Good morning. It is November 5th, Tuesday, November 5th. It is a mild morning in New York City. The weather app says it's 62 degrees on the way to a high of 72. That's 72 degrees in November. As people head out to the polls on election day to vote for either the drill baby drill candidate or the other candidate in a real polling toss up, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. The six eligible voters in the publicity hungry, rustic New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch acted out their piece of quadrennial political theater, casting and counting their votes right after midnight, yielding a tally of three votes for Kamala Harris and three votes for Donald Trump from an electorate with four Republican registrations and two Undeclared registrations. An entirely useless and meaningless piece of information, just like everything else anyone else is going to say about the election until sometime after 7 p.m. and maybe hours or days after that. 

The front page of this morning's New York Times gives the non-news a full six-column banner, “Worry and hope on last day of voting.” I like early voting and I did early voting myself, but there's still something jarring about seeing election day referred to as “last day of voting” instead of “election day.” But here we are with a complete edition of the newspaper packed full of stories with almost nothing to say. 

Under the big headline, the two stories side by side are “Fears of Violence and a Sense of Uncertainty” and “Pennsylvania Key Prize in Harris versus Trump.” Did you know Pennsylvania was going to be the key battleground state? It's bracing to remember that actually we don't know that. And part of the whole story in 2016 was that the battlegrounds weren't where people thought the battlegrounds were going to be. Nevertheless, in a race in which the entire story of the polling is that the people running the polls can't tell the story, everyone is certain that Pennsylvania is the state that matters. 

Down below that, “Trump pledges new power era for Christians.” Terrible gnarled up headline writing there. They could have written a more intelligible headline if they'd given it more space, say, once again, by running it sometime in the months and months before election day, when it could have meant something. 

Inside the paper, international section, “As US vote looms, Iranians imagine life with Trump or Harris.” 

And then “Election 2024, some late shifts, but polls remain closer than ever. “and a hint at an actual point of view, “Crumbling GOP stronghold could hold a key for Democrats in Wisconsin.” 

Next page of news, back to saying absolutely nothing. “Energized but worried the campaigns are making frantic final pushes.” Energized but worried is like the compliment of good old cautiously optimistic. 

Down below that, “Musk and his super PACs get out the vote efforts face their crucible moment.” I don't know, it seems like the crucible moment for Elon Musk's get-out-the-vote effort might come after Election Day and could involve handcuffs. But aside from a few clauses about the chance that Musk could become a scapegoat for a losing campaign, or the problems of using outside canvassers in general, or the bit about how Musk's PAC has been dogged by accusations that it may not have knocked on as many doors as its data shows, the piece is basically credulous and certainly doesn't reflect the reporting by outlets like Wired, describing Musk dumping workers on battleground states with no resources, no support, and impossible quotas, under circumstances that sound pretty close to being human trafficking. 

Further on, there's a full page of, “For long time, undecided voters decision time has arrived.” As the tedious and inane participants in the Times's ongoing tedious and inane focus groups share whatever strings of words come out of their mouth in the guise of final thoughts, and staged their own little Dixville Notch. The results are: voted for Ms. Harris, plans to vote for Mr. voted for Ms. Harris, voted for Ms. Harris, plans to vote for Jill Stein, voted for Mr. Trump, and not sure how she will vote. So three votes for Harris, one vote for Trump, one as yet undelivered vote for Trump, and two people still too intoxicated by being asked for their opinion to make a normal commitment. 

After that, a two-page spread, “Arural county in Pennsylvania sees a fraying of its social fabric.” Then, “When polls close and what to watch on election night.” 

Facing that, “Trump's verbal detours heighten down stretch,” a listicle about how in the final stretch of the campaign, “whether because of fatigue or something else entirely, Mr. Trump seems to be indulging in even more surreal, sometimes vulgar verbal detours.” Are they detours? Or is the journey the destination? 

Next to that is the jump on a story so boring my eyes failed to even register it on page one. “In first race, Harris showed tactics of 2024.” Who cares? 

On page 18, a shift in tone. “Hope on both sides, but GOP is void as Democrats stress.” That's another tour of Pennsylvania, with the joint bylines of Jonathan Weisman and Campbell Robertson, which has to be the biggest split between evil and good, or incompetent and competent, that I can ever remember seeing on a tandem byline. 

Below that, “In Georgia, star senators are a boon for Democrats.” Somehow this just keeps going.

“Coach Walz delivers the last round of pep talks as the clock ticks down.” 

“Vance details his agenda and what win may bring.” 

A full page infographic looking like a drab game of Candyland. “What threats does my vote really face?” And finally, “Closing messages one ad after another, in which Jonathan Weisman finds his ideal assignment, transcribing the content of scripted messages as news.

There is a little bit of meaning embedded in this giant wad of nothing. All you really need to get at it is the photos on page one and their captions. Up top is a smiling Kamala Harris pointing up and to the left. “America is ready for a fresh start, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Monday in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as she crisscrossed the state.” Below that is Donald Trump, his face set in an inscrutable sort of stare, next to a blurry American flag. The caption falls below the fold. “Former President Donald J. Trump on Monday in Reading, Pennsylvania, where the audience slowly dwindled as he spoke for 80 minutes.” 

Likewise, the lead wrap-up story on the campaign trail says Trump “looked visibly weary, battling fatigue in front of listless smaller crowds. Ms. Harris, it continues, still fresh after a three-month sprint, appealed for unity and pressed the contrast to her rival without uttering his name.” The Times wants you to know that Harris is fired up and Trump is cooked. He palpably doesn't want the voters to actually make him president. But the last time reporters so clearly found the stench of resignation to defeat coming off the Trump campaign was right this time in 2016. He may not want it, but that still doesn't mean they might not give it to him. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. The podcast is sustained by the subscription dollars of you, the listeners. So please do send some money our way. 

Remember everyone around you is just as stressed out and in just as bad a mood as you are. So be good to one another. Remember that trying to squeeze meaning out of unavailable facts is only going to hurt you. And if all goes well, or if all goes nightmarishly badly, we will talk again tomorrow.