The upsurgence of passionate support for Kamala far exceeded what anyone thought lay latent in America. That surprise should alert us to the possibility that America might have the potential for something like what the physicists call a "phase shift."
I.e. that just as the Democratic world went from 0 to 60 when the baton got passed from Biden to Harris, so also might other things in the American body politic sudden move from one state of perception and preference to another.
The Republican world might also undergo a sudden and dramatic change.
In particular, Kamala’s already plausible success in changing how Trump looks to his supporters could cause them to turn away from him. People assume that nothing changes those bonds — he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue etc. — but no Democratic leader before Kamala has seemed so able to make Trump look weak and ineffectual.
Shooting someone on 5th Avenue may be murder, but it affirms Trump’s posture of dominance. What if he gets dominated? In particular, what if he gets dominated by a woman? And even more particularly, what if he gets dominated by a woman of culture.
I can envision a kind of "Emperor's New Clothes" moment, where people awaken from some kind of trance of misperception and suddenly see his nakedness.
A close election? Could well be. And certainly, the campaign should be waged taking nothing for granted. (The survival of American Democracy is, as we all know, at stake.) But campaigning for a close election need not differ from campaigning for a blow-out. And America would be far better off if the phase shifts in the American body politic enable us Americans to drive this Fascist force into the far recesses of American politics where it belongs.