Even here in bright blue New York I am circumspect. Thousands of us will be gathering at the gravesite of Susan B. Anthony today (as we often do) and the city has recently put a protective covering over the headstone to protect it

I couldn't sleep last night, smoked myself into a coma and woke up late.
Par for 2020.

wishing you guys peace and love to help get thru this

I’m hoping it will be calmer and more decisive that we expect

You may or may not find reassurance in this scholarly analysis from Henry Olsen:

[washingtonpost.com]

"Democrats need not fear. This, my sixth published biennial election prediction essay, is perhaps my easiest: Former vice president Joe Biden will win comfortably unless we experience the greatest polling failure in modern history. Democrats will also gain control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House. While not the landslide that some hope for, Democrats will simultaneously control the presidency and both houses of Congress for only the third time since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. That alone is a historic achievement that will give them the upper hand to determine the next stage of our ongoing national crisis.

For all the disorder and uncertainty from the pandemic and our summer of racial discontent, Biden’s victory will be the result of long-established truths about American politics. To borrow from Paine’s most famous work, it will be a case of common sense.

It is common sense that a president running for reelection will be judged on whether he handled the job well enough to deserve another chance; reelections are always referendums on the president. It is common sense that a president deemed to have failed his biggest challenges will have lost his fellow citizens’ trust. President Trump has failed both tests in the eyes of the American people and will lose as a result.

Trump’s job approval ratings show this. Historically, presidents who run for reelection receive a share of the popular vote that is remarkably close to their final job approval rating. The RealClearPolitics polling average has tracked Trump’s job approval throughout his presidency. He is the first president to have never received a 50 percent rating; indeed, he has never come close. Trump’s highest marks came this year between March 26 and April 2, when he topped 47 percent. As of Sunday morning, his job approval stood at 45 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. Given that there won’t be as much third-party voting this time around, that just won’t be good enough to win.

Trump’s mediocre handling of the coronavirus pandemic probably sealed his fate. It’s no coincidence that his high-water mark came at the pandemic’s onset. Politicians around the world saw their approval ratings rise as scared citizens “rallied around the flag” to support their leaders. Trump’s handling of the pandemic was initially viewed favorably by more than half of Americans, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average. But it has steadily sunk since then, thanks to his public gaffes (injecting bleach) and his marked belief that keeping the economy open was more important than controlling the virus.

Despite all of these obstacles, Trump still had an outside shot in late September. His job approval ratings had been steadily climbing from their mid-July nadir and stood at roughly 45 percent on the eve of the first presidential debate. His task was difficult but clear: make the case that he deserved a second term despite all that had happened, and raise doubts about Biden’s ability to do better. Most political analysts believe that if Trump loses the popular vote by three points or less, he could still win the electoral college. To do that, he needed to get his approval rating above 47 percent. Instead, at that Sept. 29 debate, Trump displayed a level of boorishness that was shocking even for him. His rise halted, and his approval ratings dropped back. Trump’s second debate performance was more measured, but the damage was done.

Polling data among key demographics all show why Trump will fall short. In 2016, Trump won among independent voters by a narrow margin, 46 percent to 42 percent. National polling averages today show Biden carrying independents 52 percent to Trump’s 41 percent, with 7 percent going to third-party candidates. And while Trump has attracted support from 5 percent of Democrats, Biden has pulled in 7 percent of Republicans. Those shifts are why Biden is polling above Hillary Clinton’s levels at this stage of the campaign and Trump remains mired in the mid-40s.

No forecast is without the possibility of error, and Trump fans certainly believe I will be wrong. They place their hopes in the idea that the polls are wrong, as they believe the polls were in 2016, and that there are millions of “shy Trump voters” who either lie to pollsters or aren’t answering surveys at all. We can’t discount that possibility entirely, especially after polls in countries such as Australia and Britain proved to be massively off in recent elections. Nonetheless, we are not likely to see a large enough polling error to rescue Trump’s reelection.

Polling error tends to occur in one of two circumstances: when undecided voters break late in one direction, and when certain demographics are underrepresented in the polling samples. U.S. pollsters certainly underrepresented Whites without a college degree in their 2016 samples, which is why some polls were off. Regional difficulties in contacting certain voter groups lead to consistent and predictable errors, as the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman recently showed. But that is not usually the cause of significant and consequential national polling errors.

This is unlikely to be a factor on Tuesday because there are almost no undecided votes left to shift. Polls have shown for months that most voters have decided whom to support and are not persuadable. Those that are persuadable still lean heavily in one direction or another. That’s the major reason the polls have been so stable all year and why they have been uniformly against Trump. Even if every single undecided voter unexpectedly backed Trump, he would still be outside the range of victory in nearly every national poll.

That means that for Trump to win, millions of people who have rarely, if ever, voted would need to turn out and back him. These people are so politically disconnected they likely would not answer polls, and many would never have registered to vote before. That’s what GOP-leaning polling firms such as the Trafalgar Group and Susquehanna contend they have uncovered, which leads them to produce polls that show Trump much closer nationally and in swing states than the more conventional polling averages. There’s some evidence in registration data that this might happen, but we can’t know for sure whether they are correct until Election Day."

Long story short: Olsen predicts a nationwide victory for Biden 52.5% to 45.3%, and 350 electoral votes to 188. He makes a good case, but obviously only time will tell. However, it seems some cautious optimism might be allowable.

I know a number of people that voted for tRump in 2016 but are voting for Biden now. I know of no one that voted for Clinton in 2016 that is voting for tRump now. Hopefully tRump's rein of terror will be over soon.

There is little reason to be stressed out. We Democrats are going to win, and after a bit of shouting and attempted chicanery, Trump and Republican blowhards are going to slink away in disgrace.

Unbelievable but should the end of the nightmare