A lot of us Americans never doubted that America lives... — Bitter Crank

yes perhaps I chose an overly blunt polemical expression but I thought there was a lot of truth in Mary Trump's warning that his re-election would have been the end of American democracy. And I'm more than aware of the decent core of Americans, I have near and dear relatives among 'em. Every time I've visited the US I've been vastly impressed by the civility and hospitality that I was shown.

Fox News have started to behave themselves and I think the majority of Trump voters are accepting this defeat gracefully. The positive side of the American spirit is winning through here.

his re-election would have been the end of American democracy — Wayfarer

Certainly another term would have enabled him to worsen the malignancies he found or started. Whether it would be the end of democracy, I don't know... Trump was unusually and crudely self-centered. Who knows what he might have done to satisfy his needs? CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases are among my biggest worries, and Trump just didn't seem to care about global warming. Pro or con, he just wasn't interested in it. Four more years of that would have been disaster plus. (Disaster plus might happen anyway.)

Democrats lie. Republicans lie. Thinking one does it more than another is just a reflection of your indoctrination. — Harry Hindu

No, really, some people lie more than others. There is actually such a thing as counting a person's lies. And Trump has pushed the volume meter to levels which we couldn't imagine, even from the most dishonest politicians.

Fox News have started to behave themselves and I think the majority of Trump voters are accepting this defeat gracefully. The positive side of the American spirit is winning through here. — Baden

Oh just wait until Biden gets into office where they'll go from downplaying 200K deaths to complaining about a man's condiment preferences.

It’s great to celebrate the end of Trump, but it’s wise to actually hold Biden’s feet to the fire and let him know that merely not being Trump is not good enough, he needs to get on with actually fixing things and fast — plus, as Crank says, there’s a lot of things that simply aren’t in his direct power to fix. — Pfhorrest

If the GOP hold the senate then that may just be impossible. The only things that could change are matters related to foreign policy since the president doesn't have to go through the courts or congress. Biden would get the US back to the Paris Accord and get a new Iran Nuclear Deal, but domestically? It all comes down to how Georgia's runoffs play really.

America's in a really dark place even if the Democrats have complete control so although the world is able to breathe a sigh of relief the Americans will continue to suffer.

The duopoly has found the perfect formula:

1) Nominate Presidential candidates "Bad" and "Even Worse"
2) A third party on the ballot will automatically mean that the "Even Worse" will win, and hence Americans won't dare to vote the third party or will be accused to be the reason why candidate "Even Worse" won.
3) Depict the House of Representatives and the Senate being meaningless and focus on the Presidency.
4) And of course, portray the "primary elections" as the way how people can influence the "democratic process" of choosing the President and not by creating new political parties, which would then battle the duopoly.
5) Discourage grass roots movements that would start competing at the municipal / city / state level with the duopoly.

Duopoly rules the US. — ssu

Great analysis. The game really is fixed.

Not convinced everyone should be this happy about a republican winning.

Fox News have started to behave themselves and I think the majority of Trump voters are accepting this defeat gracefully. The positive side of the American spirit is winning through here. — Baden

The Trump speech about having the election stolen from him was truly disgusting. It was a reckless attempt to incite his base to interfere with a fair election. It was a complete disregard for everything that makes America great, most fundamentally, that it is a democracy, subject to the rule of law.

The Biden victory speech was inspirational. I've got to think the contrast has caused many to reconsider.

Good riddance.

I doubt it. If 4 years of Trump doesn't make a person reconsider, one speech by Biden isn't going to either.

:clap:

Not convinced everyone should be this happy about a republican winning. — StreetlightX

In Europe, everyone is happy the cryptonazi lost. A title from the French press this morning:

Trump almost alone in his bunker
(Journal du Dimanche)

I suppose. I'm just thinking that having elected the much-touted 'lesser evil', well, they've still elected evil.

And who would you have?

I'd guillotine them all.

