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    Election Night's big winner was the American voter -- until Trump kicked over the table

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory
    November 04, 2020

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Over a hundred people lined up in front of Philadelphia City Hall on October 7 to cast their "mail-in ballots" ahead of the November 3 presidential election GABRIELLA AUDI AFP

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory

    Amid results that will require more days to finalize, it was the American voter last night who emerged as the big winner—indeed the only winner up until Donald Trump decided that he had won and tried to kick over the whole table.


    After all, it was the dedicated individual voter who proved willing to stand in line in time for hours during a public contagion, to put up with widespread Republican efforts to squash the vote, to accept endless Democratic email solicitations, to ignore tons of misleading advertising – all in the name of maintaining some sense of democracy.

    That Americans took the moment seriously is worth its moment.

    But now an impatient Trump has decided that he can’t wait for counting actual votes, and has launched us unceremoniously into a tangle of legal challenges and possibly serious constitutional crisis.

    Still, yesterday was showing us anew that we are so divided as a country that despite days of huge early voting, we couldn’t easily decide on the actual contest.  Voters could not do the one thing that the election was supposed to settle – consider whether the Trump approach was good or bad.

    Instead, the Election Day turnout once again turned America’s Republican White rural counties against diverse Democratic urban strongholds.

    In those rare moments when the talking heads stopped the noise, we could see that Trump had effectively turned out his forces with a campaign that cared more about ground game than care about coronavirus. And Democrats did not turn out in Atlanta and Miami in the numbers they needed to offset those rural votes.

    We could understand that Joe Biden, who had been said to have lots of paths to 270 Electoral College votes was down to a pretty singular shot: As battleground state after state fell into place for Donald Trump through the night, the outcome finally was going to land right in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all the places requiring us to wait a few more days. It might hand on a single electoral vote from Omaha, we were told,

    What’s Next

    I’m sure I was not alone in entering the night thinking that a huge turnout meant that there was a majority out there that wanted  to separate fact from propaganda, to recognize there remains a place for morality in public life, to stand up to say, “Enough.”

    Instead, as the night dragged on, it seemed much more believable that the Trump fear campaign against some kind of perceived takeover of White America by people of color, an un-real believed danger of “socialism” and maybe buying that Trump is better at creating jobs.

    It’s not over yet, of course. I don’t care about waiting another day for the votes – though I do care about waiting through a series of legal cases with no apparent merit in a bald attempt to stop the ball game in the seventh inning.

    And I am upset about the evenness of the split in all those states.

    One couldn’t help but see this night as a parallel to Hillary Clinton’s election meltdown four years ago.  For lightning to strike twice seemed highly improbable, but there we were at the end of the night with a decent chance that Trump can get a judgment in the next day or two to keep him in office—if he just lets people do their jobs. .

    Though Trump himself had debased the idea of counting all the outstanding ballots in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the others, he too needs these votes to win reelection. Instead, he just asserts it.

    What is certain about the election results is that they tell us little as a nation about what direction Americans want for the country. State result after result was split almost evenly between a candidate who thinks we should ignore coronavirus and one who believes we need a national emergency declaration – and likewise on virtually any public issue involving governing, character or empathy.

    The two candidates themselves could agree only on the idea that they each represented a polar opposite of the other. To the last moment of campaigning, Trump proved himself devoid of reality of public contagion, of the unequal effect of his economy, of global responsibilities of the need to fear The Other. To his last public uttering, Biden was insisting we needed to retrieve the nation’s soul from an idiotic clown.

    No Lessons Learned

    How is it possible for Americans to divide equally?

    To underscore the obvious, the voting on Senate candidates split nearly evenly as well, giving neither party the kind of majority that can provide any sense of authority.

    If this election was supposed to be a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, even a huge turnout proved a fizzle. It was neither definitively positive or negative.

    Two years of vituperation, $14 billion in campaign spending, and what do we have?

    We’re headed for more of the same, regardless of who finally is sitting in the Oval Office.

    Meanwhile, Trump remains president, of course.

    I would like to think that this kind of night might provide a splash of water to a boorish, ego-centric president, to take account of a very divided nation, whether for two months or for four more years.

    But instead, we can expect that he will continue to ignore the realities of coronavirus, to take punitive actions against individuals like Dr. Anthony Fauci whom he perceives as opposing him, and to create lots more executive actions to worsen immigration, health care, environment,  income inequality and racism – all while the lame-duck Senate Republican majority shoves through more conservative federal judges with lifetime terms.

    The open question is who or what will emerge as the big loser of the night. My first choice is the insistence on using flashing super-screens with red and blue that underscore that we care more about the horserace than considering the values to which we hope to aspire.

    But the bigger loser for the night is trust in our democracy. This campaign has underscored our need to win at any cost, spawning lies, dark money, and a distinct refusal to separate partisan fiction from the realities of complicated problems.

