Joe Biden Has Won the Election

He will be the 46th president of the United States.

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It took a few days, but we now know that Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. CNN called the election for him late Saturday morning, and other media outlets followed quickly. A massive advantage in early and mailed-in ballots in the state of Pennsylvania (Biden was born in Scranton) allowed the former vice president to overcome President Donald Trump’s large early lead in the state and secure a victory in the Electoral College. (The final margin is still to be determined.)

Biden will have to work with Democrats and Republicans in a narrowly divided Congress. Democrats are on track to maintain control of the House of Representatives, but with a smaller majority, and the GOP can still maintain control of the Senate, pending two runoff elections in Georgia. Biden will also be the oldest person to serve as president—Ronald Reagan was 77 when he left office in 1989.* Biden turns 78 later this month. 

Biden released a video Saturday promising to be a president “for all Americans.”

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  1. Ronna M

    I’m happy Trump will be gone but I have no illusions that this will heal divisions any time soon. My liberal friends have found something new to enrage them. They are making lists of all the GOP legislators who haven’t jumped out front to congratulate Biden and Harris. As one friend said: “I am seething” that McConnell hasn’t made a public statement about Biden’s win. She and others are convinced now that the Supreme Court that was “stacked” by Trump will conspire to steal the election. The fever swamps are still feverish. Sigh.

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      cheerio

      LOL that is funny because the Trumps are keeping lists of who hasn't stepped forward to "Fight!" for Trump. Fight what? Maybe they mean give a bunch of money to pay off their campaign debts since their legal election defense fundraiser states that more than half of donated amounts can be used to pay for campaign bills/debt. I know everyone wonders if the Republican party will move past the Trump era. What I think will be interesting is the fight for Trumpism (after Trump is gone because face it, he is one unhealthy specimen). The cast of combatants I predict will be Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, the Trump Spawn (who will actually own the trademark name), Meadows & Gaetz (should they recover), Mulvaney, Pompeo...Jordan. I don't know that Marco Rubio will survive the midterms.

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      1. Ronna M

        The fringes on both sides are the most vocal and most insane.

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    Joe Lancaster

    Thanks for all your hard work. It’s greatly appreciated 🙏!

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    Jeff Walden

    "give a whit", eh? 🧐

    (I suppose "care a whit" would be more normal, but I assume this malapropism was both artful and deliberate.)

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  4. Maddmac

    I just heard a guy being interviewed on NPR this evening. He's a MAGA/Trump worshipper in Las Vegas out protesting. His statement is, "I will die for Donald Trump and I won't stand for communism". Based on this, the problem in our country is that kids are obviously not getting lessons in economic theories. Does anyone disagree with me?

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    1. @fakeJohn

      In today’s connected world it is easy to find people like this. I’m actually more disheartened that NPR would air him. I mean maybe I’m wrong but this guy seems like lunatic fringe to me.
      ...
      Please let this guy be lunatic fringe.

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        cheerio

        A voter at my polling center motioned me over and asked me what this Conservative line was and the Working Families line and the Libertarian... what are these and who are those people? I explained they were political parties and those people were the candidates they were endorsing or running. There were other choices besides Trump and Biden, and she had to pick just one per column. She was middle-aged. She ended up choosing Trump twice (on the Republican line and the Conservative line) and asked me if she needed a new ballot. I explained the machine would take the choices in the first line and if that was what she wanted, she didn't need a new ballot. One mandate I would support is remedial American Government classes. Or even just making more of those Schoolhouse Rock cartoons to play before every sportball game and every episode of American Idol or SYTYCD, broadcast all of them in their entirety on the big screens before every live concert, car race, county fair and movie theatre.

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      2. Ingenero.lux

        Probably. But...look at surveys of knowledge of the federal government and see how many people can’t even name the branches of government or their elected representatives. Even assuming many of them simply don’t care, there are a lot of people who don’t understand much of how the world works (and, public perception to the contrary, I understand the US isn’t terribly unique in this). So finding crazies isn’t as hard as one might like.

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          C C Writer

          We used to get this stuff in, like, 5th grade or something.

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          1. Ingenero.lux

            It’s still taught. So far as I can tell, thought it’s hard to weed through, I don’t think it’s a generational thing or degradation in education (Surveys don’t seem to show the population’s general education degrading, and I’ve seen a plethora of Baby Boomers saying the same type of thing - plus I don’t know the age of this guy) so much as this type of thing having been around for a long time.

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    2. Maddmac

      Sorry, I am on a rant...the majority of people in this country cannot define nor explain socialism/communism/vs Marxism vs Trotskyism or even capitalism...worse, many progressives don't know what fascism is hence their claim that Trump is a fascist. Our education system is in dire straits.

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        JohnF

        All of those things require a lot of study, context, and history to really understand them. The same can be said for Hegel, Burke, and Adam Smith. The average guy racing along in his pickup truck yelling "freedom" has probably not put the time in to gain that kind of understanding. However, he likely listens religiously to Limbaugh and Hannity each day (neither of which has put in the time to understand any of the things they regularly opine about).
        Limbaugh and Hannity are very rich. The average Hegelian scholar or Marxist theorist? Not so much.
        I've learned to lower my expectations. I am happy if today's high school graduates can spell "fascists" instead of "fashits".

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        1. Ingenero.lux

          I suspect, too, it’s a matter of importance. For most people I think the question is more a vague cultural totem, much like E=mc2 means far more to people as a sign of genius than as something whose impacts they consider. The number of people who hear “Calculus” and shudder but don’t remember what a derivative is, or aren’t sure if Guinea’s in the Middle East or the Pacific (yes, I know it’s actually in Africa) though they probably knew once, is likely quite large, given the surveys I see about general lack of knowledge in the population. People learn and then remember what matters to them, and generally forget things that don’t (or end up like me and have a head full of bizarre facts that almost no one cares about, in addition to all the important bits). It would be great to have the average man on the street able to talk about competing economic systems, but given how many don’t even understand ours (or even manage to keep the traffic laws straight), it’s probably a lost cause. Just getting people to understand the relative cost of things (ie, the money we give to other countries isn’t even a rounding error in the Federal Budget) is a struggle, so I doubt the complicated stuff is going to be remembered.

