This during the most dangerous week so far in the pandemic, with infection rates at upwards of 220,000 daily.
The Signal: Tuesday was the safe harbor date by which all states needed to certify their presidential election outcomes. Next Monday, based upon those certifications, the Electoral College will meet and vote. Biden has 306 Electoral College votes pledged to him, much more than the 270 he needed to win.
In any other governmental election year, by now there would have been a thoughtful concession speech from the losing prospect; the winner would have been welcomed to the White Home; the transition would have ramped up to complete speed; Congress would have begun actively preparing for the inauguration … however of course none of that is happening this year.
Trump is still putting out as much false information, as much Sound, as possible, telling his fans (and anybody else ready to listen) that the election was deceitful which he, Donald J. Trump, was, is, and always will be the true winner. He is being allowed in this fantasy by ever-kookier legal interventions, including the most current absurdity, in which the Texas chief law officer is spearheading a multistate suit asking the Supreme Court to void the election leads to Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and to prevent the Electoral College from fulfilling next Monday. On Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s project participated in the lawsuit— despite the fact that the court had, just hours before the Texas intervention, tossed out a Pennsylvania GOP request to revoke the election in that state.
Trump is still being enabled, too, by a Republican congressional leadership that refuses to acknowledge Biden’s triumph, going so far as to vote versus a (mainly symbolic) motion acknowledging that Biden will be the person inaugurated on January 20.
On the other hand, Trump’s political team continues both to block important shift meetings and exchanges of info and likewise to work at breakneck speed to lock in place some of the most severe parts of the Trumpite political job before year’s end. Kid it all up and what you have is an authoritarian assault on the truth– evidenced by the vote-count totals and dozens of court judgments over the past 5 weeks– and on the bedrock concept of a peaceful transfer of power after elections.
GOP legislators and state authorities are conspiring to reverse an election just due to the fact that it didn’t go the way they hoped it would. And 10s of millions of Americans are being informed not to recognize an election result they do not like.
This throughout the most dangerous week so far in the Covid pandemic, with infection rates at upwards of 220,000 per day.
Given how dire America’s public health emergency now is, this ought to be an all-hands-on-deck moment, in which Congress, the outbound administration, the incoming administration, state authorities, and public health experts move in unison to collaborate public safety messages and interventions, minimize the immediate threat of healthcare facility systems collapsing, and smooth the distribution of vaccines over the coming weeks. And the Senate is pulling a twisted political stunt by inviting anti-vaxxers to affirm this week.
Many years from now, individuals may look back at this minute and laugh– at the absurdity, the hubris, the arrogance, the egos. Maybe it will ultimately produce effective theater. Now, however, there’s nothing remotely amusing about this minute. Trump’s final chapter is, as many anxious it would be, a full-blown American tragedy.
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