I think Paul, Stevie and Johnnie and Scottie are a lil’… panicky. Trump’s latest overt Klan rally has them spooked — because like them, I too know more than a bit of Presidential campaigning / close races history. And Paul’s below is a fair accounting — of 1884.

Here it is, in context:

…[One] might compare yesterday’s event to remarks delivered in New York during the presidential campaign of 1884. In that race the Republican, James Blaine, appeared to have a slight edge over the Democrat, Grover Cleveland. New York state was thought (correctly, it turned out) to hold the key to victory.

On October 29, Blaine attended a reception in New York City hosted by Protestant ministers. At that event, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard of the Murray Hill Presbyterian Church said that he and others like him “don’t propose to… identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.”

The “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” remark was widely reported. In the final days of the campaign, it became a rallying point for Cleveland’s supporters….

Cleveland won the popular vote by 23,000 out of almost 10 million votes cast. The electoral college split was 219 to 182. New York state went to Cleveland by only 1,149 votes. Had Blaine picked up New York’s 36 electoral votes, he would have been President.

Thus, it’s quite possible that the “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” remark — which, again, Blaine did not make — cost him the presidency….

On the contra-side of the argument… personally, I think our nation’s public life / politics have become coarser — more profane, if not less-educated — than generally obtained, in 1884.

So… I don’t really know, Paul.

I’ll hope you’ll prove prophetic. But I might more directly point to the early exit polling in Georgia (still to say it tips toward Kamala), where four percent of the voters identify as “Asian Indian American“. Word is, that early vote is breaking a little over 70-30 — for Kamala (as a mixed race point of pride, and the only competent person in the race this year).

If the 70-30 holds up in Georgia (and in PA and MI) — Trump loses the election on those alone.

He cannot win any of those three states unless he gets to at least 50-50 on the voters who are of Indian descent (or these voters stay home in record numbers — something they already have shown they aren’t likely to do). The math just isn’t there, given that all of these states are essentially… dead heats.

So — maybe “Trump’s 2024 Klan Rally in the Garden” will be the difference — maybe it won’t, Paul.

But I suspect the difference is there — and the independents are good and sick of Trump and his weak, small whiny reverse racism claims.

Onward. Get used to saying “Madame President”, Paul.