It feels that the election has gotten lost in all of the first debate’s furor and hysteria and then President Trump’s hospitalization for the coronavirus.

(The title of this post is in honor of a former colleague at Rolling Stone, Hunter S. Thompson. He would have so loved writing about this election.)

I am focused tonight on the truly big news Sunday, which was not a cheap photo-op, but  a series of new polls showing Biden-Harris now holding a double-digit lead over Donald  Trump in the November election.

This is one of the biggest leads in the late stages of a presidential election in modern history.

In growing numbers, a distinct majority of Americans say they believe Trump was careless and irresponsible and brought the virus on himself.  They also were repelled by his behavior in the first debate.

Today, he did it again, demonstrating his true genius for making more people hate him.

I also want to write about people of good heart and faith, staying calm and strong in the next few weeks. Our strength doesn’t come from polls or even winning. It comes from being in the right.

I don’t have to know the outcome to feel strong.

That is the comfort and hope for people who fear for their country now. If you believe you are right, then there is nothing else you need to worry about.

Doing the right thing and the good thing is the victory; that is what makes people strong. However, long victory takes. That was the lesson and the glory of the civil rights movement, and so many other movements for justice.

First, I wanted to return briefly to the election tonight, as  Trump has demonstrated his gift for always being the center of attention by driving by his supporters waving in a hermetically sealed car with secret service agents inside outside of Walter Reed Medical Center.

As the self-appointed new champion and victim-in-chief of Covid-19, Trump claimed in a video that he learned a lot about the virus and then returned to the hospital. It’s about time.

Because he caught it, it is suddenly important. I never imagined shamelessness would be effective.

This is a perfect pivot for him since he always presents himself as the victim in any situation.

Typically, he seems not to know or care that most infected people and their families have known about the virus for a long and painful time now. All he had to do was listen to them and the people who know.

Most Americans have rejected this transparent narcissism; there is no sign anyone is changing their minds.

If he’s really back at work at the White House for two or three days early in the week, people will feel even less sympathy for him that if he were seriously ill. Which he may well still be.

Trump’s ability to corrupt the people around him is one of his most prominent characteristics.

There was the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, John Kelly, Lindsey Graham, the FDA, the National Weather Service, the Justice Department, Michael Cohen, and now, the doctors at Walter Reed Hospital, who have been called out by reporters for repeatedly hiding the truth about  Trump’s actual condition and withholding critical information about his treatment.

It’s not the stuff of fiction, but I am struck at the number of people who will sell out for a golf game or two.

It is a testament to bureaucrats’ nature that very few people can stand up to a president’s power. That’s a lesson for the future.

The brazen publicity stunt Trump pulled today shocked and thrilled his supporters waving flags on the street outside the hospital,  but enraged and horrified doctors and health care officials all over the country.

As if he hasn’t already made enough of his colleagues, allies, and supporters sick, he has foolishly demonstrated that he has learned nothing after being strick by the virus.

His willingness to risk and sacrifice people for a photo-op is once more turning stomachs all over the country.

He simply can’t process reality or even his own self-interest.

He demonstrates his unfitness for the office almost every day. I hope those Secret Service agents get some medals or bonuses for doing their jobs under needless risk.

Even in sickness, he can’t be still or quiet.

And he can’t help but undermining himself and wiping out yet another chance to earn sympathy and support from people sitting on the fence. His $2,000 shoes must be full of bullet holes from all the times he shot himself in the foot.

People are almost desperately looking to him for guidance and leadership, and he craps on them every time.

Trump’s narcissism is truly a disease, he really is delusional now.

And Mary Trump was quiet correct; he is incapable of change or strategizing. He listens only to the angry voices in his own head.

His campaign is a disaster, and can no longer win legally, or at this point, even illegally. For him to have any choice of stealing the election, he has to lose by a much smaller margin than that.

People fear that he is at his most dangerous now, but I don’t see it.  He is losing power and support by the hour. His aura of invincibility is shattered. Rats know when to board a ship and when to get off.

The election has changed almost overnight. It always was primarily about the coronavirus, but Trump’s catching it has changed the campaign’s narrative.

He was hoping to make the election about law and order and Joseph Biden Jr.s age, but now the campaign is all about the coronavirus and his brazen incompetence. There is no escaping what he did.

He is running from the fire, jumping into the worst possible pool for him to jump in.

Desperately, Trump has shifted gears and is trying on a new hat –  empathy and connection for the sick and the dying. It doesn’t fit.

