From Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos, here's the best analysis of how our soon-to-be-ex-President got way more votes than pollsters suggested he would. Long story short: folks who don't trust our government because it's actively hurt them (i.e., by enabling the outsourcing of their jobs) and who also feel profoundly isolated in their daily lives not only turn out in big numbers for our soon-to-be-ex-President and only for him, but don't particularly turn out for polls, either. Some of these folks (remember incels? Gosh!) are, as Mr. Moulitsas says, "just assholes in general," but I still think Bernie Sanders could have turned a lot of the others out for him in 2020.
Good news, everybody: our Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine project in Alaska's Bristol Bay, citing the Clean Water Act. This project is so unpopular that even Scott Pruitt's EPA wouldn't sign off on it, and our soon-to-be-ex-President's elder son twittered against it -- and yet still executives were caught on tape saying they planned an even bigger project than what they put on their permit! Our Glorious Elites can't be trusted to do the right thing -- which is why we make them do the right thing.
Bad news, everybody: our soon-to-be-ex-President is rushing to gut as many clean air/clean water/worker safety protections as he can before we drag him kicking and screaming from office. Also, Democrats likely won't have the numbers in our Senate to pass "resolutions of disapproval" like the ones Republicans passed incessantly in 2017. But still, good news, everybody: given his regulatory changes' track record in court, we might expect that a lot of these changes will die there anyway.
I imagined it would happen but not this quickly: our soon-to-be-ex-President's daughter actually bragged about the drop in carbon emissions this year, hoping you wouldn't notice that a little thing called the COVID-19 pandemic -- you've heard about that, right? -- caused the drop. If she's secretly hoping to trap people into admitting that making crap and controlling climate change are "mutually exclusive propositions," just remember that back in 2015, the IAE found that carbon emissions dropped as world economies expanded, so you already know she's lying.
So, are some of your more right-leaning pals threatening to leave Facebook and Twitter for Parler, which bills itself as a free speech-friendly social network? Well, Rebecca Heilweil at Vox describes how Parler obviously intends to be a "haven" for right-wing speech, but is already taking steps to moderate content, much of which is noxious. Calling yourself a "town square" rather than a "publishing house" doesn't mean you're not a publishing house, and Lawrence Rosenthal's assessment -- that right-wingers have been "creat(ing) an alternate universe" at least since talk radio -- is quite illuminating. So I couldn't blame you for thinking Parler just wants to be a safe space for whiners who can't handle criticism.
Finally, America's Last Journalist, Greg Palast, suggests that we thank Native Americans for Joe Biden's victory, since Native American votes may have delivered the electoral votes of Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. I don't know if it's quite that cut-and-dried, but I'm pretty sure he's right that "(i)f you’re American Native, the chance your ballot will not be counted for some technical reason is approximately 1200% higher than if you’re White," and I do remember Mr. Bush winning New Mexico in 2004 as Native American voters apparently didn't vote for President in any significant number, which reminds me of the multitudinous folks who voted in Michigan but not for President in 2016, despite no other statewide race being on the ballot.
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