Pre Election Final Edition

Here in Oregon we have mail in ballots, so most of us have voted already, and a few other states have early voting days. But in just a few hours polls all over the country will open for the big one - Election Day.

Here are the closing statements, via final campaign ads, for each of the candidates running for President. Hillary Clinton:

The takeaway from Clinton's message: "Is America dark and divisive, or hopeful and inclusive? … This has to be our mission together, to give our kids, and every American, the chance to live up to their God given potential."

In sharp contrast is Donald Trump's final ad, appropriately titled "Argument for America":

As The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes,

"In the final hours, the mask came off.

On Friday, he [Trump] released a closing ad for his campaign repeating offending lines from that [October 13] speech, this time illustrated with images of prominent Jews: financier George Soros (accompanying the words “those who control the levers of power”), Fed Chair Janet Yellen (with the words “global special interests”) and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (following the “global power structure” quote). The ad shows Hillary Clinton and says she partners “with these people who don’t have your good in mind.”

Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody."

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota said the ad is aimed targeted “to a certain part of [Trump's] alt-right base. “When I saw the ad I thought that this was something of German Shepherd whistle, a dog whistle, to a certain group in the United States. I’m Jewish, so maybe I’m sensitive to it. It had an Elders of Zion feeling to it, an international banking conspiracy to it and then a number of Jews are pictured. It’s an appeal to some of the worst elements of our country."

Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in a statement released on Sunday, "Whether intentional or not, the images and rhetoric in this ad touch on subjects that anti-Semites have used for ages. This needs to stop. All candidates need to be especially responsible and bid for votes by offering sincere ideas and policy proposals, not by conjuring painful stereotypes and baseless conspiracy theories."

Dark and divisive to the very end. It's not surprising that Trump, whose first foray into politics was his embrace of the racist "Birther" delegitimization of our first African-American President, and began his campaign with explicit demonizing of Mexicans, should end his run with a call to action that is, at its core, Anti-Semitic.

But it seems to be the country we now live in - a very sizable and vocal portion of the electorate finds motivation in messages of fear, distrust, and division, while all the rest of us tend to look forward to the future with hope and optimism.

Here's what optimism looks like:

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Okay, here's a whole other view, from two of our favorite Brits. The Tale of Election 2016, with Benedict Cumberbatch and James Corden: