Thread by @davekarpf

There’s a tension in election coverage that is going to become increasingly jarring in the weeks ahead.

We’re going to read stories about business-as-usual campaigning, alongside stories of structural voter disenfranchisement.

The two storylines don’t easily coexist. (Thread)

Here’s a business-as-usual example:

Florida is an important battleground state. Polls show a close race. Whose message is resonating/what strategic choices are the campaigns making/who will win?

It’s a genre of reporting that we’re all used to — horse race reporting.

But then there’s this alternate storyline:

The courts have just effectively barred 770,000 Florida citizens from voting. This is part of a multi-year disenfranchisement effort that FL Republicans launched after FL voted to restore voting rights for ex-felons.

Also in that latter storyline is coverage of Trump urging his supporters to vote twice, and Trump sabotaging the USPS to undermine vote-by-mail, and John Ratcliffe refusing to brief congress on foreign electoral interference.

It’s jarring, seeing these stories side-by-side in a Twitter feed.

The 1st story is one in with familiar characters playing familiar roles in a time-honored ritual of democracy.

It’s a story where, if Biden loses, it is because of choices he made and the “will of the people.”

The second story is one in which democracy itself is under fire.

It’s a story where, if Biden loses, it’s because he couldn’t prevent Trump and his appointees from completely undermining the democratic process.

Biden’s visit to Florida today only *matters* to that first story!

Biden underperforming with non-Cuban Hispanic voters only *matters* if the campaigns are the central players in our electoral narrative.

But ads and campaign stops don’t prevent electoral interference.

Traditional campaign reporting just isn’t geared for structural attacks on the democratic process — particularly attacks-from-inside!

So it ignores those attacks, leaving them to be covered in the alternate universe of other stories by other journalists.

This will get even more jarring once the debates happen.

We’re going to behave as though these are normal-times.

We’re going to be tempted to act like the debates *matter*, because they help voters make up their minds.

We’re going to want to talk about who won/who lost.

And while we talk about whether Biden/Trump “connected” with the right voters, Trump campaign operatives will also be attempting to invalidate the votes of huge swaths of the electorate.

The latter story is what ultimately matters. But it renders the horserace drama irrelevant.

I don’t know who will win on Election Day.

But that’s mostly because there are serious questions about whether we will have a free and fair election.

That’s the story of 2020—President Trump’s attempt to undermine electoral democracy itself.

That’s the story that matters.