Bullet Point Thoughts On 2020 National Election- The Most Bizarre Ever?

I thought I'd offer some bullet point thoughts on 2020 National Election. . . And wasn't it the most bizarre ever?

These bullet points are mostly collected from National Notice tweets (hence the hyperlinks*) as I reacted to the unfolding of the election.  Collecting them caused me to think, generation a few more for the collection.  (Most of these bullets/tweets are my authorship, but a few extra thoughts were so prevalent in the twitterverse that I just picked their expression in tweets from others.-- I think you'll be able to tell which are which.)

(* Note:  In many of cases clicking through to the tweet will take you to links to the facts or an article upon which the tweet is based.)

"Bullet Points" refers to the convention of preceding short thoughts with a 'bullet" dot.  National Notice often gets quite a few compliments for "connecting the dots."  Today we won't be trying so hard to do so.  Mainly, we hope that each of these bullet points presents some pith that is worth spending some time with in reflecting on the big picture of the election overall.  But that shouldn't prevent you from experimenting; you are welcome to experiment on your own in connecting "the dots." 

We are coming out of an election cycle where people, very invested in seeing things certain ways, have often been censoriously impatient with wider ranging viewpoints.  Hopefully, with my offers of things to think over without telling you what to think, you won't reject the thoughts here as just being too "dotty."

     •    Why were the polls so very, very wrong, predicting a Biden landslide and huge Democratic victories?  Certainly there’s been analysis loquaciously offered. And none of that we’ve seen is at all satisfactory.

    •    When the polls are so very wrong (i.e. predicting Biden landslide, huge Democratic victories) two contrary explanations can both be a bit true together: 1.) The polls misled, 2.) Votes went uncounted.- Warning: Any distrust of this election makes you a Trump' conspiracist. . .  (These questions apply to the polls being wrong in 2016 as well.)  

    •    As we fascinate over how wrong the national election polls were, it is interesting to ask ‘what did Google know’ and could Google ever have been that wrong? And if Google had information, where did it go?

    •    Democrats running as Republicans lost ground to the Republicans even when the Republicans should’ve been especially vulnerable. Guess the Republicans do it better.

    •    Given that the polls were so very, very wrong, predicting a Biden landslide and huge Democratic victories, questions never got asked about why Biden and the DNC were running such a lousy campaign when they were running it and it would have made a difference.

    •    (If you can believe the polls) The support racist misogynist Trump got from White men declined. 26% of his votes were from non-white voters: 32-35% of Latino vote, doubling his support from Black women from 4% to 8%, White women went from 53% to 55%, and Black men went from 13% to 18%.  

    •    Not since 1960, in other words, not for 60 years, has a Republican gotten as high a percentage of the non-White votes as Donald Trump did in this 2020 presidential election.  Support from the LGBTQ community doubled from 14% to 28%.  

   •    More people voted for Trump in 2020 than 2016. In almost all traditionally Democratic voting cohorts greater percentages voted  for Trump, but this was made up for by greater Democratic turnout, which may have been due to new Covid-inspired voting procedures. If no Covid, then what?  

    •    Two reasons to suspect Covid prevented 2020 Trump win: 1.) Dems lost percentage of base but won b/c of turnout facilitated by easier voting, & 2.) Media constantly berated Trump on virus handling. 

     •    @RaniaKhalek It’s pretty crazy to think that if it wasn’t for Covid-19 Trump would have likely won by a lot...

    •    Fox News exit poll: 72% of voters want change to government run health care system, 78% racism is a problem, 70% pathway to citizenship for immigrants, 72% concerned about climate change, 70% increased spending on renewable energy . AND. .60% say government should do more (at 42:00)   

     •    @krystalball Nov 4 Fox News exits had 70% backing govt healthcare and big majorities for climate action. Florida passed $15 minimum wage with 60% of vote. Dems could have run on these things but instead they chose some vague sanctimonious soul of the nation bullshit.   

    •    During this election the economic effects of a worldwide pandemic were stripping people nationally of their jobs and healthcare, but both candidates for president were opposing providing healthcare for all, Biden promising to veto Medicare for All if passed.

