In Defense of 2016

On Thanksgiving Day, it seems appropriate for me to give some thanks. 
In his last episode of the season for his show "Last Week Tonight", the comedian and social commentator John Oliver dedicated his last segment to a condemnation of the year 2016.  It included a series of people, famous and not, directing profane insults toward 2016.

Now, let me say first that I am a John Oliver fan.  There are few that can write and deliver better-aimed streams of insults toward the deserving than he, and I do appreciate his sense of humor.  I paid good money to see him ring in this new year in a Chicago theater.  I do want to differ with him in his characterization of the current year, though.

Yes, this is what they refer to as an "Election Year", in the US anyway, and this year's  model was a disappointment--worse, a massive error of historic proportions, an epic failure, a sin against history and against all of humanity.  So, yeah, bad outcome, but certainly an entertaining spectacle, a three-ring circus (the two party primary contests, and the general election) generally worth the price of admission--a price that seems to have been entirely charged for future payment.

It was also a Leap Year--love that extra day!--and a year of the summer Olympiad.  Oliver put down the Rio Olympics in his excoriation of the year, but I disagree:  the coverage here in the US may have been the usual narrow-cast, parochial, patriotic commercialized rot, but the competition itself was outstanding, and the hosts did not embarrass themselves at all.  Not even when Ryan Lochte chose to slander them to try to excuse his juvenile hijinks.

A few more positives from sport:  Chicago and Cleveland each had major sports triumphs to celebrate:  the Cubs' first World Series victory in 108 years, and Cleveland's first major sports championship in any sport in something like 50.  Both championships were exciting comebacks by the winning team after coming back from 3-1 behind in full, seven-game series ending in a thrilling finale. There was also one of the most dramatic finishes in NCAA basketball history, won by Villanova with a buzzer-beating three-point shot (by Kris Jenkins).

Some wonderful people passed on from this life in 2016, particularly in music  and arts--we have chronicled a few (some additional ones noted below); however, we have their contributions to our civilization which survive them.  "Ars longa, vita brevis," that quote, attributed to Hippocrates, is appropriate.

Finally, I will point out that the year 2016 should be one entirely governed (in the US) by President Barack Obama.  This will surely be the last year we will be able to say that.  He has been one of the best; we will rarely, if ever, see his like in the office again.  It may well be that we--even the deluded Trump voters, and the skeptic and constant complainer John Oliver--will all look back at 2016 as one of the good years.

Some Exits, Hasty and Not

I love you in a place where there's no space or time
I love you for my life
You're a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song to you
 --Leon Russell "A Song For You"

A bit of a rush for the exit around Election Day--I'm sure it's just a coincidence:
Leon Russell (died Nov. 13) was a musician with a unique talent and character, most famously one of the late '60's touring rock bunch fronted by Joe Cocker called Mad Dogs and Englishmen. He was in the first group, being from Oklahoma originally.  A songwriter with a generous spirit, he played piano and sang with a charming drawl.  His was the second major rock concert I ever saw (after Steppenwolf, in 1970).
Leonard Cohen (Nov. 7)-- A particularly gifted songwriter, his performances often disguised his limited vocal ability with beautiful arrangements and sidepeople.  Many of his songs were best performed by others, but he ranks with Dylan and a few others for the quality of his lyrics in the field of "popular" music.
Pete Burns  (Oct. 23) --  Age 57, he was the writer and creator of the 1984 new wave/disco hit
"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", with a group called Dead or Alive.  There have been many remakes.
Mose Allison (Nov. 15) - Speaking of many remakes, there are few songs that have been covered more than Allison's "Parchman Farm", a classic rock favorite referring to the Mississippi penitentiary near his hometown.
Gwen Ifill (Nov. 14) - This spectacularly good-natured, fair-minded journalist's death came as a complete surprise to me.  She hosted "Washington Week" for many years and PBS' high-quality "News Hour" for a recent few.  A great loss to the field, and to us who depend upon journalism for information.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Oct. 13) - On the other extreme, the last "King of Siam" was known to be dying for a decade or more.  He reached age 88 and served for 70 years, the longest in the history of Thai kings. The reverence the Thai people had for him was extraordinary--though mandated by law, it was more than that.
Tom Hayden (Oct. 23) - one of the original '60's radicals, he was a founder of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) in the early '60's, then one of the defendants in the so-called Chicago 7 trial after the 1968 convention and police riot (charged with inciting violence, but acquitted)).  In his later life he was married to Jane Fonda (for 18 years--a record?), and made a couple of bids at elective office.
Janet Reno (Nov. 7) - She was the Attorney General for two full terms under Bill Clinton;.  She is remembered for ordering the siege on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, which turned out rather badly.  She was responsible for the Federal prosecutions of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.  This was domestic terrorism before Al Qaeda's heyday.

