On the evening of November 3, for those of us who didn’t know that the mail-in ballots would be counted last, de-pression was beginning to take place in many parts of the country. It looked like America was in for four more years of Trump. Donald Trump made a speech that night, declaring himself the winner.
But joy came in the morning of November 4! Donald Trump had previously led Joe Biden by 600,000 votes in Pennsylvania. That number dwindled down to 19,000 then 1,400 – and then It was all Biden, who ended up some 60,000 votes ahead of Trump, as of this writing. Similar ballot counting was taking place in Georgia. In Arizona, as the votes from Maricopa County came in, Trump was beginning to erode Biden’s lead, causing Trump to call for “stop the counting” in Pennsylvania and Georgia, and “keep counting” in Arizona.
It didn’t happen until Saturday, Nov 7th. Senator Kamala Harris was out jogging with her husband when she got the news. She immediately called Biden. “Joe, you won, you’re the next President,” she said.
The country remained on pins and needles, waiting to exhale, waiting for former Vice President Joseph Biden to be declared the 46th President of the United States.
Then the strangest thing happened.
When Donald Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, back in October, that he didn’t know if he would accept a loss, we thought “well, he’s just being Donald, but surely
he’s not that crazy.” Well, it turns out he is.
The news said he sent out 22 angry tweets that day saying he had won. He couldn’t believe that 71 million people voted for him and he did not win. Perhaps he didn’t notice that 75 million people voted for Joe Biden. Or perhaps, in his mind, he had determined that any vote that wasn’t for him was illegal, fraudulent, even criminal.
Yet, he thought he had prepared for this situation by rushing the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. After all, when there was a discrepancy between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, didn’t Bush win via the Supreme Court? Trump probably figured that these were his justices and they owed him their allegiance. Of course, in Bush v. Gore, neither candidate had reached the 270 Electorates needed to win. Gore had 267 and Bush had 242, and Florida seemed to have gone to Bush. But because of the hanging chads, 61,000 ballots had been skipped.
The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount. The more they counted, the more Gore seemed to have been gaining on Bush. So, Bush went to the United States Supreme Court and asked for an order to stop the counting – after all the count had been going on for nearly two weeks. The court agreed with Bush, and he received Florida’s 29 electoral votes, giving him a total of 271 making him the President.
But Trump didn’t seem to take into account that he was 5 million votes behind Biden, as opposed to the 500 votes that Bush was ahead of Gore. He didn’t seem to take into account that Biden had 306 electoral votes, well over the 270 he needed to win.
As of this writing, Trump has filed 21 lawsuits, 20 were dismissed. One in Georgia asking for ballots with voter I.D. problems to be discarded was granted. But those votes had never been counted anyway, they were being held aside, waiting for the verdict.
Many of Trump’s lawyers resigned. I guess they didn’t want to keep litigating cases with no credible evidence, making them look as ill-informed as their client. So Trump appointed Rudy Guiliani to file subsequent lawsuits.
As of this writing, Trump has filed 21 lawsuits, 20 were dismissed. One in Georgia asking for ballots with voter I.D. problems to be discarded was granted. But those votes had never been counted anyway, they were being held aside, waiting for the verdict.
It was only fitting that he chose Rudy Guiliani, because if anyone can offer comic relief Rudy can. I’m not talking about when he was in the Borat film being inter-viewed by a girl he thought was a teenager while lying on the bed and “tucking in his shirt” into his pants. That was a long shirt, Rudy! No, I’m speaking of the press conference he arranged for the President at the Four Seasons. It turned out to be in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company, positioned between a crematorium and a sex shop, in Philadelphia.
Seriously, President Trump’s unprecedented denial of his loss and his refusal to concede is, well, unprecedent-ed. Former Vice President Biden is valiantly and patiently trying to get on with his transition, even though there are funds he is supposed to have access to for his transition, which the Trump administration is denying him. He is also being denied access to medical experts in order to begin his plan to stop the Covid pandemic, which Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows had stated before the election, they were no longer trying to control.
Donald Trump fired all of the heads of the Department of Defense, putting his inexperienced loyalists in their places. But that’s nothing new, Trump thrives on putting unqualified loyalists in key positions. In this case, it should give us pause. He also fired the head person in the Department of Homeland Security and then had his replacement sign new laws, limiting DACA, which the court refused to acknowledge because “the person who signed the document was not legally in a position to do so.” Trump also fired the Cybersecurity chief in the Department of Homeland Security because he said that the election was the most secure in American history.
Michigan certified Joe Biden, and Trump stated that the Republican electorates were “viciously pressured” to do so.
And as we ponder the craziness of all that Trump is doing, there are some other folks in America – possibly close to 71 million, who are convinced that Donald Trump won the election – because Donald Trump told them he did. They are still chanting “four more years” and stating matter-of-factly that news organizations do not determine the outcome of elections.
They are still waiting for the election to be overturned. And if it isn’t, then what?
The Proud Boys (whom Trump told on national TV to “stand by”) and the Oath Keepers (who publicly declared they will never recognize or adhere to any law that comes from Biden), were out in full force at the Million Maga March, in Washington, D.C., which turned out to be about 250,000. So they used a photo of the 1995 Million Man March to depict the great crowd.
So what happens next? Will Trump face reality and leave the White House peacefully? Will the New York Attorney General proceed with charges once he is no longer President? Will his supporters wage the civil war he has suggested?
This is truly a bittersweet time. Half of America is embarrassed by the childish antics of the 45th President, and the other half is angry that an election was “stolen” from their President. This should be a time to celebrate that finally, we will have a normal President who doesn’t rule by tweets, who doesn’t engage in name-calling, who respects the office of the Presidency. We should be ecstatic that finally there is a female in the office of Vice President, and she is Black, and she is an AKA, and she is a cosponsor of the Senate Reparations Bill. We are happy about those things, but at the same time we are holding our collective breath, wondering what the toddler and his “cult-45” are going to do next.
