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      in US Politics

      Who will fill Kamala Harris's Senate seat in California?

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      With Kamala Harris officially headed to the White House, a fresh political battle in her home state of California looms: who will fill her US Senate seat?California law allows the governor to appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Harris’s term, and speculation over whom Gavin Newsom will nominate has been swirling for months.A range of politicians have been pitching themselves for the position – Newsom this summer joked with a reporter who asked if candidates had approached him: “You may be the only one who hasn’t – unless you just did.”Top contenders include Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, and Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general, either of whom would be the first Latino senator from California if appointed. Representatives Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who was a contender for the vice-presidential nomination, and Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley area, have also been singled out as strong candidates by political strategists.“This is going to be a huge, huge challenge for the governor because he’s got an embarrassment of riches,” said Nathan Barankin, Harris’s former chief of staff.Newsom’s decision could shape the US Senate for years, as whoever fills the seat would face re-election with the huge advantage of incumbency. And California senators can wield an outsize influence in Washington, said Aimee Allison, who heads She the People, a national network seeking to elevate women of color to political leadership.“If there’s one thing that was clarified during the Trump years it is that the policy and political leadership coming from California have been key in providing resistance,” said Allison.As a freshman senator from the nation’s most populous state, Harris played a key role in the hearings of two supreme court justices, and brought her sharp, prosecutorial style to interrogations of several Trump administration officials.Whoever takes her place in the Senate next could help shape how the US legislates on “reparations, the housing crisis, immigration”, Allison said.Newsom will probably seek to appoint an ally in Washington, Barankin said. However, it is unlikely he will find a candidate with whom he shares the same bond he has with Harris.Newsom and Harris came up together in California politics – he was the mayor of San Francisco while she was district attorney, and he served as lieutenant governor while she was the state’s attorney general. “Going through this common political and public life experience at the exact same time binds them together,” Barankin said. More

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      in US Politics

      How Georgia built on legacy of a civil rights titan and finally tilted blue

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      Downtown Atlanta boarded up when it became clear that Georgia could decide the fate of Donald Trump by just a few thousands votes one way or the other.The city worried that the president might unleash his well-armed supporters against an unfavourable result or that Trump’s opponents might turn out in protest if Georgia’s Republican establishment got up to its old shenanigans of fixing elections.But as the counting dragged on, the streets stayed quieter than usual, although coronavirus had already taken its toll on city life. When the results finally began to put Joe Biden in the lead in Georgia, his supporters held off on the celebrations. This was the wrong year to tempt fate.But there was a lot of quiet satisfaction that a state whose most significant role in presidential elections until now was as the home of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, might prove instrumental in the toppling of the US president.“I’m glad I voted. Didn’t last time but we needed rid of that guy. I’m proud of Georgia!” said Martin Williams, on his way to work at a fast food restaurant an otherwise empty city street early Saturday morning.That is a widely held sentiment among Trump’s opponents who sometimes cast his defeat – although a recount was announced on Friday – in terms of a sweet revenge in a state he won by five points in 2016.After trailing for days in the Georgia count, Biden was finally tipped into winning territory by votes from Clayton County, represented in Congress for years by the civil rights titan John Lewis, a fierce critic of Trump who died in July.“I love the idea that Clayton County could put Biden over in GA. That’s John Lewis’ district. He would do one of his trademark happy dances in heaven. Symmetry,” former Senator Claire McCaskill tweeted.Ben Crump, the lawyer who represents the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other African Americans killed by police, tweeted a reference to Lewis’s mantra of causing “good trouble” in the fight for rights. More

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      in Elections

      Biden's win marks the end of Trump's war on democracy and truth

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      Joe Biden has been elected the 46th US president, signalling a return to political norms in America after four years of raucous populism and administrative turmoil under Donald Trump.
      Thousands of Americans took to the streets, cheering, banging pots and pans and honking car horns to celebrate the outcome after four anxious days of waiting for votes to be counted. Trump was at his golf course in Virginia when the result was announced and refused to concede.
      Biden claimed the victory in the state where he was born, Pennsylvania, whose 20 electoral college votes put him over the threshold of 270. He had more than 74m votes in total, higher than any other presidential candidate in history.
      The former senator and vice-president said he was “honored and humbled” by the people’s verdict. “With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation,” he said in a statement. “It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.
      “We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”
      Biden was due to address the nation from Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday evening.
      From Atlanta to New York, from Philadelphia to Washington, there were spontaneous explosions of joy. A crowd gathered on Black Lives Matter Plaza outside the White House, cheering and holding balloons depicting Trump’s face and hair. One person brandished a sign that, quoting Trump on his reality TV show The Apprentice, proclaimed: “You’re fired!”
      In Times Square, New York, people danced, whooped and punched the air at the realisation Trump would be consigned to the history books as an impeached one-term president. More

