We’re All On Debate Overload But Some Things Are Absolute

Everything is happening everywhere all at once (Griffin the Archanan from MIB3)

Well, one way or tonight, roughly ten hours after I’ve written this VP Kamala Harris and EX-President Donald Trump will have squared off on the debate stage. In front of what’s predicted to be a HUGE national audience. Assuming Trump shows up (I still think it’s 50-50), or the big crunch that ends the universe doesn’t take place in the meantime or any one of countless possibilities. I’ll get to that later. For now, I’m if not at peace waiting to see what happens I’m resigned to not knowing what will happen tonight. Or what it will turn out to mean going forward and into voting. No one else knows either!

We’ve been subjected to weeks of speculation. ‘Experts’ from historians to people who do punditry for a living, journalists (or those who profess to be) giving both their own opinions and reporting on what they hear other ‘important’ people (sometimes on the record and often not) saying. Even talking heads who have worked for either Harris or Trump. Or other candidates who’ve taken part in a Presidential Debate. So many ‘expert’ opinions on what Harris has to do, how she should handle this or that with Trump, how Trump will act (yes, except on Fox discussion assumes he’ll lie his fat orange ass off) – even in normal circumstances this is a talking head’s wet-dream. They get to carry on, to pontificate to their little heart’s content.

For me, and I suspect lots of others it’s overload. Just too many people speculating like they KNOW what will happen and what will be the most important factor(s), or takeaways(s) and of course who will ‘win.’  Like I said they don’t know any more than I do but for a while now it’s all driven me nuts. My mind has raced from one scenario, or possibility as well as outcome to the next. About the only thing I’m sure of is that no matter what the talking heads will be ordered to, no matter what bullshit they have to sling to spend the rest of the week spinning things to ensure the news outlets have their ‘horse race’ to cover. Still, it’s been hard not to do some of my own speculating.

Again and again I can’t get past the fact that appallingly, tragically and even dangerously it’s even a close race at all. Over and over, as has been the case ever since Trump rose to the level he did in politics I, along with others (including so many of the pundits I disparage) wonder how the hell he survived to stay in the proverbial game. Same for political opponents from both the Democratic and Republican Parties. I realized recently we’re all the character Hedley Lamar from Blazing Saddles distraught and scheming after Mongo fails to kill Sheriff Bart of Rock Ridge:

Trump’s ability to politically survive often seems like he makes Houdini look like a rank amateur. Of course Trump has been helped beyond measure by a corporate media elite determined to milk every dollar of ratings/ad revenue they can out of him. If Trump has been ‘normalized’, or a new word that’s popped up ‘sane washed’ it’s because CBS’s Les Moonves had company in every news executive suite and boardroom when he said Trump might not be good for the country but he was good for CBS. That’s another matter, and one I’ve outright ranted about before and will no doubt rant about again.

What I came to realize over the weekend is this: Yes, we are living in a moment that will define history. AND incredible as it seems history can and has turned for both good and ill on tiny, improbable decisions/choices and just the plain chance of events unfolding in a specific, sometimes long sequence of actions/reactions combined with those decisions made where there was no knowledge of what was unfolding elsewhere.  It’s both beautiful and scary to contemplate but if like me you’re a history buff you know I’m right.

What if for example that British sharpshooter armed with a rifled musket (a rare and expensive item in those days) who had a clear shot at General George Washington, who KNEW who he was looking at had shot and killed him? But in those times it was considered ‘bad form’, ‘ungentlemanly’ to target the leader of a large opposing unit, much less a general. So Washington survived and you know how that turned out. What if, prior to the battle of Antietam Gen. McClellan had believed and acted upon the contents of General Order 191? Or, after that awful day of battle when he still had Lee vastly outnumbered and trapped by a swollen Potomac River had attacked and finished off Lee’s army. And captured or killed Lee himself (and Stonewall Jackson too)?

I think of ALL the things that improbably had to go just right that allowed us not only to prevail in the battle of Midway, but gutted the cream of Japanese naval aviation. Or Hitler having aides who refused to wake him up after the invasion of Normandy was underway. Or after we swept through France the chance of Von Rundstedt sending his Panzer divisions to Arnhem (Holland – and the huge highway bridge and nearby railway bridge across the Rhine) for “a rest” just before the massive Operation Market Garden? So many random, fleeting decisions made solely by chance and history is forever affected.

Including a dude by the name of Drumpf who didn’t want to do his mandatory military service and fleeing his homeland, winding up in the U.S. Then trying after years to slink back home only to have the king kick his draft dodging ass out again with a promise of arrest and prison if he came back.  So the guy came back here, ‘Americanized’ his last name and settled a family here. The Trump family. Which eventually would include Donald effing Trump. Sometimes random chance flat-out sucks. And should Donald Trump somehow sleaze and cheat his way back into the WH a century from now (and after) people will look back and marvel on how world  history was shaped for the worse because Trump’s ancestor wasn’t allowed to return to his homeland!

