I probably should have been writing more during the last couple of months about the mess that the 2020 US Presidential Election turned into. I know what my instincts were about the whole thing, but I found myself not willing to write very much because my mind was so open to either possibility that I couldn’t seem to put my thoughts down. Also, it seemed like when I did put my thoughts down about other stuff, I was sometimes getting it wrong.
I had some thoughts about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg prior to the election. I was trying to write about how Trump should handle things, and it felt irrational as I wrote it, because at first he was handling it correctly. He was respectful about her as if he genuinely cared, at least initially. This could be another thought entirely, which has to do with who Trump probably is when he’s being real and who he is when he’s fronting. Upon going back and reading it, it’s not my best blog post, but I think it probably works.
I also wrote a great piece, also before the election, about the convenience of Hunter Biden’s laptop showing up when it did, and I might post it later anyway, but it appears that it likely was his laptop. I wish I’d posted that post before I discovered that I was wrong, because I would just have to follow it up with a nice, “I was wrong,” post.
I also wrote a lengthy piece about why the election wasn’t over on Election Day, which basically amounted to “The election is never over on Election Day, but there is usually a candidate who will admit defeat.” I don’t think I was wrong about that post, but the more time that passed the more it felt irrelevant.
So this is just a quick post to simply say that I listened to both sides about the election and whether I want Biden as President or not, he won the election. If new information comes out sometime in the future that makes me wrong then I’ll say so, but I listened to the press conferences, interviews, and off the record hearings of Trump’s law team; as well as, many of Trump’s speeches and the possibly inappropriate phone call. All I gathered from it was that if you started with the premise that the election was fraudulent then everything they said was compelling, but if you started with the premise that you needed to be convinced of what they were saying then there was no compelling evidence. “Because people are saying so,” just isn’t a good argument, because the other side was also saying, “Because people are saying so.”
I think that the other issue is this. If I choose to believe that this particular election was fraudulent without hardcore evidence then I have no reason to believe that any US elections are legitimate. If that’s the case then what does it matter to me? It means my entire life has been lived under a totalitarian dictatorship dressed up as a democracy. It feels like I’m free, so I guess the illusion is ok.
Besides, to me the real rigging of the system is that we will never have a true third party or independent candidate to be president. Even if Bernie Sanders had run it would have been representing the Democrats, because it’s the only way to do it. If Sanders had run against Biden it would have been handing the election to Trump, so he dropped out the moment the Democrats decided Biden was their guy.
Basically, my instinct was unless some real evidence comes up, I believed that Biden won. In light of no real evidence coming up to convince me, I’m presuming that Biden won in a free and fair election.
I’ve never really bought into this idea of “Not my president.” This is the defensive stance taken by people who are not happy with an election result, particularly when they believe that there was something decidedly corrupt about the election. This has mostly come up because of the Electoral College system giving the election to the person with fewer votes, at least until the 2020 Election. It’s the legality of our system though. It’s how our elections work. If I objected based on the legitimacy of the Electoral College system then there has never been a president who is my president. I think we need to abolish the Electoral College system.
What I’m saying here is that we, as a nation, went through every legal step as outlined. Each state sets their election rules. The election rules that were in place were followed. The votes were tallied. Recounts were implemented where required. Investigations were executed. Lawsuits were filed. Electors were assigned. Objections were made. At the end of it all, Joe Biden was certified as the next president.
I didn’t want either Trump or Clinton in office in 2016, but whoever won was my president, even if I detest the Electoral College system. Trump has been my president since his inauguration in 2017. I sometimes agreed with his policies and I sometimes didn’t. I believe he did a good job in some aspects and a bad job in other aspects. I didn’t really want either Trump or Biden in 2020, but I conceded that because I disagreed with Trump’s presidency more often than seemed reasonable that if Trump and Biden were the only valid choices then I would prefer Biden – although I did not vote, because I don’t believe in voting for someone I don’t truly back. In spite of that, after the inauguration Joe Biden will be my president for better or worse.
God help us all.
Chris McGinty is a blogger who still says fuck the Electoral College. You do know that if Texas ever fully flips blue that we’ll likely never have a legally elected Republican president again, meaning that the Democrats can just serve up whatever slop they want and expect to win. Don’t believe me? Just look at the slop we’ve been offered the last two elections. Pretend I made a joke somewhere in here. It won’t be so depressing then.