THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER16, 2020 11
COMMENT
THEBIDENPROSPECT
A
merican democracy was on the
ballot on Election Day, and al-
though American democracy appears
to have won, an occasion of immense
relief, the margin of victory should not
be exaggerated.
As we went to press late Friday night,
Joe Biden had overtaken Donald Trump
in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and
Georgia, and final victory, while not yet
confirmed, seemed imminent. Biden,
who was running four million votes
ahead in the popular vote, looked likely
to become the forty-sixth President of
the United States. Senator Kamala Har-
ris, the daughter of a Black father and
an Indian-American mother, would
make history as Biden’s Vice-President.
Donald Trump, who will finish out his
term as the most cynical character ever
to occupy the Oval Office, was menda-
cious to the last, claiming victory be-
fore the ballots were counted and ac-
cusing an unknown “they” of trying to
steal the election from him. He is sure
to pursue his case, however misbegot-
ten, in the courts and in the right-wing
media. It would also come as no shock
if he provoked civil unrest on his own
behalf. If four years have proved any-
thing about Trump, it’s that he is capa-
ble of nearly anything.
The unhinged, if predictable, spec-
tacle of Trump’s press conference early
Wednesday morning at the White
House was outrageous even to some of
his closest allies: here was an unstable
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDAauthoritarian trying his best, on live
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
ranged; his voice betrayed defeat. There
has never been a more dangerous speech
by an American President, and it re-
mained to be seen if his party’s leader-
ship would, at last, abandon him.
The networks and the Associated
Press have yet to call the election, but
we can speculate on the magnitude of
the tasks facing Biden. If he survives
whatever challenges, legal and rhetor-
ical, that Trump throws his way in the
coming days and weeks, he will begin
his term facing a profoundly polar-
ized country, one even more divided
and tribal than the polls have sug-
gested. It is a nation in which one half
cannot quite comprehend the other
half. He also confronts a country that
is suffering from an ever-worsening
pandemic, an ailing economy, racial
injustice, and a climate crisis that mil-
lions refuse to acknowledge.
Many Biden supporters had hoped
to gain a more resounding mandate,
and on Election Night there were early
glimmers of hope in Texas and Ohio.
In the end, with close finishes in so
many states, Biden would have to be
satisfied with unseating the incumbent.
The polls had been, almost uniformly,
wrong, often by significant margins.
They again underestimated Trump’s
over-all support. Predictions of a tow-
ering “blue wave” washing away the
Trump Administration and the mem-
ory of the past four years proved to be
a fantasy. And yet the end of the Trump
Presidency is, by any measure, a signal
moment in modern American history.
These four years have wrought tragic
consequences; there is no question thattelevision, to undermine one of the old-
est democratic systems in existence.
“This is a fraud on the American pub-
lic,” he complained. “This is an embar-
rassment to our country.” As far as he
was concerned, citing no evidence, “we
have already won it.” Trump was will-
ing, as always, to imperil the interests
and the stability of the country to sat-
isfy his ego and protect his power. On
Thursday evening, Trump reprised this
malign and pathetic performance, as he
took to the White House pressroom to
claim, again without proof, that he was
being “cheated” by a “corrupt system.”
Reading from a prepared text, he said
that his vote was being “whittled down”
as ballots were being counted. He spun
a baseless conspiracy theory about dis-
honorable election officials, a burst pipe,
and “large pieces of cardboard.” His
words were at once embittered and de-