The election is 100 days away. The original Hundred Days resulted in Waterloo and Napoleon’s abdication. You can be sure that Trump intends to do everything in his power to make certain he doesn’t suffer a similar fate. What can we expect between now and then?
Lots of banging on the culture wars drum, of course. That won’t be enough to change the trajectory of the race, based on the results to date. We know that he has no respect for liberal democratic norms and a desperate desire to avoid looking like a loser. What else can he try?
Two things come to mind. The first, of course, would be a war with Iran. For whatever reason, that doesn’t seem to appeal to him. The other possibility would be vote suppression on a scale we have never seen before. The pandemic will provide some excuse for that, but something more would have to be attempted.
My greatest fear is that we will see armed right-wing militias appearing at polling stations and intimidating likely Democratic voters, in some cases with the support of local authorities. I really, really hope, for the sake of our country, that it doesn’t happen, but it is where we are heading.