At the very foundation of society is the principle of reciprocity. It has proven time and time again that it is most impractical for government to reward all good behavior monetarily. People can be surprisingly good for the most part, then where would government get the money to pay them all? Rather government punishes those few instances of bad behavior. That still doesn't answer how to reward good behavior. As it turns out, good behavior is its own reward. It would not be possible for the police to prevent much crime without the cooperation of the larger part of society. They cannot be everywhere all the time. Good citizens with their on the spot detailed information help the police unravel events. Their reward for watching out for others is that others watch out for them, or reciprocity. It solves the difficult problem of setting any prices. Further information about reciprocity can be found here Paying money can invite enormous amounts of fraud.
It is actually both parties that have lost their understanding of reciprocity. Many Republicans, especially those who follow Trump, want no society applying pressures to regulate their behavior. Democrats, want to apply social pressure, but mostly want to get paid for it. Rather than balancing the books, Republicans often disable the system entirely. Rather than applying appropriate social pressures, Democrats destroy the books.
Complicating the misunderstanding of reciprocity is the unique history of the United States. The military of the United States is much larger in proportion to the rest of the population of the country than appears in other countries. It has in the past at least achieved rather popular goals. For several years from WWII on, the military of the United States defended the political right. If a person wanted to get paid for being "good" joining the military was an option. That changed in 1979 with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. People quite unfriendly to the United States were then on the right politically. When communism fell later, the United States' military lost all claim to the political right. That left no option of getting paid just for upholding the rules, just for reciprocating.
Since 1979 there is a clear almost straight line dramatic increase in the national debt as people struggle to get paid just for being "good" people. When measured in proportion to the GDP the debt is about as high as it was at the height of WWII spending. There is no good explanation for such debt at this time. There has been plenty of time to repay some of it, but that doesn't happen.
The television is not your friend. Most other media is not your friend. They do not help you understand the severity of the problem. There are even "economists" and "financial experts" in the media who will try to tell you there is no problem. In truth there would be no problem if the country showed any ability to start paying debt off. It has not though. The dramatic increase in the debt must eventually become a disaster unless the country learns to live within its means. The media is driven by audience size, not science, not economics, not good sense, just popularity. No one is paying journalists to tell the audience they're too stupid to vote.
The good news is that finally after forty years of such nonsense more and more people are waking up to the truth of the problem. The bad news is that there are obviously still too many who don't understand. The Republicans were first to attempt to reinvent themselves to solve the national debt. Ronald Reagan is of course most famous for saying, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." That has however often been misconstrued by those "Republicans" who want to ignore social pressures of any kind. To their credit though Republicans have never tried to "establish" (support with taxes) any church.
Because there obviously are so many people in the Republican Party who still do not understand the problem, the party as a group was not ready to fix anything. They elected Trump because they were not ready, and it has turned out to be a mistake. The Democrats seem poised to make a perhaps worse mistake because they are also obviously not ready. Rather than a solution to the real problem, Joe Biden is the epitome and embodiment of the problem. It is most unfair to blacks for him to attribute his success to blacks. People who support him appear oblivious of the real problem of lost reciprocity, the real problem of the national debt, his long record of complicity in massive debt increases and raising the cost of health care by increasing demand for it. His base followers are then people who are characteristically misinformed, not "blacks." Trump followers are also characteristically misinformed. There are plenty of characteristically misinformed white people as well as other skin colors.
When what the country desperately needs is a means to slow the flow of government spending, Biden doesn't seem have one. A few but not many of his supporters claim they are not the government money hungry monsters they appear to be. There really is no basis for such a claim as detailed here. Perhaps before November they will say they finally realize the Tea Party was right all along and government spending has to come way down. Time will tell. A side note here Donald Trump was not the choice of the Tea party. It had given up trying to change the Republican Party for the time, and considered Hillary too formidable.
Another stunning development in the breakdown of culture in the United States is the uproar over improprieties with Ukraine. Although it is evident that proper procedures were not followed by both parties, too many people are blind to that reality. They seem to actually believe the person in their party acted according to basic principles, and the person in the other party committed a crime. If there was such a widespread consensus that Biden's quid pro quo against Ukraine was proper why didn't someone other than Biden deliver the message? It shows a tragic lack of sophistication at best. Should such a party be returned to power? What if anything have they learned?
There is a desperate need to believe that government is doing fine and can help anyone establish what "good" people they are. It cannot, even if it were doing fine.
In their misguided attempts to get government money for about forty years now, people have neglected other disciplines. The Democrats are not scientific. There is a woefully inadequate understanding of science in both parties. The Republicans are not religious. There is a woefully inadequate understanding of religion in both parties. Neither party knows economics. Neither party understands the legal system and how it must apply the same to people in both political parties. Because they lack the skill to make persuasive arguments in any of those more scholarly disciplines, they run to the force of government to establish their unfounded opinions. They try to use elections as trials not realizing how very different those are.
There are of course other problems. Whether theaters should employ any heavy makeup ever, why exactly it was called the "Civil" war, and other issues have perhaps drawn too much attention away from the national debt.
It is not wise to make a prediction who will win. Neither party recognizes facts, just their own opinions. There are no rules. Each party allows its own members anything the other party nothing. It is not even possible to tell how close it will be, although close seems a bit more likely. Trump's advantage is that he understands his election was a mistake. He realizes he has not solved the problem of the national debt that the Tea Party correctly identified as the problem. Biden has a chance of winning if the large majority of voters continue to believe the things they have for forty years that are not true and are creating the problem.
There are indeed those "Christians" who are overly militaristic, recognize no well established order, and are sorely less educated. People who take orders without question often get by with little education. As detailed here that is not the whole problem. There is a reactionary group with its own unfounded faith, except in science, a science which is not capable of solving problems like wealth distribution or morality.
One hopes that should Biden be elected by mistake, as it appears now he will be, by a Democratic Party more incompetent than the Republican Party ever was, that he will understand that. Will he be able to control his mindless herd any better than Republicans have controlled theirs? Advice to voters, copy this article or a link to it. There is no need to endorse it. You can even complain about it. Just take friends aside and show it to them. Remember that Trump can still win. Prediction are still not wise, but Democrats did discard their several conservative candidates.