I believe the center is holding on Election Day, 2020, and will continue to hold. Our greatest challenge is to stay calm and grounded, while extremism and hysteria rage all through our culture.

I also hope the country turns its attention to unity. I hope Biden means it when he says he wants to form a unity government, if possible.

Like most other people – and journalists – I was surprised by Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. Everyone got it wrong. When I was a political writer, I prided myself on being in touch with the great American middle.

I didn’t realize there wasn’t much of a middle any longer; Americans had moved to the extremes, consciously or not.

This year, I worked harder listening, thinking, reading, and following the polls – not as absolute predictions, but as guides. I think I’ve got it now.

Polls are not meant to be precise psychic predictors but indicators of shifts and trends; I totally trust them for that. They inform us, they don’t do our work of thinking for us.

I think the predictions I’m reading today are careful, thorough, and reliable indicators of what will happen. They are vastly different and improved from four years ago.

I am responsible and accountable for what I write and believe in openness, not polls.

So here are my feelings and cautions and predictions about today.

Joe Biden will win tonight; there is a fine line between a landslide and a nail-biter in this race. I think we’ll see a solid victory across the board, powered by a new American kind of coalition that Biden, somewhat surprisingly, has inspired: women, white and black, the young, the shrinking middle, weary of a President who can’t seem to be seen to appear to care about them.

The pressure is on Trump. Biden should be pretty content with where he is.

In a day or so, Biden will be declared the winner; depending on the margins, Trump will challenge key states that are close.

Trump’s time has passed, and he has no one to blame but himself. His lies, his cruelty, his incompetence were just too much for too many people.

He could have been a hero. He chose to be an embarrassing and self-obsessed clown, a racist, and a prisoner of his own limitations. Too many people have died in America this year for him to dare to deny the virus is real and dangerous.

It is very wrong.

It isn’t about polls; it’s about common sense. Just step back, think, and follow your own instincts.

When it comes to being a Mao-style dictator, he doesn’t have what it takes. This election will not be stolen.

-2020 is not 2016, an election that has blinded otherwise thoughtful people into panic and hysteria in 2010. Many Democrats are afraid to believe what they see with their own eyes and feel.

They need to get over it if they are to govern wisely; there is still plenty of hard work ahead.

But it’s not 2016.

The electorate is different, the economy is different, the world is different, the voter turnout is already radically different,  the numbers of young people voting is very different, women are different, the Democratic candidate is different, and Donald Trump himself is very different.

He is running as an incumbent rather than an outsider. Above all else, the pandemic is very different. He is just not as smart as he thinks he is, and judging by his pandemic response, he may not be smart at all.

Trump’s only tool is to attack and lie. He has no policy or plans for the future. The country is in trouble. A President should at least acknowledge what we all know and are experiencing.

-Be careful today.

Signs on lawns, trucks, and flags do not predict elections. A key part of Trump’s re-election strategy is to make as much noise as possible – flags, caravans, lawn signs, posters so that he appears invincible. His supporters are louder and more fervent than Biden’s.

But this race isn’t really about loving Biden. It’s as much about fearing and worrying about Donald Trump. He could have changed that narrative. But he didn’t even try.

The signs and caravans do not make Trump supporters more numerous, just louder, and often more visible. In this election, and because he refused to expand his following, he will run out of fanatic supporters.

There are just not enough of them, whether they are shy or not.

I know a lot of people, right and left, who are Biden supporters. I asked about 20 of them online if they had a Biden-Harris sign on their lawns.

Only one said yes. They aren’t into signs and flags.

Biden may not have been their first choice, but he looks like Franklin Roosevelt to them compared to Trump.

– Be careful again. The commentators I have been paying attention to on the left, and the right, are near hysterical. They speak only to extremes. They need to panic to make money and prosper.

Stay in the middle.

-I don’t believe the Supreme Court, the U.S. Senate, and every branch of government will conspire with Donald Trump to stage a coup and steal the election if Biden wins.

Mitch McConnell has been openly ruthless about his judicial project, but he has also been clear about his reservations about Trump’s most extreme positions, especially about elections.

Trump is already complaining about McConnell and the Supreme Court.

McConnell has also defended the federal election process as being honest and trustworthy. His belief in a conservative judiciary is sincere, even if it is wrong.

I believe his faith in the way Americans vote and have voted for 200 years is also sincere. I might be naive, but that’s what my instincts tell me.

Being conservative is one thing; triggering a revolution and overthrowing an election is something else. I don’t think McConnell wants a revolution like that on his hands.

He’s won his victories; he is old and tired. I don’t think he wants to go out that way.

A country where a Biden victory was stolen would quickly turn ungovernable.  Pelosi and her House of Representatives would be in perpetual revolution, so would the disenchanted millions who voted for Biden.

There is already chatter about some states seceding and others withholding income tax payments. That would get a lot more serious.

I don’t accept the idea that Trump supporters will riot if they lose. That is simply more stereotyping by pundits sitting in studios and an unhinged media. I just don’t see them running through the streets, slugging it out with the cops they have been defending so passionately.

Helping Donald Trump and the Republican Party if 22 votes are at stake is simple, de-legitimizing a government system, and enraging more than half of the population is another.

-I think Biden will win at least one or two traditionally Republican states, perhaps Georgia, even North Carolina. He will also win Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states critical to Trump. Florida and Pennsylvania are too tight for me to call, although I believe Biden has a good shot at both.

-The election structures across the country have been holding up well under this ferocious onslaught of early mail and voting. The system is holding together. Once again, Armageddon has not come. Well into the days’ voting, there are lots of social media lies, but very few reports of trouble.

-I do not believe the mounting hysteria about violence erupting across the country as businesses and corporations board up their windows. The very real incidents so far might be disturbing, but they are far from widespread and deadly violence.

This is America in 2020, there will be trouble in some places, but I think those instances will be few, far between, and quickly dealt with.

I believe the American center is holding and will continue to hold.

So that’s where I stand on the major questions confronting us today and tomorrow. I am proud of the political pieces I’ve written and plan on continuing to write them.

I feel like I’m feeling the rhythms again.

We are not a third world nation, not even close. Many people feel very deeply about our traditions, regardless of party label. The system built over centuries is stronger and deeper and more resilient than its critics and detractors.

I like Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s mantra for political life: Be strong. Stay calm. Keep your perspective.

If I am way off base, I’ll be the first to admit it and write even more about dogs.