So Joe Biden will be the next president. I’m not surprised, that seemed pretty much what the end game was even late on Tuesday. I appreciate the work that was done by poll workers, municipal and county clerks, and secretary of state staff members all over the country. As usual, there were few mistakes and no evidence of any conspiracies to steal the election, despite Trump’s claims of fraud. As I suggested a few days ago, regardless of whether city or township clerks are Republicans or Democrats, they want to run an honest election, because if they don’t (or it’s even suspected that they didn’t), they have to live in that town and deal with the consequences. They are your fellow Americans from all types of backgrounds and with all types of personal beliefs, and in the end, they always do what’s right. We owe them our thanks.
Despite some concern that there could be violence after the election when it was obvious that either Biden or Trump had lost, there’s been only a handful of isolated protests and no injuries or property damage. So far anyway. I didn’t expect much and still don’t. In the end, what most Americans want is to be left alone and for our families to be safe, even if we’re angry or frustrated by events in the news. When I went for a ride yesterday, nearly all of the Trump flags and signs are gone already. We’ve had elections before and in a lot of ways, this one wasn’t really that much different for most people. My candidate won, nice. My candidate lost, oh well, time to move on.
There will be many loose ends to tie up over the next few weeks. The big one will be trying to convince Trump that he really lost. In his mind, he’s never lost in his life. Of course he has, but in every case he’s justified it to himself that someone cheated him or rigged the game against him. These will be potentially dangerous days ahead as he deals with being a lame duck president – he’s still in charge until noon on January 20.
Finally, I’d like to point out – one last time, I promise – that the “ballgame” model of covering the presidential election is seriously flawed. Every state that Biden won (and every state Trump won) was won at the same time, regardless of how long it took to count the ballots. Trump never had a lead in Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or any of the other states Biden won. The final score happens at once as soon as 100 percent of the votes are officially counted. If we’re going to keep doing mail-in voting – and I believe we should – we need to allow them to be counted as they come in. No running totals would be issued, of course, but they would simply be added to the Election Day totals and reported all at once.
Time to move on.