Lessons Learned/ Escape Plans

It's All Bad
When I am king you will be first against the wall 
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
--Radiohead, Paranoid Android 

It is difficult for me to express the strength of my feelings about this disastrous electoral result from last week. We have had nights of severe disappointment before:  Nixon '68, Nixon '72, Reagan '80, Reagan '84, Bush '00, Bush '04, but this is worse than any one of them.  Trump combines the worst characteristics of each Republican protagonist--Nixon's paranoia, profanity, ethical shortcomings, and closet bigotry; Reagan's opportunism and unchallenged appeal based on celebrity; Dubya's blissful ignorance and disinterest in detail or governing.  What makes the disappointment even more extreme was the widespread expectation, near universal, that this year's election, though close, was more likely to turn out favorably.

Of those (miserable) memories, I would select 1968's election as the one most resembling 2016's. Passions ran similarly high all the way through the campaign that year.  Other shared characteristics include the dissatisfaction with both the major party nominees, a significant third-party effort,  appeal to "law 'n order", and the Republicans' rallying around the notion of challenge to a  liberal Democratic administration. As in 1968, the popular vote ended in a photo finish, though the Republicans had a more decisive Electoral College win decided late on Election Night.

In spirit Trump might wish for a Nixonian type of administration--like Nixon, his ideology is flexible, and he takes more interest in the personal struggle for power and prestige.  His quotations of alt-right dogma have sounded more like the verbal equivalent of red meat for the rabid dogs than real conviction.   Like Nixon, he seems to long for the dramatic, surprise result (and he got one Election Night). If he wanted to, Trump could immediately change the dynamic of the relationship with the opposition by asking Mitch McConnell to consider the highly-qualified moderate President Obama proposed for the Supreme Court vacancy, Merrick Garland. Unfortunately, he seems to be painting himself into a policy corner in which he will only hear the extremists like Steve "Race" Bannon,  Jeff "Beauregard" Sessions, Lt. General Michael "Wacko" Flynn, and the sycophantic shills and trained liars like Reince "Rancid Priapus" Priebus and Kellyanne Conway (see this takedown of her, posted by a good friend).

Given the advice he is choosing to surround himself with (we can disregard as feints the invitations to the likes of Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley), it is hard to imagine anything positive coming out of Trump's administration.  It may be worth the Democrats' time to participate in the negotiations on topics like tax reform or infrastructure investment, or electoral reforms (I haven't heard anything about that since the election), but we should expect that the ultimate proposals will not be accepable. I would humbly suggest that Trump consult Romney about what changes to "Obamacare" might make sense from the Governor's point of view, since the reform could equally be called "Romneycare" (though he said he would have done it differently), rather than wasting Romney's time talking to him about a Cabinet position offer that will not be forthcoming.

What to do Now?
Greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'Cause we're comin' for ya.......
So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
--Bright Eyes, "Landlocked Blues"

I've moved fairly quickly through the stages of coming to terms with grief:  denial lasted only a dozen hours or so that awful night; anger (the second) was definitely present; I've been through bargaining (I was entertaining the thought that Trump might have a plane crash or something and we could live with Pence, who is at least a known quantity); depression was threatening me but a luxury I cannot afford, and now I accept that Trump as President does seem to be unavoidable. 

Yes, I briefly considered the extreme measure of quitting my job on Jan. 21 and heading for some other, less benighted land  (call it "Denial of Service" to Trump's project).  Italy, naturally, came to mind--it has its downside, but also a superior quality of life.  I recall my analysis, made back in the '80's, that Mauritius (look it up--middle of the Indian Ocean) would be the last major settled place to receive the radioactive cloud if the general nuclear annihilation of the Northern Hemisphere comes to pass.  But who really wants to be On the Beach watching it come in?  I don't. Ultimately, I am an American born and bred and will never be anything else, much as I might want to transcend my humble, parochial origins. 

