The most secure election in American history

Jessica Sutherland of Daily Kos reported that the members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee and members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council issued a joint statement saying:

The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. … There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

The bold font was in the statement. And all of five GOP senators reluctantly admit the nasty guy lost. Jane Mayer tweeted a photo of a sign montage put up on the White House fence. The three largest parts say “Loser,” “Failure,” and “You’re fired!” That statement by the GCC hasn’t yet stopped the lawsuits. Joan McCarter of Kos reported one was filed in Georgia to stop the certification of the vote in certain counties. It claims there is “evidence that sufficient illegal ballots were included in the results to change or place in doubt the results of the November 3, 2020 presidential election.” Those “certain counties” are, we’re not surprised, predominantly black counties. Can’t keep black people from voting? Figure out how to not count their votes. Hunter of Kos wrote the joke is now on the vice nasty guy. He has been the loyal second banana of the nasty guy, heaping praise, staying oblivious of crimes and incompetence, chaired the coronavirus task force to make sure nothing got done. He did it because the VP frequently gets the party’s nomination when his boss leaves the scene. Except the boss is now contemplating a comeback in 2024 (even while he refuses to concede in 2020). The vice may be loyal to the end, but the boss never was. Hunter wrote:

Whether he follows through with [running in 2024] or not, that means every Republican who has devoted themselves to Trump for the last four years now has their own presidential ambitions on hold, full stop—or they will be considered an enemy of Trump and Trump's base. Mike Pence can't run for president until Donald Trump gets out of the way, and nobody has ever, in history, been able to pry Donald Trump out of the way when Donald didn't want to go.

Does this mean the nasty guy will eventually go quietly, lick his wounds, and try again rather than attempting a coup? Various sources don’t trust that idea. Dr. Tom Frieden tweeted:

From first case reported in US, took 96 days to reach 1 million. Then 1 to 2 million-44 days 2 to 3 million-27 days 3 to 4 million-15 days 4 to 5 million-17 days 5 to 6 million-22 days 6 to 7 million-25 days 7 to 8 million-21 days 8 to 9 million-14 days 9 to 10 million-10 days

The pastor of my church sent out an email this afternoon saying there will be no in-person service on this Sunday (two days from now). The virus case count has gotten too high. The service will only be livestreamed. I’ve been expecting this for a while and somewhat wondering why he didn’t do it a couple weeks ago. The email said he will be talking to church leadership on Tuesday about what to do about the following week and beyond. A member of my church bell choir called me. What about Monday rehearsal? Since there are only six of us and we’re masked and well spaced, might we continue anyway? We are planning to play for the morning service in a week. If the service is online what do we do? I will have to call the pastor for a long conversation. John Stoehr, who writes a newsletter about politics in plain English, tweeted a thread. Excerpts:

Trump won the white vote, and lost. Again, with feeling—he won the white vote, **and he still lost**. It wasn’t close either. The president won 58 percent of white voters, a demographic that constituted 67 percent of all voters, according to Edison Research exit polling for the Times and other news outlets. ... Bottom line: Donald Trump [bet] everything on racism, and he lost.

I compute 58% of 67% to be 39%. All those white people who voted for the nasty guy are only 39% of the total vote. He’d need to get 74% of the white vote to guarantee a win. Stoehr reviewed that racism is what got the nasty guy in power in 2016. He included a quote from Jamelle Bouie. Then he wrote:

Racism didn’t go away, of course, after the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s. It didn’t go away after the triumph of 2008. There was a sense, however, that a multiracial democratic republic had become a *permanent* fixture. “I thought this meant we had a consensus,” Bouie wrote, with a heavy heart. “It appears, instead, that we had a detente.” Perhaps it was, but the results of the 2020 election give us reason to reconsider. It’s true the president won the lion’s share of the white vote. But the other 41 percent of the white vote teamed up with huge majorities of Black voters and voters of color, overwhelming polling places, running up the popular vote to heights never before seen, making a statement that no one is seeing but should. Cosmopolitan America did assert its power and its influence in 2008. Having gotten its fill of the old weird racism, it did it again in 2020. It decided nothing was going to stop it from taking back the country. You don’t need a detente when you’ve demonstrated the power to continue winning.

From Bill in Portland, Maine’s Cheers and Jeers collection of late night commentary:

"You can tell things are already getting back to normal. This morning on my way to work I saw two New Yorkers giving each other the finger and it had nothing to do with politics. Isn't that great?" —Jimmy Fallon "Even Mother Nature got in on the fun. After the announcement there was actually a double rainbow over L.A. The Trump campaign is already trying to overturn at least one of those rainbows in court." —James Corden “So NOW Trump wants to quarantine in the White House.” —Conan O’Brien

I wish this had been available when I was a kid. It probably wouldn’t have fit in the room I shared with my brother. I was well grown before the original was a thing.