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America is a divided nation and the presidential campaign only made the condition worse.

Partisanship has spiked. Armed militias showed up at campaign rallies. Gun sales soared.

In New York, Los Angeles, Washington and other cities, shop owners nailed plywood over their windows. In a Gallup poll last month, a record 64% of people said they were afraid of what will happen if their favored candidate doesnt win.

You just dont want to talk to people anymore, Mary Jo Dalrymple, a 56-year-old retiree in Greensburg, Pa., told me. Youre afraid it will be unpleasant.

This isnt normal not in decades, perhaps not since the Civil War.

Even with nearly a quarter-million deaths, and 100,000 infections a day, our most durable problem isnt the COVID-19 pandemic; a vaccine can solve that. Nor is it the recession; the economy likely will recover once the virus is quelled.

Our biggest challenge is the political polarization that has made the country increasingly ungovernable, no matter who wins.

Polarization has been part of our politics for decades. But under President Trump, it has turned into something worse: delegitimization the practice of condemning your opponents as un-American, undemocratic and unworthy of respect.

Trump entered politics by questioning President Obamas legitimacy, suggesting falsely that he might not be a U.S. citizen. This year, he charged again without evidence that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was mentally and physically infirm and the puppet of radical socialists who hate our country.

On the other side, plenty of Democrats believe Trump is a would-be authoritarian who would gladly destroy the Constitution.

At their first debate, Biden called Trump one of the most racist presidents weve ever had, overlooking the fact that 12 of the first 18 presidents owned slaves.

Many Democrats and Republicans see the other side not merely as political rivals, but as an existential threat. That creates a dilemma: If you think your opponents dont share a basic commitment to constitutional government, why would you work with them?

That problem wont disappear once the election is over. Unless one party captures both houses of Congress and the White House, it will stand in the way of the next president accomplishing anything.

In my view, heres what needs to happen.

Step One is making sure the election is seen as legitimate. Partisans on both sides think their opponents are trying to cheat a sentiment stoked, of course, by Trumps constant declarations that the voting process is rigged and his refusal to promise a peaceful transition of power if he loses.

A president who wins by underhanded means will rightly appear illegitimate. He may claim a mandate, but he wont have one.

The runner-up needs to acknowledge reality and give a concession speech the more graceful, the better. Thats how the losing side acknowledges that the winner is legitimate. If the losing candidate refuses to do it, other leaders in his party should do it for him.

Step Two is working to bring the country together, as earlier presidents did after divisive campaigns.

That means a serious attempt to revive bipartisan deal making in Congress, starting where the two parties share similar goals another economic relief bill to help the country through the pandemic, for example.

It also requires granting your opponents the presumption of legitimacy, no matter how much you dislike their policies.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, has already said he would try to work with Republicans in Congress if hes elected. Progressive Democrats have sniffed that his nostalgia for a long-ago era of comity is naive.

But Biden knows how the modern Senate operates. He was vice president when Obama tried and failed to win GOP support for an economic stimulus bill in 2009 and for an immigration reform package in 2013.

His talk of bipartisanship may have been a campaign gambit; swing voters like the idea of the two parties working together. It may even be aimed at splitting moderate Republicans from Trump loyalists. Even so, its worth a try.

Its now almost forgotten, but Trump was elected in 2016 in part because he promised, as a businessman, to work with both parties.

In his first year in office, he tried to cut deals with Democrats on immigration reform and infrastructure spending. As recently as last week, he was negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at arms length, to be sure over a possible stimulus bill.

Even if the results are modest, a bipartisan effort would be an encouraging departure from gridlock. A president who gets things done as opposed to merely insulting his critics could see his legitimacy and his popularity grow.

Its been done before: Ronald Reagan did it in the 1980s; Bill Clinton did it in the 1990s; George W. Bush did it in the early 2000s after a disputed election that was decided in the Supreme Court.

If the next president hopes to leave a substantive legacy, he should follow those presidents, work to stem the tide of polarization that has poisoned our politics, and make Americas government work again.

