BREATHE.

The good news is that the trends in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and even Pennsylvania are positive, and Tubby's mob boss routine early this morning seems not to have had the desired effect: Regular media just say the votes are late, and even the front page of Fox News' site says "ELECTION DECISION DELAYED." It adds "Trump and Biden campaigns dig in for legal fight with key battleground state winners undeclared," which is true but slightly misleading: barring a hanging-chad scenario, most of the outstanding states will probably report (but not certify!) enough votes to make a call reasonable, and THEN the legal shenanigans will begin in earnest (though some already have).

So breathe. As I said in the newsletter this morning, "chaos" is what the Republicans want, but our institutions are not obliging them. Some Republicans, having failed to wreak chaos in the press and the process, seek instead to implant chaos in your mind by portraying the President as a king whose word is law, making you doubt the validity of any lawful vote that contradicts him, which in some feeble minds would give him the right to steal it for Our Nation's Good. 

Don't you believe it. The Brooks Brothers Rioters will return, but this time we're not caught off guard and they can be repelled. And it won't happen right away. So have a great day, get some exercise, drink some water and maybe put some bourbon in it. We ain't into the woods yet. 

UPDATE. Really, it's psyops at this point. Take Postmaster General DeJoy's flagrant defiance of a court order on ballots obviously held back by the P.O. from the electoral boards (if it wasn't obvious before, his non-compliance makes it so).  How much difference those ballots would make is unknown, and perhaps unknowable; but DeJoy's intransigence -- as opposed to, say, a bootless pretense of digging up the ballots -- has I think a purpose besides the strictly legal one: the Trump mob thrives on the impression that it's all a fix and so you should just throw up your hands (unless the Democrats are winning, of course) and let America be its own rotten self. This reminds me of a story the husband-and-wife screenwriting team David and Leslie Newman told on some talk show years ago, about a producer in the 1960s trying to line up a convincing student demonstration-turned-riot scene for his film. The director told David Newman that the campus on which they had permission to shoot was a hotbed of radicalism, so they'd just have cameras ready for the riot that would inevitable occur. When Newman asked what would happen if no riot ensued, the director said, "we'll cause one." 

UPDATE 2. The Republicans are trying Brooks Brothers Riot II in Michigan:

As you may know, the Chief Justice, The Rummy and The Handmaid are veterans of the original BBR, so if this attempt to stop the count (with Biden ahead and getting more so) leads to a Supreme Court case I imagine there'll be high-fives for the plaintiffs all around the bench. But the Democrats have gotten way smarter since 2000 so if it can be headed off I expect they're prepared to do so. It's really a matter of how much overt criminality the system will allow. Like I said: Don't do their work for them by assuming they can't be stopped.