There are way too many videos and recordings of his dismissal of the virus, and his promises that it would disappear shortly, and his jeering people about the masks they wore,  the latest dismissal of the virus offered Thursday night, when he was already getting sick.

As a candidate eager to show he cares, Trump would be just about the greatest hanging curve ever to be thrown to an opponent. If there is any one thing Trump is not able to do, it’s to show empathy.

He still can’t remember to mention the 208,000 people who have died or their families.  Yes, Walter Reed is a great place. Too bad no one else can get that kind of medical attention for free, or even at any cost. Does he understand that, too?

And even if he could show empathy,  there is too little time. With a 10 digit lead, one month to the election, and with two million Americans already voting, that’s like turning the Queen Elizabeth Ocean Liner around in a local swimming pool.

As I write this, the election is well underway, and Trump’s world is crumbling all around him. Cheap publicity stunts do well on Twitter, but not in the outside world.

Early debate and other polls show Biden’s lead against Trump’s widening, especially in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. Trump can’t win the election without winning two or all three of those states.

Trump – this should surprise no one – is now campaigning as the guy who is strong enough and tough enough to beat the virus. As always, he is Ceaser, surrounded by adoring citizens.

The doctors say he is playing with fire by taking a ride outside, but that’s what he does.

People who were hoping for a few days of quiet are shaking their heads. Trump is addicted to himself and Twitter. It will not be quiet for a while.

It’s unlikely the second debate will be held, and if the Biden campaign is as smart as they seem, there won’t be the third one either. Why give Trump more air time?

Trump can crank out videos all he wants showing how strong and in command he is, but he can’t schedule any more of his rallies, or travel around the country, or host any fund-raisers, at least not until there are only a few days left in which people can vote.

Biden, pulling in gold like Midas,  is heading for a landslide, which would make it nearly impossible for him to have the election taken from him.

I also wanted to say one word to the frightened people who insist that  Trump can and will find a way to win the election.

Hour by hour that becomes less likely. It never seemed really possible to me, but Trump is a frightening man, and I understand the fear.

I can only offer you this. My peace of mind comes from my belief that I am in the right. The country has faced division, hatred, even violence before.

In the Spring of 1960, the New York Times published a story titled “Fear and Hatred Grip Birmingham.”

A book featuring black rabbits and white rabbits was banned from the library. A drive was on to forbid “negro music” on white radio stations. A year earlier, a Black girl and a white girl – both elementary school students – quarreled on their way home from school.

A white man emerged from a nearby house with a bullwhip and flogged the Black girl.

On the issue of race, the Times reporter wrote: “every channel of communication, every medium of mutual interest, every reasoned approach, every inch of middle ground has been fragmented by the emotional dynamite of racism, reinforced by the whip, the razor, the gun, the bomb, the torch, the club, the knife, the mob, the police and many branches of the state’s apparatus.”

It’s not the same now, but it evokes our deepening divisions. Every medium of mutual interest caught in the grip of argument.

Into the Birmingham maelstrom came John Lewis and his fellow Freedom Riders, who were beaten, tortured, arrested, and nearly killed more than once. Their bus was set on fire while they were in it.

While enraged mobs waited outside, John Lewis and his friends were in the Birmingham City Jail, “no mattresses or beds, nothing to sit on at all, just a concrete floor.”

Lewis called for a hunger strike. All over the country, white politicians like JFK,  supporters, friends, leaders of his own movements pleaded with him to call off the Freedom Ride; everyone feared he and others would be killed.

Lewis refused to submit or surrender.

He said his cause was just and right,which gave him all the comfort he needed. He had no idea if he would succeed or not; he didn’t need to know he would win in order to fight.

I’ve been getting some horrific and violent mail since I started writing about politics. I don’t write about it much,  and I don’t show it to Maria, because I don’t think that would accomplish anything.

There are so many bigger fish to fry than me.

I have contacted the police a few times; should anything happen, they would  have a place to start.

I am not John Lewis; this is not 1960; President Trump is not Bull Connor, the brutal and racist and white nationalist Birmingham Chief of Police.

My point is not that I am in danger, but that strength and calm and hope comes from being right.

People keep telling me they hope I am right when I say Trump will lose this election and be removed from office.

But people who say this to me miss the point. I don’t care about that.  I don’t know if  I’m right. I don’t need to be correct in my predictions.

Like John Lewis, I simply need to believe that I am right. That is all the strength and comfort I need. That is where hope comes from, not from promises or guarantees of victory.

If I am right, then I am blessed. Nothing feels better. Try it.