So, I will stay and try to Keep America Great (or at least some of it, somewhat great), a defensive posture to be sure, but all that is left to one whose opinion "is of no consequence at all" (see the epigraph under this post's headline).  What does that mean, to me?  Frankly, I am not going to get too hung up about Trump's domestic agenda, except when it comes to inhumane  proposals or offenses against our liberty.  There is a basic economic scenario that I expect from this four year period:  irrational exuberance, deficit-expanding spending and tax cuts, inflation, and economic recoil--either a tightening of rates leading to recession, or an accelerating inflation cycle.   Either should lead to a definitive defeat of this President, or his party's successor as candidate, in 2020, and we should make that an absolute priority.  Trump has control of Congress, he will have the Supreme Court, and whatever he works out with Paul Ryan will be hard to prevent--at least, temporarily. 

The set of issues which concerns me the most and will bring the most forceful actions from me are those which deal with America's relation with the rest of humanity.  They (the rest of the world, with the exception of a couple of other demagogic autocrats) are all alarmed, confused, uncomprehending (much as many of us here are).  First item to mention is that Trump has made statements saying he intended to go back on the US' commitments to the Paris accords on reducing greenhouse gases and limiting the damage caused by climate change.  This myopic failure has not yet come to pass and must be blocked.

Alongside that is the urgency of trying to prevent Trump's immaturity, ignorance, and wrongheadedness on foreign relations from creating a massive international disaster.  He will face pressures to renege on the international agreement which has stopped Iran from moving forward on its nuclear program toward possibly developing a weapon; this must not happen.  He seems to think he can play footsie with President Putin of Russia.  I will say this:  the leaders of Iran and Russia are not rubes that he can gull; they are sophisticated, ruthless survivors of brutal environments who will look for soft spots and exploit them--this can cause an overreaction which could be tragic.  

A professor at the University of Chicago business school, Luigi Zingales, posted an excellent article in the Times Friday on "The Right Way to Resist Trump".  Zingales drew upon his observations from the political struggles against Italy's version of Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, who combined elements of nationalist demagoguery, celebrity status, mastery of media, and ethical compromise which would be very familiar to watchers of the Drumpfenphenomenon.  (Trump also shows some elements of a previous Italian leader, Benito Mussolini.)  What Zingales found was that the successful challengers against Berlusconi, over his 20-odd years of political prominence, treated him as just a normal political opponent, not someone to be demonized.  (The names of the leaders were Romano Prodi and Matteo Renzi, both people with formidable intellects and the confidence to rise above Berlusconi's bluster.) 

A few more points about what to do: 

• The objective is 2020.  We can see right now that the elections in 2018 are going to be a disaster:  there are a number of Democratic-held Senate seats which will be at great risk; the party is certain to have a net loss of seats, and a 8-seat gain, giving the Republicans a filibuster-proof supermajority, is not impossible.  Democrats must do what they can to minimize the coming short-term disaster by: 
• Building a 50-state strategy (or maybe 40 states, there might be about 10, in the upper Rockies, deep South, and Great Plains, for which efforts are clearly going to be futile); 
• Reorganizing for success.  I support Keith Ellison's candidacy for head of the Democratic National Committee; I think he's the right person.  I heard him this morning on the topic, and he seems to have read Zingales' article. 
• Give Trump enough rope.  As I said above, his domestic program will lead to disaster and failure, and there will be no way for us to stop it.  When it comes to ethics and self-dealing, Trump is blind and foolish--I predict that this area will be his downfall.  We will let him set his own rules there, and then he will ruin his own cause (as was the case with Nixon).  

As for me, my checkbook is closed for political contributions, for the time being.  Although there were a few Congressional candidates who I supported and who won close races, there were a lot more disappointments (Feingold, Clinton, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors' Association).  I particularly was disappointed in PAC's performance, and especially the End Citizens United group, which abandoned their core position in favor of being an ineffective Clinton cheerleader.  If we want to end Citizens United, we will need to get Republican politicians to understand (or to agree publicly) that the system works against them, and their constituents, too.  (The same goes for the Electoral College, a longtime personal bugaboo.)  I will only give to groups that explicitly and exclusively will use the money to develop grassroots organizations across all the country, and nothing that may or will go to TV ads. 

