Election Day is less than one month away. Experts have described the 2024 election as one of the closest in modern American history. The future of American democracy and freedom are at stake and yet so much remains in flux and undecided.
Trump’s strategy, for one thing, is clear. He plans to amplify his feral attacks on Kamala Harris and the Democrats. Given his personality, Trump will not stop or in any way be slowed down by outcries from the news media, or even members of his own party, about his horrible and dangerous behavior. Trump is an aspiring dictator, a public admirer of Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who wants total power and total domination over the country.
On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania to commemorate the failed assassination attempt on his life in July, where after getting hit in the ear by a bullet (or some other debris), he rose from the ground, bloodied, raised his fist, and in an iconic moment chanted “fight, fight, fight!” Instead of turning down the political flames in this country during his return speech in Butler, Trump decided to add fuel to the fire. Trump told the throngs of his MAGA cultists that there are some dark forces, those “enemies within,” who tried to kill him. “Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me … But I’ve never stopped fighting for you and I never will.”
JD Vance was more explicit in his lies, telling the MAGA faithful in Butler the following about the Democrats: “First, they’re trying to silence him (Trump). That didn’t work. They tried to bankrupt him. That didn’t work. They tried to jail him. With all the hatred they spewed at President Trump, it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to kill him.”
Trump knows his MAGA people and what they want. He is not raging out into the void; he is delivering hate sermons to the MAGA faithful, and they love him even more for it. Contrary to the so-called conventional wisdom that has been shown to be repeatedly wrong throughout the Age of Trump, his MAGA people and other followers remain devoted to him (and some even more so) even as his behavior becomes more extreme and dangerous.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is a joyful warrior. Since her ascent to leadership in the Democratic Party, Harris has been very effective in using her own high-dominance leadership style to undermine Trump’s alpha male persona and to force him into making tactical and strategic errors that could potentially cost him the election.
In these last weeks before Election Day, the Harris campaign plans a TV ad blitz, more rallies (which are usually far larger and more high energy than Trump’s political cult meetings) and will spend very large sums of money on voter outreach and mobilization in the key battleground states that will ultimately decide the outcome of the presidential election. President Barack Obama will also appear on the campaign trial to boost Harris.
Trump and his agents are also working very hard on how to steal the election and/or otherwise delegitimate the results if Kamala Harris defeats him.
In an attempt to make better sense of this unprecedented and truly historic election and what may happen next, I recently spoke to a range of experts.
Rick Wilson is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a former leading Republican strategist, and author of two books, “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and “Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump – and Democrats from Themselves.”
I feel good about where the race stands, but there is still a lifetime to go and a lifetime of work to do. Vice President Harris undeniably has momentum on her side, while Trump faces serious problems due to his organizational deficiencies: he’s losing the money battle, his staff is in open warfare and Trump’s addled brain is getting worse by the day.
Despite all that, this remains a very tight election that will come down to a few votes in key swing states. Everyone should be knocking on doors, making phone calls and getting engaged. These are some of the most consequential weeks in history for American democracy.
Since Harris took the nomination, she’s captivated the nation and reset the entire campaign. Becoming the nominee put the Trump campaign on their heels. LaCivita and Wiles were completely unprepared for Harris’ nomination and Trump himself has been weak and dithering in responding. He’s clearly afraid of a strong woman and she crushed him in the debate.
Trump seems more interested in finding new ways to grab as much money as possible from his gullible supporters. I didn’t anticipate ugly sneakers, crappy watches and insanely overpriced Bibles. But a grifters gotta grift.
The narrative against Trump hasn’t changed since the beginning of this campaign. He’s an unrepentant insurrectionist who hates democracy and would rule as an autocrat. Trump is tied to Project 2025 like a dog on a leash and will work to rip away women’s rights and push a racist agenda.
We’re already seeing Trump’s thinking and mind getting even more incoherent and pushing increasingly violent rhetoric. He’s going to keep spinning up his supporters like he did around January 6 in the hopes they scare Harris voters away from the polls. I fear we’ll see attacks on polling locations, counting facilities and communities of color to create doubts about the vote. And we see the games Trump supporters are playing in Georgia, trying to make it possible for local election officials to delay the counting and certification of the vote if they don’t like the outcome.
If Harris wins, democracy and respect for individual rights and the rule of law will continue. America will maintain the cooperation of its allies and will still be seen as the “city on a hill.”
If Trump wins, it will be chaos monkeys flinging poo everywhere. People like Stephen Miller and Eric Schmitt will encourage Trump’s worst and most despotic ideas. He’s already pledged revenge on anyone who criticizes him and the Supreme Court, will reward the violence on January 6 by pardoning those convicted and wants to target political opponents and their supporters for jail and military tribunals.
We will see the destruction of democratic norms that we’ve only seen overseas.
