Trump up 1 in North Carolina. Trump up 2 in Arizona. Georgia, 2 again.

      The polls are making us crazy. Need to stop looking at the polls. Need to stop worrying.

      But the fact is, we are worried. With so little time before the election, the thought is unavoidable: that son of a bitch might actually win. He could be president again. What had seemed inconceivable—that we could elect a racist, incompetent, sociopathic, fascistic, lying buffoon again—now seems more than conceivable. It may almost seem likely.

      I had lunch with a friend yesterday. He said it’s impossible to imagine, but he is starting to imagine. So, he’s worried, too. So are most of the people I know, which tells you something about the people I know and also about the increasing sense of doom.

      A number of conversations we have sometimes now end with vague and wistful discussions of moving, relocating, if the now thinkable unthinkable happens. But where? Canada? They don’t even want us, and it’s too cold. How about the Virgin Islands, one friend suggested. The weather would be better, but it would have to be the British ones, not ours because ours wouldn’t be safe either. Several times somebody says something like my wife may be getting Italian citizenship—or Irish or something—maybe that could work?

      Real friends and Facebook friends and people I follow on different social media all seem worried. There’s a growing sense that somehow, some way, it’s all slipping away.

      And yet it wasn’t that long ago—like six weeks?—that we were filled with hope and excitement and optimism. We had a new, younger, invigorated candidate. We had enthusiasm. We were going to win and put an end to this national nightmare.

      But recently, it seems, much of that enthusiasm, much of that optimism, has faded. Maybe it started with that smarmy JD Vance performance at the vice-presidential debate. Yeah, he was phony, but he was effective, putting a cloak of normalcy on the MAGA craziness. Then it continued with the campaign signs. Sure, where we live they are vastly outnumbered by the “Harris/Walz” signs, but just the fact that there are so many “Trump/Vance” signs in this blue bubble is worrying.

      And maybe we’re also more worried now because the craziness has gotten only more crazy, the extreme has gotten more extreme. Eating dogs and cats. Directing a hurricane. Arnold Palmer’s dick.

      It all makes horribly real what the stakes are, and how utterly terrible it would be for that man to win.

      Maybe we should be less worried because, at our age, we’ve been through bad presidents and bad presidencies before. But this? This seems the point of no return. And, of course, it’s not just the worry of what will happen if he wins. It’s also the worry of what could happen if he loses.

      Damned if you do, damned . . . .