Two phrases trending simultaneously today are “bed-wetting” and “Chekov’s gun.” They are of course related. It’s how we do elections in 2020 USA.

“Bed-wetting” refers to the state of extreme high anxiety afflicting every Democrat/functioning adult who remembers 2016. Such people are in the thrall of pathological superstition, certain that ignoring all Biden-favorable data/metrics is the only way to guarantee a Donald Trump defeat on Nov. 3 (or in the days thereafter.)

There’s always a case to be made for taking the “worst case scenario” in critical life events. But I’m here to tell you, this ain’t 2016 and Trump and a very large number of Republicans are in serious trouble. If I were forced to make a guess, I’d say Biden is going to run up north of 340 electoral votes next week, that Democrats will narrowly take back the Senate and even add a handful of House seats along the way.

As Lindsey Graham likes to say, “Hold the tape.”

There are all sorts of wonky deep-data indicators that this might even be a conservative scenario. I note this morning a report that Texas, heretofore the big, dopey, ludicrously proud red gorilla of US politics has already banked 50% of all votes cast in 2016, with an enormous turn-out in the Houston area. Maybe these are all MAGA warriors rushing to save their god-ordained leader, but nobody who runs numbers for a living thinks so.

Veteran politicos like Rahm Emanuel, and many others, are certain that voter turn-out this year will exceed 2016 by over 20 million. While the Team Trump strategy (such as it is) has been to rile up even more low-information, non-college educated white male voters than it did in ’16, polling, which has enhanced it’s sophistication regarding hard-to-reach adults over the past for years, simply can not detect enough of that kind of voter to overcome Biden’s current lead.

Moreover, as many surveys have shown, polite, genial uncle Joe has never had unfavorable numbers like Hillary did in ’16, and even more startling, his “favorable” nmbers have increased as the campaign has gone on. Trump meanwhile is not just disliked but loathed by a stunning number of women and has lost his advantage with so-called “independents” (i.e. people who end up voting Republican 70-80 percent of the time).

“Chekov’s gun” is a hot topic because of court rulings in certain states upholding Americans’ “originalist” right to brandish guns at polling places, along with a fueled-and-ready legal machine to scream foul at the slightest hint of a missing signature on an absentee ballot. All this has been ominous in its foreshadowing.

For what it’s worth, (i.e. less than the coffee you’re drinking), I’m in the camp that says a bona fide, indisputable “blue wave”, not just a Biden win, but an election that returns Mitch McConnell to minority status, will suck most of the plausibility and energy out of Republican legal challenges. He may be as devious a bastard as they come, but McConnell plays the long game, and he knows the faster he gets past Trump and on to something new the better it’ll be for him in 2022.

What that leaves on the table for bed-wetting is Trump’s reaction to clear defeat. There is no imaginable way he calls Biden and says, “Joe, Donny here. Good game. You won, here’s the keys.” (Can you imagine him even attending the next inauguration?)

More likely is that Trump commences a 68-day version of Sherman’s March to the Sea, torching every disloyal apparatchik who failed to jail Barack Obama, while simultaneously rewarding his international creditors in every conceivable way in order to slither out from under his staggering debt load. There will also be the critical business convincing his new Supreme Court that he’s well within Thomas Jefferson’s doctrine that it’s okay to whip out the Sharpie and pardon himself and his kids.

In other words, calm down about the vote but don’t put away the rubber sheets just yet.