The rest is here:
2020 election put legitimacy of our democracy on the ballot - Los Angeles Times

As Randy Cortez put it, Democracy is at stake.

The 36-year-old voted at Los Angeles famous Dodger stadium on Tuesday just one voter in what will probably be a record turnout in Americas nervy, extraordinary, election.

An incredible 100m votes had already been cast early in a contest that has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic and a divisiveness the like of which nobody can remember.

It was clear that Cortez was among those hoping that Joe Biden would end the Trump presidency. We have a man in the office that creates more division than anyone else and allows bigotry and racism to continue in this country. I have hope that things will change.

Earlier in the day, as Monday turned into Tuesday at midnight in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Donald Trump appeared at his final rally of the 2020 campaign.

Thousands of supporters trudged through muddy fields and waited in endless lines to hear the president speak, on the eve of what could be his defeat or the start of another four years in power.

Trump delivered his speech in a critical swing state where the president is hoping for a repeat of 2016, when he unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton.

In the darkness, as temperatures dipped to 40F (4C), Trumps supporters were upbeat and optimistic, but many also said they were expecting unrest in the wake of the election.

Theres going to be violence either way, whether Trump or Biden wins, said Angela Young, 43. As a gun owner from a small town in Michigan, she said, she was not worried about her personal safety but added the prospect of election-related violence in the United States was straight-up unacceptable.

But on Tuesday no major problems were reported at the polls, and fears of large-scale voter intimidation or harassment had not materialized by midday. Officials have warned that counting ballots could take days due to an avalanche of mail votes that take more time to process and could result in another round of court battles.

Television news channels edged into election night with caution, knowing that results could be delayed by massive early voting amid the pandemic in several critical swing states. The first results to be called by Associated Press were as surprising as paint drying: just after 7pm Biden was called as the winner of Vermont, a state that has voted solidly Democratic in presidential races since 1988, while Trump took Kentucky, which has swung Republican since 1996.

Similar low-surprise results flowed in at the 7.30pm hour in Virginia, going for Biden, and West Virginia, for Trump.

Election experts began to watch with close attention the results as they flowed in from Florida, a traditionally razor-close state that Trump must win, as he did in 2016, if he is to have a likely path to staying in the White house.

Early results, which came stamped with bold handle with care notices on the news channels, suggested that Biden might be doing well compared with Hillary Clinton four years ago around Tampa in the middle of the state, while Trump was looking stronger in Miami-Dade county to the south where many Cuban Floridians reside.

The relatively good results for Trump in Florida, were they to hold, could indicate that election night 2020 might turn into a long and nail-biting experience with no immediate resolution in sight.

Earlier in the day, millions across the country wore masks as they stood in socially distanced lines, filing into voting booths.

Passions are high, with states including Texas, Arizona and Nevada having already surpassed their total turnout from the 2016 election just through early voting.

Trump rounded off his election day with a visit to his campaign headquarters in Virginia before heading to an election night party in the White House with several hundred invitees, behind a newly installed non-scalable perimeter fence. Biden, meanwhile, started the day at church, where he visited the graves of his first wife and his son Beau, ahead of watching the results roll in from his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

One of the first important slices of intelligence in the early stages of election night was gleaned from exit polls. In early results from CNNs exit polls, weighted across both early and election day voters, top of the list of the electorates concerns was the economy, at 34%.

The coronavirus, which Biden has made the centerpiece of his claim for the highest office, came in a surprising third place (on 18%) after racial inequality (21%). Trumps attempt to rile up voters with his law-and-order pitch amid the Black Lives Matter protests appears not to have gained much traction, also coming in at 18%, though Bidens core issue of healthcare came even lower at 11%.

Perhaps most surprising of all, 48% of those surveyed by CNNs exit poll said they thought Trumps efforts to contain the pandemic were going well, against 51% badly. In point of fact, coronavirus is surging through large swaths of the nation with new cases running at about 100,000 a day.

