By now, writers and analysts have just about run out of comparisons for this, what has almost certainly become the most unique-est, bigly-est, ugliest, most transfixing of political sagas in American history. Is it more like Citizen Kane, Rashomon, King Lear, Richard III, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Prisoner of Zenda, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, or all of them jumbled together — or what? And if so, in what mix? No one knows anymore. And the damnedest thing is that this saga just continues, seemingly without an end – even if the inevitable conclusion must actually be at noon on 20 January 2021.
After four days of deep uncertainty, the nation’s media finally concluded that challenger Joe Biden, the former vice president, had achieved both a popular vote and electoral vote victory over the incumbent president. In between the Election Day and that moment, millions of people, mostly Americans but also many more around the world, were glued to their television screens and computers, watching the votes trickle in and then getting those votes recorded on the magic boards of operations such as CNN. This announcement triggered major demonstrations of joy in cities all across the US, described by one foreign correspondent based there as akin to the feelings coming from the overthrow of a deeply feared and hated dictator.
But even as the televised images of states slowly turning blue or red to mark the vote going for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump took place, supporters of the president were already beginning to insist (in the absence of evidence) that the election was being stolen from them in some kind of secret, perfectly functioning, massive, corrupt fraud that brought the Democratic Party, the media, the mythic “deep state” and all those hi-tech companies together. That would have been something ripped from the most improbable, potboiler-style, political fiction. Move over Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy and Fletcher Knebel, the three of you, collectively, in place of reality.
Of course, there are a few holes in this theory. And while not every Donald Trump enabler buys into this whole, massive, but vacuous conspiracy hokum, some clearly do: Some to curry favour with the president while he still remains in office, or to keep the attention of his faithful on their fealty. And many of those faithful ordinary Trump voters are expressing an absolute belief in this quasi-religious credo, even though it is completely without the accompanying miracles.
First, of course, is the inconsistency in the lawsuits being filed by the Trumpians. On the one hand, in Pennsylvania, the chant has been to stop the count and stop bothering with all those obviously fraudulent absentee/mail-in ballots (including many from far-flung military personnel) that, per law, must only be counted after all Election Day ballots have been tabulated.
If that plan were carried out, Pennsylvania might have been safely — but unfairly — pushed back into the Trump column. But then, on the other hand, in Arizona, they have been demanding that all the ballots must be counted, especially those (falsely believed) to have been secretly hidden away in locked closets away from the vote counters so that Arizona can return to the Trumpian fold.
As reported in The New York Times the other day, “Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.
Then there is the extraordinary anomaly that numerous Republican candidates down-ballot (necessarily listed on the same ballot papers or in the same column in voting machines) actually gained more votes in their respective districts than did the president. How did they manage that in the face of a supposed voting fraud conspiracy?
There is also the argument appearing in lawsuits being pursued by the Trump campaign that legal, formal Republican Party vote-counting observers have been obstructed from their task so the crooked stuff can happen. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they have been unable to marshal even the most meagre evidence of this crime, especially when asked by presiding judges as to why these suits are being pursued, and in the face of real video evidence to the contrary.
(There are even news reports that some Republican strategists have been meeting to try to game-out extreme methods of holding on to power, such as getting state legislatures held by their party to switch in a new electoral college delegation loyal to Donald Trump in place of the one actually voted in by the state’s actual citizens in the recent election.)
Meanwhile, throwing some cold water on the whole voter fraud enterprise, the actual state-level government officials responsible for voting and elections have stated publicly that there have been no significant irregularities. As reported in The New York Times the other day, “Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.
“Over the last several days, the president, members of his administration, congressional Republicans and right-wing allies have put forth the false claim that the election was stolen from Mr Trump and have refused to accept results that showed Joseph R Biden Jr as the winner. But top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.
Some states described small problems common to all elections, which they said they were addressing: a few instances of illegal or double voting, some technical glitches and some minor errors in math. Officials in all states are conducting their own review of the voting – a standard component of the certification process.”
“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state. “The conspiracy theories and rumours and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.”
“Steve Simon, a Democrat who is Minnesota’s secretary of state, said: ‘I don’t know of a single case where someone argued that a vote counted when it shouldn’t have or didn’t count when it should. There was no fraud.’”
“Kansas did not experience any widespread, systematic issues with voter fraud, intimidation, irregularities or voting problems,” a spokeswoman for Scott Schwab, the Republican secretary of state in Kansas, said in an email on Tuesday. “We are very pleased with how the election has gone up to this point.”
The New York Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly to The Times. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state; none reported any major voting issues.
“Statewide officials in Texas did not respond to repeated inquiries. But a spokeswoman for the top elections official in Harris County, the largest county in Texas with a population greater than many states, said that there were only a few minor issues and that ‘we had a very seamless election’.
“On Tuesday, the Republican lieutenant governor in Texas, Dan Patrick, announced a $1-million fund to reward reports of voter fraud.
Some states described small problems common to all elections, which they said they were addressing: a few instances of illegal or double voting, some technical glitches and some minor errors in math. Officials in all states are conducting their own review of the voting – a standard component of the certification process.”
