The Day After — America Hung Over?
David Finkel
November 4, 2020
[This initial response was authored by David Finkel for the National Committee of Solidarity. We continue to follow events. By late Wednesday afternoon, with the Electoral College result appearing to swing narrowly toward Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada, the Trump campaign is beginning to file stop-the-count lawsuits and a rightwing crowd is trying to break into the counting center at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit.]
As the sun rises on a COVID-ravaged and politically fractured U.S. homeland the day after November 3, the main networks are telling us that the unresolved presidential election comes down to a two-states-out-of-three contest in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The results won’t be known till tonight at the earliest, probably later and not for days in Pennsylvania as late-arriving mail ballots need to be counted.
In short, it’s all over but the counting, recounting and probably litigating. If America isn’t hung over this morning, it probably will be before it’s all done.
We want to hear from members and friends of Solidarity about what’s happening in your communities during and after the election. Let us hear from you at webzine@solidarity-us.org!
Here’s some of what we know:
For the second straight election, U.S. voters have actually repudiated Donald Trump’s repulsive, racist and nativist message — but this time, contrary to expectations, by a smaller percentage than in 2016. At this writing (7 am Wednesday) Biden has 68,867,000 against Trump’s 66,643,000 votes — a margin of two million but way less than pollsters indicated. Of course, none of this matters in a system governed by the anachronistic Electoral College.
As expected, Donald Trump made a “victory” declaration in the middle of the night and proclaimed “we’re going to the Supreme Court” to stop the vote count while he’s ahead. Importantly, it doesn’t look like the Republican leadership as a whole is backing up this widely anticipated Grand Theft Election gambit — at least for the moment. Prospects for a Trump-engineered “electoral coup” appear to have dimmed.
By most indications, the Republican majority in the Senate will remain intact at least narrowly and the Democrats will hold the House of Representatives by a smaller margin yet to be determined.
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