National opinion polls have consistently shown a clear lead for Biden, the Democratic former vice-president who has framed the election as a battle for the soul of the nation. Trump is in danger of becoming the first incumbent US president to lose re-election since fellow Republican George HW Bush was bested by Bill Clinton in 1992. However, the vagaries of the US electoral college and legal attempts by Republicans to curtail ballots cast in crucial swing states add uncertainty to the outcome of an election that Trump has repeatedly, and baselessly, claimed is rife with voter fraud.

In battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Biden holds the upper hand in polling, mailed-in ballots are not counted until election day, while early counting is allowed in North Carolina and Florida, other key swing states.

But as election night got under way, the mood music remained calm. The leader of a group of 42,000 legal volunteers deployed for the election said that so far, there had not been major, systemic problems or attempts to obstruct voting.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said: It appears at this stage that we are on a path to a relatively successful election day.

The committee operates the Election Protection hotline, which provides information and assistance to Americans who encounter problems while voting.

The problems we have seen have for the most part been isolated and sporadic, Clarke said.

Anxiety remained high among voters that trouble could yet lie ahead. Theres a mass divide that just seems to keep growing and growing and nobody is going to be happy with their results if their side doesnt win, said Christopher Henson , a voter in Ravenna, Ohio. Theres a lot of civil unrest and its probably going to get worse, regardless of how the election turns out.

Marcos Antonio Valero, who voted for Trump in Miami, said he was voting in person because he did not trust mail-in ballots but wasnt sure of the outcome. Its a secret, a mystery, he said. No one knows how its going to end until we all know.

In a sign of Americas wobbling democratic structures, Trump has demurred when asked to confirm he will hand power over peacefully should he lose. This stance has led to the president being compared to a two-bit dictator by his predecessor, Barack Obama, as he hit the campaign trail in recent days to stump for his former vice-president.

In his last-gasp sweep of the electoral map ahead of the Tuesday poll, Trump has held rallies in Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio, with attendees packed closely together despite the risk of coronavirus infections. Besieged by criticism of his handling of the pandemic and poor polling, Trump used his final rallies to claim that Biden would turn the US into a prison state locking you down, while letting the far-left rioters roam free to loot and burn. In a wide-reaching airing of grievances, Trump also took aim at Lady Gaga, the singer who has campaigned for Biden, and suggested that he would fire Dr Anthony Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease expert.

Fauci provoked the presidents ire after warning that the US faces whole world of hurt over winter amid rampant rates of Covid infections in parts of the country. The US has already suffered more than 230,000 deaths from the pandemic, the worst toll in the world, and Fauci has warned the country may start experiencing 100,000 new cases a day as people gather together indoors in the colder months.

Bidens campaign has centered on Trumps handling of the pandemic, where the president has repeatedly downplayed or dismissed the severity of the virus and declined to fully endorse the wearing of masks, a key method of stemming its spread. Elect me and Im going to hire Dr Fauci. And were going to fire Donald Trump, Biden said in one of his final campaign stops in Cleveland. Biden said it was time for Trump to pack his bags, adding that were done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility.

Whether this momentous election dislodges Trump will hinge on places like Philadelphia, a heavily Democratic city in a state, Pennsylvania, that will be key in deciding the fate of the candidates. The sheer number of early votes in Philadelphia could mean a full tally may not be completed there until Friday.

A line of voters wrapped around a city block at the Kimmel Center in Center City, Philadelphia, shortly after the polls opened at 7am on Tuesday. With election workers giving out hand sanitizer, the wait in the cold didnt seem to bother at least some people in line, who said they intentionally chose to cast their ballots in person to ensure it was counted.

Its a little invigorating. I know that sounds crazy to stand in a line in the freezing cold, said Lauren Killian, one voter. She added that she was concerned about how long it would take to count all of the ballots in Pennsylvania.

I am worried about how long its going to take to figure out how long the president is. Or even when something is figured out either way, is it going to be invalidated?

