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Day 1349

9/30/2020

Days to election: 34
THE DEBATE WAS AWFUL.
AND A REAL SUCCESS

“SO, THAT DEBATE WAS ... WHAT?" I asked my friend, the politically astute opossum, as we reviewed last night’s disturbing events.
   “A train-wreck, Phoebe?” Mr. O said. “A disgrace? As one commentator put it, a shitstorm? A mess?”
   “Plain and simple,” I said, “it was a success, maybe the best in the history of debates.”
   “Are you out of your mind?” shouted Mr. O, who’s as low-key and reserved an opossum as you could hope to find in your backyard.
   “Donald Trump showed up last night as a goon, a schoolyard bully, a predator, an abuser, a spoiler and a virtual psychopath,” Mr. O said.
   “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” I said.
   “But he absolutely wrecked the debate,” Mr. O said. “People who watched it said they felt sick; they said they were demeaned; some people couldn’t watch the whole thing and turned off their TVs.”
   “That's what happened,” I said.
   “Well, Phoebe, how is that successful debate?” Mr. O shot back. “And look what happened to Joe Biden, Trump’s election opponent, and Chris Wallace, the debate moderator. They were reduced to supporting roles, playing the parts of offended, but ineffectual victims of Trump’s boorishness.”
   “You got that right,” I said.

"BUT PHOEBE," the opossum shrieked, "how’s a mess like that a success?"
   “Because that’s what a debate is supposed to do,” I said. “It’s supposed to give voters a crystal clear picture of the choice they have to make.”
    “But nobody watching that show could tell what anyone was saying because of all the shouting, overtaking, and just plain meanness,” he said. “No exchange of ideas, no policy explanations.
   “Which means the debate perfectly reflected the America we’re living in right now,” I said.   “Donald Trump’s America.”
   “But it was supposed to be a DEBATE,” Mr. O said.
   “If it had been an orderly conversation," I said, "where the candidates delivered their rehearsed lines according to script, and everyone shook hands, patted each other on the back and left feeling pretty good about themselves and their country, that debate would have been a failure, a fraud.”

   “Maybe I see what you’re getting at,” Mr. O said.
   “The comparison between Trump and Biden was absolutely stark,” I said. “On one side, you had an unprincipled, destructive gangster; a racist; a provocateur, thriving on chaos and lawlessness.
   "On the other hand, there was a seasoned, proven and decent man; he was imperfect, of course, but also just the sort of person you'd want in the Oval Office, working to solve the country’s difficult problems.”

"And what did you think of Wallace, the moderator?” Mr. O asked. “He’s come in for a lot of criticism this morning for failing to control Trump.”
“His role in the debate was probably the most crucial of all,” I said. “He showed that with Trump in the White House, none of the usual checks-and-balances are working. Congress and the courts can’t control him, any more than Chris Wallace could keep Trump from being a debate barbarian and a spoiler last night.”

"BUT IT WAS REALLY HARD on Biden and Wallace, to say nothing about all of the people watching," Mr. O said.
   “These are hard times," I said. "Trump is dangerous, destructive and incompetent. Biden is not charismatic, not always well spoken, not young. But he’s capable, decent, and last night, he held his own against one of the most dangerous persons in the world.”
   “So, are you looking forward to the next debate?” Mr. O asked. “Some people today are suggesting there shouldn’t be any more.”
   “Of course I’m not looking forward to any more debates,” I said to the opossum. “But I’m not looking forward to four more years of Donald Trump either. The first four have been bad enough. They’ve been terrible. Terrible for democracy. Terrible for the climate. Terrible for the economy. And terrible for our health.”
   “So, you’re saying that upsetting as they might be, the next debates should go on as scheduled,” he said.
   “It’s the reality we’re living through,” I said.
   “Kind of ironic,” Mr. O said. “Trump got elected in part because he gained fame as a fake businessman on 'reality TV.' And last night, America got a chance to see the actual Donald Trump on real TV.”
   “You’ve got the picture,” I said.

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DAY 1348

9/28/2020

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WHICH TRUMP OUTRAGE WILL BE THE ONE?

LAST WEEK, AS DONALD TRUMP’S latest attack on democracy seeped into our consciences, I had two choices about what to do.

Option A - Go to the seashore.
Option B - Go bonkers.

