There’s both more and less than meets the eye with the GOP fantasy about Joe Biden being the president-elect. It changes nothing about the election result, but tells the country everything about the modern GOP.
Shakespeare on the 2020 elections:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
(I’m guessing this Bill Shakespeare guy is an elector in a swing state.)
Should Donald Trump follow norms? Yes.
Is it a coup? An autogolpe? Uhm… no, except in Trump’s head. And we are stuck in Trump’s head for a few more weeks.
Is it Trump abandoning the pretense of governing? Alas, yes.
No Evidence of Systematic Fraud in U.S. Elections, International Observer Mission Reports
A team of international observers invited by the Trump administration has issued a preliminary report giving high marks to the conduct of last week’s elections–and it criticizes President Trump for making baseless allegations that the outcome resulted from systematic fraud…
The OAS assessment followed similar findings by an election observation team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
“Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions,” Michael Georg Link, leader of the short-term OSCE observer mission, said last week.
As a former conservative activist and journalist, it has been so frustrating to see my former compatriots spreading wild and unchecked claims about “voter fraud.” @jacknicas of the NYT took a deep look at claims of “dead” people in Michigan voting. Link in next tweet.While examining claims made by right-wing activists who are not credible individuals is a thankless task which elite media editors despise, this is vital and important work in this age of fake news. Here’s the link:
As the co-creator of NewsBusters, the most prominent anti-media website, I was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being “unfair” to conservative views. There is still much to that argument, but eventually I saw that I was missing context.
With the election behind us, it’s time for the US to summon its best, unified effort to contain COVID. So many have been at that since the start, w/ heroism and sacrifice. But the pandemic is now taking full advantage of confusion, anti-science, misinformation, fatigue.Things are moving rapidly in wrong direction. Time to set a new path to controlling this pandemic.Its easy to see the current US path is failing. National case numbers higher than ever. Many hospitals under rising pressure. More people w/ COVID in ICUs than since early May. >1,000 deaths a day. US in worst 6th of world in daily incidence. National % positives nearing 8%.Down this current path lies continued rapid rise in cases. More people on ventilators. Higher numbers of people dying. More survivors with long term consequences. Hospitals under pressure until they can’t provide care for everyone anymore. Shortages of tests, PPE.
Referendum on Trump shatters turnout records
With votes still being counted, turnout in the 2020 presidential election has hit a 50-year high, exceeding the record set by the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama — an extraordinary engagement in what amounted to a referendum on President Donald Trump’s leadership.
As of Sunday, the tallied votes accounted for 62% of the eligible voting-age population in the U.S. That’s a 0.4 percentage point increase so far over the rate hit in 2008, when the nation elected its first Black president.
Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui/NY Times:
How the Suburbs Moved Away From Trump
Suburban counties across the country turned away from President Trump in this election. That includes suburbs in the Midwest and the Sun Belt, in inner-ring counties and those farther out, in predominantly white communities and more diverse ones.
Suburban counties that were already Democratic-leaning before 2020 tilted more so. And many that were deeply Republican nudged several points away from the president.
This graphic shows how these counties voted in preliminary results this year, compared with 2016. Collectively, they shifted up — toward Joe Biden. That movement, apparent across battleground states, has been crucial to lifting Mr. Biden to the presidency.
Melissa Quinn/CBS:
“Not our job”: Roberts, Kavanaugh appear skeptical of striking down Obamacare at Supreme Court
The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday — one week after the presidential election and in the midst of a global pandemic — with the future of the 2010 landmark health care law championed by Democrats and attacked by Republicans, with two justices on the conservative wing of the bench expressing skepticism toward arguments the Affordable Care Act should be struck down in its entirety.
The justices heard arguments stretching two hours in the dispute between groups of red states and blue states over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, with opponents of Obamacare, including the Trump administration, hoping the Supreme Court will deliver the fatal blow to the health care law they have long sought to dismantle.
But Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the three justices on the court appointed by President Trump, both signaled they disagree with arguments from Republican-led states that Obamacare should fall if its individual mandate is deemed unconstitutional.
The ‘orchestrated’ push to discredit Georgia’s election sparks more GOP infighting
“Republicans in disarray.” That was the three-word response from Senate Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff late Monday to the extraordinary infighting that’s divided the Georgia GOP over President Donald Trump’s effort to taint Joe Biden’s victory.
This was supposed to be the week that Republicans united behind U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue for a pair of Jan. 5 runoffs that could decide control of the Senate.
Instead, the two senators leveled unfounded claims of a disastrous “embarrassment” of an election at fellow Republicans who oversaw last week’s vote – and called for the resignation of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
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