    •    We had w/ Black Lives Matter, perhaps the “Largest Movement in U.S. History” w/ the majority of U.S voters supporting it by a 28-point margin, and we elected president the author of the 1994 mass incarceration crime law and the “Top Cop” Kamala Harris?  

     •    Worthwhile to remember: Notwithstanding that we’re facing existential threats, this was the least issue-based national election for any of us living today. That includes the 2016 where Trump addressed issues more often than Hillary Clinton.  

    •    Correlations: Democratic cosponsors of Medicare for all won, opponents got defeated; Green New Deal cosponsors likewise win. “The more Democrats in swing districts ran on the Right, the fewer votes they were likely to receive.” 

      •    @jacobinmag   The Democratic leadership went into this election with a strategy: stick to the center, avoid the Left, and promise bipartisanship. When the results proved disastrous, guess who they decided to blame: the Left.

    •    NPR signals us to go right?: Is NPR too dutiful a conduit for mainstream media “wisdom” that Biden won laudably as a centrist while the Democrats lost ground this election b/c the swing votes and regions needing to be won “are simply not that progressive”?

    •    NPR began this segment discussing the purported need for the Democrats to move Right with a quote to that effect from Democratic House member Abigail Spanberger not noting she's a former CIA operative or how badly she just did in her own campaign.  

    •    Following declaration of a Biden win, NPR teaches its listeners that “progressives” such as Elizabeth Warren are too “polarizing” plus scary to the financial industry to put in the Biden cabinet. 

    •    NPR showcases kindly offered Republican advice that Democrats wouldn’t have lost electoral ground if only they had run more to the right. Who’s expected to swallow that poppycock?: Democrats? NPR Listeners?

    •    Dashing hopes, reducing expectations: NPR (thank you very much) cautions that Biden will be constrained in addressing climate change because of gridlock and the countervailing force of the Republicans who prevailed in this election.

    •    Remember?: Biden worried (Iowa- Dec.) that the Dems might get too many seats in election w/ Republicans “clobbered.”  "I'm really worried that no party should have too much power. .  You need [the GOP as] a countervailing force."- Guess he got his wish!

    •    Wall Street is very happy with the election: Biden the president with a Republican Senate and reduction of Democrats in the House as an excuse for gridlock and Biden to deliver on his promise that NOTHING WILL CHANGE.    

    •    Stragedy? Is “stragedy” the right word to describe how the DNC corporate Democrats strategically connive to set it up that they always “have to” concede to Republican demands? 

    •    Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz Oct 28, 2020 US presidential elections are often very close because the US populace is deliberately kept evenly split between two ideological camps with a lot of emotional hostility and very little policy difference, ensuring they're kept divided against each other and united for the machine. 

    •    Retweeting 5/11/'19 National Notice article as reminder: While a “divided” America excuses government inaction, the vast majority of Americans, supermajorities, are actually united on what they want to see done with respect to most of the top, most important issues.  

    •    Assessing 2020 as most bizarre presidential campaign race ever, we're duty bound to remember the primaries w/ mucho shenanigans pulled to squelch Bernie & Republican Michael Bloomberg (seller of NYC libraries) ran as a Democrat collecting Dem's voter data.

    •    It almost seems as if the more tedious suspense there is in the networks declaring a presidential winner, the more one is supposed to emotionally invest in rooting for Biden whom we (Bernie supporters) never liked in the first place. Is it supposed to work that way?     

    •    Seeing Biden election jubilation several multiples of Obama ‘08, yet Obama promised (didn’t deliver) hope and change and voted against Iraq war; Biden says “no fundamental change”+ manipulated us into Iraq war. Why do we accept these shifting expectations? And with joy?

    •    @yashalevine entire cities cheering for a rightwing neoliberal bully with dementia. what a time to be alive. not a time to not be heavily medicated.