   “So, Phoebe, which one did you choose?” Mr. O asked as we sat in our Rhode Island backyard for our evening review of the important issues of the day, which has been our practice since the opossum appeared atop a fence post a few months ago.
   “I picked Option A – Go to the seashore,” I said. “That’s the Problem.”
   “How could that be a Problem?” the opossum observed. “Doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes for the Grouchy One to drive you there. And a summer day isn’t to be wasted, especially when it’s not even summer anymore.”
   The Grouchy One is one of the two Humans I live with, the other being the Nice One. Had she the time to make the trip from our house in Newport to Ocean Drive, that would have turned a good summer day in fall into a great summer day in fall.
   “What was she doing?” Mr. O asked.
   “Writing letters to voters in the so-called swing states, urging them to vote,” I said.   “There’s an organization called “Swing Left” that identifies voters who might be persuaded to go to the polls, and gives you advice about how to write and send them nonpartisan letters.”
   “Which explains why she’s the ‘Nice One,’” Mr. O said. “By the way, what was the ‘Problem’ that made you question whether you should be sitting on the rocks, taking in the rays and watching the waves?”
   “The ‘Problem’ was Trump’s latest outrage, at least it was at the time,’’ I said. “And it was a doozy, so terrifying, so depraved, so destructive, that once you heard about it, you knew you should drop everything else you were doing and take emergency action.”
   “A bit of advice, Phoebe,” Mr. O said. “You might want to reconsider using a word like ‘doozy.’ It’s outdated and suggests that you are too.”
   “Would you rather I say something like ‘Scarier than an opossum’s tail?’ ” I retorted, and regretted immediately that I’d slipped into Trumpodian guttertalk.
   “What kind of emergency action were you considering because of this latest ‘doozy’?” Mr. O asked. “Write a letter to your congresswoman? March in September? Demonstrate in Portland? Tweet on Twitter? Take a train to Washington? Pick up the phone? Friend on Facebook? Emote with emojis? Ask Alexa?”
   “Exactly,” I sighed.

   As the sun went down, the warmth hung in the nearly windless night air, and we talked more about PTSDS (Post-Trumpodian Stress Dismay Syndrome).
   Trump will say something horrible; occasionally he actually will do what he says. And what he says and does will demand action.
   He’ll make a racist comment. He’ll insult someone. He’ll sign an executive order opening up wilderness areas to logging. He’ll belittle somebody. He’ll break a sacred tradition. He’ll abuse his office. He’ll lie. He’ll commit a crime.

And for a day or two, that outrageous comment or deed will burn hot in the news; hundreds of hearts will miss a beat; cable shows will be a-Twitter; children will letter posters; letters will be posted; press releases will be printed; marchers will march.
    And life will go on.

THIS HAS BEEN the pattern for four years.
   It happened in 2016, when a tape emerged on which Trump bragged about how his celebrity status enabled him to violate women. That prompted outrage and predictions of defeat. Trump won.
   Trump fired his FBI director, hosted Russians in the Oval Office, separated immigrant children from their parents, put the kids in cages, and outrage followed outrage followed outrage. The result, each time? Nothing.
   Trump publicly kowtowed to Putin. Trump was impeached. Trump mishandled the pandemic, trashed climate change regulations, urged "weak" governors to use the military “dominate” anti-racism protesters.
   The volume of outrages has become so immense that it’s hard not only to keep track of them, but even to triage their relative seriousness, so that some are barely noticed.

RECENTLY, MR. O and I looked through of a transcript of one of Trump’s campaign rallies, this one in Bemidji, Minnesota, on a Sept. 18th that was so little noticed it might as well have happened in 1720 instead 2020.
    Trump crowded supporters into a hangar in Minnesota, putting them in danger of spreading or being infected by Covid-19, then unleashed a two-hour harangue of insults, lies, boasts and taunts, while encouraging and condoning violence, racism and treason.
   He began with a warning: Minnesota would be “overrun and destroyed” by refugees if Joe Biden is elected president. Trump mocked a reporter who, months earlier, had been shot in the leg with a rubber bullet while covering a protest: “It was the most beautiful thing.”
   He disparaged Somalian-born Congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar: “That’s a beauty. How the hell did she win the election?” At another point, he said: “Look at Omar. She came in here. Did she marry her brother?”
   He belittled Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, riffing on the pronunciation of her name: “No, my name is Kamala. Like comma.' I remember that. Like a comma.”
   Trump praised Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederacy’s secession from the United States in attempt to preserve slavery, calling the traitor a “great general.”
   Trump speculated that if reporters treated Biden like they do Trump, “He’d melt. If they ever did a number on, this guy would be there, he’d be laying on the floor crying ‘Get me out of here, Darling. Where is my wife? Get me out of here please, Darling.’”
   The commander-in-chief veered off into a long discussion of the “Air Force One” jetliners that transport presidents, disclosing one of their most important features: “The great thing about those beautiful planes, they have more televisions than any plane in history. We have televisions in the closet, on the ceilings, on the floors…”

