It’s October 16th, 20 days before U.S. election day. But mail-in and drop-box voting has been underway for weeks in various states. Each has its own rules, sometimes designed to block the votes of the poor and ethnic minorities.

But that’s more or less a feature of normal times in the United States. These are not normal times. Not at all. To live in the United States is to experience a daily cascade of lies and threats by Donald J. Trump and his Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance and their MAGA minions.

Donald J. Trump at a distance is an intuitive insult comic of increasing incoherence and deepening dementia. Following his embarrassment in the one debate with Vice President Harris, he now only exposes himself to friendly audiences.

What is also striking is that increasingly cruelty, and racism, particularly directed at immigrants, is his message. His rants are not subtle. His lies, cruelty and attacks on all U.S. institutions appear to increase his popularity, certainly for his MAGA base. Trump’s stunning lies include accusing legal Haitian immigrants of stealing and eating pet cats in Springfield Ohio.

Trump’s latest musings are using the National Guard and then the U.S. Army against Trump's political opponents. For Trump “the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country.” Trump described his political enemies as more dangerous than major foreign adversaries of the United States, including Russia and China. He singles out "lunatics that we have inside, like Adam Schiff," Democratic nominee for Senate, who was the lead prosecutor in the then-president's first Senate impeachment trial.

Revenge against his political and personal enemies is what animates former President Trump. He threatens 13 million or more immigrants to be rounded up, street by street, for mass deportation to be facilitated by erecting a gulag-style series of encampments to process, trial, and deport. He will also end Temporary Protective Stratus for an additional 2.7 million immigrants who will also be subject to deportation. Costs for a one-time world record mass removal are estimated to be at least $315 billion. Thus are Donald Trump's fever dreams.

There was a period after the July 14th attempted assassination of Trump and the shooting of two bystanders, one of whom, Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, PA, a Trump supporter, died while bravely protecting his family with his body from the assassin’s bullets. Donald Trump had some moments calling for unity and compassion after one bullet only grazed his ear because of his last-second movement.

A sudden consciousness and compassionate reflection on the impact of life-altering events as described by Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Illych. But by the end of the Republican Convention, the old Trump had largely regained his cruel, hateful bearings. His July 16 acceptance speech focused on deporting migrants en masse, the economy, and inflation.

Being an American

To get a sense of what it means to be an American today, we have watched two powerful Florida hurricanes, Helene and then Milton sweeping across Florida. Helene turned north and unleashed floods of biblical proportions devastating communities as far north as North Carolina. Milton crossed central Florida and continued out to sea. In response to the devastation, internet trolls, and various Republican politicians claimed falsely that the hurricanes were deliberately caused by the Biden administration cloud seeding to stop Republicans from voting as part of the climate change hoax.. They also falsely claimed that emergency federal aid from FEMA was being limited to $750 and the money was instead being redirected to immigrants.

Millions of Americans read and believe these false internet claims that ever more intense hurricanes are not the result of climate change-driven warmer oceans that allowed Category One hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico to become Category 5 monsters.

The misery of millions now to be blamed on weather forecasters who face death threats, the Biden administration for manufacturing the storms, rescue workers threatened by armed local militias who claim to be hunting FEMA rescue workers who, for their own safety , have been removed from North Carolina. The Institute of Strategic Dialogue found “mis- and disinformation about the government response has spread at scale across mainstream social media platforms, in particular X… 30% of the posts on X contained overt antisemitic hate”. X is owned by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and enthusiastic Trump backer.

The U.S. is unique globally in denying the reality of climate change. It’s strange, magical thinking as the world is warming, ice is melting as sea levels rise, storms worsen, temperatures rise to deadly levels, 100 and 1000-year floods becoming frequent events, and unrelenting drought-savaging bread baskets.

The plans called Agenda 25 for a new Trump Administration include breaking up NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and privatizing the U.S. Weather Bureau. Apparently, if people are not warned about hurricanes and climate disasters it will be all to the good.

It is typical among the world’s nations that there are disparate plans and levels of seriousness to meet climate goals. But climate change denial has gone beyond the self-interest of fossil fuel-based industries and has become a crucial part of reality for the millions of MAGA faithful. Millions have happily drunk the kool aid provided by Donald Trump’s lies that he won the 2020 election that was somehow stolen from him, that immigrants are destroying the country, that he is the victim of dastardly schemes to punish him for his manifest crimes of attempting to overthrow the election through multiple schemes that led to the failed January 6 insurrection.

Polls and prospects

Various polls forecast a close election based on algorithms applied to data of a couple of thousand or so likely voters nationally, and smaller numbers in six or seven battleground states where the election will be decided. Given the chaotic nature of American politics and the backward-looking snapshot these these polls are certainly not reliable

My judgment is that this will be a turnout election that will not be friendly to Donald Trump. In several elections, he has never reached a majority. In 2020 he had 46.9%. There is a real likelihood that many Republicans who are not Trump fans will not support Trump and may vote for Harris, as well as millions of new young voters outside of MAGA. A relative, for example, is a deeply conservative and religious man who despises Donald Trump and all he stands for.

For about 40 years, I lived in a small town of 2,500 in NH. Many of my neighbors were real conservatives who embraced the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” One year in the Town meeting there was a Warrant Article that supported criminalizing flag burning. After a spirited debate, a member of the audience raised his hand. He was a retired Marine Colonel, tall, thin and muscular, a central casting version of a Marine who had served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam and who had enormous prestige. He made it clear that he fought for freedom and democracy and that the flag did not require government protection. Quickly the Warrant Article was defeated. Donald Trump represents everything that the Colonel and politicians like John McCain were not. They are patriots who risked their lives fighting for our country. Donald Trump is a liar, a coward, and a bully.

I met John McCain when he was running for President against George W Bush in the NH primary in 2000. He had a bus labeled The Straight Talk Express traveling from Town to Town. I was in Keene doing Energy Efficiency work for Keene State College and McCaine had a public meeting where he talked to all comers. This was the real face-to-face retail politics of NH. McCain told me that dealing with climate change was a basic moral issue that concerned the future of his Grandchildren and must be dealt with effectively by bi-partisan action. The Republican party had not yet embraced climate denial and effective action easily preventing climate change was still possible. McCain won the NH Primary but not the nomination. And oil man Bush became President.

Conclusion

The coming days before the 2024 Election of Trump versus Harris will continue to be chaotic and dangerous. If Trump loses he will almost certainly not accept defeat. It’s up to supporters of freedom and democracy to stand tall. We will face an ongoing struggle for democracy.