Moving Beyond The 2020 Election……………….

Looking back at my post written BEFORE the 2020 election, it’s hard to remember the angst and worry of that time. There was a collective sigh of relief from 60% of the nation when Biden finally won. However, Trump never conceded defeat, and dragged the country through 2-3 months and 50+ lawsuits across the country, trying to prove that the election was “stolen”.

Gee… does that sound familiar? Those hoping that Hillary would win in 2016, had those same thoughts, but Hillary did the gracious thing and conceded to him. Only a couple of recounts were conducted in two different states, but no lawsuits followed. What was pursued though, was known as the “Russia Investigation” which concluded with the Mueller report. Mueller’s investigation concluded that since he wasn’t allowed to prosecute a sitting president, no criminal action was taken even though there were inappropriate (over 100 of them) interactions between the Trump team and the Russians. In addition, Mueller proved at least 12 counts of Trump interfering with the investigations. The democrats subsequently tried to impeach Trump twice, but because the Senate was in Republican control, he was never indicted and removed from office.

But to get back to the results and consequences of the 2020 election, Trump didn’t concede, and dragged his feet on the “peaceful transition of power” that is supposed to happen after an election. He kept claiming that he won the election, and he’d be the one inaugurated on January 20th so no sense in turning things over. Most of us thought he’d finally give up on the day in December when the electoral college met to confirm their votes, but that didn’t happen. He kept on with his lawsuits and constant claims of fraud and the election being stolen. And then on January 6th, when Congress convened to officially count the votes from the Electoral College, it was hoped that he would concede then. But far from it. Instead, he held a rally of supporters down the street from the Capitol (where Congress was meeting) and got them excited and then directed them to go to the Capitol building to convince Mike Pence, the VP, to overturn the election for them. However, it’s not in the VP’s powers to do that, he’s just there to make sure the vote counting goes smoothly. The results of Trump’s actions were that hundreds of his supporters, stormed and breached the Capitol building. They were attacking Capitol Police, and invading the halls of Congress (who had to be escorted to safety), and yelling “Hang Mike Pence” and the theme of 1776, because they were trying to take back their original country. Quite a few officers were injured, and there were at least 5 deaths resulting.

Later, through many investigations and subsequent arrests it was determined that most of the attack was done by extremist groups , Proud Boys, Qanon, and ?? had planned the attack online through social media, and encouragements from Trumps Twitter and Facebook accounts. Trump quickly lost his social media accounts, and may never gain them back. Time will tell.

The inauguration of Joseph Biden as President, with Kamala Harris as Vice President, went on as planned on January 20th. The inauguration was dignified and positive, albeit very different from previous ones. Because of the pandemic, the nighttime balls with pomp and circumstance were eliminated, and instead there was a Virtual celebration from points across the country culminating in fireworks (complete with Droids) on all major TV channels. Nicely done!

In the 60+ days since being inaugurated, the Biden Presidency has been able to get vaccines for the pandemic to roll out quickly, helping the country get a handle on the virus. Congress and the President have passed another stimulus bill to put money back in the hands of Americans struggling through this pandemic. And although the crisis with immigration is still occurring on the border, the country is starting to get back on an even keel.

Trump, in the meantime, is starting to face his consequences. He has lawsuits galore, mostly tax fraud and who knows what else. The Supreme Court made him release his tax returns (which he refused to do the whole time he was in office) to investigators. He sometimes talks about another run for President in 2024, but after the insurrection, many Republicans changed parties. He was able to fleece his own followers of money, claiming he needed the money for court cases for the election fraud, but some of them still do not accept the fact that most of what he said was a lie or a con job.

So life goes on, hopefully with less drama for the next four years. It’s nice to finally have the glass ceiling broken by having a female Vice President and Second Gentleman instead of a lady. The country is starting to see the way out of the woods with the pandemic. And Congress and the White House are moving forward on new things like Infrastructure while the Democrats control the House and White House, and the Senate is split evenly. And fortunately, all those cable channel shows that kept me riveted for the last 4 years because they focused on politics, are becoming a little boring again!