We simply don’t know how events will unfold tonight. We can assess the odds of this or that happening but if history teaches us anything we just don’t know. And that’s what got me to thinking about stuff that’s way beyond my expertise. I studied some physics both in high school and college but nothing like real, brilliant physicists do. It’s simply beyond me, like the universe itself with mind-bending questions such as ‘There has to be an edge to the universe so what’s beyond THAT?’ One wild (to me) theory is that since quantum physics shows the same “event” can happen in multiple places at the same time then we live in a series of parallel universes. With things unfolding perhaps differently (maybe by a little, maybe by a lot) in each one. Or maybe quite similarly in some parallel universes. Who the hell knows?

And that was my epiphany. For all I know in some parallel universe Trump’s political career HAS ended ingloriously. For different reasons/incidents in different parallel universes. The flip side is that he becomes what he hopes to become. Dictator of the most powerful country on the face of this earth and humanity will forever be the worse for it. And whether in the existence I’m living or whatever the hell is happening in some parallel universe turns on some tiny, insignificant (or so it would seem at that instant) moment can make ALL the difference. Just as has happened before. For both good and ill.

All I know for sure is I’m living in THIS universe. This universe and time I’m living in has had its moments but also some really bad sh*t go down including Trump rising to power and in a position to get it again. I can and will do what I can to help Harris win this election and in the process strike a mortal blow to Trump/Trumpism.  That’s all I can control. And I have to accept there are things beyond mine or anyone else’s control that might well determine the future. If things turn out wrong, perhaps the only consolation will be that there might be a parallel universe where all goes right. I got to thinking about a poignant scene from the movie Men In Black 3 where the Griffin character shows the agents his ‘gift’ which is as the ensuing clip indicated simultaneously amazing and a gigantic pain in the ass.

Griffin is the last of his species, and likes earth and wants to save it from the Boglodites (who destroyed his home world) so he tries. He has a gift that will protect us, if ‘Boris the Animal’ doesn’t get HIS hands on it and/or kill Agent K before it can be deployed. Griffin says it will take a miracle BUT if his new pals pull it off it will replace the Miracle Mets game (where they won the World Series) as his new favorite moment in human history:

Will Kamala Harris be the real life Agent K who pulls off the miracle of deploying the ‘ArcNet’ that prevents Trump/Boris the Animal from leading the invasion that dooms humanity? The above clip if you take the time to watch it (you really should) gives a taste of all the improbable, seemingly unrelated factors that led to that Mets win the trio ‘watches.’  How it took ALL of them to coalesce into that ‘Miracle’ of a win. Yet it happened.  So many incredible things have taken place to get us where we are with this Presidential election as I write this. So many might never be known. And the plain fact is that no one, including all the ‘expert’ pundits know what will happen tonight or why. Or what trivial thing that might not ever be recognized will have led to it.

I feel like back when I was a ballplayer before a huge game. Those final minutes of silence in the locker room, knowing that I and my teammates were ready and had done all we could to prepare. We just had to wait to go out there and put forth our best effort.  That’s all we could do. I never back then gave much thought to what the fans were feeling other than hope we would make it worth their while to have showed up. They can hope things will turn out how they want, but any sports fan has known the agonizing moment where a game turned. Wrong. A ball just out of reach. A ridiculously improbable bounce. Yet sometimes crazy stuff happens in your team’s favor.  In the end, all you can do is settle in and watch. And hope.

That’s all any of us can do. I recommend ignoring the punditry today. Concentrate on things you CAN control like GOTV efforts and educating people you know/encounter on the issues when they are misinformed.  Or don’t know enough to make up their minds.  But the plain fact is the stage is literally set. The debate itself is out of ours, or frankly anyone’s control including the candidates. It will  unfold however it will unfold. So again, work on what you can actually do and stop thinking about the debate.  Each candidate knows what they want to do. Just remember boxer Mike Tyson’s statement that everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. In other words once the punches start getting thrown and landing all bets are off.  And both the judges and the crowd have to watch and see what actually happens instead of watching what they thought would happen.

Late tonight we will know. And then know more about what needs doing between now and election day. So don’t waste time today with what Harris will/has to do. We’ve given her this particular situation to handle and she’s prepared.  And frankly isn’t paying attention to all the outside “experts’ and their pontificating. Neither is Trump for that matter. So go about your business, take a nap if you need to this afternoon so you’re fresh this evening and have a nice dinner. Then settle in for whatever history gets made.

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