     •    @aaronjmate Two months ago, Kamala told CNN that Russian interference -- undefined, of course, because who needs details? -- could cost Biden the election. Since Biden won, expect us to now hear zilch about "Russian interference." It's outlived its partisan utility.

     •    @LeeCamp This is how you know the “Russian interference” crap was a lie all along - 

    •    Being skeptical or suspicious about our elections (for a huge segment of the population) is out of fashion for 2020. 2016 we had a conspiracy theory about Russia influencing the election (wrong reason for suspicion).  2020 we trust in the system. 

    •    Department of Homeland Security: election was "most secure" in U.S. history"; elections ensure technology is not "a single point of failure"; measures ensure "your vote is counted correctly"; You should have confidence their integrity, don't "overreact."  

    •    Super-tweeter Tim Wu tweeted that George W. Bush had done a "solid" by official recognition of Biden's election with congratulations.   Our National Notice response: Eager to extricate Trump from the 24/7 news cycle or not, this has too strange a resonance given that when all is said and done G. W. Bush did not win Florida in 2000. It should be enough for Biden to have simple won on the votes, not via GWB pronouncements of congratulation. 

    •    Still relevant Democracy Now headline from Oct 21, 2020: Joe Biden Vets Republicans for Cabinet Positions, Won’t Disclose Names of Major Fundraisers 

     •    BIDEN's Cabinet Looking WORSE Than Expected! (Jimmy Dore)

    •    Still relevant and not all that dated: Krystal and Saagar: Biden’s Floated Cabinet Is RETURN Of The Clinton-Obama Swamp (Oct 14).

    •    Panel: Floated Biden Cabinet Like West Wing Episode From Hell (Nov 9 from Krystal and Saagar).  

    •    Saagar Enjeti REVEALS How The SWAMP Will Run Top Levels Of Biden White House (Nov 19) 

    •    @RaniaKhalek Michele Flournoy [proposed Pentagon Chief] sits on the board of Booz Allen & helped negotiate tens of millions of $$$ in military contracts at Boston Consulting Group. Susan Rice [proposed Secretary of State] backed handing over Libya and Syria to a collection of extremist groups that literally brought back slavery! Is this a joke?

    •    One Third of Biden's Pentagon Transition Team Hails From Organizations Financed by the Weapons Industry- The president-elect is drawing from hawkish think tanks funded by arms companies. 

    •    If you think of war as a racket, then all the military appointments to administrations such as Biden’s (Trump’s too) are just more examples of more swampy conflicts of interest. . .  Absolutely no better than the other examples and in other ways tragically much worse.  

    •    Doors Revolve- Going to work alongside what’s shaping up as Biden’s hawk & Wall Street cabinet: Corporate Blue Broadcaster MSNBC & CNN “news” staff; 1 MSNBCer who was already secretly writing Biden’s speeches, plus at least another MSNBC 3 and 1 from CNN.

    •    Cecilia Muñoz, Who Defended Family Separations Under Obama, Joins Biden Transition Team- “Muñoz often justified Obama’s harsh immigration enforcement policies, including the administration’s deportation of thousands of Central American children” 

    •    Climate Activists Condemn Biden’s Appointment of Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Major Fossil Fuel Ally- Sunrise Movement: A betrayal- one of Biden’s first hires “has taken more donations from the fossil fuel industry  . . than any other Democrat.”    

    •    Does continuing preoccupation, and being on tenterhooks with concern about whether Trump will be successfully ushered out of office tend to make off limits dismay about how Biden’s cabinet is shaping up as swampy, corporate, and militaristic?  

    •    Will the two Senate runoff races in Georgia help Democrats regain balance of power?: Both Democratic candidates oppose Medicare for All and Green New Deal although polls say Georgia voters want those things.   

    •    Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll: Nearly two-thirds of Georgia voters, about 63%, believe the U.S. is not doing enough and should do more to combat climate change. But the two Democratic candidates in Senate runoff elections don’t support the Green New Deal. 

    •    @politico Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants had a stark warning for Democrats today: swing too far left and they’re all but certain to blow their chances in the Georgia runoff that will determine which party controls the Senate.