ELECTION 2020 IS OVER (IF YOU WANT IT)
One of the strange hallmarks of US elections is that it’s over when the TV news channels say it is - which is not the same as when all the votes have been counted. Officially, at least, Joe Biden hasn’t won just yet. And of course Trump is going to contest this with every lawyer he can throw at it.
But close enough.
I’ll have more to say later once things start to gel. Meanwhile:
PART 1: INITIAL THOUGHTS
1. Thank Christ that’s over.
2. I use the word “over” loosely - for one thing, Trump is still POTUS for the next two months and God knows what he’s going to do between now and then.
3. More importantly (and a number of people have also pointed this out), we have to live with the fact that after four years of this absolute racist corrupt trash fire of a presidency, over 70 million people (almost 48% of the electorate) said, “Yes, give us more of that.” As I said earlier, the reasons vary and are not as ideological as you may think. But the fact remains that these people are not going to magically turn back into Reagan conservatives - not with the current meme that the election was rigged, and not with the whole Trump family blustering away on Twitter.
4. This has made a lot of liberals very sad - and understandably so. Many of them seemed convinced that Trump would not only lose, but would get creamed to the point of humiliation as America utterly rejected his toxic brand. That clearly did not happen - Biden barely pulled this off. What’s even more sad is that the GOP still controls the Senate - which in turn means that Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and John Cornyn are still Senators. Which doesn't seem fair at all.
5. In fact, it's worth widening the scope to understand just what has happened here, and why there is no going back to business as usual.
Zeynep Tufekci sums it up brilliantly here, but the general takeaway is that the GOP is now the MAGA Party, who may have lost the White House barely) but kept the Senate (barely), and made gains both in the House and at state level. They have been exploiting populist anger to establish authoritarian rule long before Trump, with the goal of propping up a strongman who would ensure they keep power forever within democratic trappings a’la Putin, Erdogan, etc. It was their bad luck that a buffoon like Trump ended up the first beneficiary of all that work - but their next POTUS candidate is likely to be someone smarter who actually wants to be POTUS and knows how to play the political game, which will make him a lot harder to defeat than Trump (and again, Trump almost won).
6. Which might make Joe’s “let’s give each other a chance” comment to Trump voters in his victory speech seem naïve or disingenuous. And sure, probably, in the sense that most GOP voters, politicians and pundits are probably more interested in petty revenge than reconciliation. (Meanwhile, I’m sure plenty of liberals will find it hard to reconcile with a party that openly embraced white supremacy, homophobia, etc -and justifiably so.)
But I think it was important for Joe to say that - partly because tactically it puts the ball in their court, and partly because sociopolitical division and systemic racism are major problems that we need to address now. Yes, it will take a long, long time to resolve - it’s not something you fix with a new POTUS. But you have to start somewhere. And it sure won't start with Biden telling Trump voters to get fucked and they're all officially canceled as of now.
7. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that polling forecasts suck and we probably need to stop using them to treat the election like the world’s biggest horse race.
PART 2: SOME GOOD THINGS (APART FROM TRUMP LOSING)
1. A black woman is Vice President. In fact, it seems people are more stoked about Kamala Harris than they are about Biden. And, you know, I can’t blame them. I mean, of the two, only one made my Top 3 Choices in the primaries. And Joe wasn’t one of them.
2. The Squad is still in effect. Hurrah!
3. Election Day violence was mercifully minimal, and - at least so far - the pro-Trump protests haven’t resulted in anyone getting murdered. May it continue to be so, because we’re about to hit the Anger Stage of grief.
4. Everyone at Fox News seems very, very sad. Poor lambs.
5. SCOTUS isn’t likely to save Trump.
6. The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference was of course perfect. The going theory is that Trump tweeted the press conference before they had confirmed the hotel booking, and when the Four Seasons said “Forget it”, his team booked anything named Four Seasons so as not to contradict Glorious Leader. Which is very North Korea.
Which is why my own take is that they probably did try to book another hotel, but no hotel would take them.
Whatever the case, you couldn’t ask for a more fitting finale to this reality show.
Even RTHK in Hong Kong took notice:
Well played, RTHK. Well played.
Next,
This is dF
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