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The Screaming Moderate

Ding, dong the warlock is (almost) dead

11/2/2020

1 Comment

 
While the huge crowds President Trump continues to draw say his supporters are enthusiastic and will turn out to vote, he has done nothing during his four years to expand his base. It’s hard for me to believe he can win with just his base, no matter how they turn out.

So, I believe former Vice President Joe Biden will win this election and it won’t be close. We likely won’t know that result for a while, not because the exit polls will be wrong but because this year not only will there be patience in waiting for states to count their votes but because Trump will never concede. Never.

In fact, he will sue. He’s already said he’ll go to court, before any vote is counted. That’s what he does when he doesn’t get his way. He will sue to try to have votes tossed out or to claim political bias by “Democratic governors” or whatever other reasons he can come up with.

If we haven’t learned by now, failure is never his fault.

At some point in the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day, when Trump isn’t focused on mucking up the federal government more than he has, he may even resign. Why? So that when Vice President Pence takes over, Pence can pardon Trump from any federal crimes he may have committed. Also, I cannot picture Donald Trump sitting and smiling while Biden takes the oath of office. If Trump isn’t the focus of attention, then how can he attend someone else’s inauguration?

You can read the pundits, experts and academicians on the why and how Trump wins – I’m not that expert at the specifics. But I don’t think there’s another surprise for Trump, who never expected to be elected the first time. He didn’t realize he was up against the only candidate he could have beaten then, though.

Also, Trump will scream and cry that certain votes shouldn’t be counted because we must know the results tomorrow.  But the fact is that no election is officially decided on Election Day.

Trump, who gets any and all of his information from watching TV, may think that the election is decided Election Day because in the past networks also projected each state’s outcome almost immediately after the polls close. Mr. President, that is not how it’s done. Each of the 50 states counts its own votes. It will take longer this year in many states because of the overwhelming number of mail-in ballots.

During that time Trump may think he can sue everybody but it’s hard to sue a state before that state even counts its vote. Indeed, Mr. President, there are rules and laws as to how elections are conducted. Those laws, by the Constitution, are set by the states.

And those rules are, day to day, overseen by local Democratic and Republican election officers. Folks who are very good at their jobs.

The fact that we head into Election Day and Georgia is in play as is Arizona has to say something about how this election is breaking. While those and other states were expected to, thanks to changing demographics, at some point go Democrat, Trump has sped up that process.

In any event, there’s no reason not to believe that the aftermath of this election will be every bit as ugly and chaotic as have been the last four years.

It’s also likely that Democrats will pick up at least 7 to 12 seats in the House and will take over the Senate.

If I’m right, it means the Republican Party has a lot of thinking to do when this is over. Republicans have bowed at the feet of Trump, given up their decades-long values and principles and, after this election, will be trying to figure out how to come back.

And that will be with Trump sniping from the outside because he’s not about to give up the cult of followers he has created for himself. These are not Republicans, they are Trumpists. The GOP will need to find itself again if it is to survive. Whether it can break away from Trump will tell the story though.

In the meantime, I imagine millions of Americans will be toasting the new President-elect, celebrating that the warlock is dead and looking forward to a government that will control the pandemic and bring back calm.

1 Comment
Peg Harrington
11/2/2020 08:57:20 am

Inshallah...

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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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