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            cheerio

            just think, if they had to know the answer to unlock their phones....

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            C C Writer

            In the 1980s, with Reagan as president and basic economic concepts being talked up, people understood where jobs come from and stuff comes from. But conservatives didn't bother keeping up this level of knowledge about the free market or expanding on it. And so we lost ground. We have to get back to that. My continuing modest proposal: a high school graduation requirement for every youth to have the experience of owning and running a business, even basic work like lawn-mowing or dog-walking or a lemonade stand or coding an app.

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    C C Writer

    So, what's new?

    This had to happen on a day I had to go to work (tomorrow too) instead of hanging out and celebrating online with my peeps. What a relief!

    I was getting ready to leave the house for my noon to 6 shift when I noticed the neighbors on my block were being very noisy for some reason. Vocal, and banging pots and pans. Oh . . . could it be . . . better check the news online. Yep, AP had called it. Walked to the bus stop, and people were out in the unseasonably mild and sunny weather walking around whooping and hollering, or driving and honking. Very happy and good-natured about it. (I explained to a few of them that as a former R I preferred this outcome because he was such a disgrace. Unlike you all, they might not have been aware anybody like me existed.) At the store, nothing out of the ordinary, except I saw some large and heavy merchandise staged near the doors in case it was needed to block them from looters (we know this drill by now). It won't be needed.

    So, you may think this is a little childish but I need a closure ceremony to signal to myself that the long national nightmare is over. I have two color photos of Trump that I tore from the front page of my newspaper because I didn't want to have to look at them. One of them I will rip up and flush the bits on inauguration day. The other will be sooner: should I do it when the count becomes official (when is that exactly) or on the day the electoral college meets?

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    1. tla

      I had similar experience. I had to go pick up Pizza's for my son's birthday party, and all of sudden people were honking their horns as I walking back to my car. Turned on the radio to hear the election was called.

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  6. deathtomcmansions

    I think the pendulum theory of politics is about right. As long as no one pushes it so hard to one side that it gets twisted or wrapped around its axle it eventually comes back and often settles in the center for awhile.

    I also have no idea if such a theory exists, I just used the term to describe my outlook.

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    1. Ingenero.lux

      Maybe not formally, but I’ve heard the sentiment enough to know it’s the standard view of US politics. And maybe we can have some breathing room. For now, at any rate.

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      Kaitlin Johnson

      I'd agree; I think most of voters are not consistently ideological but are waged by opposition to the overstepping of the current president every few years.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    I feel like the munchkins after Dorothy's house landed on the witch. "DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!

    No he is not "dead" but I am as happy as those munchkins. THAT relieved.

    And the video of people all around the world celebrating as well is making me cry.

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  8. Joe1776

    "Donald Trump is going to court to stop votes from being counted. We have assembled the largest election protection effort in history to fight back and need your help."

    It is interesting how Biden posts this so it sounds like Trump was trying to prevent votes from being counted instead of just trying to stop votes from being counted until he can observe them. But this sort of misinformation is fine for our leftist media.

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    1. @fakeJohn

      Let it go man. Let it go. Trump lost and even with nine Ted Cruzes on SCOTUS it ain’t getting overturned. I really hope Biden is true to his word and tries to work with McConnell

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      cheerio

      Donald Trump's campaign has sent out 19 fundraising emails today. I'm sure they have no misinformation LOL.

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      Murrayprof

      Every count has a repubs in the room.

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    4. deathtomcmansions

      It's even more interesting how trump was claiming it would be fraudulent even before voting began. Or that he claimed the popular vote he didn't get in 2016 was stolen by people being bused into VT (of all places.) And how there were several places where his people were present as expected yet he still claimed he didn't have any observers.

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      1. Joe1776

        Trump said the 2016 election was rigged before it began as well. This is nothing new. Some people learned to separate the bluster from the real policy. Others never did and become outraged at every tweet.
        https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37673797

        Trump was fact checked to death but Biden can openly suggest that Trumps lawyers are literally trying to stop counting votes all together and the msm will join him in that misinformation.

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        1. deathtomcmansions

          well, you do have trump saying on election night that all counting must stop (he seemed to conflate counting and voting as well.)

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  9. Ingenero.lux

    Hope the door catches you on the way out. And maybe knocks enough sense into you to never run again.

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    1. deathtomcmansions

      maybe he'll do a Rumpelstiltskin.

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      1. Ingenero.lux

        If we figure out his real Twitter handle he’ll be banished forever? That sounds like finding a needle in a needle stack.

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        1. deathtomcmansions

          not sure I can follow the connection between twitter and whoever. I thought you were referring to trump. Rumpelstiltskin got so angry when he lost his bet with the queen (she figured out his name) that he grabbed one foot and ripped himself in two and then augured into the depths of the earth.

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          1. Ingenero.lux

            The original had him leaving in a rage, which I thought more appropriate (and the last twist on it I read, incorporated into a book more Lovecraft than Grimm ended with only the baby left alive), but I was more referring to the name: we all know Trump’s, so that won’t work, but his “Real” Twitter handle would be appropriately Trumpian. Probably Baron something or other.

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  10. Eric B

    It's time to retire the "Grand Old Party" brand and rebuild a party from the ground up. It has to be a hybrid, the best or most practical ingredients of the 3 main parties.

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