Election 2020 overnight update: Chill the fuck out, please.
This is gonna go a long while longer.
It’s about 10 past midnight here in the East Coast, and there’s a lot of melancholy and hand-wringing in the air and I’m here to tell you:
Chill the fuck out and take a deep breath.
No, seriously! Do some 4-7-8 breathing, right now:
Feeling better already, right?
Look, not gonna lie? I’m disappointed, because I wanted tonight to be a massive, thermonuclear repudiation of Donald Trump, and it didn’t fucking happen. I wanted it to be so massive that it approached 1980 levels — and it’s clear we’re not going to get that.
What it looks like we’re going to get is a long, punishing slog for the next few days and weeks as states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania - among others - count the millions of mailed and early votes outstanding, while Republicans desperately go to various courts to stop the counting. In other words: the 2000 election, all over again.
Joe Biden, bless his heart, is on course to win the popular vote by more than 7 million votes. That’s powerful. It’s apparent to me - and lots of other people - that he’ll win the electoral college, and become the next President, if all the votes are counted.
So that’s the thing: we need to get out there and demand to count every vote. We need to hit the streets the same way we’ve hit them this past summer and indeed, the last four years, and demand that we count all the votes. Every single last fucking vote.
If this were another country, we know what we’d call what Republicans are trying to do right now — a shameless attempt to steal the election and overturn the clear and present will of the people. We’d be expecting people to protest, and celebrating when they did so.
Well, it’s our turn to do that, now. It’s our turn to face down this pathetic, desperate attempt to deny the will of the people. My question is: will you? We need to count every vote, and we need to demand that take place.
In any event, here’s a more granular look at where things stand:
We’re behind in Georgia, but most of Atlanta hasn’t come in yet, and I suspect Biden will do well in Cobb and Gwinnett Counties. As I write this, it’s looking quite live for Biden.
North Carolina’s within a point; same thing, it’s looking quite live for Biden.
We won Arizona!
The “red mirage” is real as fuck. This is why Republicans are desperate to stop the counts! We won’t have a good idea of which way Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are going until at least tomorrow, and probably not until the weekend.
Let me put it this way: at this point four years ago, things were a lot more bleak than they are tonight. I remember being in Tampa consoling utterly bereft colleagues and talking them down from the ledge. That ain’t happening tonight; and I’ll take that.
It fucking sucks that we didn’t see a wholesale rejection. It says volumes about who we truly are as a people that millions of us looked at the last four years — nearly a quarter million dead as a result of official neglect and conscious incompetence, millions more in economic misery — and said sign me the fuck up for part two, please! with a spring in their step and a song in their heart.
But this ain’t over yet, and we’re the ones who are going to say when it is. We’ve had our say, we’re gonna continue having our say, and we’re gonna speak with our voices and our feet, not just our votes.
If that moves you, then you should join me on this call my friend Greg is helping organize:
Tomorrow, starting at 7 pm, join this call to find out what’s next. See you there. I love you. I leave you with one of my favorite instructions from the Torah:
“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”