Seriously?

 One of the staples of election year coverage is the focus on "undecided voters." Refreshingly, the Post looked at Black voters who did not vote in 2016, but say they will vote in 2020. One of the consistently annoying aspects of political coverage is the laser-like focus on white voters from the Rust Belt. 

Reading the Post piece didn't make me feel THAT much better. The idea of being undecided in this election is...incomprehensible to anyone who follows politics. Reading their responses about why they didn't vote in 2016 drives home how dysfunctional our democracy is, primarily because of the ignorance of the electorate. There is no way that you can look at the platforms and policies of Clinton and Trump or Biden and Trump and shrug your shoulders and say they are both the same. Instead, they rely on a cheap cynicism rooted in ignorance. 

Politicians don't always achieve what they promise, but they almost always try. (One of the ways that Trump is different from politicians is much of what he said he would do, he has barely tried. Mainly because he's just a lazy slob.) Will Biden get everything he wants to do? No. Because Congress exists. The fact that most Americans are still seemingly ignorant of how our government is designed is distressing. 

I think we can expect the following from Biden if he wins and Dems win the Senate: a new Voting Rights Act; some sort of "green infrastructure," minimum wage hike, increased taxes on the rich, a more vigorous and coordinated pandemic response, a public health insurance option of some sort, and likely some sort of court reform.  Some of this will be dependent on margins in the Senate. But if Dems don't win the Senate, basically nothing gets done. That would not be a reflection on Biden.

For years, the media treated Hillary Clinton like she was a borderline war criminal. In 2016, they refused to subject Trump to even basic accountability to the truth. Every act of spin from Clinton was made equivalent to an outright lie by Trump. Cynical coverage led to cynical voters. It's gotten better this time around, but that doesn't excuse what happened four years ago.