Many who slept on the last election, believing it a foregone conclusion—are now alive and awake and engaged because they understand the gravity of the moment for our nation and for the world, because they believe their vote is critical in avoiding a hopeless slide into fascism, because they have enlisted in uphill battle in order to somehow bend the arc of the universe toward justice.
Which is why perpetuating a narrative of Biden’s supposed statistical lead is so problematic: it threatens to lull people back to sleep at a time when we need every conscious and lucid soul fully present. The last thing we can afford is an emotional sedative giving people an incentive to ease up or check out or fast forward to a victorious day that may never come.