There have been a never ending run of ironies since individual 1 took office and the republican party chose to stain itself for all time by allowing him to be his mafioso self for the past four years, but today I couldn’t help but think of a “biggie” as our IMPEACHED so-called president was pondering his “paths to victory.” If you remember, a week or so before “we the people” went to the polls individual 1 made a trip to Omaha Nebraska in an attempt to win the Nebraska #2 (2nd district) where he left a bunch of supporters “in the cold” – literally – and our IMPEACHED so-called president ended up losing this district giving Joe Biden the one Electoral College vote he would need if the election would have swung on Arizona and Nevada – with Biden failing to come through in Pennsylvania and Georgia (Both of which, likely, Biden is going to win). For one day, when Biden trailed in Georgia by between 300 and 400 THOUSAND votes and in Pennsylvania by over 600 THOUSAND – despite people like Michael Steele and James Carville saying “put the ice on hold” – I couldn’t help but think that one vote could make all the difference in a 270 – 268 Biden victory. Of course, as it has turned out both Steele and Carville were correct with Pennsylvania right from the start and likely Georgia as well (I’m not sure they were predicting that one).
OK, it’s the next morning and, essentially, Joe Biden is the president elect. He’s now well in the lead in Pennsylvania and barely in the lead in Georgia putting Biden well past the 270 number of Electoral College votes needed to win the election. (He’s ahead by over 4 MILLION in the “popular vote”) By the time all the votes are counted in Pennsylvania Biden will have a lead, by my calculation, of about 85,000 votes. It’s certain individual 1 will be asking for recounts in many states and he’ll continue filing lawsuit after lawsuit to the point where it will be looked at as a child having a temper tantrum. There are many people wondering “why is this taking so long?” And, to me, the answer is obvious.
For starters, the election process in America is antiquated. Secondly, NEVER has there been an election in the middle of a pandemic where so many Americans wanted to “vote from home” and if there was a competent person in the “White House” “voting from home” would be considered the “right” thing to do. Unbelievably, to me, individual 1 was encouraging his supporters to vote in person and NOT send their vote in via the United States Postal Service. For a period of time, that strategy was very curious to me – but, eventually, it became obvious. (Obvious, but, by no means, “smart” – I know individual 1 proclaimed himself a “very stable genius” but…………..)
After our IMPEACHED so-called president started telling his supporters to avoid sending their votes in by mail he installed a Postmaster General who began dismantling the Post Office in key “battleground states” causing significant mail delays soon after his taking office. Personally, I thought that was getting a bit “low,” but, as usual, individual 1 can always go “lower.” His plan, all along, was to get a large lead with the “in person” voting on election night and then, as he did, “declare victory.” Of course, hardly ANYONE heard him and even, now, REPUBLICANS are beginning to voice their concerns with this delusional IMPEACHED so-called president. After he declared “victory” the mail in votes started being counted and reality began to take shape. In Pennsylvania, for example, the mail in votes erased a 600,000+ lead for individual 1 and, in Georgia, a nearly 400,000 vote lead. I guess our IMPEACHED so-called president figured if he declared “victory” those votes wouldn’t be counted. DELUSIONAL!
Republicans actually had a pretty good night on election night and you’re already hearing the “small talk” among the Monday morning quarterbacks in the democratic party. This just seems to be how politics works in this nation. For example, democrats were planning to increase their majority in the House and gain a majority in the Senate. Well, they lost a handful of seats in the House and will be very lucky to gain a 50/50 tie in the Senate – which would give them control and i, for one (OK for MILLIONS) would LOVE to see that in the interests of getting “stuff” done. We’ll be hearing for weeks, “What happened?” and I’m willing to answer that right here right now.
Democrats were SO focused on defeating individual 1 they just weren’t able to keep their focus on the other places which would have helped to meet their goals in Congress. To me, the most egregious “shortcoming” of the democratic “plan” was their “miss” in regard to the Latinx community. I’ve heard reports that the different Latinx communities in Florida, for example, supported individual 1 at a rate which explained his victory in the state by several “points” when the “polls” predicted a 50/50 election. Individual 1 won Florida handily. I still remember when it was reported the democratic convention, essentially, ignored the Latinx community – with NO representative even speaking at all during the convention, they were making a huge mistake. I’m guessing democrats assumed they’d get this support based on individual 1’s disgusting behavior toward that community. It didn’t work out that way. Democrats MUST fix this problem going forward if they want to build on what they gained in this election.
