Biden Underperforms Polling but Election Results are still Unknown.
Update: The Trump campaign has announced that they will be filing a lawsuit to stop counting mail-in ballots in Michigan and Pennsylvania. They’re also requesting a recount in Wisconsin.
Donald Trump has once again given the polls a run for their money. Judging by polling coming out of most states, at the start of Election Day it looked like Joe Biden had multiple pathways to the Presidency. By the end of Election Day, however, it’s become apparent that Donald Trump has won in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, three states that Joe Biden was leading in the polls in leading up to Election Day.
This leaves Joe Biden’s strongest pathway to the Presidency as winning Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump is currently leading in these states due to the fact that votes cast in-person on Election Day that lean towards Republicans are counted before mail-in votes, which lean heavily Democratic in this election cycle as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
If all mail-in votes get counted in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin it’s highly likely that Biden will win. But if Trump and his Supreme Court are able to force a stop to the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day Trump might be able to steal this the election. Trump has been preparing the public for this battle to stop counting mail-in votes after Election Day for months. He has falsely claimed that voter fraud is a massive issue when it comes to mail-in voting, but the reality is that the only issues with mail-in voting stem from decades long efforts to privative the post office, now led by Donald Trump, and sheer incompetence on behalf of the American public.
Before a press conference at the White House at 2:30am, Trump tweeted:
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed!”
Twitter has included a notification on Trump’s tweet saying:
“Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
During the late night press conference Trump announced that he won the election, even though there are still millions of mail-in ballots that still haven’t been counted. Trump stated:
“This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election, frankly we did win this election…We will win this and as far as I’m concerned, we already have.”
During the press conference Trump also directed his Supreme Court to move to put a stop to the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day, according to a summary of the the press conference Trump said:
“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”
In response to Trump’s press conference, Bernie Sanders tweeted:
“Let’s be clear. This election won’t be over when Trump says it’s over. It will be over after every vote is counted. That includes mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day, as well as military ballots. This is democracy. Whether Trump likes it or not, we count every vote.”
Again, if all mail-in ballots in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are counted Joe Biden has a good shot at winning the Presidency. But as a result of the Democratic Party once again nominating a horrible candidate, this election looks like it will be close enough to allow Trump to have a chance at stealing it by directing his Supreme Court to stop counting mail-in ballots in a few key swing states.
Trump’s plan all along has been to keep this election as close as possible in order to be able to declare victory by stopping the counting of mail-in ballots in a few key swing states. It was the Democratic parties job to nominate a candidate who had the best shot at beating Trump by a wide enough margin to prevent him from stealing the election by stopping the counting of mail-in ballots, but it looks like they’ve failed to do so. As a result this election dispute could go on for weeks, and it could ultimately end up at the Supreme Court where Trump now has a friendly 6-3 conservative majority to back him up.
The Democratic Party and their corporate donors told us to stop being so divisive and radical for advocating for universal healthcare in the midst of a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 people. They told us to settle for a safe candidate who would beat Trump and get things back to normal. Totally overlooking the fact that the normal they’re talking about getting back to involved 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, nearly 600,000 homeless people, many of them veterans, sleeping on the streets every night and 68,000 people dying annually because they couldn’t afford healthcare.
That normal involved the continuation and expansion of endless wars, horrible trade deals that outsourced American jobs and immigration policies that inflicted mass suffering upon people attempting to flee turmoil that stems from United States interference in their countries. That’s not an appealing normal for the vast majority of poor and working class Americans to support getting back to.
The fact that this election is close enough to allow Trump to have a chance at stealing it by disenfranchising mail-in voters in a few key swing states should expose the illegitimacy of our entire system. It should also expose the Democratic Party as a sorry excuse for an opposition the Republican Party.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party installed a right-wing religious cult member to the Supreme Court less then a week before Election Day, cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the court for a generation, which puts basic human rights for millions of people at risk. They were only able to do this because Democrats in Congress refused to use any of their authority to stop them.
In a twitter thread late last night, managing editor of Shaddowproof, Kevin Gosztola stated:
“Somehow, with record turnout across the country, that candidate, Joe Biden, and his running mate, Kamala Harris, and all the Democratic operatives in this country could not engineer a decisive victory over Trump…The Democratic Party is such an embarrassment. Millions entrusted them with saving them from great harm that will be done by a second term of [the] Trump administration…Let the neoliberal rot at the core of the Democratic Party finally kill this pathetic excuse for an opposition party. May something new that is more in touch with humanity rise in it’s place.”
Since a real opposition party doesn’t exist in the United States, regardless of which capitalist party is in power we need well organized social movements that are capable of putting pressure on the state in order to force the bipartisan ruling class to implement transformative universal policies that will increase quality of life for poor and working class Americans.
Policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, a Wealth Tax, a universal jobs guarantee, free public college, legalizing marijuana, paid family leave, $15 minimum wage and ending the wars are all incredibly popular among the American public and will increase everyones standard of living. Everyone wants a home, a job, healthcare, a clean environment, education, safe communities and the ability to live free from the burden of poverty and debt.
Due to the fact that electoral politics is usually seen as the most effective avenue through which social change can be achieved, too much energy has been focused on electing friendly candidates into office instead of focusing on building well organized social movements that can force the bipartisan ruling class to act in the publics best interest regardless of which capitalist party is in power.
The American people didn’t achieve an eight hour work day, child labor laws, collective bargaining rights or civil rights simply because they elected the right politicians. The American people won those things and more because they built powerful, well organized social movements that threatened open revolt against the bipartisan ruling class if their demands were not met.