Who scripted this play? We have a leader holed up in the White House, afraid to show his face in public because he lost an election, while the worst health crisis in a century decimates the nation.
It *is* difficult to for most of us to acknowledge defeat, but we all have to do it sometimes. I had to acknowledge defeat once when my young sons and I hoisted up the basketball hoop we'd assembled in the backyard and discovered that it was facing backwards.
Hard to score that way.
If there is a lesson to all of the national drama we are witnessing, it's to parents -- beware of letting little Junior always get his way. You might be raising a monster.
But the country is moving on. Day by day more Republicans are accepting the situation, and it is increasingly clear that Trump himself is aware he is finished.
It's not like it's going to be one big happy party for the Democrats. The progressive wing headed by Bernie Sanders and AOC will fight for position inside Biden's moderate regime. After losing numerous seats in the House, Pelosi will probably hang onto power, but not without a lot of grumbling from the troops.
And the Senate -- who knows? It seems a pretty long stretch to imagine both Georgia seats going to the Dems in the January runoff. So the GOP will probably hold on there.
Usually when I try to figure out what's going to happen in national politics, I look to Wall Street, because no matter which party holds power, the financial markets cover their bets. And the smart money lately has been on divided government (sigh) for at least two more years.
If the progressives make inroads during the first half of Biden's term, everyone will focus on the midterm elections in 2020. Will that be the Democrats' "tea party" moment of progressive ascendance?
Or, as often happens, will the GOP make a comeback and take over both houses of Congress.
All of this, of course, is politics as usual. And as also is usually the case, California can provide some guidance. Out here, we have had one-party rule for many years; there essentially is no Republican Party statewide.
So the Democratic Party has conveniently split into two factions -- moderates and progressives -- with lots of resources in both groups. Those who under other circumstances would back Republicans fund the moderates. In this way, policy reforms lurch rightward and leftward just as if the GOP was alive and kicking.
Which brings me to my main point. The real divide in America is over conservative and liberal interpretations of how to best move forward. Trump was a non-ideological sideshow, a circus act. As soon as he is gone, the real battle will begin.
***
On to the headlines, including a report on the effectiveness of robot wolves:
* Trump’s attacks on election outcome prolong uncertainty for tech companies -- The firms’ ability to sustain their policing of potentially harmful content is being tested as Trump and his allies continue to contest Joe Biden’s victory. (Reuters)
* Biden wins Arizona, now has 290 electoral votes. (CNN)
* Republicans are well positioned to take the House in 2022. (538)
* Donald Trump spent 10 minutes in public honoring America’s war veterans at Arlington National Cemetery -- his first public outing for official business in more than a week. He’s spent the past few days in private tweeting angry, unsupported claims of voter fraud. Barbara Res, a former top executive in the Trump Organization, said Trump will “burn down the house" to overturn the win of President-elect Joe Biden. [AP]
* Denying defeat, claiming fraud and using government machinery to reverse election results are the time-honored tools of dictators. (NYT)
* No evidence has surfaced to back up the president’s claims of widespread fraud, and he is talking privately about a rematch in 2024 — an indication that he may be starting to come to terms with his loss. (WashPo)
* Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden’s victory. (AP)
* McCarthy guarantees 2022 House majority after GOP shows suburban strength (WashPo)
* Trump's team has bombarded supporters with requests for money to help pay for legal challenges to the election results: “The Left will try to STEAL this election!” reads one text. But any small-dollar, grassroots donations won’t be going to legal expenses at all. A donor would have to give more than $8,000 before any money goes to the “recount account” established to finance election challenges, including recounts and lawsuits over alleged improprieties. A Washington Post columnist suggested Trump's election challenge is just another money-making scam. [Reuters]
* Which party controls the Senate will largely dictate how ambitious President-elect Joe Biden can get on taxes, health care, climate change and other policy priorities. (NYT)
* Trump rails against ‘medical deep state’ after Pfizer vaccine news comes post-Election Day (WashPo)
* Peer-reviewed findings indicate that the intense storms like those that have wreaked havoc across the U.S. Gulf Coast are a sign of things to come as the climate warms. The research offers a sound rebuttal of the Trump administration’s stance that hurricanes today are virtually unchanged from a century ago. “The havoc will not be constrained to the coastal areas but will creep further inland, which of course then catches people unprepared,” physicist Pinaki Chakraborty says. [HuffPost]
* Biden wants to undo the chaos Trump has inflicted from the Middle East to China and beyond. It won’t be easy. (NYT)
* The Covid-19 pandemic brought the economy to a screeching halt, and while it has started its long road to recovery, the economy we knew is probably a thing of the past, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday."We're recovering, but to a different economy," Powell said during a virtual panel discussion at the European Central Bank's Forum on Central Banking.The pandemic has accelerated existing trends in the economy and society, including the increasing use of technology, telework and automation, he said. This will have lasting effects on how people live and work. (CNN)
* Trump touted the economy; the economy voted for Biden (WSJ)
* Just over a month after the first COVID-19 superspreader event at the White House, which hospitalized the president and infected around three dozen others, it looks like team Trump is responsible for another one. The cluster of cases this time appears linked to an election night watch party inside the White House East Room, where hundreds of guests mingled for hours unmasked without any social distancing. [HuffPost]
* Chicago issues stay-at-home advisory and tells residents to cancel traditional Thanksgiving celebrations. (CNN)
* Home builders are selling more houses designed for multigenerational living and rolling out more new designs for people who want their elderly relatives to live with them. (WSJ)
* Azerbaijan’s drones owned the battlefield in Nagorno-Karabakh —and showed future of warfare (WashPo)
* Spain’s government announced Wednesday that it would require travelers arriving in Spain from high-risk countries to prove they tested negative for the coronavirus. (NYT)
* A Japanese town has deployed robot wolves to scare off bears that have become an increasingly dangerous nuisance in the countryside. The town of Takikawa purchased and installed a pair of the robots after bears were found roaming neighborhoods in September. City officials said there have been no bear encounters since. Bear sightings are at a five-year high, mostly in rural areas in western and northern Japan, national broadcaster NHK has reported. There have been dozens of attacks so far in 2020, two of them fatal, prompting the government to convene an emergency meeting last month to address the threat they pose.The robot called Monster Wolf consists of a shaggy body on four legs, a blond mane and fierce, glowing-red eyes. When its motion detectors are activated, it moves its head, flashes lights and emits 60 different sounds ranging from wolfish howling to machinery noises. (CNN/NHK)
* New United Ultra Economy-Class Tickets Lets Passengers Get Dragged Behind Plane By Giant Rope (The Onion)
***
Golden days before they end
Whisper secrets to the wind
Your baby won't be near you any more
Send falling stars that seem to cry
Your baby doesn't want you any more
It's over
But oh what will you do? then she said to you
There's someone new we're through we're through
It's over it's over it's over
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