I sincerely hope the fact the democrats lost ground in Congress doesn’t cause them, as usual, to run away from their fundamental beliefs. We DESPERATELY need a progressive agenda and you can expect the right wing propagandists to keep the pressure on to protect their corporatocracy for the next four years. The BS (misinformation – OK LYING) is NOT going to stop and, sadly, there’s obviously a large segment of our population who have “bought the Kool aid” and it will be challenging, at best, for Biden to “pull the nation together” as he’s set as his goal. And, of course, it’s more complicated than that.
Hold on to your seat belts because we now have a WOMAN Vice President, Kamala Harris, who is also of African American and Indian descent. The attacks on her will begin shortly and they will get ugly. Actually, we’ve already seen individual 1 doing his “birtherism” trick on Ms. Harris and you have to keep in mind that Biden will be 82 in 2024 and the likely next “leader” of the democratic party will be Kamala Harris. Remember what republicans were constantly doing to Hillary Clinton and realize they will be going after Ms. Harris on, at least, the same level. Their goal will be to make sure she’s a “one term ……….” fill in the blank. It’s going to get really nasty! (To borrow a phrase from individual 1 ;o)
Just stop, amid all the celebrating among “liberals” right now, and think for a moment what individual 1 will be “handing off” to the incoming administration. First, in a week or so republicans will be before the Supreme Court trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act which, if they succeed, will create a catastrophic situation in America’s health care system – exponentially worse than it is right now – with tens of MILLIONS of Americans without health insurance and maybe a HUNDRED MILLION susceptible to discrimination based on their previous health care issues. In addition, individual 1 will be handing off an economy which has a “net loss” of jobs since he LIED about his oath of office with over 20 MILLION Americans on some level of unemployment compensation. This is a depression era level economic reality which is being “hidden” by Jerome Powell’s bottomless ability to PUMP TRILLIONS into Wall Street which, with republicans in control of the Senate, could easily come to a screeching halt causing us all to face the reality of individual 1’s most recent squandering away what he “inherited” – which was a healthy economy from Obama/Biden.
If you question that, just remember 2009 when Bush/Cheney had turned over a near depression level of economy to the incoming Obama/Biden administration and Moscow Mitch could only say “we (republicans) will do whatever we can to make Obama a one term president.” (Democrats didn’t need to do anything to make individual 1 a “one term president” – he was fully capable of doing that to himself) This will certainly be one of the most egregious issues our IMPEACHED so-called president leaves for the incoming administration, but, as always with him, there’s more.
I’m writing this (now) on the Saturday following the election (when we KNOW Biden will be our 46th president) and by 2 pm Pacific time there have been 105,000 NEW cases of coronavirus, just today, listed on “worldometer.info” – which tracks every case, every death, etc. etc. – and, many states are like the one where I live (Washington State) and they don’t report full results on the weekends. This is REALLY bad – yesterday, there were OVER 130,000 cases reported in just one day. When you figure out how to find info on the “worldometer.info” website it’s easy to follow the numbers of Americans in “serious/critical” condition in hospitals and, in the past month the total has gone from 14,000 to well over 18,000 – in just under a month. These are people who very likely won’t survive the illness. This is REALLY bad, as I said above. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, the expert I believe the most (he’s been correct at EVERY “turn”) is saying the next 12 to 18 weeks will be the “darkest” we’ve seen, by far. Predictions are that by the time Biden/Harris take office 2500 Americans will be DYING of this virus EVERY day! And, you can expect individual 1 to still be whining about LOSING to Biden – probably still claiming the election was “stolen” from him – and doing NOTHING to fend off this deadly virus – in order to save as many lives as possible.
MUCH of the damage, in relation to the virus, caused by individual 1 has already had its “seeds” planted by his insistance on all the political rallies where his supporters felt obligated to attend without masks (OK, most of them, but not all). As I’m writing this there have been over 30,000 cases of coronavirus attributed to his rallies with a resulting 700 deaths and, I believe, that number will be far exceeded by the time he leaves office. Remember, the “trail” he left behind the rallies shows up from the first week after to as much as three or four weeks later. But, when you look at the “map” of where the cases are, the states he was campaigning in are virtually ALL now coronavirus hotspots as well as the surrounding states. For example, Illinois is located right next to Wisconsin and Michigan with people traveling to rallies across their border and right now Illinois, and Indiana for that matter, are on fire – along with Wisconsin and Michigan – and, of course Ohio, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. The reality, according to Osterholm, is that about a third of Americans are refusing to wear masks because they’ve been convinced the virus is a “hoax.” (Well, who do you think caused them to believe that?)
