-guilty" defendant. The folly of building a coalition based
on racial identity, then excluding the largest racial group. The whinging about
the constitutional make up of the Senate and the voting rules for presidential elections
rather than buckling down and doing the hard work of building majorities in local elections
in unfashionable towns and state elections for dull-sounding offices in states where you can't
find decent vegan. Maybe we country-club Republicans are right. The Democrats' classes
are unfocused, ill disciplined, and lazy.
And, as a result, there will be another 4 years of this horror show. Vacancy or no vacancy.
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