Ask anyone about the next six weeks and they will likely give you some version of this as a response: Whoa boy. It is going to be wild.
Which it is! The last 42 days of a presidential election are always filled with unpredictable storylines, big moments and, more than anything, uncertainty.
But this election is not like past elections, argues longtime Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik in a series of slides organized under the title “The Coronavirus Election: The Voting has Begun.”
The argument Sosnik puts forward – or rather one of the arguments he puts forward – is that we could well be heading for what he describes as the “Doomsday Scenario.”
What would that look like? According to Sosnik, there would be three elements:
1) The election results are delayed and/or Trump refuses to honor the results.
2) Cases of coronavirus soar across the country, signaling a second wave of the virus.
3) The lack of clarity about the election and the rise in Covid-19 cases lead to widespread economic instability and even the possibility of a depression.
In short: The country, over the next six-plus weeks, faces a trio of crises all hitting at once (and all feeding on one another): a political one, a health one and an economic one.
That is the sort of potential confluence of events – particularly when you consider Trump’s insistence that the election will be rigged due to the increase in mail-in ballots – that should concern all of us.
As a country, we have always prided ourselves on the peaceful transition of power. But what if that doesn’t happen – even as the country is wading through a second major surge in Covid-19 cases and the devastating economic impacts that would cause?
It’s a scary thought – whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or couldn’t care less about party politics.
The Point: We are at a moment of real crisis in the country. And yes, it could get worse before it gets better.