So, there you have THREE major challenges individual 1 is leaving to Biden/Harris with a government which has been gutted over the previous four years and will require time to fix – and, in many instances will require cooperation from republicans. Hopefully, there’s at least a few who are willing to work with democrats – but, remember, McConnell filibustered President Obama’s agenda over 800 times – that can be a MAJOR problem. Sadly, many Americans don’t understand who is doing to OBSTRUCTING when they get frustrated by a government which isn’t “working.” Maybe, miraculously, the two Senate runoffs in Georgia will produce democrats to go to Washington giving the Senate a 50/50 split which would prevent McConnell from BLOCKING the democratic agenda. For example, without democrats in control of the Senate there’s NO CHANCE of replacing the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court “torpedoes it.”
I say all this and then consider the climate crisis is here – right here right now – and McConnell will have the ability to block much of what needs to be done to turn this nation to a more 21st century place in the world with a 21st century infrastructure. Trust me, the corporate elite who pull the strings of the republican party and can’t seem to get enough money aren’t going anywhere. There are MANY extremely wealthy Americans who don’t feel the obligation to pay their “fair share” of taxes. In fact, many of them pay NO taxes and believe that’s OK. And, trust me, when “we the people” talk about “patriotism” there are many corporate “leaders” in this nation who have little to no allegiance to this country. Their business models are international and they “stash” as much of their profits as they can in places like the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes. It’s really kind of sad.
As I tell my son, when I was young workers were more important to businesses than shareholders and that all began to change with Lewis Powell’s now infamous “memo” to the Chamber of Commerce back in the early 70’s followed by the election of Reagan in 1980. Workers have been “losing ground” ever since – and, sadly, republicans have fooled so many of them to vote republican over social issues the leaders of the republican party could care less about. I’ve been pointing out for several years now the republican advantage in “messaging.” They’ve become more sophisticated in their messaging and, of course, their willingness to “make things up” – essentially, to use the propaganda scheme of the Nazi’s back in the 1930’s – has helped them to create what now appears to be a cult following. Rush Limbaugh calls them “ditto heads” and, well, I can’t think of a better way to put it. Why would you want that moniker????
Final Thought: Michael Beschloss was on MSNBC yesterday morning pointing out how bad it is for a president to stand in front of the American people LYING and I couldn’t help thinking, “what about all the other times he’s done this?” Apparently, on the night when it became apparent that he’s no longer going to be our (IMPEACHED so-called) president standing in front of the American people and LYING through his teeth is worse than ALL the other times he’s been doing so. It will be interesting to see how many of individual 1’s supporters come to realize how STUPID they were to fall for his shtick. I taught my sixth graders how to cross reference information to identify the veracity of what they were reading/hearing. I see/know so many individual 1 followers who, to this day, still believe he “tells the truth.” I realize that’s because most of them watch Fox “news” but it doesn’t take much effort to get factual information these days with all the access to the internet.
For example, when individual 1 tells you he’s created “the greatest economy ever” it takes NO effort to discover there have been SEVERAL instances where, by all measures, he’s LYING. And, of course, it doesn’t take long to figure out he didn’t “create” anything – he INHERITED an economy which had been expanding at a steady rate for 7 years when he took office and it continued to expand at almost the exact same rate (even with the tax scam) for the first three years of his term – which would leave ANY logically oriented person to realize he simply benefited from what he INHERITED (and, of course, with the help of the coronavirus, later destroyed). How many times did he say, “I’m the least racist person you know?” That LIE is NOT hard to prove. Or, how about, “I’ve done more for the Black community than anyone except MAYBE Abraham Lincoln?” Yikes! When are even republicans going to tire of all this.
Quite naturally, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris CLEARLY the president and vice president elect, individual 1 is “tweeting” (so I’ve heard as I don’t do ‘social media’) “I won the election bigly.” We can only imagine what the next 74 days will be like. Do you believe our IMPEACHED so-called president will leave graciously? Can you picture him riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with Joe Biden in the same limo to the inauguration? Can you imagine him trying to mitigate the virus between now and then? Of course not, of course not, of course not – and, I could go on and on with all the things I believe he’ll do further STAINING his image – which, when Americans find out all he has done, as I’ve said often here, will place him next to Benedict Arnold in the history books – with William Barr, Mike Pense, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, and Mike Pompeo (and many others) still “attached” and by his side.
Like most Americans, I’m tired, and, other than me, hardly anyone reads this (although, if you’re reading it this far, I hope you’ve found it interesting) so I’m going to post without editing (which I’ve done too many times – something I’d never have accepted from my sixth grade students). I’ll end by saying – To the people of Georgia: You can do America a great “favor” by electing the democrats in the January runoff elections! Both of them are worthy candidates and will do Georgia proud! (For heaven’s sake – Both your republican Senators were hiding the truth about the coronavirus while they were dumping their stocks ahead of the March sell-off – that was ugly from my perspective)