(Photo: AP/Jim Mone) A voter passes a sign in Minneapolis on September 23, 2016. I t’s during the homestretch of campaigns that political parties often reveal their deepest identities, and that’s never been truer than it is this year. What really distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans this fall isn’t their ideologies, their platforms, or even their candidates, though there’s contrast aplenty in each of those. What really distinguishes the two parties is what they’re actually doing in the campaign’s final weeks. The Democrats are trying to get out the vote. The Republicans are trying to suppress it. To be sure, Republicans have something of an operation to turn out their vote, but Donald Trump has failed to focus on building it—raising the funds, hiring the managers, directing his zealots to pound the pavement. Instead, he’s all but directed his zealots to pound black and Latino voters at the polls, should they have the presumption to show up to vote. But we shouldn’t blame...

AP Photo/John Locher Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Sunday, October 9, 2016. T his October, Turner Classic Movies—the only television station I watch with some frequency—is devoting its Sunday evenings to old Frankenstein films. When last night’s Clinton-Trump debate was done, I switched to TCM, which was in the last half hour of The House of Frankenstein , and suddenly, a question lurking in the back of my mind as I’d watched the debate— who does Donald Trump remind me of? —found its answer. Because, let’s face it: Trump is looking progressively weirder as the campaign drags on. Up until now, his affect has been more Mussolini than anyone else: upraised chin (so as to obscure any senior sag), sneering mouth, increasingly rigid facial and body motion. But last night, as he stalked around the stage, his face a scowling rectangle, his hair...