Election night is going to be a clusterfuck
Once I realized that this pandemic is going to keep a lot of people away from voting in-person I quickly concluded that no one, not anyone, is going to have a real clue about who won come Election Night. This was a couple of months back, and since then I haven’t seen any article or analysis that has taken the opposing view. Take this analysis from Hawkfish (as the Axios article points out “A top Democratic data and analytics firm” funded by Michael Bloomberg). One thing Hawkfish points out here is something I’ve seen elsewhere (at least, from people and publications that I believe to be trustworthy), that regardless of what happens Election Night and after, Trump is going to do anything and everything to sow doubt about the results if the race is called in Biden’s favor. And, when all is said and done and Trump really does win, well, he’ll simultaneously talk up how big his Electoral College win is and how so many people voted illegally and he really did win the popular vote. Yep, the same crap he’s been spreading since 2016.
For some reason I don’t think Trump will be as vocal about the results being illegitimate when it comes to down ballot races, mostly because I don’t think he cares who’s in Congress, as long as he gets to continue to play Banana Republic Autocrat Dictator from the White House. Besides, a Congress with both chambers dominated by Democrats completely sets him up with a Big Bad for the next 4 years. Just don’t expect the Republicans to be so playful, and totally expect Fox News to drive off the deep end.
All of this is to say, don’t sit glued to the news cycle Election Night and into the next morning (I type this knowing that I will, in all likelihood, be glued to the election results, inane chitchat and poorer analysis). Keep an eye on the results, of course, but expect that whatever results are reported are going to be partial at best and completely misleading. This goes for the unlikely event that exit polls show Biden with the lead.
Since that completely upside down, I-Can’t-Believe-This-Just-Happened Election Night 2016 the country has been in complete chaos, with Trump the sower of the seeds and the Republican Party dutifully, grovelingly coming up behind to water the fields (well, in this case, pass the lit matches on to Trump). It’s not going to get magically better come November 4th. Even when the final results are in, all the votes are counted, be they in-person, mail-in, or absentee, don’t expect them to stand as a towering Monolith of Finality. Assuming (hoping) Trump loses there will be law suits, recounts, re-recounts, more lawsuits, and don’t forget, it’s the Electoral College that really decides, and they don’t meet until December 14th.
If we’re lucky, and everyone who can vote does, and everyone who can vote by mail does so early enough that their vote doesn’t get tossed for arriving too late (thanks to Trump and DeJoy colluding to kill the Post Office) and Biden wins, this won’t be over until, at the earliest, December 14th (let’s not kid ourselves, that’s a lot of ifs). Something, though, tells me that we’re going to be in a shit pool with this election until right up before Inauguration Day.
I just hope that it’s Biden who takes the keys to the White House, and I hope that the crazy finally settles down and we, as a United Nation, can move forward to solve real problems and make life better for all. There’s a lot to fix (not all Trump’s fault, thanks Mitch) and not a lot of time to fix it. Otherwise, I will weep for what could have been, and should have been, and for the end of the Great American Experiment.