AT THE 1 HOUR, 55 MINUTE MARK, Trump congratulated Minnesotans for inheriting “good genes” from their pioneer ancestors: “They were tough, and they were strong. You have good genes. You know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it’s about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe?”
   Long, long ago, imagine the effect that any one of those comments – praise of superior genes, admiration of a traitorous general, scaremongering immigrants, insulting an opponent’s name, celebrating the shooting of a reporter – had they been spoken by a President Bush, a President Clinton, a President Obama.
   But Trump has made outrage routine.
   Wake up. Hear the latest outrage on radio or TV. Take a shower. Morning paper’s headline: “Latest Trump Outrage.” Do the dishes. Work (if you have work). Eat supper (if you have food). Six-o'clock News: “Trump’s Latest Outrage Stirs Outrage.” What’s on Netflix? Have we seen that series? It’s a new episode. Off to bed. Final iPad check: “Sources: Secret Memo Details Latest Trump Outrage.” Power down the iPad. Sleep through the night.

“YOU MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE,” said Mr. O, returning to last weekend’s activities. “You got Grouchy off the couch, into the car, and in about two minutes, you’re sitting on the rocks, watching the sailboats in the distance and the fishermen nearby, casting their lines into the Atlantic’s rolling swells. What more can you ask for?”
   "You tell me," I said.
   “Incidentally,” Mr. O said, “what was the recent Trump outrage that put you into full I-Can’t-Stand-It-Gotta-Do-Something mode?”
   “He wouldn’t commit to accepting the election results – unless he won,” I said.
   “Trump’s been saying that since 2016,” Mr. O said.
   “This time was different,” I said.
   “How so?” he asked.
   I told him about the press conference at which Brian Karem, a reporter for Playboy magazine, had phrased the question in a way which caught everyone, except Trump, off guard.

REPORTER: Mr. President, real quickly. Win, lose or draw in this election. Will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of power after the election, either … transferal of power after the election. And there has been rioting … there’s been rioting in many cities across this country, your so-called red and blue states. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?

TRUMP: Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster.

REPORTER: I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power?

TRUMP: We want to have… Get rid of the ballots and we’ll have a very peaceful… There won’t be a transfer frankly, there’ll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.

   “So, Mr. O, do you see what I mean?” I asked.
   “What really surprises me,” Mr. O said, “is that apparently, there’s still a Playboy magazine, and they have someone covering the White House.”
   “Seriously,” I said, “here’s a guy who won’t commit himself to a ‘peaceful’ outcome if he doesn’t win. Nobody in the history of the country – no candidate, nobody who counts – has ever said any thing like that!”
   We just sat there, not saying anything, listening to crickets and the other creatures who make late-summer, early fall noises, and every once in a while, breath of air drew a cord out of the wind chimes.
   “You're right,” Mr. O said, finally breaking the silence.
   “Right about what?” I asked him.

   “That this is a special outrage,” Mr. O said. “It really demands attention, action. This is one where you do write to your Congressman, check to see what your state is doing on absentee ballots, join a protest. Get on the phone. Tweet ‘til your fingers fall off. Etc. Etc.” “You mean that I made the wrong choice?” I said. “Instead of Option A - Go to the seashore, I should have selected Option B - Go bonkers?”
   “No,” the possum said, “You made the right choice. The danger to democracy is real, and we have do all of the things just plain citizens can do."
   "But there's one thing," Mr. O added, "that you and all the other pessimists always miss in your despair that no single 'bombshell' seems to stop Donald Trump. Call me an optopossumist if you must, but it seems to me that every outrage counts, and that they have a cumulative effect. No outrage ever goes away. Sooner or later, there will be one too many, and the total weight will crush him."
   "But why do you say that I should have gone to the seashore instead of going bonkers?" I asked him.
"Because you should never waste an opportunity to enjoy the seashore, especially on a summer day that's happening when it's actually fall," Mr. O said. "No matter what else, we cannot let Trump destroy the precious moments of our lives."