Update-- A couple more quick lessons learned:   
 Dumb it Down.  It has been demonstrated that any thought above an 8th-grade level of reading is wasted effort, politically.  The 10-point program is derided, but largely because it's too many points, and not enough of them tend to be completed.  No more than five; probably three is best. And no big words. 

And, closely related, Get some Starpower Candidates.  Think of it:  Has there ever been an American celebrity running for a major office who has not won? (I am pointedly excluding intellectuals.)  Actors are OK, but that's not the only kind.  Sonny Bono, Darryl Hall (of Hall and Oates), Jesse Ventura--and of course, Reagan, Trump, Al Franken, Arnold Schwarzenegger.   Here are some thoughts:  Tom Hanks.  Bruce Springsteen. Robert Redford.  Leo DiCaprio. Van Jones, or Anderson Cooper, or Megyn Kelly!  There is no substitute for name recognition, and as we are seeing now, particularly if that comes from something other than association with political activity.  (I'm not talking about Kanye West, who is a blockhead.)

Deplorable

adjective - lamentable; deserving strong condemnation..  synonyms:  disgraceful, shameful, dishonorable, unworthy, inexcusable, unpardonable, unforgivable. 

"lamentable" is the first definition in Merriam-Webster; I believe that would be because it is the original meaning of the word. The rest of it--the more judgmental meaning, and the synonyms--is the more modern usage, as provided by Google.  That word--both definitions--is the perfect one to describe the result of the 2016 Presidential election.  Hillary Clinton didn't have it right when she said that half of Trump's supporters were a "basket of deplorables".  Deplorable is an adjective; describing a person as "a deplorable" is incorrect.  I don't believe that people are deplorable, though some of their opinions and actions may be.

That the result itself is deplorable I think is self-evident--if not, I will not explain it here, but refer you to my previous post, in which I listed the probable consequences of a Trump victory.  The causes are many
--bad tactical decisions by the Clinton campaign on the use of their many resources;
--FBI Director James Comey's blundering and harmful messages on the Weiner laptop emails (which slowed Clinton's momentum, probably not changing many minds but suppressing some turnout among some of her likely supporters);
--the randomness of decision by Electoral College (a switch of some 0.05% of the national vote in three states would've changed the results);
--the lack of focus on change initiatives from the candidate herself;

--and yes, it is possible, though unprovable, that Bernie Sanders might have done better against Trump, though the die had already been cast for Clinton by the time Trump locked up his nomination.

The real blame for the result belongs entirely on those people who voted for Donald Trump. They should have known better.

I'm not talking about the personal peccadilloes involved, in this era of indiscretions--I suppose we can cancel the misdeeds of Trump against those of Bill Clinton (if they are at all relevant to Hillary's candidacy) or the BFD issue of Hillary's choice of server for her emails-- I never cared much about these, and apparently the supposed moral conservatives didn't, mind much, either.  With regard to my own insistence that it is foreign and military policy that matters in a President, it was no contest (Clinton) but not critical; to the extent Trump's actual positions are known, they don't differ much from Clinton's (except for questions like sucking up to Putin, supporting our allies, or abrogating our treaties and international agreements).

Even if one focuses on the domestic issues that people of both parties would have cited as being important, such as jobs, taxes, education, and entitlement programs, Clinton's positions were clearly articulated, grounded in reality, and generally ignored; Trump's were vague and unrealistic. Try going to his website and look for something about Medicare or Social Security--you will find nothing, only his blather about "Obamacare", his positions on which are rapidly evolving to something not appreciably different from Clinton's "enhance and improve" stance.   But enough about that--there is plenty of evidence that voters did not know the candidates' positions on these issues, nor care about them, nor was there more than a smattering of attention to them in the media's coverage of the campaign.

What I am talking about is the reasons people give for their votes for Trump, a subject which is getting excessive attention now that it is too late to remedy those fatal errors.  Voters' decisions are typically emotional ones, and it is there that I am most amazed.  Why they would choose to put their trust in a person who continually lied (or misstated facts, if that is something different), who has a long history of defrauding his employees, customers, contractors, business partners, and investors, I will never know or understand the answer.

