Joe Biden has won the presidency and Donald Trump and his Trumpsters are showing off their authoritarian anti-American instincts. As I write, Biden has surpassed Trump’s numbers in Pennsylvania and will see his margin climb to about 100,000 votes. Biden is leading in Georgia and the few remaining votes to be counted come from heavily Democratic areas. Nevada, where Biden leads by more than 11,000, will resume counting votes this morning and his margin will likely grow to about 30,000. Biden will win the Electoral College with more than 300 votes and will win the popular vote by about five percent or so. He will have a healthy and decisive victory, not a narrow win.
Still, Trump went on television last night to declare that Democrats are trying to steal the election. Sean Hannity declared that we can never trust the results. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared that “President Trump won this election. so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes.” North Carolina Congressman Dan Bishop tweeted, “Well, I’m echoing the President’s claims. Indications of grossly improper conduct from election officials right here in my district. And Trump’s points are persuasive: concerted use of fraudulent polls; stunning and implausible ballot dumps overnight; observers barred. Fight!” Trump and his sycophants are a threat to democracy and will continue to be.
Fortunately, other Republicans pushed back on the president’s lies. Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey called Trump’s claims “unsubstantiated.” Mitt Romney called on the country to “Have faith in our democracy, our Constitution and in the American people.” Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, said, “There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process.”
These two factions will fight over control of the GOP. One is populist and anti-democratic. They have been dominant in states like North Carolina since the advent of Trump and probably since 2010. The other is more traditionally conservative and dominate more northern states and the western Sunbelt states. Carolina Senators Thom Tillis and Lindsey Graham have their fingers in the air trying desperately to figure out who they will be in the coming year.
Democrats will have their battles going forward, too. On a conference call with her caucus yesterday, Nancy Pelosi got an earful from moderate Democrats who survived. Progressives will almost certainly push an agenda that’s doomed to die in the Senate and likely receive tepid support from a Biden administration. Democrats arguing for a shift to the left should be prepared to lose more of the suburban seats they picked up in 2018.
While Biden will win the presidency, he will face a divided government. The GOP had some good moments in this election, too. Runoffs in Georgia will determine control of the U.S. Senate, but Republicans are favored in the likely low-turnout elections in January. In the House, Republicans narrowed the Democratic majority by picking up marginal seats the Democrats won in the 2018 wave. Maybe Americans actually like checks and balances.
Right now, I believe most people, both Democrats and Republicans, are ready for an end to the reality show presidency of the past four years. As one person said, “I want a president I don’t think about every day.” Amen.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Are you sure?
Notice how the “moderate” Democrats were the ones who “survived” their races while the progressive “squad” all won in a walk?
Maybe it’s worth considering that Truman may have had a point about the choice between Republican and Republican Lite. Kay Hagan lost to Thom Freakin’ Tillis of all people by running as far from Obama as she could and still be in the same time zone. Look at registrations in North Carolina since 2008, and what do you see? Every cycle, the Democrats lose numbers, and the unaffiliated numbers increase inversely. The Republican registrations seem to hold at replacement levels, as a percentage of the total, so what does that tell you? It says to me that as new voters are minted, neither party is attracting them. They’re tired of the illusion of choice offered to them by the two party system, and telling the political apparatus in a pretty unambiguous way that they’re not willing to choose between Republican and Republican Lite— and the party that more closely mirrors their principles and priorities is going to get their votes. They said this is so very loudly in 2016 that we ended up with the Orange Buffoon we’re currently trying to rid ourselves of.
These are the voices of those who will be forced to clean up the mess we’ve left them. Ignore them at your peril. We rightly decry the Republicans’ unwavering pursuit of power at the expense of good governance, but does this not strike you as the pot and the kettle here? The Democrats lost seats, with the so called “centrists” (who, by the way, would have been quite at home in the Reagan era GOP) are claiming that the party has gone too far left? Are you seriously asking me to believe that NANCY PELOSI is a leftist? If that is true, then the Overton Window hasn’t simply shifted, it has completely left the building.
The people have rejected Putin’s puppet, a crass demagogue preaching white supremacy and police brutality. My father and my wife’s father fought in WW2. They were not losers or suckers like that rotten scumbag called them.
Well said! I wish more people shared your view.