With just under four months till the election the pendulum has given signs it is ready to swing backward.
After more than four months of jabs and haymakers that have left his administration reeling, Donald Trump appears to have regained some energy.
Conservative voices are saying woke movements have gone too far. A federal judge has strongly questioned the sexual harassment and abuse settlement against Harvey Weinstein. Conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan is leaving New York Magazine. Bari Weiss is leaving The New York Times because she claims a bullying atmosphere that attacks non liberal stances is tolerated by management. Federal executions have begun anew with Trump threatening more. Trump is further threatening to send in federal forces to cities run by liberal mayors he says cannot control violence. He also is said to be supportive of a Missouri couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. The CDC director is blaming visiting Northerners for the pandemic outbreak in the South. Trump administration lackeys are degrading the expertise of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Though Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania polls is double digits pollsters say a majority believe there is a “secret” number of Trump voters who could keep the Keystone State red.
Trump is betting his base enjoys their White privilege even as fence-sitting voters will be repulsed by excesses of ultra-progressive woke groups. Their combined ballots will keep him in the White House for another four years
Trump is like that Philadelphia icon—Rocky. It is hard to knock him down. To keep him down.
Biden so far has played a version of Muhammed Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy against George Forman, keeping mostly to himself. He is letting Trump tire himself and the public out with outlandish tweets on all manner of national affairs alongside public displays of indifference to the personal, human losses from COVID-19, now totaling more than 138,000 lives from more than 3.48 million confirmed cases. Even now that he is wearing a mask in public the glower beneath it comes through.
The race for the presidency is a like a 15-round championship boxing match, not a three-round amateur bout. Polling can be illusory. Hillary learned that lesson four years ago.
Barring an international emergency or another vacancy on the Supreme Court, the election will be settled by three intertwined events: the status of the pandemic, the state of the economy, and the success, or lack of, school reopenings.
The pendulum might be swinging a little more in Trump’s direction but there is plenty time for it to swing back to Biden’s corner.
