America’s Long National Nightmare is Coming to an End
By: Jay Sizemore
Tags: Supreme Court, Joe Biden, Trump, Election 2020, Politics

America’s Long National Nightmare is Coming to an End

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

The official announcement was made on this day, November 7th, 2020, that Joe Biden was elected as the next President of the United States of America. The call came down as vote tallies in Pennsylvania and Nevada were irrefutably blue in their numbers. When the remaining votes are counted, the final results will be Biden with 306 electoral votes, and Trump with 232. This announcement comes on the 48th anniversary of Joe Biden’s being first elected as a Senator. Donald Trump was given the news while on his golf course.

This feels like such an unburdening. Despite the turmoil and absolute chaos of the past four years, with every day seemingly nothing but a bearer of insanity upon insanity, this election was a nail biter. It should have been a landslide. Somehow, millions of Americans, over seventy of them, still decided to side with Trump’s legacy of lies, division, and outright prejudice. Thankfully, there were just more people than that who were resolved to see this blight on our national stage removed from the spotlight. As such, a huge weight has been lifted. America did the right thing.

Let’s all take a moment to breathe. Relish the power of democracy at work. But, then we must continue the push toward progress. This is far from over.

Even as I write this, Trump and his legal team are attempting to challenge the election results and get ballots disqualified. Trump held an absolutely appalling press conference yesterday in which he maintained he had won the election, and that the votes counted after election day were illegal votes. In perhaps the most embarrassing and disgusting display of childish despondence, Trump delivered a host of lies from his pulpit, encouraging civil unrest and possibly inciting violence, and then sulked off the stage without taking questions.

Twitter

Since then, Trump sycophants such as Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, and Rudy Giuliani have been making the rounds on Fox News, backing his play. When Giuliani heard the announcement of the election being called, he made the statement, “News networks don’t get to call elections. Courts do.” This team of people, including members of Trump’s legal advisers, have been putting out a constant stream of misinformation trying to sway public opinion of the election in their favor. The NY Times have a page dedicated to debunking this information as it comes out, here.

Among the most notable of their claims, are that voting machines glitched and gave the wrong candidate votes, that a software hack could have maliciously changed votes, that dead persons were still registered and allowed to have votes cast, and that polling stations kicked out GOP poll watchers illegally so they could purposefully manipulate the results. All of this is complete bullshit.

This is Trump, trying his best to create a narrative, with zero evidence to support that narrative, in which he can somehow build a legal case to take to the Supreme Court. And he has every intention of taking it to the court, as he obviously believes with Amy Coney Barrett that he has the court on his side. He has already stated multiple times that this is where the case will be decided. But, in order to get there, he must first make a convincing case to state courts, and this just doesn’t seem possible.

We may honestly see Trump refusing to concede, and having to be escorted out of the White House by the Secret Service or the military. Trump actually said they would have to drag him out, kicking and screaming. I’d pay good money to see that.

In the meantime, yes, let’s celebrate this victory for what it is, a mandate proving that America recognizes it made a huge mistake, and wants to take it back. This is a mandate in favor of science, in favor of racial justice and equality, in favor of education, in favor of economic stability and growth, in favor of renewable energy and battling climate change.

Next, let’s do everything we can to insure that the senate race runoffs in Georgia also go in favor of the Democrats, which would secure a majority in the Senate and the House, and really allow the Biden platform to operate toward progress without impediment. Taking back the Senate would neuter Mitch McConnell and his partisanship stonewalling of Democratic presidents.

Finally, let’s learn our lesson, America. This strange and scary four year experiment with a reality star narcissist in the White House was nothing short of a disaster. Just think of the lives that could have been saved if we had had better leadership during this pandemic. Just think of the way our position on the world’s stage has been so negatively impacted in such a short period of time. Just think of the way our governing institutions and democracy itself has been placed in the balance during the tenure of this incorrigible clown. Let’s never let that happen again.

The speech delivered by Joe Biden last night was such a breath of fresh air and just a much needed dose of sanity amidst all this chaos. It will be and already is such an unimaginable relief to have some semblance of normalcy again. A leader who can speak in complete sentences. A leader who cares about all the states, not just the red ones. A leader who actually knows how to do the job.

For the first time in four years, I feel a sense of hope.