A sense of dread.

I have one.

And it's about the election.

Not the election results.  I'm resigned to exactly what is coming.  At 57 years of age, I'm not going to say I'm numbed to politics, but through long experience combined perhaps with my occupation, I know that things often turn out differently than the way I'd have them turn out.  

And beyond that, no reader here should presume to know how I feel that they should turn out or how things should be, save for where I've expressly said so.  You can't tell, in other words, if I voted for Biden, Trump, or some third candidate.

No you can't.

Living where I do, the overwhelming majority of voters are going to vote for Trump, but, and this is telling, not in the numbers that they did in 2016.  Even some fairly diehard Republicans that I know are silent about Trump now.  Some are criticizing him without saying who they are voting for.  I've seen Biden/Harris signs up this year where I didn't see Clinton signs in 2016, and I've seen a view Trump booster take their signs down after various things occurred, namely his purported comments about veterans and then his terrible performance in his first debate.  That in an area that has gone incredibly right wing since the 1990s this would be occurring is telling.

As is, as we just noted, the fact that Marev Ben David, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is suddenly doing pretty well in fund raising.  Ben David has a heavy Israeli accent and is a political newcomer, none of which is keeping some Wyomingites from switching over to her for her politically moderate, science emphasizing, campaign (an advertisement she has done has a bunch of national GOP figures saying "I'm not a scientist" to which she cheerfully comes in at the end and states "I am!").

None of that means that the Democrats will take any of these offices locally.  

What it does mean, however, is this. If the tide is receding a little here, or coming in, depending upon how you view it, there's really something major going on.

Right now its nearly inevitable that Joe Biden will win the general election.  Absent something really earth shattering happening in the next couple of weeks, that's a forgone conclusion.  And, according to poll takers, the odds are in favor of the Democrats capturing the Senate.  Given all of this the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett will be the last significant thing to occur in the Trump administration.  It is significant, and a major event in American history, but it'll be the last thing the sitting administration accomplishes.

Indeed, the Senate Republicans needs to accomplish it before the election as there's no guarantee that the mercurial Trump will do anything on the nomination after the election.

And its the post election, pre confirmation, period that I'm really starting to dread.

And denial in the face of history is the reason why.

There's a lot going on with big developments in culture and political culture right now, and some of them are not only of epic proportions, but they're misunderstood. ONe thing that should be completely understood, however, is that it's a near certainty that the President will go down in electoral defeat and there's a good chance that the Senate will flip to the Democrats.  If that occurs, the next two years, at a bare minimum, will be considerably to the left of any anything we've experienced since the 1970s, and maybe the 1930s/1940s.

So people should be prepared for that.

A lot don't seem to be.

Social media isn't a good indicator of anything whatsoever, but accepting that for what it is, around here I'm seeing some who absolutely believe that we're going to see a national Republican victory, and even a "Trump Landslide".  People are committing to that in the comments, and have labeled suggestions to the opposite as lies.

They aren't lies.

This fits into a general rightward slide in the state's politics over the last six years.  Wyoming has always been a Republican state, and I do mean always (although that hasn't always meant the same thing), but it has only had a radical tea party, alt right, wing for less than a decade.  The Wyoming GOP used to be fairly sui generis, and not really fit the national mold very well.  Over the last decade, however, well funded efforts have had a major influence and alt right insurgents basically are in control of the state's GOP leadership.

This has expressed itself in a series of candidates who represented the views of that wing of the party, although on a state level resistance to them has been pronounced.  Rank and file GOP members remain representative of the traditional party. For this reason in 2018 they rejected to heavily right wing candidates and went for Governor Gordon, who was viewed as middle of the road.  Out at the legislator level things have been mixed, with some from the insurgent wing gaining ground in the recent primaries and some not.

Indeed Gordon's election spurred a movement within the state's GOP based on the concept, rejected by the University of Wyoming's statisticians, that floods of Democrats registered as Republicans in 2018 in order to keep the more right wing candidates from winning.  Foster Friess was heard to make comments to that effect, which he must have had second thoughts about later as an exploratory committee he formed to explore running for the Senate quickly lead him to decide not to do that.  Indeed, truth be known, most of the centeriest who were in the Democratic Party back in the 1990s, and most Wyoming Democrats were centrist at the time, moved over to the GOP in that time frame, not in the 2010s, and younger ones have generally looked at the situation and joined the GOP from the onset.  The irony of that is that people who declare these rank and file voters to be RINOs and who want to boot them out of the party fail to realize that they're just as much of the party as the alt right is.  In numbers, more so.