Cheri Jacobus, a former Republican, is a political strategist, writer and host of the podcast “Politics With Cheri Jacobus.”
After being let down by so many of our institutions and leaders in this era of Donald Trump — now nine years in — I am cautiously optimistic about the election next month. Trump, MAGA, Putin and the MAGA oligarchs will still try to cheat. But we in the pro-democracy movement seem better prepared to thwart their efforts. That many high-profile Republicans are now being bolder in their justified attacks on Trump and are now endorsing Kamala Harris is encouraging. Close elections are won or lost in those margins. It all matters.
The bad news is that Donald Trump is as evil, dishonest, obviously mentally unwell and violent as ever. The good news is that we know this and many voters are just so damned tired of it. Even right-wing media seems like it needs a break. It’s far easier and more lucrative to attack an incumbent and get your fans riled up than it is to defend the likes of Trump. Many right-wing media careers will soar if they can attack a Black woman President. The ratings! The books they will sell! The clicks and subscriptions! That said, the “normies” in the mainstream news media still appear to be addicted to the Trump ratings teat. It’s hard to wean oneself from the easy Trump money, I imagine.
MAGA’s defeat is essential to the survival of our nation. It begins with defeating Trump. But ensuring that the MAGA movement is no more than an impotent fringe in American life will take longer.
We are likely in for any number of “October surprises” in the coming weeks. While we can’t predict what they will be, we can easily predict that Donald Trump and MAGA will be steeped in lies, racism, misogyny, treason and violence. I am steeling myself in preparation.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters.” His website is Enough Already.
I’m scared and exhausted. I imagine that I am not alone in feeling that way. I probably kick this around 14 times an hour and always arrive at the same place. This election will come down to how many men vote for Donald Trump and how many women vote for Kamala Harris. Looking at it more granularly: How many men will stand up, do the right thing and support the accomplished woman? And how many women will do the wrong thing and support the corrupt and soulless man?
Say what you want about all these endless political polls, but one thing they tell us repeatedly with astonishing consistency is that the majority of the white men in this country are a unified voting bloc and are going to do whatever they possibly can to once again jam the wheels of progress. I wish I could tell you that I have confidence that enough of them will do the right thing, but I simply can’t. Most of the white men in this country scare the hell out of me. They endlessly discourage me. And I say that as a white man. As we head into the home stretch of the most critical election in the history of the United States of America, I take absolutely no pride as a white man in telling you very candidly that fully two-thirds of my confused, insecure herd are once again gearing up to do the worst thing possible and vote for the worst-possible person who has ever headed the ticket of one of our two major parties.
All that said, I believe Harris will win this thing. Why? Because I simply cannot allow myself to believe otherwise. I realize that doesn’t make me much of a pundit, but the fact is I am not built for another Trump presidency — or even considering one.
Here is some data to back up my prediction that Harris will beat Trump: Democrats have been winning elections at an impressive clip since the nightmare in November of 2016. There’s no reason to expect that’s suddenly going to stop with the most important election since the Civil War.
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but when the exit polling starts coming at us on the evening of November 5, it will sound something like this. “Americans, led by women, have voted to overwhelmingly turn the page on a decade of caustic, ugly politics. They have told us they are sick and tired of the vitriol and clearly want a new start with a new candidate. Kamala Harris is projected to win in a landslide.”
Now I’m going to get back to my pacing.
Dr. Lance Dodes is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute:
A month or so until Election Day, I feel this is Pearl Harbor again but only worse. I’m terrified that Trump may win since once in office he will never leave and democracy will be over. I’d like to think that Americans would recognize that there is only one choice but it’s clear that nearly half of our fellow citizens care or understand little about the Constitution, decency, democracy or the welfare of others.
I thought that Trump’s fraud convictions, his treasonous attempt to overthrow the government, his racist and fascist statements and his obvious apparent cognitive decline would have doomed his candidacy before now. But here we are.
I believe that we are at this point in the 2024 election with Trump basically being tied with Kamala Harris because there has been a massive dual failure in the country. This consists of a failure of education that has allowed people to grow up without knowledge of history that would allow them to see that they are repeating the story of Germany of the 1930s. This is joined by a massive failure of the press, which has allowed Trump to successfully spread his Big Lies while passively quoting him and giving him front-page coverage in order to sell more newspapers and TV space. When Trump shuts down the New York Times and The Washington Post, they will have only themselves to blame.
Unless there is an “October surprise” such as Donald Trump committing an act or statement so outrageous that even the media will have to describe his danger for what it is, he will continue to spiral more malignantly in his attempts to galvanize his MAGA cult and to create a civil war with the overthrow of the election and the Constitution if Harris wins. I believe there will have to be a clear landslide to prevent Trump from attempting another coup.
