The Morning After

by Pa Rock
Unrequited Voter

Every day I post one item to this blog, and on very rare days I might get carried away and even post two.  I suppose it it possible that once or twice during the past thirteen years I may have even posted three, though I have no memory of ever getting that carried away with myself or my musings.  But yesterday I somehow managed to place nine individual entries into The Ramble, all dealing with some aspect of the election.  It wasn't that I had a lot to say, or even some original thought that needed to get out.  It was just therapy, a way of making it through the tense waiting and ragged anticipation of Election Day in the United States.

And what a day it was.  This morning, as many had feared, there is no clear presidential winner and Donald Trump is whining that Democrats are still voting and stealing the election from him.   Trump is lying.  All voting ended yesterday, but not all ballots have been counted.  Trump would like to have the counting stopped in states where he has a lead, but he also wants to make sure every single vote is counted in Arizona where he would still love to squeeze out a win.

Trump believes that counting his ballots is democracy - a good thing - but counting the ballots of blacks in the urban areas of the large "swing" states is somehow not fair.  In fact, when you boil the fat from the bone, much of the election has been about race.  The rural voters who never got over the election of a black man to the presidency have declared Trump their Messiah and support him with their Bibles, their weaponry, and their patriotic fervor.   And Trump, a man without a religious background or a belief system steeped in religion, milks their blind allegiance for all that it is worth.  Trump brags about how much he loves his "uneducated" voters, and he obviously loves his fanatical "Christian" constituency with just as much intensity.

This morning Biden is ahead by just over two-and-a-half million popular votes, and he leads in electoral votes 238 to 213.  Seven states are still counting, and their results will determine the presidency,  No one is "stealing" anything, but because of the pandemic - which was mismanaged and made much worse by Donald Trump - many more people voted by mail this year than ever before, and those votes must be counted.

The states still being counted include:  Georgia (16 electoral votes) leaning toward Trump, Michigan (16) leaning toward Biden, Nevada (6) leaning Biden, North Carolina (15) leaning Trump, Pennsylvania (20) leaning Trump, Wisconsin (10) leaning Biden, and Alaska (3) leaning Trump.    It also appears likely that Biden will pull off one electoral vote from Trump's win in Nebraska.  If Biden were to take the states where he has a temporary lead - Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin - plus the one vote in Nebraska, he would have an electoral college bare majority of 271 and be the next President of the United States.  Of course, that lead would expand if he happened to win one of the states where Trump currently leads.

Biden is a gentleman and will step aside gracefully if he loses.   Trump, on the other hand, is unlikely to leave the White House via the High Road.

But enough of this crap.  The weather is beautiful in southern Missouri today, and I am headed outside to enjoy it.

I voted, I vented, and now I will move on - at least for today.