51 Days and Counting

 As I've said before, I'm not rooting for either of these candidates. But I do think there are both positive and negative repercussions associated with either side's victory. That's right, all the negatives aren't on one side, and all the positives on the other. That would be fairy tale thinking. We already have too much of that these days.

But I do have a worst-case scenario. Or several of them.

One of my worst-case scenarios is that the election will be contested not only in the courts but in the streets. Whatever dialogue exists will be the shouting of contending mobs. If politics is a form of civil war with strong guardrails to rule out violence, the guardrails may be teetering. I'm not predicting civil war, I'm just worrying about the trendlines. That's one worst-case.

That worst-case might be more likely if the election is very close. But another worst-case, in my opinion, is that Biden wins in a veritable landslide, with the Dems gaining control of both Houses of Congress. I don't want to hand either side a "mandate." I want governing to require coalition-building, dialogue, compromise. I want extremism repudiated. I want one-side watch-dogging the other, frustrating their grand designs. 

But, of course, we seldom get just what we want.