The reason often cited that he is "one of them" does not hold water. He is even more an elitist than the Clintons, and his interests are those of the moneyed class.  Far from being a press-the-flesh politician (or even salesman) he actually has an aversion (well-hidden) to physical contact with the proletariat.  Although he is an outsider to Washington politics, he is very much an insider in the larger game of the American economy, and as an agent of change, there is a lot of bluster, very little beef:  what is new about tax cuts for the rich?  Where is the evidence that immigration is harming our economy or security?  There is this "tribal" theory of voting, but it hardly explains to me the 30% of Hispanics and 50% of white women who voted for this anti-Hispanic misogynist.  Some seer on one of this morning's talking heads shows said that the election was the 21st century intruding on our politics; I think it was the opposite--an intrusion of mid-20th century politics.

There is one group I think can be readily identified as the core Trump supporter:  the older, white, working-class males without a college degree.  They have been Trump's most consistent source of support throughout, and they turned out in unprecedented numbers for him on Election Day.  Though they don't appear to be appreciably poorer than average, there is a consistent thread of resentment, a claim that they are not getting their fair share anymore, and that some "others" are getting it instead.  No need to call people names, but it is this nativist, nostalgic, willing suspension of disbelief in this fraudulent con artist which is at the heart of this terrifically close, terrifying and disheartening result.

Well, I can't complain that the night lacked drama, though it was a slow-moving one.  Let's call Part I of our drama done; Part 2 will be "The Donald Trump Era and the Decline/Rebirth of the American Empire", presumably beginning January 20 and ending four years later.

Enough rant.  I will proceed immediately to another post, with lessons learned and escape plans, as promised.

Election Night Live blog

11:20 p.m. It's not over, but I can't continue blogging right now. Michigan is now looking possible; Wisconsin does not look good.  Clinton is going to need Nevada, New Hampshire, and maybe one of those Maine or Nebraska districts. 

10:45 p.m.  Very strong trend for Trump on Predictit.org, now up to around 80%, depending on the market.  The markets are moving very quickly.  It's too late to sell out any positions, I'm going to hold on and hope Michigan turns.  Or that Arizona, which no one is yet mentioning, becomes an upset the other way.  I am hearing a lot of rationalizations, rather than panic, from a journalistic community that is absorbing a possible shocker.   New York Times is expecting Pennsylvania to end up extremely close.  I think it's time for another drink (my third).

10:30 p.m.  I see Wisconsin ultimately being a Clinton win, but Michigan is looking very bad.  Also North Carolina. New Hampshire is basically tied; on Maine 2nd Congressional District I have not seen any results.  Right now I am rooting for Evan McMullin in Utah!

In the Senate, it is looking good for McGinty in PA, not so good (so far) for Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, which would be an unmitigated disaster.  New Hampshire's Senate race is, like the Presidential one there, a toss-up.  Nevada not yet reporting.  Not looking good for Democratic control of the Senate, either.


10:00 p.m. Michigan is appearing as the possible death blow to Clinton, with Florida and Ohio seemingly out of reach and North Carolina unfavorable. Predictit.org is now projecting 276 Electoral votes for Trump, but 16 of those are Michigan's.
The possibility to me is something that Nate Silver discounted:  Clinton winning the popular vote, but Trump winning the electoral vote because of close wins in some large Electoral College states.

On CNN they are talking about that missing thing that the modelers and pollsters missed, they don't know what to call it.  I call it the "David Duke Effect"--people who are getting their revenge by voting for Trump,, though they may have pretended otherwise.

9:25 p.m. WTF?  A bit of a low point, with Clinton showing some trouble in Michigan, Virginia, and with Florida and Ohio getting away from her.  If she loses Michigan, even North Carolina (still totally up for grabs) would not protect her.  I feel this may be her low point on the night.  Let's hope so--after an early strong start, my Predictit account is bleeding money.

As I thought, it looks like a late night.