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      in Elections

      The three counties in three states that were the touchstones for the election

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      Philadelphia County, PennsylvaniaThis county, the state’s most populous with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, is coterminous with the city of Philadelphia. Residents cast about 750,000 votes in the election, favouring Biden over Trump by 81%-18%. It was 30,000 pro-Biden votes from the county, declared at about 9am on Friday, that overturned Trump’s state-wide lead, which on Tuesday night had looked impregnable.The shift, potentially worth 20 electoral college votes, added vital momentum to the Democratic candidate’s push for the White House. The county is at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement – it is about 43% African American and 45% white. Supporters were involved in protests against the police killings of George Floyd in Minnesota and a local man, Walter Wallace, who was shot in October.Trump repeatedly dismissed nationwide BLM protests, insulted and mocked demonstrators, and sent troops to suppress them. Now they paid him back. Exit polls show African-Americans in Pennsylvania, representing 8% of all voters, backed Biden by 92%-6%. The Hispanic/Latino community, 4% of all voters, backed him by 78%-18%. Although the two minorities’ total numbers were relatively small, so was Biden’s margin of victory.Clayton County, Georgia More

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      in Elections

      'I can't stop crying': joyful celebrations erupt in US as Joe Biden beats Trump

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      As news broke that Joe Biden had defeated Donald Trump in the race for the White House, cities across the US saw wild celebrations from supporters of the Democratic nominee for president.
      In Philadelphia, the biggest city in Pennsylvania, the state where Biden was born and which sealed his electoral college victory, celebrations erupted outside the convention center where votes were being counted.
      Donna Widmann, a teacher who helped get her students and their families registered to vote, told the Guardian she had not been able to stop crying.

      “I remember four years ago, watching, you know, on 21 January 2017, him getting inaugurated,” she said, referring to Trump’s installation as the 45th president after his shock victory over Hillary Clinton. “And just crying … just watching [Barack] Obama leave and just crying. I feel like so much, so much emotion has happened in the past four years, man, and it just feels really good – like I can’t stop crying.”
      Windmann, who was holding a sign saying Trump should “take the L”, said she was “psyched” for her students and her families to know they made a difference.
      Alice Sukhina, who is from Ukraine, said she had volunteered for the Biden campaign. She had not been able to see her family in four years, she said, adding that she had sent them messages saying that the wait would soon be over.
      “I am overwhelmed with happiness,” she said. “I’m just so ready to get some real progressive things done. I’m ready to push the platform of Democrats to the left.”
      Marissa Babnew said she was “utterly excited for the first time in a very long time” and added: “I’ve had a lot of close experiences with this pandemic because of my work, and I’m finally feeling hopeful.”
      In Manhattan, where Trump made his fortune in real estate but where he remains a highly controversial and deeply divisive figure, crowds flocked to public spaces including Washington Square Park.
      Uptown, in Washington Heights, two friends, both actors, celebrated in Bennett Park, the sight of a key battle in the American revolutionary war.

      “Our long national nightmare is over,” said Paul DeBoy, happily quoting Gerald Ford’s famous message to the nation after the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.
      Ward Duffy said the cheering out of apartment block windows, banging of pots and pans, and cars honking in the streets represented “a different celebration than this summer’s respectful salutes to frontline workers” during the coronavirus pandemic.
      “This had a visceral explosion of relief and joy,” he said.
      Cheering, honking and banging of pots and pans erupted in Harlem too. More

