Doing the right thing, bravo!

He hesitated more than many would have liked, but Joe Biden has done the right thing. Bowing out of the presidential race and endorsing his vice president for the job will make it competitive once again. It will also ensure his legacy as the president who restored the American economy to prosperity and the American psyche to sanity. The Democratic Convention in Chicago August 19-22 will be a crucial opportunity to project unity, commitment, and optimism.

Behind but not by much

Polling shows Harris often lagging Trump but doing about as well or a bit better than Biden against him. How the future campaign will affect those numbers is uncertain of course. But she is starting from no more than a few inches behind. Articulate, energetic, and smart, she will do well in a debate with Trump, which means he will try to avoid one.

Her other virtues are also clear. She will be running on a platform, a record, and an identity that will make her particularly appealing to the poor and middle class, women, the college-educated, minorities, and entrepreneurs. And, oh yes, (the relatively few) people like me who worry about America’s role in the world and threats to its national security. But many of us vote in the District of Columbia, where Harris will get well over 90%.

Trump is going to have trouble

Trump is going to have trouble with Harris. His problems with women are apparent in a life history that features rape and other sexual abuses, two failed marriages, salacious comments about his daugher, a current wife who doesn’t want to be seen with him, hush money paid to a porn star, and a friendship with child-trafficker and pimp Jeffrey Epstein.

Harris won’t put up with the kind of discourtesy Trump practiced when wandering around the stage during a debate with Hillary Clinton. His inarticulate blathering about sharks and electrocution will seem childish next to her laconic wit. Trump will try to paint Harris as a radical leftist, but her career and record as a prosecutor will stand her in good stead.

The campaign and the election

None of this means Harris necessarily wins. One of the good things about American elections is that the results are not known in advance. The less than 11 weeks between the end of the Democratic convention and November 5 will be intense. Biden should be able to help Harris in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. There and elsewhere turnout will be vital. Harris needs not only to win, but to win decisively in order to forestall Republican claims that the outcome was rigged.

The Republicans are planning a major effort to support such claims. The Democrats will also be watching the polls closely in the battleground states. The fate of Trump’s lying lawyers, at least some of whom states have disbarred and many of whom are disgraced, may deter blatant lies. But if the outcome is close, there will be no alternative to battling it out in court.

The schedule after November 5 calls for “ascertainment” of results by December 11, the Electoral College meeting December 17, and communication of the results to Congress by December 25. The Congress tabulates the results January 6. There is a lot of room for malfeasance, lies, fakery, and violent protests in November and December.

Trump has made it clear he will not accept defeat. A January 6-style riot anytime in between Election Day and Counting Day is certainly a possibility. Law enforcement will need to be attentive. No one showed up when Trump called for demonstrations outside the Manhattan courtroom where he was convicted of 34 felonies. But that was Manhattan, not Pittsburgh.

Harris will bury Trumpism

I look forward to Harris’ inauguration on January 20 next year. And to the reconstitution of a respectable Republican Party that is able and willing to compete not only for electoral votes but also for popular votes nationwide. It is time to end the ridiculous cult that has created a god of a lying, cheating, bombastic racist. And a party that has to depend on the Electoral College, not the American people, to win the presidency.