9:05 p.m  (EST). - No news to report so far in the Presidential contest.  Florida, North Carolina are as close as expected; Ohio and Virginia maybe a bit closer.
The Senate isn't moving too well in the Democrats' direction, with disappointing results for Evan Bayh in Indiana and against Marco Rubio in Florida.  The other Eastern states with competitive races (NH, NC, WI, MO) have not been called, though most of the attention is still on the Presidential race.
Only real news is strong turnout for both the red and blue districts/states.  This probably means less ticket-splitting, as regards the Senate, which is not so good for Democrats' chances to regain control.
One good thing NBC had was a projection of the House--presumably on the strength of exit polls (generic).  They are projecting 235-200, which would be a gain of 12 for the Democrats.  Probably a 3-5 seat plus or minus.
I didn't get the nap I had proposed (I focused on getting some takeout), but the 7-9 p.m. was, in fact, a news dead zone.

Election Eve Guide to Sleeping Through Election Night

I want to keep this somewhat short so I can get some sleep tonight, as it may be hard to find tomorrow night. Here are a couple of guides tomorrow night that might help you catch a few moments of shut-eye during the evening, even if--as I am fairly certain will be the case--it goes very late.

When to Start --There is something to say for the argument to take a nap early, assuming your nerves will allow it.  There will be a period from about 6 to 8 p.m. during which there will be little in the way of solid returns, the networks will talk about certain characteristics in their exit polls but not the results themselves, and there will be a lot of talk about what to expect, what are the themes, etc., none of which will be very surprising.

The first first two states to report in something like full measure will be Indiana and Kentucky, both of which will be easy Trump wins.  Kentucky will be the first state in history to be called for Donald Trump in a general election, a dishonor for my native birth state.  There will be a couple points of interest in Indiana; the main one is the race for the Senate seat which Evan Bayh is trying to reclaim. He joined the race late, was favored to win, but has been damaged by the charge of being an outsider, and now is perceived from recent polling to be trailing narrowly.  If Bayh can win his race, the Democrats' chances to regain control of the Senate move from likely to highly probable, though that may take some hours to emerge.  The other is the governor's race which I interests me most, in which Democrat John Gregg is a slight favorite to take the chair being vacated by Mike Pence.

Virginia (closing 7 p.m.) will be the first good indication of the nature of the Presidential race.  Hillary Clinton is favored to win by about 5% there, and the votes should come in fairly quickly.  If she wins narrowly, or if the race is not called within an hour or two, that will be an indicator of possibly a bad night for Clinton (much worse, of course, if she doesn't win it--that would be disastrous).  So, you could tune in at 8 and see how it looks.

The Game is Underway - It gets faster and is fully engaged after 8, when the returns from both time zones begin to report for the critical state of Florida (there will be some partial, indeterminate results in the hour before). Florida is not just a bellwether, though; it is the state which will tip the balance, the whole race in a nutshell, where most of the themes will be tested--turnout and the extent of Trump support among poor whites, turnout of African Americans, and, above all, the extent to which Latinos will turn out, one-sidedly, against Trump.  We can expect the statewide outcome to be close enough that it will take a couple of hours to see who is likely to win it.  If it's Clinton, it will not be such a late night for the Presidential race; if it's tied or Trump winning, we will have to stay tuned.

Ohio and North Carolina will close their polls at 7:30, but we should not expect either of those states to resolve quickly. In the case of Ohio, unusually, it does not appear to be critical.  Trump is perceived to be leading, though the gap may be narrowing, but his victory there does not presage Electoral College success.  North Carolina's demographics are shifting and becoming more diverse; it's actually one of the states where the Latino vote will be critical, but I have learned not to trust the outcomes from there.

The next main tests will be Pennsylvania and Michigan, both of which will have their polls close at 8 p.m. I expect there will be huge lines in both states, heavily contested but without significant early voting, and they will necessitate the polls staying open in some locations, so the returns may be delayed.  In any case, PA and MI will test whether Trump has a real chance to pull off a major upset--if he can win either, the electoral map for Clinton will be dramatically more challenging.

Two Somewhat Risky Approaches - One could actually suggest extending the early-evening nap until 9:30 or even 10, with the expectation that VA, PA, and MI will go according to form,that  NC, OH, and FL will not be decided early, and one can be fairly certain that the race can not officially be called until 11 p.m. Eastern, when the polls close in California.  The following hour--between 11 and 12--will probably be the climax,, when the close Eastern time zone states will finally resolve.  There is a bit of a risk, though, that the dominoes could fall faster and you could miss the decisive moments when the outcome will be indicated.

