Next Draft - Premature Inauguration

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Wednesday, November 4, 2020

1

PREMATURE INAUGURATION

About last night... After what felt like a few hundred hours of watching election results trickle in, I assumed the fetal postion on my couch and moan-cried for about thirty minutes. It was a combination of things. Part of it was personal: I just spend so much time thinking, writing, tweeting, and distracting myself with this all-encompassing political story that I may have been momentarily overwhelmed. Maybe I was just considering how much dough I spent on various races around the country (I don't want to overstate how invested I am in this election, but I think ActBlue just repossessed my car). The bigger part was less personal: Trump has been basically the same guy since he's been president, and knowing this, tens of millions of Americans still voted for him. On some level, we are broken. I get the national divide and I frankly agree with many of the complaints coming from rural America. I understand some of the anger, but I've never understood expressing that anger through Trump. And watching him go full authoritarian as the votes were still being counted made me especially sad for my parents who had to watch the rise of a strongman during the buildup to WWII in Poland and Germany when they were kids, and who now have to watch half of America embrace a guy who deploys the same political tactics. But then I stopped crying. Partly because no one owns this lib! Partly because I realized that among the challenges my parents have faced, nothing about this election ranks in the top thousand. And partly because, regardless of the premature self-coronation of the mad king, in America, no election is over until every last Retweet is counted. And while there are very fine people on both sides, I have a feeling Biden's side is going to have enough electoral votes to win. But it's gonna be damn close. If my math is right, Biden got more votes than any candidate in history and Trump got more votes than he did in 2016. Stress and confusion in 2020. Who saw that coming? And one can safely assume, there's much more to come between now and the end of this election season. (One irony of presidential elections is that each one takes four years off my life.)

+ Without a definitive winner, the biggest news of election night was an American president lying about a victory and calling for vote-counting to stop. Equally big news was that such a despicable banana republic attack on democracy wasn't really that big of a news item. "If one of the New York Mets persistently declared victory in the top of the fourth inning, he'd be medicated and hospitalized. That this is bottom-of-the-fold news when Trump does it is where we are now." Dahlia Lithwick: The Election Is Too Close to Ignore Trump's Claim That He Won. And from Susan Glasser in The New Yorker: "There is, no doubt, a tactical aspect to Trump's rhetoric—he is trying to position himself for court fights, to intimidate local officials, and to create confusion that he can exploit. And he may have been confused himself; he has such a habit of lobbing accusations and encouraging divisions that he may not know how else to react." The New Yorker: Trump's Brief Speech from the White House Made America's Troubles Worse. (That said, it's high time we realize that for millions of our fellow Americans, this chaos in no trouble at all.)

+ The latest on the race to the White House from NYT, WaPo, and CNN. And the latest news as I'm typing is that Biden won Wisconsin and Trump is demanding a recount. So here's ProPublica's Guide to 2020 Election Laws and Lawsuits.

2

THE SEN-ATE MY HOMEWORK

"Democrats faced increasingly long odds in the the battle for Senate control as Republicans brushed back multiple challengers to protect their majority. Still, it was too soon for the GOP to declare victory. In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins won the hardest-fought race of her career, securing a fifth term by defeating Democrat Sara Gideon ... But key races in North Carolina and Michigan remained undecided, and at least one in Georgia was headed to a January runoff." Democrats' Senate drive halted by GOP; key races undecided. The Dems held the House, but lost seats.

3

VIRUS DOESN'T GO VIRAL

One of the big things that may end up playing a smaller role than expected is the administration's handling of the pandemic. "In short, voters seemingly saw a dichotomy between the economy and the public health response to the virus — and where they stood on that divide fell along deeply partisan lines. Republican voters overwhelmingly wanted the economy to restart — something Trump has long been advocating for — more than they wanted to see the virus controlled. They also viewed the economy as a key issue, more so than the pandemic, when deciding who to support." Exit polls suggest significant polarization about the pandemic and its economic fallout. This may be the saddest part of the election and the campaign and the Trump era. The politicization of something we all should be working together to solve.

4

STRUCK ACCORD

While you're tabulating ballots, something else to worry about. "The U.S.'s exit from the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement takes effect today, capping four years of President Donald Trump aggressively rolling back the Obama administration's climate-change-mitigation policies."

5

JACK POT

"In every state where a ballot measure asked Americans to reconsider the drug war, voters sided with reformers. In Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota, voters legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. In Mississippi and South Dakota (separate from the full legalization measure), voters legalized medical marijuana. In Oregon, voters decriminalized — but not legalized — all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Also in Oregon, voters legalized the use of psilocybin, a psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms, for supervised therapeutic uses." Pretty much everywhere, election day was a major rejection of the war on drugs. (If you stress people out enough, they eventually see the upside of being high all effing day...)

+ And while you're doing drugs, you can also gamble legally in more places.

6

MAYBE YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR

"California voters approved Prop. 22, which would exempt companies such as Uber and Lyft from having to classify their workers as employees, according to The Associated Press. The $200 million campaign in support of the measure was the most expensive in state history." Uber, Lyft drivers aren't employees after all, California voters say.

7

Q TIPPING POINT?

"The QAnon conspiracy theory that Greene once embraced posits that a mysterious figure named "Q" is dropping crumbs of information to reveal a vast conspiracy, perpetually on the cusp of being brought down in dramatic fashion. The details of the conspiracy vary widely but often include bizarre, unfounded accusations of satanic activity and child trafficking. The conspiracy theory has been linked to multiple incidents of violence." Marjorie Taylor Greene, Who Endorsed QAnon, Wins House Seat In Georgia.

8

FACE THE RACE

From GQ, here are 18 interesting developments from the 2020 election. One example: Florida voted to increase the minimum wage to $15. (Which I mention even though, just hours ago, I promised myself I'd never think about Florida ever again...)

+ And, why does this headline not seem surprising? It Looks Like A Man Who Died Of COVID-19 Was Elected To North Dakota's State Legislature.

9

FREE FALLING

"After I spoke to Tainter, I called several of these scholars, and they were more openly alarmed than he was by the current state of affairs. 'Things could spin out,' one warned. 'I am scared,' admitted another. As the summer wore on even Tainter, for all his caution and reserve, was willing to allow that contemporary society has built-in vulnerabilities that could allow things to go very badly indeed — probably not right now, maybe not for a few decades still, but possibly sooner. In fact, he worried, it could begin before the year was over." Ben Ehrenreich in NYT Mag: How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart? (It turns out moan-crying on the couch is not a key indicator. Phew.)

10

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS

The best part of the election was the massive turnout. And let's not discount the fact that it was pretty much incident-free. Let's also not discount this epic photo of a cat in line to vote.

+ The greatest TV moment: CNN Election Night in America, brought to you by Borat.

+ And depending on your mood, you can either leave with this solid, new song from Arcade Fire, or this article about the power of a wombat's butt.

Thanks,

Dave Pell
Managing Editor, Internet

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Next Draft - Premature Inauguration

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

PREMATURE INAUGURATION

THE SEN-ATE MY HOMEWORK

VIRUS DOESN'T GO VIRAL

STRUCK ACCORD

JACK POT

MAYBE YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR

Q TIPPING POINT?

FACE THE RACE

FREE FALLING

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS

NextDraft
600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

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Next Draft - Premature Inauguration

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

PREMATURE INAUGURATION

THE SEN-ATE MY HOMEWORK

VIRUS DOESN'T GO VIRAL

STRUCK ACCORD

JACK POT

MAYBE YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR

Q TIPPING POINT?

FACE THE RACE

FREE FALLING

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS

NextDraft 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

Older messages

You Might Also Like

NextDraft
600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107