ON SUNDAY NIGHT, the New York Times began reporting that it had found the holy grail, Trump's most secret outrage: his tax records.
   They show him to be a scheming, but bumbling, businessman, who's on the hook for $300 million in coming-due obligations, and a fraud, who excels as a serial tax dodger, paying just $750 in taxes in each of two recent years and no taxes at all in 10 others.
   In the meantime, millions of other Americans, who do pay their taxes, have had to pick up his share of the cost of running the government.
   It’s an outrage.

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Day 1339

9/21/2020

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YES, GRIEVE FOR RBG.
BUT fOCUS: THERE’S
AN ELECTION IN 43 DAYS

THE DEATH OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG has hit everyone hard, and for many it’s been overwhelming, the latest attack on our body and souls in what has been four years of one shattering blow after another.
   The timing, of course, is as awful as the loss of a person who has inspired generations, of people, especially women. And just in time to mess with the election.
   “You want to know what else time it is?” Mr. O asked me.
    "Not really," I said, prepared for a smart-aleck reply.
    "It's time to move on."
“Excuse me?” I replied as my friend, the politically astute opossum, and I rendezvoused in the backyard for our regular after-dinner discussion of the latest events. "Aren't you being a bit lunkheaded here?"
   “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded," Mr. O said. “But we need to stay on track and not let one setback – and I know that the loss of Notorious RBG is a lot more devastating than that word suggests. However, these next 43 days are what we’ve been waiting for the last four years, and it’s imperative we keep going and more.
   “But Trump is going to get another conservative justice on the Supreme Court, which may indeed become 'His' court, jumping immediately into election disputes and bending the law in Trump's favor if the vote is close – to say nothing of what happens to Obamacare, climate change, Trump’s abuses of power, Russia, Russia, Russia, etc., etc.”

   "FOCUS, PHOEBE,“ Mr. O said, “Focus, focus, focus. This is the best chance to get rid of Donald Trump; and in that sense, this is the most promising, most exciting, most exhilarating time of our lives.”
   I’d forgotten with whom I’ve been hobnobbing this past summer – the optopossumistic opossum, a rare, but refreshingly upbeat subspecies, known to political scientists as Rosius-colorred-glasseus-half-fulum.
   Mr. O, in other words, believes that Democratic and other progressive forces are going to send Joe Biden to the White House, and relocate Donald Trump to Mar a Lago, where he’ll live out his life measuring rising sea levels.
   “Well,” I said, “If I can’t grieve for Ruth, or feel down in the dumps or plan to leave the country, what do you suggest?”
   With that, Mr. O pulled a sheet of paper out of his pouch, which surprised me, because I thought only female opossums had those for their newborns, which added a new element of mystery to the true nature of my companion, who showed up one day atop a fence post in our backyard.
   It read:
HAVE YOU:
1. Applied PROMPTLY for your mail ballot?
Answer: No. And yes. Since I’m a dog, I can’t vote, and I didn’t apply. But I did get the Humans in our house to fill out heir applications, and I rode with them yesterday to make sure they mailed them.

2. Put up a Biden for President sign on your front lawn?
Answer: Yes.Today, I printed out big letters – B I D E N – and Scotch-taped them (don't ask how a dog does these things) to individual window panes on the front sun porch, where I hang out when I’m not talking to you. And notice our house is #20 on our street, so I didn't have to print out "2020" for the sign. Coincidence? Or omen?

3. Sent money to Biden and Democratic Senate candidates?
Answer: Spoke to the Humans; they are disgraceful penny-pinchers, but I think they might part with some cash if for no other reason than to stop me from barking.

4. Been in contact with voters in “battleground” states?
Answer: A canine friend of mine, "Tatchka," a recent immigrant from Sarajevo, says his Humans recommend a group called "Swing Left," which has a lot of smart and well thought out ways to connect with voters, like letter-writing and sending targeted campaign contributions to candidates who can retake the Senate and state legislatures. Their website is: https://swingleft.org/

5. Stayed mad? Stayed Scared? Stayed in the game?
Answer: Just watch us.

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DAY 1336

9/18/2020

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Days Until the election: 46
IN THE FINAL DAYS, THE FINGER-WAGGERS NEED TO FOCUS ON THE REAL PROBLEM.
HINT: IT’S NOT JOE BIDEN

