A number of people have asked whether I think this is the most important election in our lifetimes.
If we use what political scientists call "critical election theory" it almost certainly isn't. In such literature, an election becomes a "critical" one only if it dramatically reshapes the political landscape for decades thereafter (think FDR's landslide victory in 1932 with his "New Deal" coalition).
Nov. 3 likely won't produce that kind of fundamental realignment of American politics (more likely a perpetuation of the "50-50 nation"), but it will still be unprecedented in our electoral history for a number of reasons, including the widespread expectation that we won't know who actually won until long after Election Day, and the mystery regarding what will happen if the fellow the polls say is going to win actually does.
We have never gone into an election in which so many on both sides not only don't expect a timely result but are also preparing to question the legitimacy of any results that do eventually emerge.
This isn't the first time that we've voted during a pandemic, but it's probably the first time that such a large number of Americans believe that lawyers and legal challenges will both delay and perhaps decisively influence the outcome (this occurred, of course, with Bush-Gore in 2000, but hardly anyone saw that coming or had heard of "hanging chads").
If Trump loses narrowly, he and his supporters will scream voter fraud; if Biden loses narrowly, he and his supporters will scream voter suppression.
Gone are the days when even Richard Nixon decided that it would be too divisive for the country to challenge those dubious returns coming out of Mayor Daley's Chicago. Indeed, the dismal downward spiral of American politics cannot be better captured than by watching back to back the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy and the 2020 Biden-Trump debates, and comparing the civility of the former with the incivility of the latter.
It's distressing that we can't hold a presidential debate that resembles that word any longer, but downright catastrophic that the ability of the country that pioneered the idea of free, fair elections is now perceived by so many of its own voters as less capable of holding one than Ecuador or Honduras.
Democracy is not about results; it is about "process," and nothing does more to undermine the process than claiming beforehand that it will be deemed illegitimate if it doesn't produce the results we favor. Being able to hold free, fair elections is more important to the future of the republic than who wins any particular one, including this one.
A far greater threat to American democracy than a second Trump term or the woke left winning power is the belief that American democracy is imperiled if Trump wins a second term or the woke left wins power, because therein lies precisely the kind of "ends justify the means" thinking that destroys democratic norms.
The idea that we undermine the democratic process in order to save democracy from the threat posed to it by the other side thus reminds of a certain comment during the Vietnam War about saving villages by destroying them.
If the context in which this election is being held is inspiring unusually grim scenarios, perhaps even more unusual is that we know so little about the agenda of the man favored to win it, Joe Biden; more specifically, what kind of administration a Biden administration would be.
We don't know because Biden has made a special effort to avoid telling us, and our media watchdogs have demonstrated little interest in pressing him on such apparently trivial matters. Biden isn't allowed to talk much, and when he is nobody can understand what he's talking about (probably himself included).
No presidential candidate has been so determinedly inactive since William McKinley sat on his front porch. Appealing to the suburban soccer moms in swing states while still keeping the radical left on board has required that Biden say as little about "court-packing" and everything else as possible. On the rare occasions when he gets loose from his handlers and one of his word jumbles comes tumbling out, retractions, clarifications, and reversals invariably follow, leaving everyone as mystified as before.
At this point, we don't know if Biden is the moderate lefty that he presented himself as during most of his career, perhaps suggestive of a third Obama term, or the radical lefty who made peace with socialist Bernie Sanders by signing on to the recommendations of the "Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force," wherein Biden essentially endorsed everything Bernie.
Or maybe not.
Biden's campaign says it won't answer "hypothetical" questions that might divert from the "real issues," but, as many have noted, every question about your agenda if you are running for president is by definition a "hypothetical" one.
We are thus treated to the first-ever presidential candidate who refuses to take positions on issues because the articulation of those positions might make headlines.
Those who vote for Biden have virtually no idea what they are voting for and what they are going to get, focused as they are only on making sure they don't get Trump.
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.