TOPEKA, KS—Here's a brief national situation report before we set out on the lonesome prairie in search of Auntie Em's bridgework, lost in a tornado in 1939.

The season finale of our new hit fall series, What Is All This Shit, Anyway?, is packed full of twists and turns. Out in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker, facing defeat against earnest Democratic candidate Tony Evers—Long first "E," please, pundits—has decided that the state needs to make sure that Minnesota doesn't take advantage of the Election Day confusion and invade. From the State Journal in Madison:

The state Department of Military Affairs, which oversees the Wisconsin National Guard, requested the move, according to the department’s spokeswoman, Joy Staab. Walker spokeswoman Amy Hasenberg said the governor’s office is not aware of any such requests from the department before previous elections. The order won’t change anything about how Wisconsin elections operate, and the National Guard only would act if the bipartisan state Elections Commission requests its help, commission officials said Friday. However, it appears to show state officials are being more vigilant than ever about election security after 2016, when federal intelligence agencies concluded that Russian government cyber-actors unsuccessfully targeted Wisconsin election systems as part of a broader effort to interfere in U.S. elections.

This sounds on the surface like a fairly sensible move. But, then again, this is Scott Walker and Wisconsin, and it's 2018, and the polls have gone sour on him, so feel free to be completely paranoid. I'll meet you there.

Andy Manis Getty Images

But topping it all, as has been the case since our new hit fall series debuted, is the state of Georgia, in which Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp is working overtime trying to elect himself governor. His latest gambit? Investigating the opposition. Genius! From The New York Times:

Now, in what Democrats said was a desperate attempt to deflect attention just two days before a crucial midterm election, Mr. Kemp used his official position Sunday to announce, with scant evidence, that the Democrats were under investigation for allegedly trying to hack the state’s voter registration files. Democrats immediately denounced the claim as bogus and called it an abuse of power.

The controversy over voting rights, and the basic mechanics of Georgia’s electoral process, has roiled one of the nation’s marquee races. Mr. Kemp is locked in a tight contest with Ms. Abrams, the Democratic nominee, who would become the first African-American woman to lead any state if she wins. For weeks she has been accusing him of trying to suppress the minority vote and called for him to step aside as secretary of state — something he has declined to do while calling allegations of suppression “a farce.”

This bit of ratfcking under the color of law is so obvious that the NYT felt compelled to point out in its headline that Kemp launched his investigation "without citing evidence," which is Timespeak for, "This man is a lying sack of manure."

Jessica McGowan Getty Images

(The punchline is that the notification to Kemp's office that prompted this "investigation" came from a Democratic voter security official who made the unpardonable error of presuming that Kemp would do his actual job in good faith.)

When the final history of this campaign is written, the first lesson for all of us is going to be to pay attention always to elections for state-level secretaries of state. MSNBC should give Steve Kornacki his own big board for that one alone. Sleeping on those elections has murdered the national Democratic Party for over a decade.

Meanwhile, the president* is embarking on the last dates of his Tantrum Over America Tour '18, with The Washington Post chronicling the various set lists.

Trump has never been hemmed in by fact, fairness or even logic. The 45th president proudly refuses to apologize and routinely violates the norms of decorum that guided his predecessors. But at one mega-rally after another in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, Trump has taken his no-boundaries political ethos to a new level — demagoguing the Democrats in a whirl of distortion and using the power of the federal government to amplify his fantastical arguments...

In Columbia, Mo., the president suggested that Democrats “run around like antifa” demonstrators in black uniforms and black helmets, but underneath, they have “this weak little face” and “go back home into mommy’s basement.” In Huntington, W.Va., Trump called predatory immigrants “the worst scum in the world” but alleged that Democrats welcome them by saying, “Fly right in, folks. Come on in. We don’t care who the hell you are, come on in!” And in Macon, Ga., he charged that if Democrat Stacey Abrams is elected governor, she would take away the Second Amendment right to bear arms — though as a state official, she would not have the power to change the Constitution.

Whipping Post!

I'm out of here.

Esquire

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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