MR. O AND I were talking last night about the problem of finger-waggers. You know, the nitpickers, the second-guessers and constant critics – the ones who are forever telling everyone who's working desperately to win the election how badly they're screwing up.
The finger-waggers just can’t help themselves. Even in the campaign's closing weeks, the fault-finders, the tut-tutters and the scolders persist in pointing out the many ways that so many are getting so much wrong.
We’re talking about you, Bernie Sanders, how you’ve been giving Joe Biden the business, albeit ever so politely, ever so gently, telling Joe how he needs to sharpen his message to Progressives. On MSNBC the other day:

“I think Biden’s in an excellent position to win this election, but I think we have got to do more as a campaign than just go after Trump. We also have to give people a reason to vote for Joe Biden. And Joe has some pretty strong positions on the economy, and I think we should be talking about that more than we have.”

We’re talking about you, “Top Latino Democrats,” who were reported recently in the Washington Post as . . .

“. . . voicing growing concern about Joe Biden’s campaign, warning that lackluster efforts to win the support of their community could have devastating consequences in the November election.”

And even you, Charles Blow, one of our favorite New York Times columnists, prodding the “good people” the other day, trying to make them feel guiltier than they usually do about not doing good enough, or conversely, about not doing enough good:

“Stop thinking that things will simply work themselves out. Stop thinking that evil will stop at the gate and not trample your own garden. Gather the energy. Gather your neighbor. Fight, vote, email, post. Do all you can to stand up for the vulnerable, for the oppressed, for the planet itself. Don’t let history record this moment as it has recorded too many others: a time when good people did too little to confront wickedness and disaster.“

LOOK, WE GET IT.
   We are all scared out of our freakin’ minds that Joe Biden will squander his frighteningly thin lead in the polls. We can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t read a good book or enjoy an after-supper Original Klondike Bar for worry that 2020 might still be 2016.
   But that doesn’t mean we have to turn on each other, belittle, criticize and arm-chair-quarterback our teammates.
   (Mr. O and I should point out here that we are NOT finger-waggers. It’s not a character thing, just simple biology: sweet dogs and politically astute opossums don’t have fingers to wag. We do have claws, which, when it comes to our friends, we keep in check.)
    So, here’s our message to the wagging fingers: give them a rest.
    Leave the Good People alone. The Good People are NOT the problem.

WANT TO KNOW the real problem? The Ungoods.
   Point your fingers, if you must, at the Ungoods' demon clown, the one with the strange hair and the poison tongue.
   Wag away at the clown’s worshipers, who leer and cheer and sneer whenever they hear the demon’s latest insult, sneer or fib. Tee off on the Ungoods' sycophants, who help the clown lie, hide his accounts, cook his books, set fire to the earth and super-spread the virus.
    Point your fingers at Mitch McConnell and his Ungood enablers, without whom the demon could not accomplish his dream that “only I” can destroy democracy.
    So, we beg you finger-waggers: Call it off. Stop carping, second-guessing and hectoring.
   The Good People have been working so hard during these past long four years, organizing, planning, analyzing, worrying, demonstrating, letter-writing, telephoning, arguing, writing, testifying, reporting, investigating, cajoling, singing, praying – and just lately, voting early – to bring reason, sense and sanity to our country.

AND HERE'S A NEWS FLASH: The Good People aren’t perfect!
   And that includes Joe Biden. Not the perfect candidate. But just maybe he’s the best candidate, with the widest appeal and the wisest mission: to rescue America’s soul.
   Joe’s not the smartest, most articulate, savviest, best looking or youngest candidate in history. But he’s now history’s last hope.
   So leave Joe alone, and remember what your mother used to say; or maybe it was Joe’s mother: “Shut up.”
   Bernie, Charlie and Top Latino Democrats, remember this: Joe Biden’s trying his best.
   And so are the rest of the Good People, despite their imperfections, which, as the finger-waggers correctly point out, are limitless.
   The Good People misspeak, miscalculate and miss the mark.They fumble the ball and drop the ball.
   The Good People preach to the choir and sometimes to the congregation. They make the same point twice and too frequently, they go off message.
   The Good People head north instead of mid-west.They speak to this group instead of the other one.
   And far too often, the Good People misplace their keys. And they forget to set the alarm, turn off the stove and check their Twitter feeds.