The Trump speech about having the election stolen from him was truly disgusting. It was a reckless attempt to incite his base to interfere with a fair election. It was a complete disregard for everything that makes America great, most fundamentally, that it is a democracy, subject to the rule of law.

The Biden victory speech was inspirational. I've got to think the contrast has caused many to reconsider. — Hanover

Absolutely. Trump is now saying he would accept a fair result, ie beginning to build himself a way to retreat. He has failed to rouse the rabble, partly because of Biden's statesmanlike patience and inclusiveness, partly too through there being no evidence. So all but the most bone-headed right-wingers are losing the anger needed to foment violence. I believe that's what Trump was counting on. Then amid the unrest he could talk about states of emergency, mobilising troops, suspending the democratic process, emergency powers etc. That's the classic way dictators firm their grip on power. It's heartening to see that the US's democratic roots run too deep for an unscrupulous scumbag like Trump to cut them.

You may be right, but the issue isn’t necessarily the quantity of lies, but rather the harm, chaos, destruction, etc. that they cause. I think there is at least an argument to be made regarding whose lies have been worse. Also, doesn’t all thought reflect whatever system (political, philosophical, religious, cultural, etc.) the agent has bought into? — Pinprick

The amount of harm, chaos, destruction, etc that they cause is subjective, as is all moral and political truths.

People also conveniently lumped all the blame on Trump when we have various levels of govt. where our mayors and governers have much more control over your lives than the POTUS has and no one wants to point the finger at them too?

I haven't bought into any system. I'm an atheist and an independent voter. I'm not the one that is indoctrinated into some system here. Atheists that are registered Democrats have simply swapped one Big Brother (god) with another(govt). Atheists that are Republicans are just confused.

No, really, some people lie more than others. There is actually such a thing as counting a person's lies. And Trump has pushed the volume meter to levels which we couldn't imagine, even from the most dishonest politicians. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do vague platitudes count as lies or truths? Vague platitudes is the language of politicians and lawyers. When you learn how to twist words to mean almost anything, then you can always assert plausible deniability later.

All you have to do is watch any news station where they interview political pundits or strategists from both sides and observe how each side spins the truth.. Its a wonder any reporter worth their salt puts a microphone in front of any politicians face, as what comes out of their mouth is just flat out propaganda.

About a month ago, he put out a statement telling the UK no trade deal if they renege on their part of the deal with the EU that relates to Ireland. The House did the same. — Baden

That had escaped my notice, thanks!

Interesting, first signs of Biden's foreign policy.

I expect that unless the Democrats actually do win control of the Senate - and it's still a possibiilty, athough slight - the GOP will continue as they did under Obama, to block, obstruct, frustrate, divide, undermine and deny. — Wayfarer

Agreed, that's most likely the script for the short term. For the longer term the GOP is in a death spiral.

America is in transition from being a European nation to a world nation. As the saying goes, we'll be a minority majority nation soon, more blacks and browns than whites. The Democrats get this and so we elected Obama, and now Harris. The GOP base is built upon a population which gets relatively smaller every day.

Had the GOP run Jeb Bush in the last election they might have been able to turn the death spiral around, as Jeb Bush is intelligent and gets all of this. He's married to a Hispanic too. But, that opportunity was squandered when the GOP sold it's soul to a con man.

Credit should be given here to Lyndon Johnson. He knew that by signing the civil rights bills of the sixties he was handing the American south to the Republicans, but by doing so he preserved the future of the Democratic Party and prepared it for the 21st century. Please recall, a century of horrors in the Jim Crow south was presided over by Democrats almost exclusively. Johnson liberated the Democratic Party from that shameful heritage.

If the GOP collapses in coming years the next thing to worry about will be further corruption with the Democratic Party in the absence of credible competition. The Dems held the House Of Representatives for decades, got too comfortable, and the whole thing got pretty slimy.