    We asked the American public to consider an accounting for the Trump years. The American voter gave it a good shot – and whiffed.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    Survey: Should Donald Trump be prosecuted after he leaves office?

    WATCH: Newt pushes conspiracy theory Biden White House wants to 'exterminate' Republicans

    Bob Brigham
    January 21, 2021

    Only weeks after Republican lies about election fraud incited a fatal insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed a new conspiracy theory.

    One the first full day of the Biden, Gingrich blasted the new administration because of public discussions over the 14th Amendment banning people who commit sedition after taking an oath to defend the Constitution. Many legal experts have said that applies to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).

    "Well look, I think you are seeing the hysteria of the Biden system. Because it's not really about Biden himself. It's this entire team around him who are radicals who believe if they could exterminate the Republicans that would be one way to get to unity. As a New York Times columnist wrote this morning, you know, if Biden really wanted unity, he would start by lynching Vice President Pence. That just gives you a sense of the ferocity and the anger and the hatred that underlies the modern left. And I think that Cruz showed enormous courage," Gingrich argued. "He always has."

    Watch:

    ‘Pathetic’ NYT reporter blasted for ‘ragingly incompetent’ questioning of Biden press secretary

    Matthew Chapman
    January 21, 2021

    On Thursday, during the daily White House press briefing, New York Times reporter Michael Shear asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki why, as supposedly evidenced by his start-of-term executive orders reversing policies of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden was not trying to unify the country.

    "Is unemployment insurance an issue that only Democrats in the country want?" said Psaki, visibly taken aback at the framing of the question. "Or do only Democrats want their kids to go back to schools?"

    Shear's question drew harsh criticism on social media, with reporters excoriating how he chose to pose the question and suggesting that it was a leading premise.

    He basically asked @PressSec why Biden hasn’t unified the country yet, suggesting that he should have left Trump’s policies in place and put Republicans in his cabinet.

    This framing is such nonsense. https://t.co/5A2h1tGGoY

    — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 22, 2021

    Seriously, watch this insane exchange
    pic.twitter.com/b0V0KCSNHs

    — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 22, 2021

    I give lectures around the world on how to ask questions. This guy needs to attend.

    No one should make it to the White House press room who is as ragingly incompetent as this guy at framing a question.

    Who is he? Who pays his salary? https://t.co/mbdNj1YNsw

    — David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) January 22, 2021

    No, damn, it’s not someone from the New York Times or any other first right news organization. And if I’m wrong we can both send a letter asking why he hasn’t been fired.

    — David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) January 22, 2021

    'The name's toxic': Trump Org in crisis and bleeding money as ex-president takes the reins again

    Matthew Chapman
    January 21, 2021

    On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that the Trump Organization is in financial freefall as former president Donald Trump prepares to take the helm of the company again.

    "Financial disclosure forms, filed by the former president as he left office, revealed that his hotels, resorts and other properties had lost more than $120 million in revenue last year, as the pandemic forced long-term closures and kept customers home," reported David Farenthold and Jonathan O'Connell. "Those losses were worst in the places where Trump could least afford it: His Washington hotel, which has a $170 million loan outstanding, saw revenue drop more than 60 percent. His Doral resort in Miami — also carrying a huge debt load — saw a 44 percent drop."

    Moreover, the Trump Organization is also losing a number of business partners.

    "On Thursday, the company's troubles grew: One of its banks and one of its law firms said they would cut their ties with the Trump Organization," said the report. "They are the latest in a string of vendors and customers who severed their relationships with the company after Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol directly after he addressed them at a rally."

    Meanwhile, his properties are losing contracts to host events, including the PGA tour and a triathlon in North Carolina — with the latter's organizer, Chuck McAllister, saying, "The name's toxic. It's toxic to some people. That's never going to change." The City of New York "said it will end the Trump Organization's contracts to run a carousel, two ice rinks and a golf course in city parks — contracts that brought the Trump Organization $18 million in 2019." And the Girl Scouts and a tuberculosis charity are trying to break their leases on offices in Trump's building on Wall Street.

    According to the report, President Joe Biden might ultimately hold the entire fate of the Trump Organization in his hands. "That's because Biden's success in speeding up vaccinations for the coronavirus will play a major role in determining how fast the hotel and travel industries recover. In addition, because Trump's D.C. hotel is located in a federally owned building, the Biden administration is his landlord. If Trump seeks to renegotiate his lease, or to get federal approval for a sale of the building, he will be dealing with Biden's General Services Administration."

    You can read more here.


    Remember the press conference at Trump Tower in 2017, where Trump's lawyer spoke in front of piles of paper in mani… https://t.co/6v9Q83xfB3
    — David Fahrenthold (@David Fahrenthold)1611276440.0
     
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