NONE OF THAT MATTERS.
    What counts is that Good People are trying. Really trying.
   So let’s declare a truce. Let’s all of us stop our nagging, hectoring, cajoling and finger-wagging at the Home Team in the home stretch.
   Here’s the truth Charlie, Bernie, Top Latino Democrats and all the finger-waggers near and far: the Good People are really trying.
   And you know what? Good for us. We may just pull it off.

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Day 1326

9/7/2020

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56 Days Until the Election

A LABOR DAY TIME CAPSULE

From: Sept. 5-7, 2020
Open: Nov. 5-7, 2020

IT'S A GLORIOUS LABOR DAY weekend in Rhode Island.
   We – Mr. O, the optopossumistic and politically astute opossum who’s been staying in our backyard this summer, and I got to talking, and we thought we’d memorialize a weekend when everything seems possible.
   Think of it as sort of a time capsule, to be read now and dug up a few days after the Nov. 3 election, when the vote might be clear. Consider it as a reminder of what it’s like when the weather’s perfect, there’s hope for the future and we are free.
   When we talk about a “glorious” weekend, we do so without forgetting that this isn’t the case elsewhere in the country. The West is ablaze with wildfires, and temperatures are in “triple figures,” which doesn’t seem possible to survive.
   Political fires are raging in Portland, Oregon and Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the fight for racial justice is most visible, and where Trump is hoping to revive his uncertain campaign with cynical, desperate appeals to “lawlessness and disorder.”
   As we write this, Covid-19 is still on a rampage. Nearly 189,000 Americans are dead and 6.3 million have been ill with the coronavirus. The economy is wounded, although the stock market is going up and the unemployment rate is going down.
   But here in pre-hurricane Newport, we’ve had a string of nice days and good news that reminds us of how America is supposed to be, as measured five ways. Feel free to contrast them with your post-election assessments, if you’re still alive and reading in November.
    1. The Weather
    2. Polls
    3. The Campaign
    4. Health of Democracy
    5. Election Anxiety Level

1. THE WEATHER: Perfect.
   From the National Weather Service: conditions are ideal, as measured by sensors at Newport State Airport. “Airport” in this context is a relative term for such a small facility, although it should be noted that the runways are paved. These are from a reading at 11:53 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 6:

Temperature: 77 degrees
Humidity: 66 %
Dew point: 65 degrees
Visibility: 10 miles
Wind: 9 miles an hour, coming from the southwest, gusts up to 21 mph

We are not making small talk. When the weather is just right, everything else seems terrific, even when we know that when Trump as president, there is no such thing as a “nice day.”

A good weather day is overwhelming.
The house seems clean, even when its covered in dog hair (mine); the lawn looks lush (it’s so dry that it crunches even when feet as small as an opossum’s walk on the grass). That 9 mile-an-hour wind is coming off the Atlantic Ocean right toward our house: cool, fresh and steady.
Humidity is said to be “low.” I asked Mr. O if he understands anything about humidity, and its mysterious cousin, the dew point.

    And he said only to a point: "I know it's just right when it feels right."
    The weather: Bright. Comfortable. Wonderful.
     The skies are deep blue; the clouds puffy; the air and everything else are perfect.
    “Optopossumism is in the air,” Mr. O says.

2. POLLS: Biden leads
   We know polls misled us in 2016. Still, they are our only insight to how things are going on Labor Day.
   Here’s the roundup from the Real Clear Politics website as of 11:45 a.m. Monday, Sept. 7:

   Mr. O and I don’t understand elements of this chart any more than we do the arcane parts of the weather report.
   But it’s real clear that Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump. Not by much. A little more than 7 percentage points between the two, a little better than when we looked yesterday, and you’ll notice the “up” arrow in the line underneath that, which means Joe may be gaining in the battleground states (where voting actually counts).
   So, this weekend, our guy’s ahead. Not a time when we're trying to book a flight to Antarctica.

3. CAMPAIGN: Trump on defense
   Trump's latest maneuver seems to be failing, trying to scare what Joe might call the “heck” out of white women: his racist warnings that Portlandia’s fire and chaos are coming soon to a suburb near you, along with danger that aspirational Blacks want to be your neighbors, and that “only I” can stop them.
   Generally, Trump’s been on the defensive this weekend, following news reports that he disparaged America’s soldiers, including those killed in war, as “losers” and “suckers.” We’re not sure that those of you who are reading this Time Capsule in November will even remember this controversy; but this weekend, it’s hot.
   There have been more minor, but satisfying, developments. For example, Trump’s supporters have been launching flotillas of power boats, displaying huge banners and flags. But during one recent expedition on a Texas lake, the fleet churned up such huge wakes that five boats sank (nobody was hurt).

