Wot, No President!

[poliphilo]

They removed the corpse from the basement and put it in a bath- whereupon it coughed, sat up and "said, "Sorry we have to do this again," then lay down in the bath water, opened its mouth and drowned. This was a dream I had just before waking.

I got the date wrong yesterday- and wrote about there not having been many fireworks when bonfire night hadn't actually happened yet. Perhaps one should note it as one of the effects of lockdown that one loses track of time. Anyway the actual bonfire night wasn't that much livelier than the night before. There were a few bangs around eight o'clock- and that was it. I had been sent a petition to sign requesting a ban on fireworks for the sake of domestic animals- which I binned for a number of reasons- the chief of which being that I'm constitutionally averse to banning things. Further down the list would come the observation that it's just not true that all pets are spooked by fireworks- and, indeed, I don't think I've ever owned one that was. Ailz reminds me of a cat we used to have who would sit up on the window sill specifically to watch the sparkles in the sky.

It seems the USA still doesn't have a President. All the mainstream media I see is unquestioningly hostile to Trump, calling his accusations of fraud "false" and "fake" without bothering to investigate- which is either culpable naivety or dereliction of duty. From what I know of the history of US politics- indeed of politics worldwide- both sides will be doing all they can to finangle their way to victory. These are not nice people- and the main difference between Biden and Trump is that only one of them has drawing-room manners.

Comments

[shewhomust]

Up to a point -

The USA doesn't have an election result, but they have a President, because the incumbent remains in office until mid-January, when whoever won the election is sworn in. THis strikes me as an odd artangement at the best of tomes, and it remains to be seen what Trump will make of it.

The reporting I'm hearing (BBC) about the allegations of fraud is more nuanced than what you are seeing: I'm hearing that Trump is making allegations, but not producing evidence (which makes it difficult to investigate his claims), Longer reports often say well, yes, there are some dodgy votes cast in every ballot, and these are usually dealt with by discarding the dodgy votes, not by invalidating the entire ballot ...

[poliphilo]

It rather looks as though the immediate future will see an orgy of litigation.

[cmcmck]

Trump needs to take warning from that Aussie billionaire whose love affair for litigation has just cost him one hell of a lot of money!

And Trump isn't as rich as he'd like to have us believe.

[minoanmiss]

The reason why the mainstream media is "hostile" to Trump is because the ones who fact check have spent four years, and specifically this campaign cycle, finding a very high preponderance of what he says to be lies. Specifically his claims of election fraud. Claims of election fraud are often leveled in the US, by conservatives at liberals, and often with a racist edge: they say that we are "letting illegal immigrants" vote or "paying Black people to bus in and vote" and so on. So, what reason do you have to believe that Democrats are finally doing these things after no shred of proof has been found of them in any election for at least the last twenty years? Why should we extend this torturous process even more by countenancing yet more spurious legal challenges to largely Democratic votes after all the legal and governmental efforts to impede Democratic voters, poor voters, and voters of color, from gerrymandering to deleting primarily POC from the voting rolls to reduced and substandard voting apparatus in heavily POC areas?

Why do you think Trump is remotely likely to be telling the truth, this time or at all? Why do you think what you see as 'hostility' to him is anything other than refusal to waste one more bit of time on his five hundreth spurious claim after investigating the last 499?

I do not love Biden at all, but I'll take his drawing room manners and disinclination to incite violence against me and many of my fellow Americans. I'd like to hear your reasons why I shouldn't.

[sovay]

The reason why the mainstream media is "hostile" to Trump is because the ones who fact check have spent four years, and specifically this campaign cycle, finding a very high preponderance of what he says to be lies.

This. Thank you for typing it out so concisely.

Trump tried to claim victory in this election at about a quarter to three in the morning on Election Night when something like less than half the country's results had come in. It was appropriate to report that statement as false because it was. Not enough ballots had been counted to determine the claim; he was—and as of my last glance at the press, remains—nowhere near the number of votes in the electoral college needed to take the presidency. His entire administration has been marked by similar lies of such constancy and obviousness that while it is still necessary to fact-check them, it is a perpetual Gish gallop and they are not neutral background noise. His easily proved lies have incited violence that has killed people. His unfounded claims of fraud on the part of the Democrats (which if true would be affecting only his performance in the presidential race; the Republicans have otherwise done far better out of this election than they were projected to) have the potential to do the same. It is responsible not to amplify these claims as truth until they can be shown to be, and right now, there is no evidence in favor and much to the contrary.

I wish the media had pushed back on him years ago like they are doing now. One of the things I feared about this election was that the papers would simply, as they have done for far too much of his adminstration, take him at his word.

[sovay]

The USA doesn't have an election result, but they have a President, because the incumbent remains in office until mid-January, when whoever won the election is sworn in.

Yes. What we don't have is a President-elect. (Having used that phrase, I will now be stuck with an internal soundtrack of The Mikado for the rest of the day.) It's not like having a pope or even a parliamentary system; when you throw out a government in this country, they don't have to clean out their desk on the night. I have, actually, no idea why we even work this way. We don't have a vote of no confidence, either, which bugged me as much as three presidencies ago.

I'm hearing that Trump is making allegations, but not producing evidence (which makes it difficult to investigate his claims)

Some of the specific allegations can be (and have been) debunked.

[poliphilo]

I don't believe the Democrats have done these things, I merely believe it's possible they might have done. Political parties of all stripes do reprehensible things in their quest for power.

I know very little about Biden. I think he's a political mediocrity with a history of supporting the big guys against little guys- but I wouldn't argue against your choice. He may well be the better option.

[minoanmiss]

The thing is I've just explained why Democrats can't mess with elections. Not out of the goodness of our hearts or whatever but because the Republicans constantly say we are doing so. Our best defense against their claims is to never be seen doing so, and the easiest way to not be seen doing so is to not do so. (Which doesn't stop the REpublicans from constantly trying to manufacture evidence that we are doing so, as Snopes' constant stream of debunkings show.)

Biden is actually my least favorite of the Democratic candidates. However, he has shown he can work with Black people and scientists and actively supports same-sex marriage. This contrasts with Trump who is beholden to unknown foreign powers, threw trans people out of the military, called for the Black Lives Matter protests to be put down with violence, said that Black politicians will put "crime-ridden" housing projects in the suburbs, called Latinos rapists and criminals, sought to bar Muslims from the US on the basis of their religion, is threatening to fire Dr. Fauci, has withdrawn us from the Paris climate accords, has installed flunkies at the CDC and EPA who are removing the scientists from both agencies, and installed a cabinet member in charge of education, therefore of vulnerable children, who undid protections for LBGT students and measures to fight sexual assault on campuses. ANd that's just off the top of my head -- the list of his misdeeds could go on and on and on. I fail to see how any of the Democrats we were offered, including Biden, could be worse than that.

[shewhomust]

Thanks for the Reality Check link - I hadn't seen that!