Additional reporting Lois Beckett

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'Democracy is at stake': Americans cast their ballots in US election like no other - The Guardian

It was the grand, carefully choreographed victory speech that Donald Trump never got to make in 2016. Hail to the Chief was playing in the background as the president took to the stage around 2am, a phalanx of Stars and Stripes at his back and in front of him a maskless crowd of progeny and devotees screaming We love you!

In 2016 Trump was so stunned by his own unexpected triumph that he looked quite taken aback. His victory speech was written in such a hurry it contained profuse praise for Hillary Clinton, the woman who had been subjected to chants of lock her up.

Having stumbled four years ago, Trump did it on Wednesday morning his way, amid the grandeur of the East Room of the White House. Frankly, we did win this election, he said, the room erupting in a frenzy of cheers.

It was a spectacle that spoke volumes about the man, and about the nation at this singularly damaged and dangerous moment in its 244-year history. An incumbent president declares victory even though he hasnt won, then claims that fraud is being committed on the American public in the middle of an election that has seen the largest turnout of any presidential race in 120 years.

Democracy in Trumpland.

As the president was playing out his little victory fantasy, Democrats were going through their own version of hell. If the story of the night for Trump was about him pretending to have won just the way he liked it, for Joe Biden and his Democratic cohorts it was about dutifully following the rule book just the way they hate it.

For them, too, the ghosts of 2016 loomed large. It was around 10.30pm on election night 2020 that the jitters began to start with early results in from Florida that sent an all-too familiar chill across the nation.

Here we go again. Buckle up, youre in for a rough ride.

In Miami-Dade county, the area of southern Florida that is home to Cuban Americans, Bidens numbers were notably soft. They indicated that the barrage of misinformation that had been flung by the Trump campaign that Biden was leading America into the dark night of socialism had stuck.

By 11.30pm that sinking feeling among Democrats that 2020 was in fact 2016 redux was intensifying. Bidens multiple pathways to the White House appeared to be narrowing with the unfolding loss of Florida and early results giving Trump the edge in states such as Georgia and North Carolina.

And then the inevitable happened. Eyes turned just as they did four years ago to that trilogy of hope, fear and trepidation: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The so-called blue firewall upon which Clinton had been relying and that Trump brutally tore down.

Jake Tapper of CNN found himself giggling nervously as he said it, so surreal did the echo seem. I do think we have been saying for a long time that anything could happen, that this is a very competitive race, and that it could come down to these three states.

You could sense the cogs of recognition start to turn: it began with a yes.

Yes, Joe Biden still had a route to the presidency.

Yes, it was the red mirage.

Given the vast number of mailed ballots during the pandemic, his election night was always going to start looking grim but then brighten over time as the votes were counted.

You could see the pattern take shape in several of the key battleground states that could deliver him victory. There was Wisconsin, where a Biden win was all but assured on Wednesday morning.

Michigan, that other rust belt state that gave Trump his 2016 victory that also swung from right to left as the night went on. Georgia, where Biden initially looked to be flailing but was competitive again as morning came.

So yes. Come the light of a new day, Biden was still looking potentially on track to take Trumps place in the Oval Office.

Then Arizona was put in the Biden bag, opening up with its growing Latino population potential new vistas for a changing and renewed America. With Georgia, a state that last backed a Democrat for president when Waynes World was in the cinemas, still looking within Bidens grasp, there were even reasons for them to be cheerful.

And then came the nos. No, it was not meant to be like this. That feeling of sickness in the pit of the stomach that wasnt meant to be there. Not this time.

How could the contest have tightened so much that Trump too was also still in the running, hours into election night? Here was a president who had overseen the culling of more than 230,000 Americans by a microbe that other nations had contained.

This was a man whose administration had ordered the cleaving of migrant children from their parents without bothering to ensure that they could find each other three years later almost 600 are still separated. Who was happy to see teargas fired at peaceful protesters so that he could get his photo op. Who interpreted the founding principle of the nation, We the people, as We the white people. Who regards the climate crisis as a hoax.

No. This wasnt the plan.

By midnight the twitching was palpable among Democratic luminaries who took to the TV channels to proclaim their undying confidence in Biden. James Carville, lead strategist for Bill Clinton when he won the White House in 1992, put on a brave face on MSNBC.

