Okay, even though certification of all state votes is not in yet, it’s all over but the shouting, and number 45 is doing a lot of the latter. But his false claims of massive voter fraud and other irregularities he and his cohorts have been making, so far, do not seem to be moving the needle back in his favor and it is very unlikely that it will.
Even Georgia, the last of the big states, has just been called for Joe Biden. The only real issue now is by how many electoral college votes Mr. Biden will win by, not whether he’s the actual new president-elect. After Arizona (given a massive dose of anti-Trump voting fervor by former Senator John McCain’s widow, Cindy, who said she, as a Republican, was voting for Biden), Nevada, Pennsylvania and now Georgia, Mr. Biden’s totals may come to 306, the same electoral number assigned to Mr. Trump in 2016.
Fighting a rear-guard battle, Mr. Trump is still trying to get any court, federal or state, to outlaw ballots already counted. His problem is, he can present no viable or compelling evidence of the need to toss out any votes. He will get a recount in Pennsylvania and Georgia, but the results are still expected to be the same—he lost.
Essentially, he got fired by the same people who’d mistakenly hired him in the first place, the American people, this time without successful help from the Russians.
Mr. Biden, in his low-key weekend victory speeches, was effusive as he mentioned his debt to African-American voters for both saving his bacon in the South Carolina primary, and voting enthusiastically for him in the “blue” states he had to have to win—Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. This portends a great opportunity for Black folk who actually have a plan for Black progress to make themselves known in the next few months. There may be hope for Ice Cube’s “Plan for Black America” yet.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump and his acolytes continue to lose court challenge after challenge. An elite team of constitutional and election attorneys recently assessed the chances of the Trump team reversing the vote through court action. Their collective opinion is that the Trump train has permanently derailed and it is highly unlikely that any court challenges can or will get it back on track. Accepting his loss may take time (former Trump attorney Mike Cohen opines that Mr. Trump will disappear during the upcoming holidays, probably at his Florida golf course, Mar-a-Lago, and will not come back into public view, if at all, until well into January), but it is inevitable. That does not mean he or his followers will do it gracefully, though.
Already there are news reports trending that the Trump-appointed head of the GSA (General Services Administration) is blocking the necessary cooperation between the Biden folk and the Trump folk on the must-be-done transition team work. And, with the recent firing of the Secretary of Defense, Mike Esper (never a democratic party favorite anyway), there seems more military skullduggery afoot or being planned by the Trumpite brigade.
It seems clear that these next 70-plus days until the Jan. 20 inauguration of POTUS 46 will not be pleasant or calm. Like a spoiled child denied the candy and ice cream to which he thinks he has absolute claim, Mr. Trump already appears ready for the shouting and screaming fall-out. The rest of us will have to either grin and bear it, or smack his fannie swiftly and definitively to halt his tantrum.
Many people are already in the streets, this time celebrating, not protesting. There is a discernible feeling of calm about them. There’s maybe a sense of “Thank God! Someone stopped the car before we all slid over the cliff.”
Ching. Ching. Ching, sleigh bells clanging……….
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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