The second blog post I inflicted upon you poor, patient readers was four years ago today – ahead of the last presidential election — so I went back to see what was happening. This is how things seemed (to me) to be going at the time: “A fitting end to a stormy campaign has been the real storm that has just wreaked havoc and claimed lives all along the eastern seaboard. Hurricane Sandy seems to have refocused minds, reminding us that we are all in this together. If we remember this as we head to the polls, perhaps we will be able to effectively deal with the devastation – both new and old, physical and political.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What do you call someone too old to be a naïf?

I don’t believe many of us imagined the current ill wind that is the Republican nominee, who has wreaked havoc and claimed political lives all across the country. And, as hurricanes sometime do, he has made conditions ripe for tornados to form at the periphery. The latest as of this writing, spinning furiously seven days before the election, spun out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. FBI Director Comey, who appears to have been cowed into trying to protect his reputation at the expense of his agency’s, has succeeded in sullying both. In perhaps one of the most opaque attempts at transparency imaginable, he also has succeeded in clouding the minds of those most in need of clarity: people who have not been paying close enough attention even at this late date. This is something we can least afford.

About another matter that predates the present storms (“Long Division” August, 2013), I wrote “So, we have polls and bar graphs giving us a glimpse of what is being felt, viscerally, all around: we remain uncomfortably and unproductively divided more than we care to acknowledge. We seem to have no idea how to have a conversation in which what is being felt is effectively communicated to those who aren’t feeling it.” What has changed? The question is not rhetorical, and if you answer “Nothing,” we would disagree. No matter what we have seen of our presidential nominees in our lifetimes, we never have witnessed the likes of Hurricane Donald; he “seems to have refocused minds,” but he definitely is not “reminding us that we are all in this together.”

You know I’m not one who thinks Trump can’t win, as evidenced by this from March of this year (“Grace”): “How can we know all that we know about this country and not consider the idea we might deserve Trump? Yes, we know our lofty ideals. We know also to what degree we adhere to them. This, alone, ought to cause us some concern.” Do I believe Trump will prevail? No, but in 1980 I assumed Reagan would not be elected – even after having watched his impressive performance at his party’s 1976 convention. But, as he has been reminded repeatedly by members of his own party, Trump is no Reagan.

The frequency of twists and the rapidity of turns in this campaign indicate anything is possible between now and November 8^th, so the fury of today’s wind may dissipate or intensify. What seems important campaign news today may be passé tomorrow. I ended that November 2012 post by writing “Soon, we’ll see if the ship of state finds calmer waters or continues to sail through rough seas.” If you’re like I am, November 9^th is the day we look forward to the most – no matter what the weather is like.