I’ve been asked why I don’t think this election will be quite the nail-biter being hyped by the media. Part of my answer, of course, is that the nail-biter narrative is being hyped by the media. It’s usually a New York Times poll that triggers the nail-biting. Each poll is announced with great fanfare, in bold headlines, always with links to commentary that ripple through the rest of the media. The narrative is invariably that the race is deadlocked. Which happens to coincide with the neck-and-neck, both-sides-are-equally-bad, horserace political coverage in which they’re so deeply invested. To get some return on that investment, they bend objective reality to make Trump appear reasonable and normal, even as he descends deeper and deeper into madness. The Times has shown that it will always, always sane-wash Trump to make the race appear close, even if it isn’t. It’s not that their polls are wrong. They’re measuring something, after all. It’s just that what
It was basically the Oprah Winfrey Show, with special guest Kamala Harris. And we happened to be there. Through a series of happy circumstances, we were in the audience for last Thursday’s Unite for America livestream. There were 400 of us, and we were surrounded by what appeared to be thousands of people on screens, watching virtually. We’d been told on Wednesday where to report, to a hotel parking lot half-an-hour from our house. From there we were shuttled to an “undisclosed location,” where we were met by metal detectors, body wands, handbag searches, the whole Secret Service thing. Which was just fine with us. I have a vivid imagination when it comes to high-value terrorism targets, and this was, after all, Michigan, militia heaven. So while we never thought twice about being there, it was good to see the assault weapons on our side for a change. The event was very much an Oprah production. Slick design, precocious video technology, it was as made-for-