The second presidential debate on Sunday night was a strange one, with Donald Trump appearing to be on the brink of a meltdown in the first 20 to 30 minutes and then steadying himself the rest of the way. But here’s the bottom line: Based on post-debate polls, Hillary Clinton probably ended the night in a better place than she started it. And almost without question, she ended the weekend — counting the debate, the revelation on Friday of a 2005 tape in which Trump was recorded appearing to condone unwanted sexual contact against women, and the Republican reaction to the tape — in an improved position.
At times during the past two weeks, but particularly on Saturday afternoon as prominent Republicans were denouncing or unendorsing Trump one after another, it has seemed like Trump’s campaign is experiencing the political equivalent of a stock market crash. By that I mean: there’s some bad news that triggers the crash, and there’s also an element of panic and herd behavior, and it becomes hard to tell exactly which is which. At some point, the market usually finds its footing, as the stock has some fundamental value higher than zero. But it can be a long way down before it does…
In the end, your assessment of Trump’s chances comes down to the same consideration as with a falling stock: How sound are the fundamentals? Is Trump the equivalent of a beleaguered blue-chip that still has lots of hard assets? In Trump’s case, the most valuable asset is probably possession of the Republican Party ballot line, which theoretically ought to be worth something given the circumstances of the race. Or was the whole business a sort of confidence trick, which was bound to implode once people began to lose faith in it?
—Nate Silver
The Second Debate Probably Didn’t Help Trump, And He Needed Help
In less than an hour the polls will open. Americans nationwide will join together with Americans around the world. And you will be launching the largest voting effort in the history of Americankind. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it is fate that today is the day to elect Hillary Clinton. And that once again you will be fighting the forces of fascism. Fighting tyranny, oppression, and persecution. Fighting annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. As gay, straight, black, Asian, white, woman, transgender, immigrant or native born. For today is the day that America declared in nearly one voice “We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We are going to live on. We are going to survive. And we are going to defeat the Orange Menace!“
I had a nightmare last week — perhaps the worst that I have ever had. Like all my dreams, exactly why things were happening was muddled. But I was doing target shooting — at live human beings. There were others there watching me. They might have been coercing me, but regardless, they were fine with what I was doing. I shot a man in the right thigh and a woman in the abdomen. It was not the shooting that made the dream so horrible. It was watching the pain the two people suffered.
Welcome to the second presidential debate! Unlike many, I don’t expect this debate to be all that good. But part of it is just that I am a partisan. I want Clinton to do well. But even more than that, I constantly worry that if Trump does okay, the media will turn it into “great” and “a game changer.” I take nothing for granted in this election. Trump could still be our next president.
Page 32 of 
Yesterday, all hell broke loose in the political world, 
He [the boy] disappears soon, you know. And the baby too. She is the first to vanish from the scene. The drama consists finally in this: when that mother re-enters my house, her family born outside of it, and shall we say superimposed on the original, ends with the death of the little girl, the tragedy of the boy, and the flight of the elder daughter. It cannot go on, because it is foreign to its surroundings. So after much torment, we three remain: I, the mother, that son. Then, owing to the disappearance of that extraneous family, we too find ourselves strange to one another. We find we are living in an atmosphere of mortal desolation which is the revenge, as he [indicating the son] scornfully said of the Demon of Experiment, that unfortunately hides in me. Thus, sir, you see when faith is lacking, it becomes impossible to create certain states of happiness, for we lack the necessary humility. Vaingloriously, we try to substitute ourselves for this faith, creating thus for the rest of the world a reality which we believe after their fashion, while, actually, it doesn’t exist. For each one of us has his own reality to be respected before God, even when it is harmful to one’s very self.
I’ve been hearing for months that the Republicans would win this presidential election if only they hadn’t nominated Donald Trump. I’m not completely against this line of reasoning. I had hoped from last summer that that GOP base really had no ideological bearings and so would nominate him because I thought he would be a weak candidate. But I think this idea that “Hillary would be losing to any other candidate” is just a myth. I wrote about this back in May, 
I can’t complain about Page 31 of 
I was really struck by a line in David Cay Johnston’s excellent 
I thought I might not find anything I didn’t know on Page 30 of 
