Normally, I'd do my cheesy Vincent Price imitation here, with lots of spooky talk and Hallowe'en jokes. But this year's stories are a little grim -- or perhaps "a little closer to reality than usual" is a better way to put it.

I almost didn't do a Hallowe'en column this year, because it's pretty obvious what both sides of the aisle would be frightened by. Who controls Congress after the midterms would have (as always) been the easy way to go with today's stories. I could have easily written the basic tales in one tweet: "Republicans win, Democrats horrified... or Democrats win, Republicans horrified."

But the current political situation is grim indeed, even beyond who controls the House and the Senate in January. One of our major political parties either openly encourages or mocks and makes fun of violence directed against politicians of the other party -- all while insisting on their "both-sides-ism" view that both parties are equally responsible.

Which all made me wonder if writing "horror" stories for Hallowe'en was a little... redundant, maybe, this particular year? We've already got enough political horror in the world, what with the man who may be about to become speaker of the House saying in the past he would have to restrain himself when the handover happened between him and Nancy Pelosi: "I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it." To date, since Pelosi's husband was brutally attacked with a hammer, I have not heard a single Republican (much less McCarthy himself) asked about this remark. This is the political reality we live in.

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We have to admit, we're more than a little worried about the upcoming midterm elections. Not about who will win (that's a different subject), but about the elections themselves. Because for the first time in a very long period in American history, one of the major political parties is openly attacking the election system itself. This is a dry run for the 2024 presidential election, and at this point it is impossible to say that Election Day (and the counting of the votes thereafter) won't be marred by intimidation, internal sabotage, and/or outright political violence. And that's a pretty sad state of affairs for American democracy.

The signs are all there. Few are paying enough attention to them, but nobody will be able to express shock and surprise afterwards by saying: "Who could have seen something like this coming?" Because people already are.

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I start with a simple truth: nobody knows what the midterm election results will be. I don't know, you don't know, and the people who get paid to tell you they do also don't know. Of course, this is always true -- nobody can perfectly accurately predict the future -- but it used to be that politics was at least somewhat predictable. Polling would show what the voters were thinking, and it usually played out on Election Day.

That's not really true any more, or a lot less true than it used to be. Pollsters weren't very accurate in the past three election cycles, starting with Donald Trump's surprise win in 2016. There are lots of problems modern pollsters have had in trying to adapt and refine their methodologies, such as fewer and fewer people being willing to even talk to them. Cell phones have changed how pollsters cold-call people. Gathering data online is now a bigger part of the mix for many of them. These are fundamental shifts in the methodology of polling, and some of these shifts have been easier for them to adapt to than others.

Even so -- even taking all the modernizations that have happened into account -- there has been another big reason for the polls to be so inaccurate, and that is the question of who actually turns out to vote.

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President Joe Biden made an announcement today that few people probably watched, but which will nonetheless help tens of millions of American families out in the future. This is all part of an ongoing effort (the president's "Competition Council") to end abusive practices in pricing by corporations and other businesses. Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a new rule which will ban banks from charging two "junk fees" that are particularly insidious.

This is good news, and it is not an isolated effort. Biden also pointed to several other rules (which will all help consumers avoid being ripped off) that are in various stages of progress through the federal rule-making process. Of course, this news would have been better politically for Biden if he had been able to announce it a month or two ago, but no matter when it happens in the election cycle, this is still going to wind up saving consumers from hidden "junk" fees in the future. And politically, there is absolutely no one (who is not a bank executive) who is a fan of these abusive business practices. What Biden is attacking is impossible to politically defend, to put this another way.

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Those of us of a certain age will immediately recognize that title as being the catchphrase of Emily Litella. At the dawn of Saturday Night Live, Litella was a character (played by Gilda Radner) who would appear on the "Weekend Update" fake news segment of the show. She would rant and rave about something or another, while getting one or two key words absolutely and utterly wrong. In one memorable appearance, she took to task those who were complaining about "violins" on television. After working herself into an indignant frenzy, Chevy Chase would always gently correct her ("that was violence on television... not violins"), and she'd then abruptly reverse course -- always ending with a prim: "Never mind."

That's what sprang to mind today, when reading that a group of progressive House Democrats were withdrawing a letter they had publicly sent to President Joe Biden yesterday. The letter had urged Biden to enter into direct negotiations with Russia to try to get some sort of ceasefire in their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

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In a number of races in the midterm elections, an extraordinary thing is happening. Both Democrats and Republicans are backing candidates which are not from their own party. Republicans are endorsing Democrats. Democrats are endorsing Republicans or Independents who lean Republican. Each case, so far, is fairly individual. So this isn't yet a big trend or anything, but it is interesting nonetheless because it shows that in the right circumstances politicians still exist who are willing to put "country above party" -- in other words, supporting candidates they feel would be the best for America's future rather than blindly backing their own party's candidate.

There is a theme that runs through all these races, though. It might be called "protecting democracy," since in each of them there is at least one strong candidate who in one way or another has contributed to or since supported the undermining of our democratic system or our election systems. Or, to put it a different way, unquestioning followers of Donald Trump's Big Lie.

Some of these races have gotten more media attention than others. There are a lot of other stories vying for media attention in this midterm cycle, after all. But I thought it was worth taking a quick look at three of the most notable cases today.

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Next week, millions of students and former students are on track to have $10,000 to $20,000 of their student debt wiped off the books. Republicans are incensed and are desperately fighting to halt this debt forgiveness before it can happen. It is a perfect example of the ideological divide between the two parties -- one of whom is trying to help millions of people while the other fights against it tooth and nail.

This is a real success story for President Joe Biden, and it's going to happen right before the midterm elections, so hopefully it will motivate some young voters to get to the polls. Biden delayed announcing student loan forgiveness (which he had promised to do while campaigning) for over a year, but now the timing seems to be working rather well for him politically, we have to admit.

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I write this knowing this advice will come too late for many. We are currently in the midst of "debate season" where candidates for office face each other across a stage and trade political blows. Many such debates have already happened, which is what prompted me to write.

In these debates, Republicans have adopted a: "No I'm not, you are!" playground response on the issue of abortion. Republicans, obviously, are the ones trying to strip rights and freedoms away from women. This is, again pretty obviously, extreme. The only question Republicans really face about their abortion position is: "How much of an extremist are you?" Which Draconian laws do they support? Which exceptions would they allow to these Draconian laws?

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Republicans have always had a good chance of winning at least one house of Congress in the upcoming midterms. As things stand, it looks a lot more likely that they'll take control of the House, but they could also win the Senate. So what would they do if they did win control of either one or both houses? Probably not a whole lot, in terms of substantive legislative goals, since Joe Biden will still be sitting in the White House (with a veto pen at the ready). But Republicans aren't really campaigning on substantive legislative issues much anymore, because they have followed the lead of their base and are much more interested in style over substance. What we can definitely expect from a Republican Congress is spleen-venting, and lots of it.

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The left had the Mueller investigation. In response, in 2019 Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr launched a counter-investigation, led by Special Counsel John Durham, which was theoretically supposed to prove that the F.B.I. (and the entire "Deep State" working within the federal government to bring Trump down) had committed heinous crimes that were entirely political in nature. This was, according to Trump, all going to expose "the crime of the century." In August, Trump was still hopeful, sending out the message on social media: "The public is waiting 'with bated breath' for the Durham Report, which should reveal corruption at a level never seen before in our country." Here's a spoiler alert for Trump: It won't.

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