Welcome to today’s US election briefing for Australia, which will be the penultimate edition for the moment – we will put the series on pause after tomorrow.
Were it not for the small matter of a sitting US president defying all norms and evidence by refusing to concede he has lost an election that he has very much lost, the biggest story in America would be the surging pandemic.
The US has reported more than 1m new coronavirus cases in the past 10 days, with another new record 136,325 new cases on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins. Deaths are up by 23% in a fortnight, with 1,448 people dying from Covid on Tuesday.
Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told NBC on Wednesday morning part of the blame lay with a federal government that has seemingly given up on containment, let alone eradication.
“In the last couple of months you have seen the federal government basically throw in the towel … There’s been no new guidance, very little effort coming from the federal government and I think that is definitely contributing to a nationwide surge.”
States and cities are filling this leadership vacuum by enacting their own restrictions, of course. But it is notable that amid predictions the US could see 200,000 cases a day within weeks, the sitting president seems wholly uninterested in the crisis. You can read our full story on the state of the pandemic here.
Instead, Trump spent today, Veterans Day, attending a ceremony and tweeting more misinformation about electoral fraud and claims he had won states that have been called for Joe Biden. There are concerns the lack of acknowledgement of Biden’s victory and absence of a smooth transition could impede the new president’s ability to tackle the pandemic from day one (The Conversation has this good explainer on Biden’s plans – and on the current White House’s refusal to cooperate).
Trump’s scattershot legal challenges against results continue without much success – judges in six states have thrown out lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign to challenge the vote while agreeing to hear zero. In Georgia, the secretary of state has agreed to a by-hand recount, though it is doubtful that Biden’s lead of more than 14,000 votes can be undone. Trump and his team continue to happily accept calls made in his favour.
There were several reports today that Trump is beginning to accept his loss privately, and is already discussing a 2024 run.
As ever, Trump appears focused on only one person’s survival right now.
The big stories
Analysts say the insistence by Trump and other Republicans that the election result is not clear-cut points to motives more immediate and less historic than a coup plot: the party needs to pay down debt and keep voters activated for two difficult runoff US Senate races in Georgia that will determine which party controls the Senate.
So is there a constitutional path for Trump to stage a coup and stay in office for another term? Not really, as this explainer lays out.
Extreme Republican partisans have been installed in important roles in the Pentagon, following the summary dismissal of the defence secretary, Mark Esper. Democrats warned reshuffling of key national security roles during a presidential transition put the country into dangerous “uncharted territory”.
Biden has named Ron Klain, who served as the “Ebola tsar” during the Obama administration, as his chief of staff. Klain has been a vocal critic of Trump’s pandemic response.
Twitter took more than an hour to flag a highly misleading video shared by Trump, which baselessly pushed claims of ballot fraud and was retweeted more than 70,000 times before the platform took action.
As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading. This piece looks at the blow Trump’s defeat has delivered to rightwing populists around the world.
From ending prolonged detention to a 100-day moratorium on deportations, Biden’s vision of US immigration policy departs dramatically from Trump era. But fixing chronically broken statutes while reversing more than 400 of Trump’s executive actions requires time, resources and, in many cases, bipartisan support, a tall order for the incoming administration.
Quote of the day
“We need his voters … Right now, he’s trying to get through the final stages of his election and determine the outcome there. But when that’s all said and done, however it comes out, we want him helping in Georgia.”
Republican Senator John Thune on his party needing Trump’s support if they are to win January’s runoff elections in Georgia and hold on to control of the Senate.
Election views
Biden’s presidency looks to George Monbiot like “an interregnum between something terrible and something much worse”. Unless Biden “unites the people against the oligarchs who dominate the nation, the people will remain divided against each other”, paving the way for a worse, more competent version of Trump, he writes.
“The integrity of the American electoral process is at stake, and many of the most powerful and prominent members of Republican party still declare fealty to their Dear Leader, even at the expense of the nation,” writes Jill Filipovic. “This is how democracy itself comes undone.”
Susan Bro’s daughter Heather Heyer was killed while protesting against a far-right rally in Charlottesville. She writes for us today about healing America: “We, the people, save our democracy when we reconnect at the personal level.”
Video of the day
Speeches from candidates conceding defeat in past US elections have been resurfacing this week. Here’s a little supercut to remind you of the way things used to be done after an election defeat.
Around the web
“President Trump isn’t really trying to overturn the election,” according to Dana Milibank in the Washington Post. “He’s simply running one more scam before he leaves office that would enable him to enrich himself.”
The Huffington Post has trawled through the complaints from Republicans about vote counting in Detroit, Michigan – the basis of a Trump campaign lawsuit – and found a raft of trivial matters, including one woman who was called a Karen.
While Trump retained huge support among white evangelicals in particular, a small drop in Trump’s favourability with Christian voters was enough to help Biden in some states, according to Politico.
What the numbers say: 1 million
The amount, in US dollars, being offered by an ultra-conservative Texas politician for proof of voter fraud.
Thank you
Tomorrow will be our final US election briefing for now – we will be putting this project on pause, but may be back with any major developments in the future. Thanks very much to everyone who signed up to receive this briefing as an email every weekday. It has been a pleasure sharing this historic period with you all.
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