57 Days and counting

 I'm pretty firmly anti-Trump, but I still think it helpful to at least try to understand the case for the president's re-election. For one reason, a good many people (somewhere around 40-45%) support his presidency. Some of them do so without reservation, and some with many, but it doesn't do anyone any good to sneer at 45% of the American voting public. 

We've trained ourselves in the art of the sneer for four years now, and much of our journalism, whether pro- or anti-Trump, is carefully adjusted to exclude a fair-minded assessment of either candidate. Of course, we expect the campaigns themselves to use hyperbolic language, but much of what passes for journalism these days aligns itself with that magisterial condescension which is summed up in Hillary's now-infamous label for all Trump supporters, "the deplorables."

I'm an original Never-Trumper. I know the case against Trump, but I only vaguely understand the case for him. I'm still 99% certain I will not vote for him ("never" means never!), but one thing I'd like to do in this space is feature links to some well-written and thoughtful articles that make that case.

Here's one: After Trump Loss, "Deplorables" Will Be the Democrats' First Target, by Robert Merry. He's writing in the American Conservatives, which for my money is the best conservative magazine out there. 

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See also:

If Trump Pardons Snowden, He Will Have My Vote.
The Privileged vs. the People

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The Horserace

According to the RCP polling average, at this time in 2016 Clinton was up by 2.1% in the polls (incidentally, that's the same margin by which she eventually won the popular vote). In contrast, Biden is currently up by 6.9%, more than 3 times Hillary's lead. He has been hovering around that 7% mark for well over a month now, and in the "battleground states" his lead has been about 3% for the same period. In other words, while in individual polls and in particular constituencies (Hispanics, for example), or in particular battleground states here and there, Trump can discern some occasional bright spots, the overall averages have remained stable, favoring Biden, for at least 4 weeks. And as for the Electoral College, Trump still has a long slog: the RCP has him behind by 99 EC votes with 211 remaining toss-ups.