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      in US Politics

      From agony to elation: the election that has transfixed the world

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      The bolt of panic shot through liberal America within minutes of the polls closing in Miami.
      Democrats had calculated that as the first results came in from Florida cities, they should expect Joe Biden to take an early lead. After that it would be a close fight as votes piled up for Donald Trump in more conservative parts of the state.
      Still, Democrats were buoyant. Opinion polls had Biden with the edge in Florida. If the former vice-president could nail the state, the election would probably be settled before California even finished voting. Trump had almost no path to victory that did not include Florida.
      Then Miami-Dade county declared the result of nearly one million early votes shortly after 7pm.
      Biden was nine points behind the president in a county that Hillary Clinton won by a 30-point margin in 2016. Far from fighting from behind, Trump was ahead right out of the starting gate.
      Eventually, Biden pulled off a slim victory in Miami-Dade but the result was still a huge swing to Trump that helped deliver him Florida. The former chair of the county Democratic party, Joe Garcia, called it “a bloodbath”.
      Twitter churned with expletives. Alarmed messages flew on social-media groups speculating as to what it meant that Biden was performing worse than Clinton, with the ever-present nightmare of her 2016 defeat hanging over proceedings. Permutations were calculated and recalculated. In bars not shut because of coronavirus, stunned Democrats ordered stiff drinks and settled in for a long night.
      Meanwhile, Trump and his more excitable followers took it as an omen and readied themselves to declare victory. More

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      in World Politics

      America Gets Rid of Trump, But Not Trumpism

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      The degree to which about half the US electorate supported Donald Trump in this presidential election, following a steady stream of outrages over the past four years, is a sad testament to how small-minded a significant percentage of the American public remains. The partisan battle lines have only grown stronger and appear to be insurmountable, at least in the short term, as blue and red America seem perfectly content to lash out at each other in perpetuity. The Founding Fathers would be spinning in their graves if they could see what America has become.

      360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

      READ MORE

      I published an article in July 2016 stating that I believed that Donald Trump had narcissistic personality disorder, and tried to warn America what would be in store for it if we elected him president. Exactly four years ago, on the eve of the US presidential election, I wrote an article predicting that Trump would win. My view was based largely on the belief that Hillary Clinton’s intended “coronation” was premature, that she was a flawed candidate, and that Trump had succeeded in tapping into an important vein in American political culture — the neglected blue-collar voter. I published that article at 3:00 the morning after the election, one of the very first to have acknowledged the birth of Trumpism.

      In that piece, I wrote:

      “It is doubtful that Mr. Trump will be able to heal our terribly divided nation, which he so handily and successfully contributed to. Now that the battle lines are drawn — between those who cling to an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ vision of America, in which everyone is white, conservative, straight and Christian, and those who recognize and accept the multi-racial, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation of this great land — there is no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, certainly not with a leader hell bent on fanning tendencies toward divisiveness, rather than unity. While we are certainly not all going to be joining hands together and singing kumbaya, no matter who is president, we are not going to get there by having a Divider-in-Chief at the helm.”

      We have seen the result of four years under his thumb. America has rarely been more partisan or divided. Those who yearned for an Ozzie-and-Harriet vision of America have become more emboldened four years later, apparently believing that America can once again become a bastion of white conservatism, replete with racism, bigotry and misogyny. That is unlikely to happen. America has become too diverse, and sufficient progress has been made toward equality to revert to that sad vision. The partisanship will surely only continue to get worse in the coming four years. The question is, can we ever return to a time when bipartisanship reigns?

      It was of course just a generation ago when that was the norm. I’d like to believe that Joe Biden can take us some ways in that direction, but what will probably be required to return to that era is sustained leadership by someone who has not spent decades with their snout in the trough inside the Beltway. Biden is not that man, but neither are the majority of politicians in Congress who have made being a politician a way of life rather than a temporary service to their community, state or nation.

      To achieve that, America will need a wholesale change in how it is governed in Washington, complete with cleaning house, term limits, mandatory accountability pledges and an end to special interests, lobbyists and corruption, among other things. There’s little chance that will be happening any time soon. It appears that we will have to settle for just heading down that road, which would be a victory in itself, knowing that America has saved itself from perhaps insurmountable damage of a second Trump term.

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      As for Trump, he will surely not be going quietly into the night. We can expect that he will challenge the results of the election for days and weeks, if not months, to come, his fragile ego refusing to acknowledge that he is the ultimate “loser.” While he toils and writhes in egomaniac agony, he will be planning his next act, which may be some combination of reality television or radio show, creation of a media empire or planning his own political comeback in 2024. Donald Trump has made an undeniable, indelible mark on the American political landscape, for better or worse, and his ego will not allow him to simply walk away as George W. Bush did.