If this seems like a lot to worry about, don't sweat it, as the Yellowstone volcano is overdue for another explosion and once that happens the history of America will be effectively over. :-)

The idea that the GOP is in a 'death spiral' is about the stupidist possible takeaway from what just happened. They just scored the second most votes ever in US politics, and given Biden's milquetoast, corporate pandering policies combined with the same (ridiculously effective) GOP stonewalling that they employed in Obama's second term - and a GOP-sympathetic judiciary to boot - Biden's likely total ineffectiveness will breed ever more electoral resentment with vicious populist backlash at most 2 years away. It's hard to imagine the GOP in a better position following this loss. Any notion of a coming GOP collapse is fantasy fueled by high moron vapour.

Or: "Donald Trump was a test run. Worse than him is coming down the road within the decade. Get busy building. Movement activists who supported Biden emphasized that his presidency would give the movement breathing room. Okay. We have maybe two years, tops, to prepare for an even more vicious, popular wave of reaction. The next backlash is going to make the Tea Party look like a teddy bear’s picnic.

A Biden administration will enter into government with an even more tenuous majority in the House, a loaded right-wing judiciary, and an intransigent opposition securely ensconced within the “The House of the Undying” i.e. the Senate. This means any hope for progress on the movement’s priorities is dead in the water. Legislative failure will breed resentment (as it did under Obama). And because the left has, during the Trump years especially, become even more structurally, politically, and demographically wedded to the Democratic Party, we will (fairly or unfairly) have to answer for every mistake and insufficiency on behalf of our senior coalition partners.

The lesson the GOP is going to take from this election is that Trumpite politics can garner support from a near-majority of the electorate. Republicans can win larger margins with a fascist program than they will by running a moderate conservative (compare Trump's narrow loss to those of McCain and Romney). They have every reason to dive deeper into a morass of conspiracy theories, escalate the culture war, and encourage popular violence against the left. Further steps will be to try to consolidate and expand demographic inroads among communities of color, as well as doubling down on voter suppression tactics."

https://regenerationmag.org/among-the-ruins-of-victory/

Then you'd be left with yourself.

The lesson the GOP is going to take from this election is that Trumpite politics can garner support from a near-majority of the electorate. — StreetlightX

I'm not convinced. The popularity of Trump was down to his being a political outsider - ie not the Republican party. His personal charisma - as witnessed by a successful TV career - is considerable, whatever we think of his politics he is great at communicating with the uneducated and fearful conservatives of rural USA. One thing I have learnt from this election is that Democrats usually do well in towns, Republicans in the isolated rural backwoods. Someone else can come along and mimic his policies, but its his personal appeal that makes people abandon sense and follow the rubbish he talks. I think his will be a hard act to follow.

Someone else can come along and mimic his policies, but its his personal appeal that makes people abandon sense and follow the rubbish he talks. I think his will be a hard act to follow. — Tim3003

The rightwing mediascape - i.e. the American mediascape - is a veritable training academy for Trump-talk, and has had ample time now to perfect the art. Shamelessness, narcissism, virtue signalling (that exemplary right-wing value), and saying-it-enough-times-that-it-becomes-true is a dime-a-dozen set of skills among a swathe of wannabe Trumps who have been watching and learning for the last four years. I agree that it's not policy that's the difference - Trump was a policy failure on multiple fronts - but that 'act' is far more available and pervasive than I think you give it credit for.

Get busy building. Movement activists who supported Biden emphasized that his presidency would give the movement breathing room. Okay. We have maybe two years, tops, to prepare for an even more vicious, popular wave of reaction. The next backlash is going to make the Tea Party look like a teddy bear’s picnic. — StreetlightX

I imagine that some will capitalize on the momentum of a ‘stolen election’ and therefore never concede that it was fair.

"While stalwart Trumpists in the party will no doubt make their own bid for party leadership, the election results suggest a bright future for figures like Marco Rubio, adept at combining Trumpist demagoguery with politics more rooted in the party establishment. A Republican like Rubio who can provide a veneer of competency over Trump-style reactionary performance art has the potential to win back the marginal Republicans Joe Biden succeeded in wooing this time and, in doing so, cut deeply into the Democrats’ persistent majority in the popular vote.

