Today I feel ...
Hopeful. Relieved. Cautiously optimistic. Fearful. Realistic. Tense. Wary. Apprehensive. Concerned. Anticipatory. Upbeat. Edgy. Positive. Redeemed. Reflective. Nervous. Reborn. Anxious. Agitated. Like I’m on pins and needles.
The fat lady hasn’t sung an end to the election. Indeed, the fat man is prolonging the agony of uncertainty by suing to invalidate votes in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. If Biden is confirmed as the winner of those first four states he would have 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum needed to win the election. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral voted would be the cherry on the victory cake icing.
My confidence in a Joe Biden victory is pummeled by past politicized court decisions. Does the Constitution mean anything to Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts and Barrett?
Even if Trump loses his bid to halt the vote tally in those states he is still primed to make mayhem. He will press Trumpian state legislatures to reject their respective Democratic Electoral College electors and substitute Trumpian slates. The true presidential election, after all, takes place December 14.
Of course, Trump will never accept defeat. Moreover, he will continue to be president until noon January 20, 2021. He will sow lots of havoc till then without doing anything to quell the spread of the coronavirus pandemic or aid the unemployed and underemployed to weather hunger, poverty and possible eviction from their homes.
The Supreme Court decision on the legitimacy of the Affordable Care Act will not come out until after Biden would take residence in the White House. If it rejects its constitutionality, Obamacare protections for preexisting conditions, gender neutrality on premiums and coverage for children on their parents’ plan through age 26 will be gone.
Biden has promised a better plan—Bidencare—but with Trumpians in control of the Senate (at this writing) it would be difficult to fulfill that pledge despite repeated claims Trumpians support those three foundational provisions of the ACA.
Aside from his legal and electoral slate challenges, the crybaby-in-chief has another trump card he might play—under never used presidential powers he could declare a national emergency and refuse to vacate the office. Such an extreme, unprecedented move could lead to physical conflict between his supporters and opponents. A doomsday scenario, but one that he has been hinting at for months, touting constitutional powers he says most people are not even aware a president has.
I’m looking forward to the day I will feel jubilant. But that won’t happen until Joe Biden takes the uncontested oath of office January 20 from Chief Justice John Roberts and our prolonged national nightmare would be over. For now.
