I hope Ben Dryfuss is right!!!!
November 2, 2020
There is an election tomorrow. What do you think will happen?
This is not a rhetorical question. What do you think will happen? Tell me. I want to know.
Why do I want to know? Because you're smart and good-looking, and I want to pass the time.
I’ll tell you what I think is going to happen but only if you understand that it is just a prediction and not a mortal guarantee. I will not suffer in any way if this prediction is off because it is not against the law to be wrong about predicting future events.
Tomorrow morning the sun will rise and then later on it will set and then the results of the election will start coming in and the television will inform us that…
SIDE NOTE: Before I tell you the election outcome (THAT IS JUST A PREDICTION) let me tell you why you should trust me.
I was the only person at Mother Jones and one of two people in the broader journalism world who knew Biden was going to win the nomination from day one. (My friend Josh Barro also knew; indeed, in the middle of 2019 we discussed it together at a bar inside a Neiman Marcus.) Anyway, I asked the staff here for some election predictions and none of them wanted to do it because they were all wrong about the primary—also most if not all were busy with actual journalism—but I was right about Biden winning the primary. (Have I mentioned that?)
Here is my PREDICTION (only a prediction; not a guarantee):
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Mother Jones prediction. This is a Ben Dreyfuss Prediction™ and, fair warning, no one was more wrong about 2016 than I was, but again, I was right about the primary and I was right about the Lakers and I was right about the Dodgers. I do not have a perfect record: I thought I could cut my own hair at one point and failed spectacularly and had to buzz all of it off and it looked terrible; my love life is really a mess, to be honest; I purchased an at-home spin bike and then never used it and returned it. Some balls, some strikes.
As I was saying, my election prediction is:
The polls will be slightly off….in Biden’s favor.
Why? Because in a lot of states it is conversely easier to vote this year than previous elections. Turnout surge! Biden’s theory of the election—that people are just tired of this drama—was and is correct. Also there is a pandemic that is killing a thousand Americans a day and Trump doesn’t seem to care about it. These factors will contribute to Biden’s very large romping.
Biden is going to win Florida and North Carolina and Georgia and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and Arizona and...TEXAS. (Trump will win Iowa.) It will be very obvious by the end of tomorrow night that Biden has won even if not enough states have results to officially call it.
The Democrats will also win the Senate.
I will lose all the weight that I have gained during quarantine.
The Democrats will gain some seats in the House, too.
Texas going for Biden will be quite a big wake-up call to the GOP, which will not suddenly become a completely different party, but it will go a long way toward ending Trump’s personality cult.
JUST A PREDICTION!
Don’t mortgage your house and wager the money on this prediction! In fact it shouldn’t influence your actions at all! Also it is in no way an endorsement of this outcome. Take it or leave it, friend!
Or maybe Trump will win. I don’t know. I’m not a genie.
—Ben Dreyfuss
P.S. Speaking of genies, let's say a genie comes to you and says there are three doors: Behind one door is RICHES, behind another is FAME, behind a third is TRUE LOVE. The doors are not labeled. The twist is, whatever door you pick, the things behind the other two doors will be OFF THE TABLE for the rest of your life. You will never be rich or famous, but you'll be in love! You will be rich but never famous or in love, etc. You get the idea? Would you open a door or would you run away? (Did you run away? Guess what. I'm a genie. There's no where to run. Open one of the doors.) Which door would you want the most? This is a mind game to distract you from your anxiety about the election, which as I noted above, I think is not going to be very close. If you have an interesting answer to this or an interesting election prediction, you can email me at helphelphelp@motherjones.com. If there are lots of good ones maybe I'll turn it into a post. Or maybe not.
GOP activists failed in their latest voter suppression bid.
BY ARI BERMAN
BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG AND SAM VAN PYKEREN
BY DAVID CORN
BY MOTHER JONES
BY RUSS CHOMA
Forget Congress—a handful of local elections could seal the fate of a Green New Deal.
BY REBECCA LEBER
SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE
There’s enough tension and anticipation to edge out of view the countless stories of strength and stamina (and some justice) today, but whatever happens, each will be here long after the results. Here are 30 boosts to cross the finish line. Thanks to many readers who sent tips:
1. A California man donated 25,000 baseball cards to a 9-year-old who’d lost her collection in a wildfire. Kevin Ashford had planned to sell online but donated after news of her loss. “It’s just one thing after another during 2020,” he said. “I just want to make it a little easier for these kids.”
2. Winners of the 2020 disability-reporting awards will be celebrated tonight. Watch live, and congratulations to Lakeidra Chavis, Jodi S. Cohen, and Jennifer Smith Richards for scoring top honors from the National Center on Disability and Journalism.
3. When a DC gym found out that a 90-year-old woman was watching classes from her window all day, the gym staff painted her a mural. She’s a former dancer who’d performed 70 years ago with a renowned dance company.
4. Someone give 7-year-old Cavanaugh Bell anything he wants. He’s been donating trucks full of pandemic supplies to a South Dakota reservation, the most poverty-stricken in the country, through his nonprofit, Cool & Dope, which aims to reduce bullying across the map.
5. A 12-year-old discovered the bones of a 69-million-year-old dinosaur. Let me repeat that: A 12-year-old discovered the bones of a 69-million-year-old dinosaur. What have you found? I discovered old unsweetened almond milk in my fridge.