Second, the failure of anathematization means that the politics most favored by the Democrats’ increasingly college-educated base, which focus on pointing out Trump’s grotesque racism and sexism, have utterly failed to resonate with huge sections of the electorate. Ironically, Donald Trump, who took the GOP’s famous “autopsy” report blaming their 2012 defeat on their hard-line immigration policies and spit on it, clearly consolidated an increased base among Latino voters, particularly in the key states of Texas and Florida. Moreover, exit polls, which may well be unreliable this year due to the extent of early voting, suggest that he also increased his standing slightly with black voters."

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/2020-election-biden-trump-democrats

Or: anyone who thinks that demographic change is going to 'shrink the GOP voter base' has another thing coming.

I imagine that some will capitalize on the momentum of a ‘stolen election’ and therefore never concede that it was fair. — praxis

I'm not sure about this. Trump's attempt to go full tilt at this is largely falling on indifferent or deaf ears as his allies - with the exception of the utterly pathetic Giuliani - drop him like the rotten hot potato that he is. Short of some still-possible court shenanigans, the vibe is that people seem to be accepting the results for what they are. But maybe that's 'cause I don't follow Q or Breitbart or whatever close enough.

And I'm more than aware of the decent core of Americans — Wayfarer

Generally speaking, America is made up of the folks who had the gumption to get off their ass, take a big risk, and leave other countries that were failing them. And so, generally speaking we are um, more energetic than Europeans, both for the better and the worse. When we fuck up, we go all the way, and do it right! :-) And if you don't believe me, I'll wave some guns around in your face to prove it.

The popularity of Trump was down to his being a political outsider - ie not the Republican party. — Tim3003

Yes, votes for Trump are fundamentally a rejection of the status quo political class. The evidence for this is Bernie Sanders, who represents the same kind of rejection on the left. Two very different candidates with two very different policies, united by their ability to speak to a loss of faith in the status quo.

What's driving this at a most fundamental level is the accelerating development of knowledge, which is driving social change at a pace faster than our ability to adapt. For every steel worker who lost their middle class union job to globalization and automation there are 20 people thinking it might be them next, and it probably will be. Perhaps the only candidate in this election to intelligently address the underlying driver of the uncertainty contagion was Andrew Yang.

The reach for extreme remedies by the broad public is going to get worse because few to none of our cultural elites, not politicians, scientists, academics or philosophers etc have the slightest clue how to effectively respond to the accelerating development of knowledge and the destabilizing social change it generates.

The heart of the problem is that the accelerating development of knowledge is challenging us to look at ever more fundamental issues at an ever faster pace. And we're just not ready.

And so a person with a rare talent for projecting confidence comes along and offers us simple solutions like Make America Great Again, and we don't know what else to do or who else to trust, so we give it a try.

His personal charisma - as witnessed by a successful TV career - is considerable, whatever we think of his politics he is great at communicating with the uneducated and fearful conservatives of rural USA. — Tim3003

It's more complicated than that. The "uneducated and fearful" rural folks you speak of have correctly identified that the status quo political class is corrupt, and more importantly, incapable of dealing with the challenges of the 21st century. They are united with the educated and urban folks who have come to the same correct conclusion. Bernie Sanders is even more radical than Trump because, unlike Trump, he sincerely believes in his prescriptions. Bernie Sanders would be a far bigger gamble than Trump, who has left the country largely unchanged.

Furthermore, while I'm ranting, the insistence of SO MANY liberals on insulting rural and working class Americans is an act of pure stupidity. Nothing that we liberals care about will ever be achievable and durable without bringing a great many of the red states folks on board. So long as insult based polarization persists then anything we might achieve will simply be reversed the next time the political pendulum swings.

We don't win until we make some kind of peace with all those red states you see spread across the heart of America.

The next backlash is going to make the Tea Party look like a teddy bear’s picnic. — StreetlightX

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