The New Yorker:

But on the eve of another razor-thin election, it sure beats the alternative.

By Susan B. Glasser

Barely more than a week ago, it seemed as though the Washington political class and their big-money counterparts in New York had all but written off Kamala Harris, on the basis of what, exactly, I was never sure, given the essentially unmoving polls and the absence of any notable events that might have changed large numbers of minds. Nate Silver’s prediction model had Donald Trump with a lead from mid-October through the end of the month; on October 24th, the Democratic super pac Future Forward privately projected that Harris’s probability of winning was down to just thirty-seven per cent, according to the Washington Post, before it claimed to see a late shift in her direction in recent days. The point is: forget the noise. Amid all this, it seems best to heed the adage of Jim Messina, the Democratic strategist who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 reëlection campaign: “Don’t pay attention to Washington conventional wisdom, Wall Street conventional wisdom, or Nate Silver.”

This is especially the case given the stakes—2024 is nothing like a repeat of Obama versus Mitt Romney. America would be lucky to have that kind of sane choice. Instead, it is Trump’s possible return to the White House that looms when the polls open on Tuesday morning. In such a situation, it strikes me as almost irresponsible to succumb to the undeniably positive rumblings that have tentatively begun to emerge from Trump’s opponents, no matter how seductive or psychologically soothing we may find the photos of empty seats at the ex-President’s latest campaign rallies. (The lead headline on the Drudge Report as I’m writing this: “Last Days of the Don?”) In truth, we are all survivors of 2016; the shock of Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton casts a long shadow over any predictions today about a woman on the brink of winning the American Presidency.

Go to link