Dear Progressive Reader,
As of this writing, the victor in the 2020 presidential election remains undeclared. But there is no question that all signs point to Joe Biden receiving a greater share of both the popular vote and the Electoral College votes than his opponent. (UPDATE: At about 11:30 am on Saturday, November 7, the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, giving him more than the 270 Electoral College votes required. Other networks, including Trump’s favorite Fox News, quickly followed).
Biden took to the stage in Wilmington, Delaware last night at just before 11:00 pm Eastern Time. “We are proving again what we have proved for 244 years in this country,” Biden declared. “Democracy works. Your vote will be counted. I don’t care how hard people try to stop it. I will not let it happen. The people will be heard and our journey to a more perfect union goes on.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump continued his efforts to stop vote counting in many places, and to challenge the validity of votes in others. As Mark Fiore illustrates, “Trump and the Republicans know they can’t win a national election with an outright majority, so they focus on winning by suppressing the vote and shouting ‘fraud!’ ” Trump, using Twitter (his favorite “MAGA-phone”) to amplify his message, continues to cry “fraud”, but almost all of his recent tweets have been flagged by fact-checkers at Twitter: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
It is unclear yet if or when Trump will concede what appears to be a certain electoral defeat, but concerns are being raised over the possibility that he might take a “scorched earth” approach to the next two months. When Al Gore was defeated in 2000, the incoming transition team complained about sabotage by outgoing White House staffers. A Government Accountability Office report eventually found that the outgoing Clinton Administration caused about $15,000 worth of damage with pranks like damaging or removing the “W” key on up to 100 computer keyboards. This sort of minor irritation will no doubt look like the “college prank” that it was compared to what an outgoing Trump Administration could do to the nation. But as one Biden staffer said, when asked how they might deal with Trump’s refusal to leave, “The United States government is capable of escorting trespassers from the White House.”
A new Biden presidency will be faced with numerous issues requiring immediate attention—the pandemic, the economy, racial injustice, the climate crisis, and more. As Biden said last night in Wilmington, “We don’t have any more time to waste on partisan warfare.” In the speech Biden set the tone for his administration, saying much the same as he had said at the close of the second debate, “My responsibility as President will be to represent the whole nation. And I want you to know that I will work as hard for those who voted against me as for those who voted for me.” And, he continued, “The purpose of our politics, the work of the nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict but to solve problems. To guarantee justice. To give everybody a fair shot. To improve the lives of our people.”
As Reese Erlich writes this week, an early opportunity to move on this agenda will be in the first 100 days following Inauguration Day. “If he’s smart, the likely President-elect will stop the unpopular endless wars and use the money to help our domestic economy,” says Erlich. This, combined with re-entering the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and other treaties Trump has abandoned, can all be done quickly by a new President. But, as Ruth Conniff points out, Biden will have a lot more work to do to address how we got here. “Most of all,” she says, “we simply have not solved the problems that led America to elect Donald Trump in the first place . . . it was a massive vote of no-confidence in the system that has, over the last forty years, given us growing economic inequality, spiraling college debt, a shrinking middle class, and a tenuous gig economy that leaves more and more workers desperately insecure.” That hundred days will go pretty quickly.
Finally, as publisher of a proud political magazine, I remember November 7 as the anniversary of the murder of abolitionist newspaper publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy. As the Library of Congress notes on its website, “On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the [printing press] of his anti-slavery newspaper the St Louis Observer. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition.” A twenty-eight-year-old state representative named Abraham Lincoln decried the incident of vigilante violence, stating “Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own, and his children’s liberty.” Lincoln, of course, would later become the first Republican to be elected President. Needless to say the party of the 1850s was very different than it appears today.
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S – Our new 2021 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available for purchase through our website. They make great gifts and hang well on walls and refrigerators.
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