11/8/20: If yesterday was
the first day of the rest of soon-to-be former President Donald J. Trump’s
life, I think we can all agree he’s not ready for the transition from White
House to Loserstan. He and his supporters continue to rail against the unfair
system of voting. It was the same system Candidate Trump blasted in 2016, when
he claimed the system was “rigged” against him.
And he won.
____________________
“This is a moment of relief
and joy.”
German
Foreign Minister Heiko
Maas
____________________
Today, the votes continue to run in Joe Biden’s favor. His lead in the
popular vote stands at 4.4 million.
Biden: 75,241,849
Trump: 70,818,393
The margin in the popular vote is irrelevant;
but Trump’s hopes of proving the system was rigged, and that ballot-box-stuffing
Democrats screwed him over, look increasingly grim. Biden’s lead in Georgia, where
Republicans control the levers of government, has risen to 10,352. Biden’s
lead in Pennsylvania stands at 43,251. Even in red counties, mail-in ballots
have been running heavily in favor of the challenger. The former Vice
President leads the incumbent by 19,341 votes in Arizona, another state where the
machinery of government is mostly in Republican hands. Finally, Mr. Biden
leads Mr. Trump by 31,464 votes in Nevada, a state where Team Trump insisted
every vote must be counted.
Now, almost every vote has been. The president
is still trailing.
*
FORMER President George W. Bush announces this afternoon that he has
called President-Elect Biden to congratulate him on his victory. Former
presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama have also congratulated
Mr. Biden.
(I think it would be kind of fun if Barack
called the White House, got Trump on the line, and shouted, “Loser Don,” and
hung up.)
“No
one wants to tell King Lear the truth.”
MICHAEL COHEN, Trump’s personal lawyer for more
than a decade, and a man indicted and convicted on several felony charges along
with an unidentified co-conspirator labeled “Individual 1,” makes a bold
prediction.
He tells a reporter he doubts “Individual 1” (that
is: Trump) will ever concede. At Christmas, he predicts, President Trump will leave
the White House and head for Mar-a-Lago. And he will never come back.
No inaugural for him!
That means that as the pandemic continues to
hamstring the country, Trump has only weeks to finish the great job he did of
getting us down to zero cases of COVID-19. Today, he buckled down to business,
studied the pressing issues related to the science of the spread …and went
golfing again.
According to Hallie Jackson, a reporter for
MSNBC, a person close to the White House told her no one wanted the job of telling the president he lost. “No one wants
to tell King Lear the truth,” the source said.
*
“Welcome back, America.”
WORLD LEADERS have also begun to call and congratulate Mr. Biden and Ms.
Harris. More than a few were reacting like the Munchkins when Dorothy’s house
landed on the Wicked Witch of the East. “The world sort of survived four years with a somewhat restrained
Trump,” the former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, tweeted on November
4. “A world with a triumphant Trump could well
(have been) a different thing,” he said. In Paris, church bells rang at
the news of Trump’s defeat. The mayor tweeted, “Welcome back, America.”
The implicit
condemnation of the current occupant of the Oval Office was clear. The prime
minister of Sweden tweeted: “Looking forward to strengthening excellent US-Swedish
relations and to work jointly for multilateralism, democracy and global
security. Together, we can lead a green transition creating jobs for the
future.” “We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges,” President
Emmanuel Macron of France wrote, adding, “Let’s work together!”
With Trump, of course, that had proved
impossible.
Heiko Maas, Germany’s
foreign minister no doubt spoke for many of our allies. “This is a moment of
relief and joy,” he admitted.
While it may be true that the nations of the world do not know exactly
what they must do to address the threat of climate change, there was palpable
relief that now, at least, the greatest nation in the world would be led by
a man who doesn’t deny science. The prime minister of the Fiji Islands realizes
his tiny nation could be submerged if nothing is done to halt the slow rise in
ocean levels. “Now, more than ever, we need
the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the
#ParisAgreement – ASAP!),” Frank Bainimarama wrote.
Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand,
sounded a similar note in a
congratulatory message to Biden and Harris. “With so many issues facing the
international community, your message of unity is one we share,” she said. “New
Zealand looks forward to working with you both!”
No comments:
Post a Comment