And There was Dancing in the Streets!

 

From line dancing on Black Lives Matter Plaza in front of the White House, street drum beats in Philadelphia, Rainbow flags in San Francisco, soap bubble blowing in Atlanta and car horns tooting everywhere, America celebrated on Saturday when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the winners of the 2020 Presidential election. Saturday evening both Biden and Harris gave speeches urging a coming together of both sides of the electorate. They reached out and were upbeat in their messages. Their speeches were attended by an audience seated in their cars and trucks whose horns were tooted loudly in approval. The evening’s celebrations were followed by fireworks. There was joy in these celebrations as the country seemed to demonstrate that it felt that it was now safe to let out a long-held collective breath, laugh and cheer!  Women cheered the first woman and woman of color ever elected to national office. Signs were waved with sayings such as “black votes matter”, “black voters matter”, “My VP looks like me”! Congratulations poured in from across the world as other cities also celebrated. In Paris and Germany church bells rang as Europeans celebrated the coming of a new resident of the White House while, in Edinburgh and London fireworks lit the skies and citizens poured into the streets.

These outpourings were reminiscent of the happy scene from the Wizard of Oz when the Munchkins danced around the body of the Wicked Witch of the East who had been felled by a flying house. Only this time there is no flying house and the president is very much alive. In fact, he has not conceded to Joe Biden and intends to ask for recounts in several states.  Politico is reporting that the president does not plan to invite Biden to the White House for a congratulatory visit, nor attend the inauguration in January. This certainly not only indicates the pouting of a poor loser, but a break with the peaceful and polite transitions which underpin our usual election processes.  He held a strange press conference Thursday evening where he slammed the election process, democracy,  and vote counts. MSNBC cut away from this press conference after noting that that statement and other claims about vote rigging which were being made were false. He is also claiming that it was illegal to continue to count ballots arriving after election day (even if properly postmarked) or to continue to count absentee ballots which came in early. Several lawsuits claiming fraud had been dismissed even as more were being filed by his campaign. The candidate and the campaign encouraged his voters to show up at counting centers and monitor the counts.  Conservative websites and talk shows also told supporters to show up.  Many did just that in Arizona. They came armed and in force and stood outside counting centers in attempts at intimidation.  Fake videos and “Stop the Steal” campaigns claiming evidence of burning of ballots, (when cover sheets were actually being destroyed) were being shared by conspiracy supporters. On Sunday the campaign also announced plans to hold rallies in states where they are challenging the election results; in short, even though he has lost the electoral college and the popular vote, the president is still convinced that he has won. Mathematically, the pundits indicate that there is no way that any of the selected state recounts would change the preliminary results. As of Sunday evening, only two Republican Senators - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah - have congratulated President-elect Biden. Former President George Bush, also a Republican, did call to offer his best wishes, while Senators Graham and Cruz have continued to echo the president and his claims of having won.

Although some states are still counting ballots and have not yet been called, the current tallies are:

Electoral College Votes – 270 needed to win: Biden 290 - The President 214. (Georgia has still not been called and has 16 electoral votes - counts continue in NC and AZ among other states.) AP has called AZ and NV – CNN has not, as of Sunday evening. If neither candidate gets over 50% in Georgia there will be an automatic recount of that state where Biden currently has a slim lead.

Popular Vote totals thus far: Biden – 50.6% - 75,550,480 (highest vote count ever in a Presidential election)

The President: 47.7% of the vote with the second highest total ever (71,188,487) as more people voted in this election than ever before.

Many people have voiced significant complaints about the pre-election polls which predicted an overwhelming Biden win, not the close contests which were seen in many battleground states.  The Washington Post indicated that it is reviewing its processes as it so missed calls in the upper Midwest states. Pollster Frank Luntz claimed on NPR that voters who supported the president chose to either not answer polls or did not respond truthfully due to concerns about ridicule. The breakdowns are still being reviewed but it appeared that the president again captured a majority of the white vote and Biden captured the cities, their suburbs and the majority of minority voters. Seniors long voting Republican, continued that trend but at a lower number, probably due to the handling of the pandemic. Early exit polls demonstrated these trends, but it will take a while until full details are known. Democrats were hoping for a blue wave to follow the wins seen in 2018 mid term elections.  This absolutely did not happen. Although totals are yet incomplete, it appears that several House seats and governorships were lost by the Democrats and challenges to several Republican Senators have fallen short.  Currently Senate seats are evenly distributed and two seats in Georgia are slated for January run-offs, so there will be a wait to see what the end result will be. As things stand, it seems that Mitch McConnell will remain in charge of the Senate.

The President-elect is moving forward with his transition plans, despite all of the smoke-screens being sent up by the president and other lock-step Republicans. Biden has announced a Corono-virus task force consisting of professionals from medical and scientific fields which will be led by former Obama Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy and a former FDA commissioner, David Kessler. The Pandemic has spiraled out of control recently with daily cases nationally, exceeding more than 120,000 a day over the last week.  Numbers in the UK and the European Union have also increased significantly and as this is noted, several countries have rolled back permissions for social gatherings and at bars and restaurants. So, I do hope that this task force hits the ground running as we do need experts to guide this battle against the pandemic. (Oh, presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows – who disdained mask wearing and who recently stated that the administration was no longer attempting to control the virus, has been diagnosed with the virus, as have several other members of the White House staff; when will they learn?)

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COVID stats (NY Times – 11/8/20)

Total US COVID cases: 10,051,300.  Total new cases 11/7 – 126,156. 

Total US deaths:  238,023.  Total new deaths: 1013.  These totals are a 57% increase over the last two weeks. In the US every state is said to have shown an increase in cases in this recent data.

Maryland Totals as of 11/7/20.  Total cases: 152,915. Total new cases: 1410. 

Total deaths: 4,201. Total new deaths: 7.  Maryland has shown an increase of over 7,000 cases from last week and has been averaging more than 1000 cases each day.

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Despite my joy at the election outcome, I continue to have dismay over the actions of the president’s supporters and his behavior as he fans the flames of dissent and conspiracy. Supporters on the right wing are also encouraging continued turmoil. One of the reasons there were so many celebrations on Saturday is that we, as Americans, are so darn tired of this man and his narcissistic ways. We are tired of his lies, his racism, his nods to white supremacists and dictators; we are ashamed of actions taken in the name of Americans as he separated children from their families, left the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords and interrupted long held international friendships. We are exhausted at the continued chaos and ineptitude shown by this administration and his lack of organized thinking and distorted perception of reality. It was, I guess, too much to think that he would concede and transition quietly. Consequently, January 20, 2021 cannot come soon enough.  Maybe things will improve by next week. What are the odds? Are you also exhausted?

Maybe it is time for a look at the panda cam – he is getting cuter every day.  Crawling, but not yet walking, he is just like a toddler!

‘Til next week – peace.