The Embittered Hour Has Come

And I will friend you, if I may, 
In the dark and cloudy day.

--A.E. Housman

I haven't blogged much about politics lately. In part I took August off, thinking there would be ups and downs after the conventions, as there always are. Then in September I watched things unfold, and nothing that happened changed my views and predictions of how things would play out in the election.


But now it is time to give an update. My prediction for the election remains the same: Trump in a landslide. I know hearing this will anger many of my friends, if they are reading this, but that is what I see.

In normal times, that's all there would be to the story---a simple election prediction. But we are not in normal times. We are approaching, and indeed have entered, one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of civilization. What is going to happen over the course of the next 26 days and beyond is going to be unprecedented in its scale of overturning and smashing the thought paradigms in which most of Americans have lived for most of their lives.

It is going to be very chaotic. The prediction I have repeatedly made---that "many are going to lose their minds." Well, this is what I was talking about. We're at the threshold of that moment. Many people, including people I know, are going to have an extremely difficult time coping with what is about to unfold.

Perhaps I'm fooling myself to think I am emotionally prepared as well, but I feel I have been preparing for this moment for at least 11 years, and perhaps much longer.

If I'm wrong about all this---that the election plays out as a normal one, with maybe some ribald scandals to sauce it up---then I'll eat my words on November 9th, no matter who wins the election. But that 'is not what I see happening, so I share the message with you, my dear friend. One last warning of the approaching maelstrom in the era of Normal Times.