'A time to heal in America'

The announcement finally came around 11:25 Eastern on Saturday morning: Joe Biden had been elected president. After four long days, celebrations broke out in the streets of major cities across the country. The win also made history, as Sen. Kamala Harris, a Black and Asian-American child of immigrants, is poised to become the highest-ranking woman in the nation's 244-year existence. In a rousing victory speech on Saturday night, Biden said, "I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify, who doesn't see red states and blue states, only sees the United States." Harris spoke of what her win represents, saying, "While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities." —The Washington Post

• — Filling the Cabinet. The Biden transition team has been vetting potential candidates for the Cabinet for months, though Biden intends to be deliberative and is not likely to announce nominations this week. He is expected to focus first on posts involving public health and the economy, along with West Wing personnel. The challenge will be to build a governing team that satisfies an unruly coalition of Democrats while winning approval from what's likely to be a Republican-controlled Senate. —Politico
•  
• — Expect a flurry of EOs. Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office that will definitively shift the nation's priorities. He is expected to rejoin the Paris climate accords, reverse President Trump's withdrawal from the World Health Organization, repeal the ban on almost all travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to allow immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to remain in the country. —The Washington Post
•  
• — But it all depends on Emily Murphy. Who is she, you ask? She's the head of the General Services Administration. It's up to her to approve the beginning stages of an official transfer of power, as Trump has refused to acknowledge the election outcome. So far, the Trump appointee isn't budging, saying she is waiting to determine that "a winner is clear." —The Hill

Meanwhile, over in Bizarro World...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is calling Joe Biden's win "a left-wing power grab financed by people like George Soros." Republican congressional leaders are demanding investigations. The Trump campaign is planning a messaging blitz to fuel its argument—unsupported by any evidence to date—that the president's second term is being stolen from him through corrupt vote counts. The Trump legal team is actively suing states where he lost. But the president, unable to graciously accept defeat, is unlikely to see those cases flip the election result to his advantage. —The Wall Street Journal

• — GOP won't let it go. Nearly 40 Republican congresspeople wrote a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr demanding that he investigate claims of voter fraud and make sure only all "legal votes" were counted in the election. No word from those who just won their own races about whether their election wins, on the very same ballot, are also illegitimate. —Newsweek
• 
  — The hoax behind the claims. Some of Trump's allies have become obsessed with a bizarre new conspiracy theory about the race, insisting that Trump only lost the election because a deep-state supercomputer named "Hammer" and a computer program named "Scorecard" were used to change the ballot count. Cybersecurity experts have called the allegations "nonsense." —The Daily Beast
•  
• — "God help us." While all the election crazy is getting attention, chaos is happening behind the scenes too. Trump fired Pentagon chief Mark Esper today, installing an unprecedented fourth acting Defense secretary, Christopher Miller, currently the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. It is not clear that Miller's appointment is even legal, as U.S. code requires the deputy Defense secretary to fill a vacancy. —Defense One

MORE: 'It is not cheating, it is democracy': A first-hand look at ballot-counting in Philadelphia —CBS News

Lehigh: Too close for comfort

"In voting again for Trump, they were willing to ignore a pattern of presidential conduct deeply corrosive to democratic norms. They chose to embrace a would-be strongman over the messiness of democracy and liberty. That reflects a receptivity to authoritarianism that should be deeply troubling to all who cherish our democracy and understand that the rule of law is one of its critical underpinnings.

Trump repeatedly portrayed Democrats as socialist, and an aversion to socialism was apparently a significant motivator for his supporters. Given that Biden and Vice President-elect Harris aren't remotely close to being socialists, not even of the Scandinavian variety, the anti-socialist hysteria reveals a worrisome lack of perspective and a susceptibility to fear-mongering." —Scot Lehigh in The Boston Globe

Ed. Note: Scot Lehigh is a Boston Globe columnist.