None of this testimony appears to have penetrated the consciousness of Republican operatives, credulous Republican voters, or the purveyors of those deliberate untruths via social media. Nor that of the president, apparently, as his sons and his cronies have gone on with their increasingly frenetic tweets and rants. But, so far, even as they have continued in this charade, no judge has seen fit to rule in their favour.
It is true that in the state of Georgia, a recount – not a revote – may well take place if the final vote shows a less than 0.5% difference between the winning and losing candidates, but this eventually is a function of state law, rather than pressure from the Trump campaign and its acolytes, per se.
(A recount is triggered in the vote outcome if the difference is as stated or lower and if the losing candidate requests it.)
Meanwhile, President Trump continues his untrammelled rampage across the landscape, firing (“terminating” in his words) his most recent secretary of defence and threatening, in Trump-style sotto voce, to remove other senior figures, such as the National Institutes of Health’s Dr Anthony Fauci – and all of this within the last two months of his presidency.
So far, at least, President-elect Biden has brushed off this foolishness. He has said that his transition planning is going forward anyway, but he has added that this Trumpian petulance and childishness is going to be a serious blot on the incumbent president’s legacy.
Such behaviour is encouraging some to question the state of the president’s emotional stability in the face of his unbearable electoral loss. Other officials are starting to resign in protest, most especially the senior justice department official responsible for dealing with voting irregularities and procedures, following an announcement by the attorney general to investigate purported voting frauds, making use of the justice department and the FBI.
Most Republican politicians have refused to give traditional congratulations to Joe Biden on his victory. The president continues to refuse to offer a concession statement, and he has signalled that any staffers starting to search for new jobs (they have mortgages too) will be fired.
Most consequentially, he has effectively ordered the head of the General Services Agency to withhold approval for the use of appropriated funding for the required transition office. That funding covers office space for the president-elect’s team, its communications infrastructure, formal approval for individual departmental transition teams, staff salaries, the requirement that government agencies provide detailed briefings for the incoming administration and processing of security clearances for those transition staff and any identified individuals who will be nominated for senior offices.
So far, at least, President-elect Biden has brushed off this foolishness. He has said that his transition planning is going forward anyway, but he has added that this Trumpian petulance and childishness is going to be a serious blot on the incumbent president’s legacy.
Increasingly, though, politically savvy individuals of both parties are now turning their attention to the future composition of the Senate. According to the voting, the Democrats have picked up, net, one seat, now holding 48 seats out of a 100, while the Republicans appear to have 49. Three remain to be filled, although Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan is now projected to hold on to his seat. But that still will leave two Senate seats to be determined. That number of two is crucial, and this is why: In the event of a tie vote in the Senate, the vice president, in her constitutional duty as president pro tempore of that body, casts the deciding vote. That becomes very important indeed for Joe Biden’s policy ambitions as president.
As a general principle, one-third of the Senate is voted upon every two years. But this time around, both Republican senators from Georgia were up for re-election. There was first-termer David Perdue, but also Kelly Loeffler. The latter, a major political party donor, was appointed by Georgia’s Republican governor at the beginning of 2020, when a vacancy occurred due to the then incumbent’s ill health.
Neither Perdue nor Loeffler won the required 50% of their respective elections in so-called “jungle elections”, and, so now they face Democrats Jon Ossoff, a state legislator, and Rev Raphael Warnock of Atlanta’s famous Ebenezer Baptist Church, respectively. While the Perdue-Ossoff election is for a six-year term, the Warnock-Loeffler race would be for a two-year term to complete the remaining period of Johnny Isakson’s term, the senator who had resigned.
Given that control of the Senate now hangs in the balance, and given that a close, but near-certain win by president-elect Joe Biden in Georgia (significantly owed to Stacey Abrams’ register and vote initiative that evolved from her almost-successful effort to become Georgia’s first black, female governor), these two senatorial run-off elections are the subject of intense interest by both parties. Democrats are given a fair chance of succeeding with both. Because of these two 5 January 2021 run-off elections, Georgia voters are going to be flooded with campaign advertising, fund-raising appeals and every other campaign approach imaginable until the actual voting is done.
If the two Democratic candidates actually were to win, the Senate would be split 50-50 and the vice president could vote to determine the majority leader, thereby ending Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s regime. Being the majority leader means setting the Senate’s calendar, thereby largely deciding which legislative proposals are or are not considered. And that control similarly means control of all of the Senate committees. If both Democrats were to win, the various parts of the legislative agenda of Joe Biden as president would have significantly more chances of success, especially since the Democrats already control the lower house of Congress.
Meanwhile, this week, too, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments over Republican plans to effectively kill off Obamacare, although the justices, at least through their various questions so far, appear to be leaning away from this judicial death sentence.
Given the proposal from the president-elect to expand coverage under revisions to this law, if the Supreme Court decides to uphold Obamacare (the actual ruling will probably only come several months later), despite the enormous pressure from the Republican Party and the current president, it would be significant thumbs-up to the incoming president’s agenda. In a funny way, the Supreme Court’s decision, despite three members appointed by Donald Trump, would similarly represent an early triumph for Joe Biden.
But controlling the Senate would be an even bigger boost upwards, coming as it would, right before the inauguration on 20 January. This electoral dance is nowhere near over yet. DM