A different approach would be to skip the nervous hours, between 8 and 10, when things may unfold somewhat predictably but also slowly.  Get those early indications before 8, and decide whther to resume viewing at 10:30 or 11 for the climax and the call, or if it looks bad early for the Democrats, set the alarm for midnight--that is probably the earliest that a Trump victory, a dead heat-type outcome, or a contested outcome could fully emerge.

Predictit.org Status and Final Predictions
In the past 48 hours, as Clinton's poll numbers stabilized, then improved (helped by FBI Director Comey's announcement that the Weiner laptop was, investigatorially speaking, a big nothingburger), the uncertainty in the betting markets has reduced dramatically.  The odds for most of the Electoral votes--with the exceptions of  Maine's 2nd Congressional District, NC, OH, and FL, in rough order from closest to a pure toss-up--have moved toward the extremes.  Those positions for the Democrats at 15% in Texas or 25% in PA have been closed out.

I have done the same, as I have unwound some of my perfectly hedged positions, like I had in Georgia, Iowa, and Nevada, shifting it toward the favorite.  I have always favored the Democrats in NH, PA, VA, and the upper Midwest states, even in the tough times.  I have moved out of most of my true underdog positions (I have some small ones on Democrats in Montana, the Indiana and Florida Senate races).  I still am hedged on the big 3, FL, NC, and OH, which will allow me to move toward one side or the other if I am so inclined, and the Nevada and New Hampshire Senate races.

Some of the more interesting markets are on some "point spread" type bets--on 1) the Electoral votes for the winner, 2) the margin of victory on the popular vote, and on 3) the final number of Republican Senate seats and on 4) the number (ranged) of Republican House seats.  My positions on each are as follows:

1.   spread somewhat evenly on four ranges between 280 and 359 Electoral votes  (and no on the other ranges); 
2.   evenly between 2-4% and 4-6% (holding to my original prediction of a 3.9% margin, the same that Obama had over Romney in 2012;
3.   49 or less Republican seats (and a smaller bet on 50); and 
4.   218-230 Republican seats (231-240 is the favored position). 

A late, welcome addition to the predictit.org is their Election Map, showing where the
markets are by state, color-coded for the strength of sentiment.  It is updated continuously, or at least has been recently.  It is currently showing 307-215 for Clinton, with ME-2 and NC classified as toss-ups.  Larry Sabato's respected political science blog had much the same, 322-216 with NC to Clinton and ME-2 to the Republicans.

As for me, I am stubbornly sticking with most of my Sept. 11 predictions.  A gain of five Senate seats (WI, IL, NH, PA, and IN, holding NV narrowly), a 3.9% popular vote margin for Clinton (though the 3rd-party vote has dropped more than I expected), but a decrease in the final Electoral Vote count for Clinton from 296 to 278 (the difference being Ohio's 18).  In other words, Obama's 2012 332 votes, minus Florida, Iowa, Maine's 2nd, and Ohio.

In this scenario, a late-night nail-biter, New Hampshire and Nevada become critical for Clinton to hold, above and beyond the states like WI, MI, PA, VA, and CO.  I am nervously expecting all of those to be held.  I have only hope, but little expectation, for Democratic wins in MO and NC, despite strong campaigns against incumbents and regret that the opportunity to defeat Marco Rubio in the FL Senate race seems unlikely to succeed.

Election Day Update:  I neglected to mention the House of Representatives.  My bet on 218-230 Republican seats was primarily because I liked the price; the median estimate is more like 235.  The two contests I will be looking for are, first:  Illinois-10, a third-time-around matchup in the suburbs (where I have my "principal", though not "permanent", residence).  Democrat Schneider won it in 2012, "Republican" Dold won it from him in 2014, and this year Dold, though nominated by his party, is running essentially as an independent.  The other is California-25, where a Democrat named "Colonel Doug Applegate" has a chance to knock off the odious Darrell Issa.  That one I will have to research the next day to find out what happened.

I plan to blog live tomorrow for at least some of the evening (no funny stuff with font size this time, sorry about that), and then the next day to review lessons learned, if Hillary wins, and escape plans if she should lose.