There is nothing we don’t know about Donald Trump; other than how and why he might be reelected president.

Of course, there are theories. There are many theories. I’ve personally tried about a million of them.

But none of the explanations, even those of the smartest political analysts, are good enough, because how could they be? What I know for sure is that historians will be pondering Trump’s dominance of America for the next hundred years; That is, if historians are still allowed to ask this question.

And yet.

Friday morning, in its final rollout of the election season, a New York Times/Siena College poll — maybe most respected national survey works – there is a choice It was a draw.

Trump leads Kamala Harris in a Wall Street Journal poll of voters in seven swing states that are likely to determine who wins in the Electoral College. According to a single point.

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So, despite a series of recent revelations about Trump and his supporters, the election is apparently tied. passion for hitlerDespite Trump’s increasing insistence mindless rhetoric, despite the use F-word — yes, fascist — to describe Trump from former Trump officials and even Harris herself. Despite everything.

By everything, I mean the most important parts of Trump’s promise to the American people at the close of his election campaign:

he will do to deport Millions of unauthorized immigrants, including those who have lived here for decades and even those who have never eaten anyone’s pet.

He will impose tariffs About everything, despite the fact that economists of all stripes are sure that such tariffs will devastate the economy.

He will tell for sure revenge against his political enemies, from politicians to reporters to prosecutors to, I’m just guessing, pop singers to anyone he deems an “enemy within.”

Oh, and he won’t let trans kids Play girls’ sports because this is the issue that is tearing the nation apart.

By everything I mean the fact that he is a convicted rapist, that he is a convicted criminal, that he is a propagator of the Big Lie and thousands of smaller lies, that he tried to overturn the 2020 election, that he unleashed a violent mob. The US Capitol promises to pardon the January 6 rioters, I could go on and on but what’s the point?

We know all this. Trump has made no secret of what he plans to do if elected. He brags about it. Of course he’s bragging about it.

David Frum, one of the first Never Trumpers he tweeted The other day: “Do you think someone has a video of Trump mocking the disabled, belittling US POWs, bragging about sexually assaulting women, praising Vladimir Putin, or calling for a violent attack on the Capitol? “That would be huge.”

As CNN commentator Van Jones noted double standard The media and others appear to be judging Trump and Harris: “They don’t stand the same test. It becomes illegal. It has to be perfect.”

And yet.

One group that understands the risk is women, who, based on long experience, know a dangerous man when they see one. You’ve seen the gender gap figures in the polls. In the Times poll on Friday, women preferred Harris by a 54-41 margin. Men preferred Trump by a margin of 55-42. recently USA Today poll The difference reached 17 percent.

Yes, this gender gap has existed since at least the 1980s. But this year?

Some are calling 2024 the boy-girl election. But that doesn’t actually cover it. as Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse notedIt’s not like “girls want to choose a Barbie doll and boys want to choose a monster truck.” It seems that the majority of men are happily prepared to choose a sexual aggressor.

Trump has clearly earned women’s distrust/disgust. It’s not just racist, sexist and similar insults he hurls at Harris. Trump and Mitch McConnell’s Roe v. It’s not just the Supreme Court that he’s designed to overturn the Wade case. The problem is not just that Trump was found to be a rapist in court. This isn’t just his chilling “I’m your protector” speech to women. It’s not just his affinity for violence. That’s not just because he picked a running mate who berates “childless cat women.” This isn’t just his outlandish rumor that the late golfer Arnold Palmer was a man’s man because of the apparent size of his penis.

Let’s go to the last Trump rally in Georgia, where insufferable Trump supporter Tucker Carlson announced that Trump was in the warm-up. America’s “father” and the Democrats were basically like the “hormone addicted 15 year old girl” who turned her parents finger to slam the bedroom door.

“You know what my dad says when he comes home? ‘You’ve been a bad girl, you’ve been a bad girl, and now you’re getting a hard spanking,'” Carlson told the crowd.

He continued: ‘And no, this won’t hurt me any more than it hurt you. No it’s not. I won’t lie. This will hurt you much more than me. And you deserve it. You’re getting a severe spanking for being a bad girl.”

Let’s put aside the question of whether anyone ever uses the word “strong” when it comes to spanking their child and just focus on the absolute insanity of the metaphor itself. And even more frenzy from the wildly cheering crowd.

Here on planet Earth, Tom Nichols wrote: last piece In The Atlantic, he tries to explain the appeal of Trump’s outrageous behavior and the behavior it elicits in his more rabid supporters. He says many Trump supporters know exactly who Trump is and they love him.

And the latest warnings about Trump’s fascism won’t change any of that. So far, nothing Trump has done seems to change anything.

“For millions of Republican Party loyalists, Trump’s distressing attempts to cross new frontiers of obnoxiousness are not offensive but reassuring,” writes Nichols. “Them request Trump is terrible; because they will be horrified if the people they see as their political enemies win.”

This is a provocative piece, but of course there are many things that the idea of ​​”having libraries” cannot explain. Yes, there are Trump cultists who definitely fall into Nichols’ category. But there aren’t enough of them to win an election (at least let’s hope). This does not explain the norms; Normal Republican people that you and I know who will vote for Trump because he is on his team and who will somehow deliberately ignore the rest.

Does anyone know how to reach these people? Do you think it would help if people like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney supported Harris? Maybe around the edges. Maybe not.

The best I can do is offer a warning. People are afraid of what Trump might do. Do you want to know how scared you are?

A week after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, where I once worked, killed an editorial supporting Kamala Harris and refused to support her in the election, Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, among the richest and most powerful people in the world, did just that. same thing.

Woodward and Bernstein’s newspaper, The Post, which adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” after Trump became president in 2017, went to its knees.

I can assure you that it is no coincidence that Trump continues to do this. threaten “fake news” media at the corporate level where real power resides. And that’s where the real money flows.

Former Post Editor Marty Baron called Bezos’ decision “cowardice.” At least one featured Post columnist and the editor resigned. At least three LA Times editorial board members resigned.

Yes, it is difficult, perhaps even futile, to try to explain how and why we, the American people, might re-elect Trump.

But it’s easy to guess what might happen if we repeat this mistake. We’ve already seen this happen once. It would almost certainly be worse if there were fewer guardrails for Trump this time around.

And yet.

And yet.

Election Day is almost upon us, and somehow that’s the world we’re facing.

Mike Littwin He has been a columnist for countless years. Dr. J has covered four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions, and countless mind-numbing speeches delivered in the snows of New Hampshire and Iowa.. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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