-Biden demolished Trump in the popular vote by over 7 million votes. He also obliterated Trump in the Electoral College by a nominal margin of 306-232, though—once the Electoral College convenes on December 14th—this margin may change by a few tallies via faithless voters. But due to all of the states that don’t allow the possibility of faithless voters, Biden has already secured at least 279 votes. So Trump has no chance of winning the vote on December 14th; he’ll have to rely on the far-fetched prospect of a divine intervention in the courts.
-Trump has every right to challenge the results. But he cannot successfully do so without proving in court that there was widespread voter fraud—and, more importantly, that it was enough to decide the outcome of the election. And given that almost all of Trump’s lawsuits have been complete airballs so far, I’m 99.9% sure that Biden will assume the presidency in January.
-My Electoral College simulation was a bit off. I did not expect Biden to come back in PA or GA. However, my prediction for the popular vote was spot on. Biden got over 81.3 million votes. Trump got over 74.2 million. And indeed, Biden won by over 7 million votes. Below is an excerpt from my prior post “Key Takeaways as Joe Biden Seemingly Beats Trump in the 2020 Election.”

-Trump’s strategy is to disseminate Fake News via his personal Twitter, @realDonaldTrump. He knows he can’t use this type of Fake News in courts—he can’t even use it for his @POTUS account (which has higher standards)—but there’s nothing stopping him on his personal account. Right? Oh wait, Twitter has censored him and said under many tweets that their claims are disputed. As such, Trump is determined to take on the so-called “Big Tech” apparatus to the point where he is ostensibly blocking the passing of the next annual defense budget until Congress jams a few earmarks into its legislation on behalf of him. He claims that conservatives in general are being censored. We’ll see how long he holds out.
-Biden is not off to an ideal start. Of course, he’s always been one of my least favorite politicians, but I want to be optimistic. And yet he just named an insider of the big chemical plants, Michael McCabe, to help spearhead his EPA transition team. He also named two top fossil fuel lobbyists as advisors. In fact, over 40 members of his 500+ person transition team have a background in lobbying. And while this is certainly far less than Trump used, it is still concerning.

-Greenwald is spot-on in the above quote, at least in my opinion. We shouldn’t fear these “far-left boogeymen” that all of these corporate-funded media sites blast. We shouldn’t fear people like Bernie Sanders on the far left or Tucker Carlson on the far right. We should fear politicians like Biden. They aren’t radicals. No, they are radical centrists. They earn a name as centrists by selling out to big money on both sides. Our Congress is bought-out. The major exceptions are Bernie, AOC, Tulsi Gabbard, Katie Porter, and co. on the left. On the right, we’ve got Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, and Susan Collins. It’s hard to win the game of thrones without big money.
-I still have high hopes for the potential of Joe Biden’s administration, but these inclinations are paired with equally possible fears about what it will do that mimics the Trump administration. Only time will tell. Anyway, I have a whole lot more to say—and there are so many more topics to cover, from Covid vaccines to the Georgia runoff elections to Congress to stimulus checks to cannabis legalization to domestic policy to defense strategy to Trump’s final month in office—but Brandon and I are recording our 4th episode next week. So I’ll save the rest for later. *Let me know what you think of my (as usual) polarizing opinions. Thank you!* -Luke
yay!
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Brandon, Luke, Joe Biden is not perfect, but he is a decent person whose history has been one of collaboration, which has unfortunately become a dirty word. As an independent voter, who has been a member of both parties, I actually like that Biden is a centrist. Both sides have some good ideas and both sides have some bad ones, so we need to garner input from both.
I saw where someone said Biden does not have a plan. I disagree. He will get us back in the Paris Climate Change Accord, invest more in renewables (which have actually moved forward in spite of Washington’s stiff arming them) and will look to remedy some of shortcomings of the ACA. And, he will rebuild some spent relationships around the world, where our reputation has declined, even before the outgoing president has defamed our election our process. We have retrenched from our global role and I think many leaders look forward to more normalized relations with the US.
A good example of something we need to work on is our huge and growing debt problem. I agreed we needed to stimulate the economy and help people and still need to do some more, but I think we did not measure where help was needed beforehand. NPR had an economist who noted too much of the stimulus went to publicly traded companies, when small businesses needed it most. In my view, we should have paid small businesses to keep their payrolls, like done in other countries. Yet, our debt problem will take both spending cuts (which Dems hate) and tax increases (which Reps hate) to deal with it, as the math will not otherwise work with one or the other.
I have long grown weary of the outgoing president, as he makes too many issues about him and takes too much credit and too little blame. Even when he is directionally correct on an issue, he offends other parties when he does not need to. He views too much through a transactional lens and less through a relationship lens, which is one reason our global reputation has declined. He has done a few good things, but for the most part he has been detrimental to our country, planet and democracy That is what I believe, which may run counter to others’ thoughts.
Sorry for the long winded comment. Again, I am an Independent voter who also is an old fart. Many thanks for the purpose of this blog. Keith
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Thank you so much for the diligent, insightful, and thoughtful comment, Keith! I’m in the middle of exam week and am thus cramming lots of studying in at the last minute. But I’ll reply to all of this more adequately soon! -Luke
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Luke, best wishes on your exam. I remember those days. Just remember the beer always tastes better celebrating an exam in the rear view mirror. Keith
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boi i c u @10,000 views
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Haha hard work pays off!
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when’s next episode?
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Later next week! -Luke
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You make a great point about Biden being a “radical centrist.” Even though I did vote for Biden, I was (and still am) not 100% on-board with him. He always was a weak Democratic candidate, and his talk about being a “one-term” president did not sit well with me. Not only that, but he has no strong ideas for moving our country forward (as his platform was only built on removing Trump from office). I’m skeptical of what he’ll do for our country, but I can only hope that he doesn’t do more harm than what has already been done. We’ll have to see…
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Well said on all of that, Rebecca! Fingers crossed! 🤞🤞 🤞
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Retweet on what Rebecca said
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😉
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Solid journalism. Works well when you’re more concise
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Thanks! I’ll work on keeping it concise more in the future, then. Thanks. -Luke
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How will macron n joe work together
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Not sure how it will pan out exactly, but I think they’ll be fine!
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/macron-biden-victory-paris-climate-accord-b1722209.html
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https://www.france24.com/en/diplomacy/20201110-france-s-macron-congratulates-biden-in-first-phone-call-to-us-president-elect
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🙂
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V relieved to hear Bidens practically secured the W
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Haha same, personally. Hope Georgia goes blue so that we can actually pass progressive legislation through each chamber of Congress!
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-Luke
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Ur ideas on Biden’s Taiwan policy?
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I haven’t done enough research on Biden’s policies toward Taiwan in particular, but I am fairly aware of US-Taiwan relations and obviously China-Taiwan relations, too. Will do some reading and then get back to you! -Luke
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Okay
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informative. i’ll take homeboy who supports BLM over DTrump anyday
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Same!
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