Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the stock market crash of October 1929.

It’s closing in on a week before an American election. For some people this means that everything absolutely must be about nothing but that election, with hyperbole.

The president of the United States is fear-mongering over the approach of a convoy of Latin American immigrants to get his “base” to the polls.

His Democratic opponents are  pretending that every Republican voter is a potential mail-bomber, for the same purpose.

As I write this, a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pennsylvania doesn’t seem to lend itself well to the election narrative yet. Democrats are already trying to make it about guns. Republicans note that the shooter apparently disliked Trump for being “too pro-Israel.” I’m sure the competing election-related talking points will jell before Election Day.

Things seem pretty bad, don’t they? In fact, in a Facebook political conversation the other day a loved one somberly informed me that “things have never been this bad.”

Whoa. Just one  minute there. Never?

Even focusing on the three aforementioned items, that’s not the case. Migrant caravans have been running since at least 2010, “suspicious packages” have been a weekly occurrence since the 2001 anthrax scare, and mass shootings at churches (and schools, and workplaces, etc.) have been above-the-fold news items since Columbine.

But let’s look back a little and remember how bad it’s been before.

Does the date September 11, 2001 ring any bells?

How about the Los Angeles riots of 1992  (or the Watts Rebellion of 1965)?

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, followed by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968 and preceded by the assassinations of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965 and John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963?

Remember Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)?

Or Black Friday (October 29, 1929)?

Or the whole period from April 12, 1861 to May 9, 1865 (and after)?

It’s a long, long way downhill from where we’re at, and we’ve been much, much further down that slope before. More violent.  More fearful. More bigoted. Definitely poorer.

The  November 6 election won’t likely be remembered as any kind of major turning point in history.  It’s not “the most important election” of the last two, let alone of our lifetimes or our country’s.

Yes, things will almost certainly get a little worse, whichever party “wins” and no matter how resoundingly, because that’s the direction we were already headed in and not many Americans seem inclined to change direction back toward freedom (if they were, Libertarians would run the election table; the polls indicate no such trend).

Yes, the future looks pretty grim in general. Economic depression, rampant political violence, even open civil war aren’t something we’re magically immune to.

But neither are those things lurking right around the corner because you vote “wrong” (or don’t vote at all) on November 6.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Antes estuvimos mucho peor ¿las cosas pueden cambiar por una elección?” by Thomas L. Knapp, La Tribuna Hispana USA, 10/31/18

In the US, “Election Day 2018” falls on November 6 this year. But Election Day isn’t what it used to be.

The New York Times reports that “millions have voted early” — nearly a million of them by mail in the Sunshine State alone, even before that state’s early voting locations opened on October 22, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  I cast my ballot during what I expected to be an “off” time (after the pre-work rush and before the lunch rush), and still spent a few minutes in line.

More than 1/3 of the 2016 vote came in early according to the United States Election Project. This may be the first US election in which a majority of votes are cast before Election Day.  And the results may be set in stone before then, too.

Politicians and pollsters seem obsessed with the putatively “undecided” vote, but let’s be honest: The guy who doesn’t know who he’s voting for two days before the election hasn’t been paying attention and probably isn’t going to bother standing in line just to register what amounts to a coin flip.

The real political goal is getting one’s “base” voters — the people who are firmly “decided” and probably were before the parties even nominated their candidates — off their butts and to the polls.  Early voting makes that a lot easier.

When I was younger, you either got in line — sometimes for hours — on Election Day, or certified in writing (under penalty of perjury) that you planned to be out of the county on Election Day as a condition of casting an absentee ballot.

On Election Day itself, the party organizations busted out phone banks to call voters they perceived as part of their “bases.” Have you voted yet? Why haven’t you voted yet? Do you need a ride to the polling place? Go vote!

These days, such efforts can be spread over weeks rather than hours, reducing the number of volunteers needed. Voters can cast their ballots when they find it convenient instead of wasting their lunch hours standing in line on one, and only one, day.

Early voting magnifies the incidence and effect of the “base” vote by getting the “decided, but kinda lazy” in on the action. The “undecideds” aren’t the ones casting their votes early. They’re undecided, remember?

Early voting also probably reduces the parties’ ability to leverage “October surprises” into changed minds. How many Americans had already voted before Donald Trump could menace them with migrant caravans or his Democratic opponents had time to wave the bloody shirt over the “suspected explosive devices” mailed to prominent members of their party?

Finally, early voting will hopefully continue to increase the share of the vote commanded by “third party” and independent candidates, whose followings are smaller but presumably more likely to vote anyway,  especially if it’s easier.

Is America really more “polarized” than it used to be, or is early voting just making it easier to separate out the “undecided” statistical chaff? Inquiring minds want to know.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In an October 23 editorial, Investor’s Business Daily claims that “[t]he ‘caravan’ of illegal immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras now making its way to the U.S. border is no accident. The timing, planning and financing of this tragic parade has but one intent: to disrupt and influence our midterm elections.”

An interesting assertion, but the piece doesn’t offer answers to any of the questions implied other than to blame Democrats for all things evil.

Who planned the caravan? IBD names a group that supposedly planned a previous one.

Who timed the caravan? No answer from IBD.

Who’s financing the caravan? IBD: “If only our friends in the mainstream media would do their jobs and find out.”

A conspiracy theory isn’t much fun when the theorists can’t be bothered to put meat on its bones in the form of factual claims that might possibly be verified or proven false.

Since IBD couldn’t be bothered to do the heavy lifting, I guess I’ll have to. I’ll work with a standard wrench from the conspiracy theory toolbox: Cui bono? That’s Latin for “who benefits?”

If the migrant caravan indeed “has but one intent: to disrupt and influence our midterm elections,” what individual, group, or political party benefits from that disruption/influence? IBD’s complaints about Democrats come apart at the seams as soon as cui bono is invoked.

If the caravan disrupts or influences the 2018 US midterm elections, it does so entirely and exclusively to the benefit of the Republican Party.

The caravan is a perfectly timed hobgoblin for demagogues like Donald Trump (and the editors of IBD) to shake in the air like a witch doctor’s fetish for maximum “Scare Our Base to the Polls” purposes.

As a conscript in the service of conspiracy theory, albeit one with better skills than whoever volunteered to embarrass  IBD, I’d have to attribute the caravan’s planning, timing, and financing, on cui bono grounds, to the Republican National Committee (or one of its subordinate committees) and/or to one or more of Donald Trump’s three 2020 campaign committees.

Do I believe that? It’s certainly tempting. But I’m more of an Occam’s Razor guy than a cui bono guy. Occam’s Razor says we should go with the theory that requires the least speculation.

Individual immigrants pay as much as $10,000 to “coyotes” to guide them across the US border — if they can make it through the narco-terrorist-infested wilds of Central America first. Most of the immigrants in question are poor. Getting together as a “caravan” is cheaper and traveling in a large group is presumably safer than risking it alone or in single family units.

You may have “caravaned” to a distant city for a concert or convention yourself. Four people to a car is cheaper than one.  Four cars means that if one breaks down, the trip doesn’t come to a sudden end. And you probably organized it just like these immigrants probably organized it: By word of mouth.

Sorry to wreck your fun conspiracy theory, IBD. Better luck next time.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “La caravana de la inmigración ¿a quién le favorece?” by Thomas L. Knapp, La Tribuna Hispana USA, 10/24/18