To all you Democrats out there: put the razor blades and Ambien back in the cupboard, we are going to be fine, he said. Then he brandished a bottle of vintage champagne at the camera, remarking: I dont mind putting it on ice until Friday. Ive waited four years for this, I can wait another four days.

If only he hadnt appeared on the same channel a few days earlier bragging that this thing is not going to be close and that he would be cracking that bottle open by 10.30pm.

Its a wonder what a few hours rest overnight can do for ones perspective. At midnight Claire McCaskill, former Democratic US senator from Missouri, was also displaying a stoic face.

The night was transpiring just as had always been intended, she said. Turning to the three blue firewall states that yet again hung in the balance, she said: Those three states will deliver the presidency for Joe Biden, just as was planned.

By the morning, when she came on MSNBC a second time, her tone had turned more reflective. She still believed that time was on Bidens side and that patience would eventually prevail.

But she now added a darker assessment. This is a gut-check moment, she said.

We cant go back to assuming that Donald Trump is an outlier in terms of who he is and how he behaves. He is connecting with a lot of Americans in ways that a lot of us find hard to understand, but weve got to get at it because we have to bring this nation together if we want to remain a superpower.

Bob Woodward, the veteran journalist of Watergate who extracted the admission from Trump that he had lied to the American people about the deadly nature of coronavirus, also had some harsh words for Democrats. In 2016 Trump came along and smashed up the old order in a very definitive way, he said.

If you want to know whats happened in 2020, Biden represented the old order. The Democratic party has got to figure out how they change themselves.

This election isnt over till its over. Joe Biden eventually took both Wisconsin and Michigan and may well yet be the next president of the United States. A bruising postmortem over what happened has just begun.

Originally posted here:
Democracy in Trumpland: I won because I say so - The Guardian

Why, if one is a would-be authoritarian who envies the powers and prerogatives of strongmen around the globe, its positively subversive. No wonder, then, that the commander in chief has been tweeting Stop the Count. After all, hadnt he already come out, in the wee hours of Wednesday, and declared that he had won the election?

And yet the counting just keeps going on (and on and on), and the vote totals just keep changing as ballots are tallied. By Thursday, a grim reality was settling in, even in Trump World: Joe Biden is edging ever closer to the presidency. Add the states called for him and those where hes ahead, and he gets to 270 electoral votes. Further, theres a very real prospect that as the counting continues, he could accrue Pennsylvanias 20 Electoral College votes as well. And perhaps Georgias 16, too.

Thus the president has resorted to his favorite tools: False claims and legal challenges.

If you count the legal votes, I easily win the election. If you count the illegal and late votes, they can steal the election from us! the president said via a statement on Thursday.

Alas for the president if not the country, if the current map holds, stopping the vote counting wouldnt give him a victory. Not unless he holds on to Pennsylvania and manages to flip Arizona, the last of which could only happen by, ahem, continuing the vote counting. So Biden seems very likely to win the presidency some three decades after he first sought the office.

This wouldnt be the landslide Democrats had hoped for, obviously. But it will have the backstop that Trumps 2016 victory did not: The popular vote, which Biden is winning by 2.5 percentage points, concurs with the coming Electoral College verdict. That will lend the Biden presidency a broader legitimacy than Trump himself ever enjoyed.

As weve watched this ultra-close race, one conclusion is inescapable: Boring and ideologically unsatisfactory as the lefties find the 77-year-old Biden, the former vice president, with his regular-Joe persona and credibility with blue-collar voters, is probably the only one of the major 2020 Democratic presidential candidates who could have given Democrats this narrow victory.

So, whom should Democrats thank?

Barack Obama? He was a crucial validator who gave several powerful and witty critiques of Trump, but no.

Cindy McCain? She was a cogent endorser of Biden, and that no doubt helped in Arizona, the state her husband, John McCain, long served in the Senate. But no.

Rather, Jim Clyburn, the hugely influential congressman from South Carolina.

