Today is the 166th birthday of the controversial, but brilliant Irishman and playright Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. In his day, the wittiest man in Dublin, or anywhere else for that matter. And it’s the 129th anniversary of the publication of his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. We’ll come back to that in a bit.
Moving to the present, we have 18 days to go, and I know you know what I mean. Eighteen unpredictable, but grueling days until 3 November, the official election day, although the election is well underway with more than 17 million votes already cast across 44 states and the District of Columbia. Democrats have voted early at four times the rate of republicans, most of whom plan on voting in person on the 3rd.
I confess for me it’s hard to focus on anything else, workers’ compensation, for instance. I’ve tried, but I keep getting sucked back into the political black hole.
Because not all states treat early balloting the same, it is highly unlikely we will know the result on the night of the 3rd, but we will certainly know at some point. To get to that point, the parties will face off in a fight to the death. Neither of them will bring a knife to that gunfight. The Supreme Court may step in à la Bush v. Gore. Given recent shenanigans, won’t that be interesting?
Last night during Joe Biden’s Town Hall in Philadelphia, George Stephanopoulos asked the former Vice President what he’d do if he lost. Biden said he’d probably go back to teaching and working at The Biden Institute within the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware (he taught constitutional law from 1991 to 2008 – bet you didn’t know that). He said he’d also continue working on the causes he’s advocating during the campaign.
Samantha Guthrie asked the same question of President Trump at his simultaneous, split screen Town Hall in Miami, but couldn’t get a similar rational response that he’d go quietly into that good night. I have the feeling that if the President loses we’re in for Hellzapoppin’.
During his presidency, Donald Trump, who, during the 2016 campaign famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”, has been more teflon-coated than any of your expensive kitchenware. Fiascos that would annihilate Paul Bunyan just bounce off. But since mid-way through the pandemic, things seem to have changed. Recent polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows 59% of likely voters believe he has managed our healthcare horrendoma poorly. And in the last few weeks it’s been one thing after another tarnishing his image. While his followers remain religiously devoted, the rest of the nation seems to be turning on him. At last night’s Town Halls, Biden was calm, thoughtful and engaging with his questioners, going so far as to ask one young man to stay after the Town Hall so they could talk some more. Trump, on the other hand, was, well, Trump, on defense, but in fighting mode, nonetheless.
All of which brings us back to Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the novel, Dorian Gray, a handsome and hedonistic young man, sells his soul à la Faust, but with a twist. A famous artist paints his portrait, which Dorian puts in the attic of his home. Over the years, the young man in the portrait in the attic ages in a gruesome, hideous way, but not Dorian himself, who lives a life of debauchery and cruelty. Finally, in a fit of remorse, he slashes the painting. Servants below hear agonizing cries, rush to the attic and break down the door, only to find an unrecognizable and very dead old man lying in front of the painting, restored to its original beauty.
Donald Trump’s attic door is beginning to crack open.
Tags: politics
