Lost In Transition

Joe Biden has his work cut out for him.  Not just in serving as President, but to become President.

Trump refuses to concede the election and he refuses to allow the Washington bureaucracy to accommodate any transition.  He's also undergoing a massive PR campaign to fuel rumors that the election was stolen form him.  Meanwhile, he's suing every state he thinks he should have won to have the results in states Biden won overturned before the electors can be certified to vote in their state capitals in December.  Also, only a handful of  Republican members of  Congress acknowledge Biden's victory.  

And in the fantastic event that Biden actually makes it to being sworn in, he may still have to deal with Mitch McConnell stopping everything.  The Senate race in North Carolina has been called for Thom Tillis, bringing the Republican Senate caucus in the 119th Congress so far to 49 members and proving that North Carolina Democrats are an ever sorrier bunch that their Florida or Kentucky brethren.  (Another adulterer in an adultery-intolerant state, guys?)  Alaska's Senate race has also since been called for Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.   Now the Democrats' only recourse  is in Georgia.  There, Democrat Jon Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the other Democratic Senate candidate, faces appointed Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in runoffs scheduled for January 5.  Despite the Democrats' new-found strength in the Peach State, the chances of the party pulling off a double win - even against certifiable crooks like Perdue and Loeffler - look exceedingly slim.

Meanwhile, Biden is readying a White House staff and assembling a COVID-19 task force, spelling out his health care agenda (more of that later), receiving calls, communiques, and congratulations from foreign leaders, and putting together a government - without help from a Trump administration that refuses to share vital information with the incoming President and continues to insist that the Donald will be taking the oath of office on January 20, ready to challenge the results right up to the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 under the watch of Mike Pence and in the presence of a Republican Senate as well as a Democratic House.  Expect challenges to the results from each state Biden will have won - especially Pennsylvania.

I wonder if Americans have any idea how appropriate it is that this election took place in the middle of a pandemic.  Biden's win may have treated a symptom, but the disease of Trumpism goes merrily on.