MORE: Zeynep Zufekci: America's next authoritarian will be much more competent —The Atlantic

Biden announces coronavirus team

As the U.S. became the first country in the world to surpass 10 million cases of COVID-19, after four record-setting days of new cases, President-elect Joe Biden introduced the 12 members of the advisory board that will help lead his coronavirus response. The board includes Rick Bright, a whistleblower from the Trump Administration who alleged that his early warnings about the pandemic were ignored and ultimately led to his removal. In his remarks this morning, Biden implored Americans to stop the politicization of basic public health precautions, like mask-wearing and social distancing. —CNN

• — Utah takes precautions. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a new state of emergency yesterday after the state's most devastating week of the pandemic yet. He issued a series of new restrictions, including a statewide mask mandate "for the foreseeable future." Businesses that fail to comply will face fines. He said his biggest concern is the surge in hospitalizations that may soon overwhelm doctors and nurses. —The Salt Lake Tribune
•  
• — Vaccine on the horizon? Markets surged today on the news that Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine was 90% effective in early trials. Great news. Vice President Mike Pence sought to take credit for the breakthrough, only for the company to immediately point out that the research and funding of its vaccine had nothing to do with the administration’s “Warp Speed” vaccination development initiative. —Independent
•  
• — More White House cases. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, formerly a brain surgeon, has tested positive for COVID-19, after attending an Election Night watch party at the White House. Over the weekend, it was reported that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also tested positive for the virus. At least seven people in Trump's orbit have tested positive in the days before and after the party on Nov. 3. —Business Insider

Boehm: Inside Navarro's economic nationalism

"In many ways, [White House economic adviser Peter] Navarro is the missing link between the democratic socialists on the left and the economic nationalists on the right. He left behind his roots as San Diego's Bernie Sanders when he rebranded himself as a China hawk, and then wormed his way into a Republican administration. But after nearly four years of advising the president on economic policy, it seems obvious that he has retained a strong belief in the government's duty to direct human behavior in the marketplace." —Eric Boehm in Reason

Ed. Note: Eric Boehm is a reporter for Reason.

MORE: World trade rattled by Trump era awaits Biden's reprieve —Bloomberg

'Welcome back, America'

Countries across the globe celebrated along with Americans when President-elect Joe Biden was named the winner of the presidential election on Saturday. In Great Britain, where many had leftover fireworks from Guy Fawkes Night earlier this week, fireworks displays were reported over London. There were videos of fireworks in Edinburgh, Scotland, and celebrations in Berlin and Munich, Germany. Church bells rang in Paris, France, and Canadians cheered and banged pots and pans. —The Hill

• — Most world leaders, including those representing the U.S.'s closest allies, rushed to congratulate Biden on his election. But Russia and China, two likely losers from the defeat of President Trump, as well as other international strongmen, have remained conspicuously silent, apparently waiting for him to concede defeat following "legal processes."
   
• — Iran, still under heavy U.S. sanctions and now recording nearly 500 coronavirus-related deaths daily, celebrated Trump's loss. The Biden team will have to decide whether to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal that Trump deserted in 2016. Many Iran experts are urging Biden to lift sanctions in return for an Iranian denuclearization commitment.
•  
• — Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of Trump, sent Biden formal congratulations without naming him president-elect, but Israel will want reassurances about the U.S. maintaining pressure on Iran and its continued support for the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab states. —The Guardian

Serhan: No defeat for populism

"Trump was largely able to wage a campaign similar to the one he fought in 2016: railing against the 'deep state,' chastising experts, and threatening to undermine democratic norms as sacrosanct as the peaceful transition of power. The competitiveness of the race suggests that this strategy wasn't a total failure and challenges the conventional wisdom that populism is a flash in the pan, easily overturned, and that populists, once in power, are necessarily exposed by their inability to govern. If anything, this election demonstrates the opposite: Populists can still pit themselves as political outsiders representing the 'real people' against the elite, even if they are indisputably part of that elite." —Yasmeen Serhan in The Atlantic

Ed. Note: Yasmeen Serhan is a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic.

"Ann and I extend our congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character. We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead." —Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), @MittRomney

I am a lifelong Republican, have a brother who is a U.S. Congressman, another brother who is a federal judge, and yet another who is a D.C. lobbyist. I also worked on Capitol Hill for a while in my youth. But I have been appalled by the loyalist Republicans—including my own family members—who have turned a blind eye to the train wreck we have called the Trump Administration. It has been a long, long four years, and if it hadn't been for sites like yours, I quite frankly would have lost my mind. Thank you so much for being a voice of reason during a very unreasonable time. You have been such a force for good. —Heather L., Colorado

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.