Trump or Biden?

Interesting articles.

As I understand it's down to the unique circumstances of this year, where there's far more mail-in ballots than usual due to Covid. Mail-in ballots require voter verification (to ensure no voter fraud), and I think some states had laws that said the verification process cannot begin until after election night.

Really? It's so chilly then, perhaps wait for March?

I wonder if Trump will sue his 'spiritual advisor'? In the immortal words of Delia Smith Angels (11th man), where are you?

So does this put the UK back at the back of the line as we were so offered by the last Democratic party president?

I think the American public have made a good call, they've recognised Trump isn't fit for office and Biden isn't fit for power. He's basically got a Theresa May situation where he can't do a great deal but I suspect the world will polarise around him and we'll have a decisive win for the left or right next time.

How very true. 

The question will be, at what point does Biden step aside and let Harris become President? If he does it after two years + 1 day of being President, then she can also still serve two elected terms, so be President for 10 years. And that way, she also would also most likely stand unopposed as Democrat candidate for 2024. But if he holds out till his term, I reckon others in the Democrats may oppose her as the nominee. The left / right debate in the Democrats was never settled - hence Biden as the "safe" candidate plus Harris to quieten the left of the party. 

Plus of course Obama as a black guy got elected, but Clinton as a woman did not. So would the rust belt support a black woman Democratic candidate? Unwoke and non-PC it may be to suggest it, I seriously doubt it. Which means that if the Republicans can select a good candidate for 2024, they'll be in with a real chance. 

Without the 24hr rolling 'Trump is unfit for president' news, I wonder what would have happened or what will happen in 2024? After all he increased his support across ALL demographics despite 5 years of 'Trump is a racist/sexist/homophobe/islamophobe/sinophobe/Russian Stooge' (delete as preferred).

I must say that having listened to the radio (R4 and R2) a bit these last few days, the turnaround from 24 hr Trump hate in to 24 hr Biden / Harris love in is getting rather annoying. And not very balanced. The way some of the BBC reporters are talking, you'd think that Hitler had just lost an election.

I remember four years ago everybody saying that Trump would kill us all in a nuclear war. But I think he was actually the first president in ages not to start a war with anybody.

I suppose that is one way to look at things. In the sense that there is always more than one way of looking at things.

Personally I'm delighted Trump has become a one-term president. Irrespective of right wing or left wing, he's just the worst sort of horrific, shameless bully, who stirred the ants' nest at every opportunity for his own personal gain and that of his obnoxious offspring. If American politics is a mess than Donald Trump's nasty little fingerprints are all over that mess like a bad rash.

I actually met him once, in the late 1990s. Never say never, but guessing it's the only time I shall meet a person who is a former, current or future US president.

As for Biden, I just hope he ignores the sillier end of his party and does what he promises.

In the arena of politics Trump's achievements in the Middle East, avoiding war, sticking it to China are overshadowed by the manner of his achieving them. It's unseemly for the leader of the nation that claims to be the leader of the free world to issue abusive Tweets, throw a paddy when he doesn't get his own way, sack advisors because their reasonable advice based on experience and the facts presented to them didn't align with his own views. That's why he was unpopular in the media, unpopular with senior Republicans (George W Bush as the only living former Republican President was swift to congratulate Biden and make sure it was publicised well) and unpopular with many western leaders. His populist views were also not out of place compared to a few other major world figures but, again, his manner of putting them across was unacceptable for a man in such a world defining position. It's OK some mad old Lord in the House to call the VP-Elect "the Indian" and to be castigated for it but for the POTUS to call an entire nation drug dealers, criminals and rapists is a few levels off the scale.

So those of you that read lots of papers - which is simple now with taking a few `Twitter feeds, news feeds on iOS etc. - you'll note that many are agreed that Trump is gone. Trumpism isn't. His views coming from him are abhorrent; when you look at 71M voters and a few million more that didn't those views are perfectly reasonable. That's more Trumpists than people there are in the UK. And most of them are armed.

That is surely just the catalyst for a never ending conflict between the haves and have nots and lots of racial tension and unrest. The US is hardly going to be a harmonious place to live and could become very dangerous.