An ‘October surprise’ is what the US media call late-breaking news that can tilt an election. It doesn’t have to be true, just persuasive; its significance lies in whether it can change voters’ minds. Understandably, campaigns do their best to suppress information that may benefit their rival. In the 1980 election, for instance, the Reagan campaign persuaded the Iranian government to delay the early release of American hostages. That infamous deal may well have cost Jimmy Carter the election. Similar subterfuge has become almost the norm ever since. Consider, for example, the broadcast of Mitt Romney’s disparaging remarks about poor Americans, the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton, or the hush money allegedly paid to silence claims of candidate Trump’s extramarital liaisons.
This year has already produced a bumper crop of surprises. Less than a week into October, reputable journalists have already reported on Trump’s contempt for the military (“suckers” and “losers”), his refusal to warn Americans when he knew about the lethality of Covid-19, his chronic failure as a businessman, and his use of every legal loophole to pay as few taxes as possible. Simultaneously, the struggle to appoint a successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, growing threats to the integrity of the election, and yesterday’s reports that the president and first lady have contracted Covid-19, have set the stage for a perfect storm of uncertainty and bad-faith politicking ahead of the election.
As a result, Trump’s campaign is floundering. Desperate to overcome discouraging polls, the president has, characteristically, overreached. In the first debate he essentially became his Twitter feed and rambled peevishly or butted-in with insults despite being cautioned by the moderator. Worse yet, he constantly whined about being treated unfairly. No opponent could have exposed these shortcomings so vividly and Trump’s performance may well have secured a landslide for Biden even though the former vice-president did little to elevate the conversation beyond schoolyard bickering. The moral low point in that hour-long national embarrassment may well have been Trump’s cryptic message to an extremist group that he was meant to be denouncing: “Stand back and stand by.” The remark was quickly appropriated by the Proud Boys, even though Trump later claimed to have no idea of who they were.
Trump thrives on sensationalism, but his clear unwillingness to accept defeat poses a genuine threat to American democracy. He has refused to confirm a peaceful transfer of power and joked that he can only lose a rigged election. Anyone who doubts that he might use extraordinary measures to prevail in November should consider his response to the 2018 midterm in Florida. When early leads by governor Ron DeSantis and senator Rick Scott began to dip sharply as ‘overtime’ ballots were tallied, Trump tweeted, with no evidence, that “large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged.” He then claimed, again with no evidence, that an “honest vote is no longer possible.” He called for the election night returns to be taken as definitive.
Primed for a similar scenario in November, Trump’s team are doing their best to intimidate and suppress the Democratic vote. They are also considering the possibility of asking Republican-controlled state legislators to override the traditional reporting of the electoral college and declare for Trump if enough doubt has been cast on the popular vote. In a troubling article called “The Election That Could Break America” Barton Gellman notes that “Republicans control both legislative chambers in the six most closely contested battleground states … of those, Arizona and Florida have Republican governors, too.”
In a year that has already crammed a decade’s worth of bad news into nine months, further surprises are inevitable. What will matter, ultimately, is whether good sense prevails or whether America’s simmering tensions overwhelm the system. Sadly, with barely a month left to go, there are few reassuring indications that America is ready for the political storm that is gathering around its election.
