Moore assumed victory and was AWOL much of the time as he sought to avoid human and media contact, while the Jones operation was textbook: well-organized, with a strong get-out-the-vote operation and a homegrown candidate with a creative ad campaign who was constantly on the hustings, moving from town to town, shaking hands and making contact with as many voters as he could.

Of all the myths the Republicans have perpetrated, and there are a lot of them, perhaps none is more powerful or insidious than the foundational one that this is an overwhelmingly conservative country and that progressives are outliers in it, along with its pernicious corollary that conservatives are “real” Americans while liberals (and the minorities who support liberal policies) are somehow counterfeits.

From the New Deal through the ’60s, the Democrats were able to show that government was an essential tool to correct market inequities, protect the little people from unchecked power and special interests and ensure that the American birthright included safeguards against crippling poverty and misfortune. Government, most Americans believed, was their defender and their voice. 

A President Pence would move quickly, adeptly, and expertly at trying to ram legislation and initiatives through Congress and via executive order fiat to gut or eliminate every one of these protections. The key word here is expertly. He knows the legislative process through and through. He is part and parcel of the GOP establishment. GOP senators and congresspersons are comfortable with him. He would smile affably, make no bombastic, outrageous statements or tweets, and work quietly and businesslike behind the scenes to implement his agenda. 

Few subjects have been more hotly debated, scrutinized, and endlessly rehashed, than whether #45 can or will be impeached. A deluge of petitions has been circulated online, and tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered for his removal. The issue of a Trump impeachment roared back on the public and media plate at a recent anti-Trump tax disclosure rally in Washington D.C. where speaker after speaker called for his head by way of impeachment.

The only reason that Gorsuch hasn’t matched his mentor and idol Scalia’s 19th century grounded voting record on key cases, is because he hasn’t been on the court for the decades Scalia was on the high court. But there’s enough in his thin resume on some cases that pertain to abortion rights, Planned Parenthood funding, a powerhouse federal judiciary, and most menacingly the strictest of strict reading of the constitutionalism, branded “originalism,” to serve as fair warning of what’s to come if he gets on the SCOTUS. 

In the month before Obama took office, more than 660,000 jobs were lost. During the Bush Presidency, the total number of jobs gained was near an all-time low of 160,000 annually. Comparatively, Obama has added nearly 10 times that amount, with more than 1.3 million jobs gained each year. During the height of the Great Recession, the U.S. unemployment rate was at a staggering 10 percent. The unemployment rate is now under 5 percent.

It is becoming clear as the election nears that the Clinton base is relatively narrow and getting narrower. The stubborn “Berniecrats” and distrustful independents are a problem with a neat solution in doubt as the election nears. Yet another problem is the early assumption of solid support from non-white Americans has shown to be weaker than expected. The vaunted Clinton ground game may have been limited in key markets by the distraction caused by a much stronger primary campaign that drained assets meant to be used in the massive run-up to the November election.

There’s the Hillary Clinton who is and always has been an activist, advocate, and idealist determined to advance civil rights, promote women’s equality, champion the strivers, and upend the status quo by using the levers of power to effect political and social change. But no, there’s another Hillary Clinton, a calculating, privileged member of the elite who is too cozy with power, condescends to ordinary Americans, sees herself as above the law, and manipulates every word and sentence for political, personal, and financial gain.

A surefire way to occupy our attention is to tell us a story. Stories require conflict; without conflict, there’s no change, no drama, no plot. Trump is a walking attention magnet. He’s the never-ending story, the prince of plot, the king of conflict, the drama queen of TV and Twitter. A Trump presidency guarantees change. “Even if it’s like a Nazi-type change,” in Vizcarra’s words, it will never, ever be boring.