When Biden was sagging after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and a fifth place in the New Hampshire primary, followed by a distant second in the Nevada caucuses, Clyburn calmly appraised the field and gave his crucial public backing to Biden.

His judgment spoke to the imperative a Black statesman brought to this presidential election: Biden was the Democrat with the best chance of winning.

Where Clyburn led, the South Carolina Democratic primary electorate followed. Bidens South Carolina victory restored him to front-runner status and put him on a trajectory to win the Democratic nomination.

Theres a lesson there and in this election as well. The early Democratic primary electorate tends to fall in love with the lefties, particularly when they come from neighboring states.

But those are not the kinds of candidates who appeal to middle America. In context of the closeness of this election in key Electoral College states, imagine if the Democratic nominee had been Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Their support of single-payer health care would have let Trump accurately charge that the Democrats favored eliminating everyones employer-sponsored health-care plans.

Will that lesson be learned?

Unlikely. Not by the lefties, anyway.

But Democrats whose top priority was beating Trump owe Jim Clyburn a heartfelt thank you.

Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.

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A president suffers the indignities of democracy - The Boston Globe

Dear Wolf Pack Family,

This week the 2020 presidential campaign ends. After mail-in and early voting in Nevada, on Tuesday, our remaining registered voters cast in-person ballots for the President of the United States, vacant seats in Congress, and in Nevada, decide on a number of constitutional amendments and judgeships. Given our new reality of COVID-19, it may take several days before we know the results of the 2020 presidential campaign.

However, we all know that this is hardly another election. Uncertainty, fear, and anxiety have been with us for some time, because of a pandemic, and as a result of intense national trauma. Yet, throughout our history, our profound belief in democracy has taught us that we are at our best when we can come together in defense of our democratic values. For our University community, this is especially true. There is no question that the past few years in our country have proven divisive. Yet, as we await the results of this election, and after those results are confirmed and beyond, if there ever was a moment in recent history to recognize the need to stand firm in support of one another and our different communities, that moment is now. This is the time to come together through our shared values of mutual respect, upright support for our minoritized and vulnerable groups, and, to demonstrate understanding and friendship for any individual who is hurting and has doubts about the future.

First, as trying as it is during these times, lets not isolate ourselves, but rather seek out friends, family, and valued colleagues. Also, lets be clear on the difference between threatening and hurtful rhetoric, as opposed to different ideological and political points of view. The latter are the foundations of democracydifferencesand we need to be able to engage in respectful conversations, or at least be able to listen to different standpoints and life experiences. How can we learn about our country, about the world, if we are not open to histories, perspectives, and life experiences that are different from our own?

Our University community is here to help facilitate this process of understanding, as the presidential campaign draws to a close. Since early October, more than 100 stakeholders in the student voting space have come together to help the members of our Wolf Pack Family in this historic political season. Partnerships are already in place among campus resources such as the Center for Student Engagement, the Counseling Center, The Center. Every Student. Every Story., Residential Life, Young Democrats, College Republicans, ASUN, GSA, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Faculty and Staff Affinity groups and Cultural Diversity Committees, Political Science and Psychology Departments, our colleges and schools, Office of Service Learning and Civic Engagement, Student Services, Provosts Office, and our community service partners, to help you navigate through this challenging time. Through these partnerships, there are a number of post-election special events we have planned, as well, for our Wolf Pack Family. You can find them on the Universitys Events Calendar under the category of Civic and Service Engagement.

Although millions of votes are being cast, you can take control of your vote and ensure that it matters. I encourage you to track your ballot, and seek out credible sources of information on voting, such as the Washoe County Registrar of Voters.

As an institution, our strength has always been our ability to engage in civil, rational and respectful dialogue. We are at our strongest when we share the difficult moments together and have the courage to engage in the conversations that can lead to transformative and lasting change. Let us all strive to be caring and understanding and to allow open-mindedness to guide us in the coming days.

Be well. Be there for each other.

Sincere regards,Brian SandovalPresident

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Committed to our University and committed to our democracy - Nevada Today