Mom’s Saying
My London-born mother had an expression, when there was so much to do that it never seemed to get done: “There’s no rest for the wicked”. It must have been from her Roman Catholic upbringing, something the nuns would say in school when there was far too much work to do. That would have been right after they administered the cod liver oil, and before they made students hold out their hands for rapping knuckles with a ruler.
Even in retirement there seems to be times when there is “no rest for the wicked”. We always thought retirement would be boring, but somehow days fill up fast, and it seems as tiring as the eighty hour weeks we routinely worked back “in the day”. “No rest for the wicked” though, we’ve got things to do. Even “sheltering in place” hasn’t really been “restful”. I wouldn’t say there was home remodeling, but the utility room and garage got a complete overhaul, there’s a new hot tub off the deck, and lots of little things are getting done. Installing new blinds to cut the sun baking into the family room was today’s mission. That was after hours picking up “lost dog” signs in Lancaster.
Resting on the Polls
With all we are doing, it’s easy to get a little complacent about politics. It’s not like I’ve ignored what’s going on in the world, if you’re reading this essay you’ve probably seen several (dozens, hundreds) of essays about everything that’s happening. But I do find myself saying: “… we’ll have to fix that in January, after the election”. I’m certainly not letting the current Administration off the hook: there’s been two impeachable offense THIS WEEK. But the House won’t waste its time with another impeachment. And the Senate could never find the testicular fortitude to convict, even if they knew they should.
No, the complacency comes from the polling. Every public poll shows Joe Biden leading by wide margins. And it’s not just the national polls, Biden’s leading in the key polls: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. He’s even leading in Texas, and purple-red Ohio. And it’s not the “soft” polling we had with Hillary; it’s a solid trend across the nation.
Core of 2020
“25% of world COVID infections are occurring in the Southern United States,” Peter Hotez, Dean of the Baylor Medical College just said on Meet the Press. And that may be the best reason for Democratic complacency, as awful as it may be. Donald Trump is doing nothing to gain control of the COVID pandemic. His lack of action, and lack of compassion, is burying him. In an election about competency, Trump gets a failing grade.
Joe Biden is playing it perfectly. He is acting “Presidential”, standing up and saying what a President should do. He is presenting the perfect contrast: what he would be doing as the Chief Executive, versus what is happening now. The Trump 2020 campaign is desperately seeking a way to attack Biden, but the COVID crisis simply buries everything they try. It even buried Russia paying a bounty for American soldiers lives in Afghanistan (that happened last week – remember?)
Ninety Days
But the election is ninety days away. That’s almost a quarter of a year, in an era when one week changes the entire narrative. No on wants COVID to be the only story of this election. If it is, then that means we are in for an historic tragedy in our nation. I’m hoping others, like Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, will realize that they have the power to stop the viral growth. If they don’t step in who will: certainly not the man in the White House.
Democrats can’t depend on the “obvious” to win the election. We have to turn over every stone, bring out every voter, and call every number. Volunteers can’t knock on every door in a pandemic, but we need to find a way to reach out and get the voters out for Biden. We need to remember this: Hillary didn’t lose because Trump won, Hillary lost because too many stayed at home.
Voter Suppression
The Trump campaign will do everything it can to suppress the vote. It’s a sad commentary on the modern Republican Party: fewer voters equal a better chance of winning. What kind of political party is that for a democracy? And it won’t just be making the voting process itself more difficult. Don’t be shocked if there’s an “October Surprise” about Biden, just like FBI Director Comey provided against Hillary in 2016. It’s not to get people to vote for Trump, just to get folks to stay home instead of voting for Biden.
Our Job
Don’t let your Never-Trump friends off the hook. Don’t let them buy the “Joe Biden is going to defund police” or “Joe Biden is a child molester” crap. Just quietly explain that the national disaster that is the COVID pandemic was largely avoidable. And make sure they get the point, that Trump made it far, far, worse than it ever had to be.
Voter registration ends on October 5th. Early voting in Ohio starts on October 6th. And you can (in Ohio) always request an absentee ballot. It’s “no fault” absentee here, you don’t need a reason like the “old” days.
And for those doomsayers who say “the polls looked this way in 2016 too”: remember this. We’ve already had a national election since then. It was 2018, the year of the “slow motion blue tsunami” in the Congress. The people “spoke” once already, and they spoke Democrat.
So get to work. Get talking, get persuading, and get folks to vote. There’s no rest for the wicked.