6. In memory of her 13-year-old son, who was hit by a car in 2011 while he was trick-or-treating, Crystal Conover’s neighbors banded together this Halloween to decorate her lawn on Jayden’s favorite holiday, after her exhaustion had set in. She welcomed the support.
7. Hikaru Nakamura raised almost $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders by playing 77 charity chess matches simultaneously. He’s the US champion and the world’s fastest. I could take him.
8. All ages welcome to the Sesame Street jam session at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Big Bird, Elmo, all the jazz greats. Preview here, full show here.
9. She the People, a voter-turnout group, has ramped up efforts in battleground states to mobilize more women of color, with strong results.
10. A painting, missing for decades, by Jacob Lawrence, part of his renowned Struggle series, has been discovered and given a prominent spot in public view. It was last seen in 1960.
11. In response to Dan Rather’s tweet “I just want to live in an America where I can give my grandson a hug,” a reader replied, “I have a neuromuscular disability and it hasn’t been safe for me to venture out in public since February. I just wish people would value my life as much as they value their own.” Dear ElizabetteUnplugged: I read your note. Your writing is good. People should read more of it. Say hello at recharge@motherjones.com.
12. The World Food Program scored the Nobel Peace Prize for hunger-relief efforts during the pandemic, focusing on countries torn by war.
13. Sarah Haider—an engine of brilliance in media criticism, moral philosophy, secular humanism, and human rights—has launched a newsletter. “I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a writer.” Just the opposite; she’s an outstanding writer and a sharp speaker who shreds fallacies, improves public dialogue, and does it rigorously but without any of the venom so encouraged on social media. Hat-tip to Haider. Intro here, subscribe here.
14. Jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant landed a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. She’s the only musician in this year’s group of “genius grant” winners.
15. Congratulations to Geeta Anand on becoming dean of UC-Berkeley’s journalism school: “I am thrilled to be the first woman of color—indeed, the first woman—to serve as dean of Berkeley Journalism.” Read her full letter.
16. One of the most inventive and thrilling pianists on earth, Vijay Iyer, has shared a playlist of most of his albums of the past 25 years: “Listen on shuffle if you feel like it. It’s only 17 1/2 hours long.”
17. California beaches offer wheelchairs with enhanced wheels that roll over sand. “[My mother] will turn 91 in September. She has Alzheimer’s and is in hospice,” wrote a beachgoer. “She asked to go close to the water…We saw dolphins and all sorts of birds, and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. The beach wheelchair made getting around very easy and it was comfortable for her. Thank you!” Reserve here.
18. The newly launched Black Music Library has digital books, articles, documentaries, and podcasts, created by Jenzia Burgos: “I’ve been working on this project for the last few months and it’s finally ready to share!”
19. 2020 is for the birds: A bunch of birds have been crashing into skyscrapers, but New Yorkers are rescuing them in record numbers. NatGeo’s Natasha Daly has the story, with Jeffery Jones’ photos and David Beard’s newsletter lift.
20. The Robert E. Lee High School in Fairfax, Virginia, has been renamed the John R. Lewis High School after the civil rights leader, who eked out Barack Obama and Cesar Chavez for naming honors.
21. There’s a ton of goodness coming from reporter Julia Métreaux, who writes movingly and expertly on chronic illness, pop culture, activism, and disability, including today’s piece on the deaf actor who helped create Tusken Sign Language in The Mandalorian.
22. Saxophonist David S. Ware’s birthday would have been this Saturday. Revisit my 2003 interview in his New Jersey home (and meet his pups Bibi and Mikuro).
23. The New York band Stern has a new pandemic song, his third quarantine blues, as original and transporting as his first. “It’s an angular little ditty about the unstable world we live in and the insistence on recalling more pleasant memories in the face of depression, encroaching fascism, plague, and poverty,” he tells me. You’ll drift into it (and feel heard) or run screaming for the hills.
24. Nursing-home isolation is one of the (un)hidden perils of the pandemic, but a class of elementary students found a workaround, holding a Halloween party and waving through windows. “The residents are so excited,” said the center’s director. “They love to see the children in costumes and their smiling faces, and they’ve been talking about it for the better part of a week now.”
25. Recharge readers know that I never resort to animal videos. Here’s a shameless animal video.
26. Happy birthday today to a human: this writer’s father. Zoom party coming up.
27. Reader John Jeffrey Linderman of Michigan writes, “Yes, I have hope. In spite of the daily evidence of dysfunction in the US, I still believe that the majority of Americans are good, decent, and thoughtful. Yes, we have many bad actors…My dreams of healing would include surviving the election with a minimum of violence throughout the nation. We must be laser-focused on providing assistance to individuals suffering—first responders, health care workers, families, small businesses enduring devastation. Recovering from misery takes a long time and much courage. Our first priority must be addressing the pandemic, but just as importantly, many of our relationships, including longtime friendships, need healing…In spite of my deep fears about the state of our nation, I’m confident we will not only survive but become stronger.”
28. Vote.
29. Spin the full Recharge blog anytime.
30. Open call: recharge@motherjones.com.
—Daniel King
No comments:
Post a Comment