Our Dream Has Come True. We Beat Trump. Now What?

Biden won. That’s the reality. No qualifiers. No near slip up at the end that again defied the opinion polls.

The story should not be framed as Trump’s surprisingly strong performance in states where Biden was sure to cruise to a win. That pundit line thrived for a couple of days because it was rural votes that were counted first in Pennsylvania and Michigan. The Philadelphia and Detroit ballots had to be forced out of post offices by judicial Heimlich maneuvers from federal judges.

When all the ballots are counted, Biden will have beaten an incumbent president by 5.3 million popular votes and he will have won more than 300 Electoral Votes.

That’s a walloping, by any historical standard, given the innate advantage of the incumbency. Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush by 5.8 million votes in 1992, and FDR’s ousting of Herbert Hoover during the depths of The Great depression was by 7 million.

Biden’s final win was just about as strong as the polls showed his advantage being in the last two months, though on election night and the next day, media phraseology was all about OMG, here we go again; Joe Biden will write “What Happened, Vol. 2!”

Biden’s final popular vote advantage being smaller than what polls projected simply reflects the normal leveling off of the leader’s margin when actual votes are cast, and that drop never taints a victory or the mandate of the incoming president.

George H.W. Bush led Michael Dukakis by 12-to-14 points throughout October 1988, then won the actual popular vote by eight points. Similarly, Bill Clinton’s lead over President Bush was about 8-to-10 poll points throughout the race, then he actually beat Bush by five points, 43 percent to 38, with a strong protest vote of 19 percent going to Ross Perot.

Unlike in 1976 and 1980, when Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, respectively, held leads of about 30 points after their nominations, then steadily lost ground until they were in toss-up races in the final week, Biden’s 2020 performance was one of consistency -- never slipping during the general election from a solid, but not overwhelming lead.

Along the way, the author posted this meme
to remind voters of the final goal. 

And President-Elect Biden is smart and politically savvy. He isn’t projecting a backing off his agenda because he did not win the coveted Senate majority; he is outlining his plans to use executive orders immediately to reverse dozens of the worst moves of President Trump, Education Secretary Betsy Devos and other extremists in this administration.

Of course, without a Democrat Senate majority, single payer health care and a $15-an-hour minimum wage are not going to become law in the next two years -- but would they necessarily even if the Senate were in Blue hands, or if the Democrats pull to a 50-50 tie after the Georgia run offs in January?

A Democrat majority built on wins in North Carolina and South Carolina the Democrats almost got and/or Georgia wins might well be one which could not count on Senators from those conservative states to vote for a bold progressive agenda. Susan Collins or Mitt Romney might be as willing as southern Democrats to support health care or minimum wage bills.

If a Republican Senate majority does result, as frustrating as that would be to Blue hopes, it may actually offer a form of cover from the spectacle of a Democratic Party failing to get its agenda through its own Congress, something the Republicans succumbed to in 2017.

The next four years are unclear. Will a vastly improved Coronavirus response, a successful vaccine, and economic improvements win the voters’ goodwill, or will the the big corporate domination of our lives still keep us chained to poverty jobs?

For now, let’s appreciate the fact that we longed to truncate the Trump racist, hateful war on empathy, and by standing strong, refuting disinformation, and voting strategically, we did it.

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Brian Arbenz, of Louisville, began resisting four years ago by attending the Women's March in Washington on 1/21/2017. That was just the start, and even with Biden as president our resistance against hate and exclusion must continue.