The headline, and stunning heartbreak over the past 24 hours, likely explain today’s BradCast well enough. [Audio link to full show follows below.]
But, as Kamala Harris said today in her brief concession speech at Howard University (shared in full on today’s program) after setting an example by vowing to “engage in a peaceful transfer of power” with Donald Trump…
I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions, and aspirations. Where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do. We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence. And America we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld.
And we will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square. And we will also wage it in quieter ways: in how we live our lives by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up, to fight for the dignity that all people deserve.
We are joined today (much sooner than anticipated for some odd reason, after speaking with them just last week), by our old friends and fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby’s Hullabaloo blog and ‘DRIFTGLASS’, who writes at his eponymously-named blog and co-hosts the weekly Professional Left Podcast from his home in “Flyover Country, Illinois.”
Among the questions asked and discussed…
- What did we all miss last week during our final conversation before Election Day, when we were clear-eyed, but bullish on Harris’ odds this week?
- What, if anything, could the remarkably well-run Harris Campaign have done better? And what does this actually reveal about Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 loss to Trump?
- Are a huge number of Americans, millions of whom voted directly against their own self-interests, cruel and stupid or just wildly disinformed by our failed and/or corrupted media?
- Why would so many Latinos vote for the guy who promises “mass deportations”?
- Will Democrats ever figure out how to counter the “perpetual 50 state campaign” that is run by Republicans over their enormous and extremely well-funded media outlets (who have also poisoned the well of otherwise legit corporate media outlets?)
- How soon and/or how badly will Trump and his Republican over-reach after taking power?
- Got any helpful advice for how best to handle all of this and move forward in the days ahead? (Turns out, they do.)
As usual, both of them have much wisdom for us…even on a dark, dark day like today for the nation and the world…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Gish gallop electioneering got folks on the bandwagon unable to see the forest for the fascist trees.
Could it be they’re also sexist?
This election did not feel like a low voter turnout election. Unless numbers improve over time, low voter numbers are suspect all by themselves, requiring an explanation.
The following could account for low voter turnout numbers.
Greg Palast‘s warning of perhaps millions of legit, democratic voters being purged from registration rolls with blessing of Supreme Court, in purging that could occur before, on, and even after election.
From Article:
“Here’s the number that should scare you: In 2020 there were 88 vigilante votes challengers, almost all in Georgia. But the group that provided the hit list of voters to challenge, True the Vote of Texas, has proudly proclaimed it has, this year, signed up an astonishing 40,000 vigilantes. True the Vote crows that, as of the beginning of August, they had already challenged over 851,000 voters across the nation.”
Jim Stewartson said that Trump’s people were instructing their voters to “vote early which was new, but not by mail.” This led him to conclude that DeJoy and others might have purged mail-in-ballots in large numbers.
………..
It will be interesting to see final vote count. Is there any way to know how many voters from registration rolls and ballots from mail in ballots could have been purged?
Why couldn’t/wouldn’t Biden do anything about these issues?
……………
Low voter count doesn’t seem right.
Yesterday’s count at 8:46 AM CST from AP in quoted article:
WTF! Trump received less votes than 2020 and he still won….?
Trump has received about 71.2M versus MVP Harris who current has 68.3M.
The numbers will possible inch higher once CA comes in, but doesnt really change the fact that he will not have done hugely better that 2020, rather MVP Harris has done significantly worse that Biden!
In 2020: Biden got 81M votes. Trump got 74M
……………
Pardon me. I thoughtlessly put quotation marks around my own paraphrase of a longer statement from Jim Stewartson.
https://www.gregpalast.com/heres-what-we-do-now/
Here’s What We Do Now
by Greg Palast
“Could disqualifying literally millions of ballots affect an election’s outcome? What do you think, Sherlock?
“Same with mass purges: 400,000 in Georgia, 1.2 million in Texas — way over 10 million removed from the voter rolls — no other advanced nation does this, erasing voters’ rights to cast a ballot.
“Today, I’ll be on calls with voting rights attorneys and frontline activist groups preparing for the fierce fight to protect our votes. They are, as you can imagine, requesting our factual reports and findings — about the two-million-plus vigilante challenges, about purges, mail-in ballot rejections and more. And they need our film and print stories of the voters whose ballots were challenged, discarded, blocked. Our films and short PSA have now been seen by more than 8 million — but that’s not enough.
“Too much has been spent on selling candidates and not enough on simple civic education. Education is our work.â€
Free Documentary: VIGILANTES INC.: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen
http://www.watchvigilantesinc.com
You can’t normalize genocide & then moralize about everything else.
If genocide is not a red line for you, then you have no red line.
Instead of “I’m speaking” to shut down protesters of the slaughter in Gaza… some listening wouldn’t have hurt.
YMMV.
LanceThruster,
The sad inescapable truth of Trump winning, is that now Netanyahu will be totally ENCOURAGED to exterminate the Palestinians, with great emthusiasm by Trump.
Even bigger rivers of Palestinian blood will flow now.
I agree Biden’s weakness against Netanyahu was disgusting and disastrous.
But things CAN get worse.
Trump will let, even PUSH Netanyahu take it to the next level.
We will never know if Kamala would have changed direction on Gaza, so please do not assume she wouldn’t have. We really don’t know, and you do not either.
The voters chose another world.
If you think you were seeing genocide BEFORE, get ready for multiples of that.
A perfect example of hating the frying pan so much, you jump right into the fire, with no way out.
To anyone who empathizes with the Palestinians, but opposed Kamala’s election, Good luck with that.
Looking forward to your election investigation like it’s 2004!