      As for his followers, surely they will not be changing their political stripes or beliefs any time soon, nor should they be expected to. From their perspective, they have found a political voice, so Trump will have a loyal legion of fans supporting him no matter what he decides to do. That ensures that America will be in for many more years of Trumpism, and his legacy will of course live on in the Supreme Court for decades.

      America got the leader it deserved for the past four years, but for the first time since 1992, it has decided to reverse course after Trump has served a single term. Let us hope that Joe Biden can at least start down the road of healing this fractured nation and that whatever he is able to achieve in the coming four years serves as a useful counterpunch to Trumpism. While America can endure Donald Trump’s legacy bubbling beneath the surface, it cannot afford another four years of a Trump presidency. We have to believe that, having said no to another Trump term, America has decided that another four years of him is a price that is just too high to pay. The question is, will the answer be the same when Trump runs again in 2024?

      *[Daniel Wagner is the author of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump refuses to concede defeat as recriminations begin

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      Donald Trump refused to formally concede the US election on Saturday, even as senior Republicans began to distance themselves from him, and as recriminations were reported among aides to a man doomed to go down as an impeached, one-term president.
      Before the race was called, Trump continued to tweet his defiance and to attract censure for making baseless claims about voter fraud and his supposed victory. He also went to his course in Virginia to play golf. While he played, a defiant statement was issued in his name.
      “The simple fact is this election is far from over,” Trump insisted. “Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor.”
      The statement was of a piece with previous tweets and statements since the election on Tuesday – angry, refusing to admit defeat and alleging improprieties by his opponent without providing evidence.
      “The American people are entitled to an honest election,” Trump said. “That means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election.
      “It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured or cast by ineligible or deceased voters. Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.”
      None of what Trump alleged has been proved to be true. Nonetheless, Republican legal challenges in key states are set to continue. Leading the effort to marshal a legal force like that which led the party to victory in the 2000 Florida recount were Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr and his younger brother Eric Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor recently seen apparently trying to seduce a young actor posing as a reporter in Sacha Baron Cohen’s second Borat movie.

      “Beginning Monday,” Trump added, “our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. So what is Biden hiding? I will not rest until the American people have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”
      Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, has largely stayed quiet. Nowhere to be seen is an army of lawyers of the size – and skill – Trump will need. The failure to assemble a coherent legal team, and to raise as much as $60m to fund attempts to stop vote counts in some swing states and continue them in others, was in many ways a reflection of previous failures among the small circle of mostly family advisers Trump has kept around him.
      “What a campaign needs to do to staff one statewide recount, let alone multiple recounts, is overwhelming,” Benjamin Ginsberg, a top Republican lawyer who was national counsel to George W Bush in 2000 and 2004, told CNN.
      “Bush v Gore was one state [Florida]. We put out a call and hundreds of lawyers, political operatives and many others responded. Even with that, it taxed the party to its limits to do just one state. It is at best unproven that the Trump campaign can command the sort of infrastructure they would really need to pull this off.”
      The legal challenge to Biden’s victory was placed in the hands of Jay Sekulow, who defended the president during the Mueller investigation and the impeachment process, and Giuliani, who went to Philadelphia to publicly demand Republican operatives be granted greater oversight over the Pennsylvania count.

      Among experts dismissing Trump’s legal moves was James Baker, who led the effort for Bush in Florida which wrested the White House from Al Gore.
      It was reported this week that Kushner was placing calls from the Trump war room, in search of his own version of Baker, a former chief of staff, treasury secretary and secretary of state. Baker has backed Trump. But he told the New York Times that 20 years ago, “We never said don’t count the votes. That’s a very hard decision to defend in a democracy.”
      Trump advisers have reportedly raised the prospect of defeat. According to the Washington Post, some have advocated that the president offer public remarks committing to a peaceful transfer of power. One senior aide, however, said there had been no discussion of a formal concession.
      Some supporters in the media have begun to back away. Late on Friday, the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, an ardent loyalist, advised the president to “accept defeat”, should it come, with “grace and composure”. Ingraham also railed at “failed” consultants and campaign officials who “blew through hundreds of millions of dollars without the legal apparatus in place to challenge what we all knew was coming.
      “Why aren’t the best lawyers in America on television night after night explaining the president’s legal claims?” she asked. More