RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2024. UPDATED WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 (SEE BELOW). There is much progressive excitement about the results of a regional poll that shows Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa! No one seems to think she will actually take “ruby red” Iowa Tuesday. But if she comes much closer than anyone thought possible in this part of the mom-and-apple-pie Midwest, what does that mean for the big picture?

I’ve also seen arguments on even Elon Musk’s Twitter/X that the polls still showing an extremely close race are overestimating Trump and underestimating Harris. Just to see this kind of thing, however, is to be seized by the thought that it may be quite delusional to imagine the real-world political divide between Trump’s Old America and Kamala’s New America can be so quickly breeched.

The deep question seems to focus on whether Kamala Harris really has started to mobilize the very broad anti-Trump US constitutionalist coalition that stretches from AOC on the left to Liz Cheney on the right — a new America that agrees on the broad parameters of how governments should do what they do, while continuing to disagree on just what they should do.

If this kind of very big-tent governing coalition is what finally does win with surprising electoral strength on November 5 it will make for a less narrowly political kind of government in Washington, DC. Somewhat ironically, a much narrower Harris victory (now the most objectively likely result?) will be more progressively pure .

Then there certainly does seem to remain a quite serious prospect that the American people (as defined by the obsolete and anti-democratic electoral college, etc) will in 2024 just be crazy enough to elect the anti-constitutionalist Donald Trump to a second term in office, by some equally narrow margin.

My feeling right now is let’s not worry much about that prospect until we actually come to it if we do. (Well .. in our particular case here, north of the northern border, the ”we” is strictly symbolic or metaphorical, for the time being at least … until the next Canadian federal election sometime next year!) But this is of course easier advice to give than to follow. And then virtually everyone I’ve talked with over the past few days has urged that it may be quite a while after November 5 before we finally know who won and who lost just what …

Meanwhile, to keep the ball rolling, here is a quotation from the irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, who started in Huntsville, Alabama in 1902 and ended in New York City in 1968 : “No one can ever be like me… Hell, even I have trouble doing it.”

UPDATE NOV 6, 1:30 AM ET : Whatever else, it is now altogether certain that there is no happy surprise blowing in the wind of Democracy in America. The very broad anti-Trump US constitutionalist coalition that stretches from AOC on the left to Liz Cheney on the right just does not have a big enough mass base in the real world of American electoral politics 2024.

There is arguably still some hope for a much narrower Harris victory when all the votes from the most poignant battleground states are counted — tomorrow or sooner and so forth. (See update on the update 2:30 AM below : this prospect has now effectively vanished. ) But right now this does not at all still seem the most objectively likely result. As I at least go to bed Donald Trump is leading in both the electoral college and the popular vote. The Republicans now have a majority in the Senate. And even progressive commentators on TV are projecting that this time it will be more like 2016 than 2020. At some point after or even when (?) I get up in the morning Donald Trump will likely enough be President of the United States once again — no matter how much I pray.

I have been most struck by an 11:18 PM Nov 5 tweet/post from the journalist Aaron Rupar : “If Trump wins, there will be efforts to blame Russian interference or the Harris campaign or Biden, etc. That’s all fair. But we need to be clear eyed that a huge swath of America likes what Trump is selling. Transphobia. Mass deportation. That’s what he ran on. And here we are.”

At this exact point it’s still “If Trump wins”. But I certainly have lost all confidence that he won’t win. I’m still not quite ready to start thinking as if he actually has won. But I think I may very soon have to cross this bridge. Along with the rest of the global village that has no faith in Trump’s America — even as I altogether agree with Aaron Rupar’s need to be clear-eyed about the huge swath of the electorate that “likes what Trump is selling”!

update on the update 2:30 AM : As it happens I haven’t quite gone to bed yet. And Trump now has 266 of the 270 electoral votes he needs. He is addressing the universe on TV as I write here. As if he will be President again, which now seems virtually certain! God only knows just what the future holds for America …