DANGEROUS WATERS - Wake from Trump fleet in Texas sunk five boats. CREDIT: CNN

   Biden’s been doing nicely. He’s taken Trump to the woodshed about his military slurs, and one of his speeches was even eloquent. Joe hasn’t made any of his usual verbal blunders.
   Overall, he’s more than holding his own.
   To sum up, as of Labor Day Weekend, with 56, days before the election, there’s reason to daydream about Donald Trump heading back to Trump Tower, where the “up” escalator is waiting to lift him heavenward and out of our lives.

   4. STATE OF OUR DEMOCRACY: Functioning, if barely
   Trump has trashed the Constitution and damaged most essential federal agencies.
   With the failure of the Republican Senate to convict Trump after his impeachment by the House, and a decision by special counsel Robert Mueller not to hold him accountable in plain English for the misdeeds his investigation documented about the Russians connections to Trump’s campaign, there are few restraints on him.
   Even with the Democrats taking control of the House during the mid-term elections, making the House the only check on his abusive activities, Trump has trampled both law and tradition.
   His abuse of pardon powers, functional approval of Russian acts of war against elections, cruel immigration maneuvers, attacks on science, corruption of the justice system—finally installing a toady as attorney general – have nearly broken a Constitutional system that most of us once believed reliably protected democracy.
   In his nearly four years, he hasn’t quite broken the country – because the courts, the military, Republicans of conscience, an economically weakened, but still-operating press, members of his own family – have stood up to him.
   The election is the final lifeline, and Trump has openly worked to undermine that, hobbling he Post Office’s ability to handle mail ballots, and attacking confidence in voting-by-mail in general, lying about its susceptibility to fraud, advising people to vote twice, refusing to pledge to honor the outcome.
   Most people who understand how ruinous Trump has been believe that if Biden loses, the country as we’ve known it, or hoped it could become, will not survive. Free speech will disappear, as will our ability to respond to challenges of the economy, healthcare, housing, hunger, education, climate, equal justice.

5. ELECTION ANXIETY LEVEL: + 9
Borrowing from the system used in emergency rooms to assess pain:
On a scale of 1 to 10, in which 1 is negligible, and 10 is horrendous, how would you rate

your level of anxiety about the election?
   Even on a glorious Labor Day weekend, even when everything seems so nice and going our way?
     • Phoebe: 9 ½
    • Mr. O: 9 ¼
   Almost, but not quite, unbearable.
   Liberals, if nothing else, are worriers.
   We hope that when this time capsule is opened, you'll be able to give this category a much different, lower rating.
   But just in case, remember that long-ago Labor Day weekend, when everything was perfect, like it's supposed to be.

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A "sweet dog" and a smart opossum consider a nation at risk.

The writers

PHOEBE, a "sweet dog" who came to Rhode Island in 2010 as a stray puppy from Missouri, was a political agnostic until Trump's catastrophic election. She tracked his presidency in a blog, which she decided to resurrect it this year when it became obvious that Republicans are committed to Trump's destructive policies

MR. O, an opossum, showed up in Phoebe's backyard somewhat mysteriously. He turned out to have genuine insight into political matters, and he agreed to assume co-author duties of the blog after Phoebe's previous writing partner, Cat, a cat, died.

CAT

Day 1349

Days to election: 34THE DEBATE WAS AWFUL.AND A REAL SUCCESS

DAY 1348

WHICH TRUMP OUTRAGE WILL BE THE ONE?

Day 1339

YES, GRIEVE FOR RBG.BUT fOCUS: THERE’SAN ELECTION IN 43 DAYS

DAY 1336

Days Until the election: 46IN THE FINAL DAYS, THE FINGER-WAGGERS NEED TO FOCUS ON THE REAL PROBLEM.HINT: IT’S NOT JOE BIDEN

Day 1326

A LABOR DAY TIME CAPSULE

The writers

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Days to election: 34
THE DEBATE WAS AWFUL.
AND A REAL SUCCESS

YES, GRIEVE FOR RBG.
BUT fOCUS: THERE’S
AN ELECTION IN 43 DAYS

Days Until the election: 46
IN THE FINAL DAYS, THE FINGER-WAGGERS NEED TO FOCUS ON THE REAL PROBLEM.
HINT: IT’S NOT JOE BIDEN