Still, the really convinced hard right has been very evident in the state's politics for several years and particularly evident since 2016. They've taken on the Governor from time to time and they've engaged in an internecine feud with the more middle of the road traditional parts of the party.  Given this, some of their candidates have been very vocal about supporting the President, although that may have been what took Galeotos down during the 2018 race.  Right now, Cynthia Lummis, who made a statement about "holding her nose and voting" during the 2016 general election is lashed to the deck with Trump in  her current race with statements as if there's no doubt he'll be reelected.

Additionally, all over for the past six months there have been Trump flags with a lot of unofficial ones with vulgar messages.  Flags with the "don't tread on me" emblem have been here and there.  I saw cabins flying Trump flags high in the Big Horns during the summer.  I've seen them hanging from cranes and construction sites the way that only the US flag used to be displayed.  All of this represents not only a solid belief that Trump will win, but a steadfast declaration against those outside of that fold.

Not all of these displays are from the dedicated hard right by any means.  Many are by Republicans who simply have no else where to go, or from Republicans who feel that whatever his public presentation may be, the things Trumps administration have accomplished have generally been ones they have supported, and there have been real accomplishments, claims to the contrary notwithstanding.  But some are from a section of the party that has adopted Trump in a way that I've only seen one other candidate, President Obama, adopted by some during my lifetime, that being a cult of personality approach.

Following the November election, that wing of the GOP nationally is going to be very much on the outs nationally.  My guess is that the national  party will abandon it with blistering speed.  Republican's on the national scene who have laid low or been on the outs over the last four years will be back in strength.  Republicans who were heavily invested in Trump, and on the national scene, will either reinvent themselves rapidly or will disappear.  We'll likely never hear from Rudy Giuliani again.  Chris Christie's COVID 19 bout will prove to be a blessing as it removed him from the scene when he needed not to be there.  Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio will be the new face of the party.  It'll take awhile, but the party will reform as a conservative party that's less to the right of where it's been the past four years on the national level, and perhaps further to the left than its been since Richard Nixon.  On the state level the party will remain very conservative, but not as much, in most places, as it has been.

Here I fear that there will be a massive sense of disbelief in some quarters.  People who are heavily invested in an ever rightward direction of the country are going to be stunned and some will not believe it occurred at all. There will be cries of election fraud.  Moreover, there will be cries to ignore the results, which will only result in the state being completely ignored.

While it is a terrible example and not meant to taken literally, it reminds me of what I know of the defeat of Germany in 1945.  It wasn't until January 1945 that most Germans actually realized that they were going to lose the war.  As things folded in there were various reactions.  Many Germans accepted defeat completely and regarded it as God's judgement on the nation. Some, however, heavily invested in the propaganda of the state, went down fighting for no reason.  Others turned to booze and debauchery.  

Following the war, conservative politicians who had spent the war outside of Germany came in and formed a democratic state. Those who had supported the Nazi regime weren't really punished, but they also had limits on what they could do.  The state didn't return to its old self. A few hardcore Nazis tried to form new parties with the old ideologies and were completely ignored.  There was no place for them.

I’m in your city and there’s nothing you’re going to do about it. And we’re going to continue to win, and you’re going to continue to lose

So stated the invited keynote speaker at a Trump rally yesterday in Casper.  But the statement is at this point delusional.  In just a couple of weeks the question will not be who is going to occupy the White House, but who will be occupying the Senate.  This isn't a political statement, it's a factual one.  Simply saying winter is coming doesn't make a person a proponent of cold weather, but an observer of the truth. 

We're about to enter a new political era.  I've posted on it once here already, and will again shortly.  The question is, right now, how many are going to accept the reality of that and work for the best of the conservative ideals, and how many will simply refuse to believe it with discomforting results for all and no effect for themselves in the end.