I tried to vote today here in Chicago. I looked up my early-voting precinct, got my winter coat on, and trod on foot a mile or so to the local polling place (a school) . . . only to find it closed, because duh, class was in session. (It’s Friday, ya moron!)

So I haven’t cast a vote yet. I’m not sure I will, because it is difficult to motivate myself: There is little to vote for here in the city of Chicago on any level if you’re a conservative — except against Brandon Johnson. (And here I am, talking myself into returning to cast that ballot even as I write this, sheerly by conjuring the specter of my town’s incompetent mayor. From hell’s heart I stab at thee Brandon, for hate’s sake I shall spit my last vote at whomever the Chicago Teachers Union hasn’t endorsed in my local school-board district.)

But I have been reading the news online and feeling my eyes cross as I’m buffeted back and forth with “Harris is going to win this, easily” and “Trump has this in the bag” takes. I genuinely don’t know. I know I wrote it up in my newsletter this Tuesday as leaning toward Trump — and I still believe that if you put a gun to my head — but I look at the stubborn math of the Blue Wall, and I keep recalling how, on a fundamental level, Trump remains forever crippled as a candidate by his unforgivable past.

Either Harris or Trump could win next Tuesday, and the unhappiest joke of them all is that I truly believe that disaster will follow either outcome, whether it be immediately or over the longer term. I have no optimism, only a healthy sense of grim irony and contempt for nearly all involved.

You may feel differently than I do, however. If so, I envy you — as a sarcastic jerk, I want to emphasize for once that I am deeply sincere when I say this — and in fact want to encourage you to do the only thing that will affect the outcome of this election in any way: Vote.

Everything else is commentary.