This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo and this is episode 265 of the program. Today is Friday, November 6th and before we get started I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Adriana Holliday, Elias Odlested, Juan Sandoval, Michael Fajti, Nebula, Nick Morgan, Amowale, Jabali, Tim Dunn and Tino. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals if you'd also like to support the show and join the Independent Progressive Media Revolution you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. I think you all know what we are going to be talking about on today's episode. Of course, we will be talking about the 2020 election, not just the presidential race but the House and Senate races. I will give you my coverage leading up to the election, my post-election analysis. We'll talk about the aftermath of the election results. We'll go over some ballot initiatives that won and lost. We'll talk about progressives and their races and how they fared. We've got everything covered. So yeah, that's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. Let's get right to it. We are now seeing the culmination of a months-long ploy by Donald Trump to delegitimize this election because he knows the odds of him just winning legitimately are diminishing. He could still win fair and square. That's a possibility. However, he knows that there has to be some plan in place to get him to cling to power if Joe Biden pulls ahead and he is using his bully pulpit, the institutional advantage that he has as an incumbent president to make sure that he wins by all means necessary, even if that means cheating. So he's been griping about mail-in ballots, lying about how they lead to fraud. Now this is a lie, but he's been conditioning his supporters. So now most people who support Donald Trump probably buy into his lies about how dangerous it is to vote by mail and they will most likely show up to vote in person. However, democratic party voters will be more likely to vote by mail, probably being more concerned about the pandemic than Donald Trump supporters. And so what we're going to see is a lot of people vote by mail who are democratic and a lot of people who are Republican show up in person to vote for Donald Trump. So he tweeted this out. The election should end on November 3rd, not weeks later. Think about what he's saying here. He is literally calling for us to invalidate millions of ballots because it has never been the case that any state has certified the results of an election on election day. That's never happened. We've seen projections of who will win in the media because they basically take their data analysts and they crunch the numbers and make an educated prediction based on who is ahead in certain states. But it's never been the case that states have finished the count and certified the results on the same day. But what he's saying is, listen, all of the votes that come in on November 3rd, that's it, whatever doesn't get counted isn't getting counted. And he has lawyers ready to basically try to stop the votes from being counted the minute the clock strikes 12.01. Now, David Pakman made a really good point that, you know, while the polls are closing in Hawaii, for example, well, it's already November 4th in New York on the East Coast. So, I mean, Donald Trump, it doesn't even make sense what he's saying, but this is all his ploy to cling to power because what is probably going to end up happening is a lot of Republican Party voters will show up in person, those votes will get counted first and it will look like Donald Trump has a pretty sizable lead. However, as states shift to counting the mail-in and absentee ballots, well, we may see the results change and so what Trump is trying to get his supporters to believe is that that's actually rat-fuckery that's happening. It's not just that we're counting the mail-in ballots, which we're expecting to lean heavily in favor of the Democratic Party. That's just Democrats stealing the election. That is called the red mirage. It is not something that is illegitimate. It's not electoral theft or fraud. It's just that we are at a certain point, the states are at a certain point in the process of counting the ballots. There's nothing nefarious about that. But Donald Trump wants people to believe it's nefarious because he wants to try to use that as ammunition to steal the selection because what is he gonna do? Well, if it does look as if he's in the lead, he is going to prematurely declare victory even if he has not won. So Jonathan Swan of Axios details Trump's plan to declare a premature victory. In this article, that isn't surprising, but I mean, nonetheless, it still is pretty terrifying. He explains President Trump has told confidants he'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's ahead, according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania. Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening, Trump denied that he would declare victory prematurely before adding, I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over. Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won. For this to happen, his allies expect he would need to either win or have commanding leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona, and Georgia. Trump's team is preparing to falsely claim that mail-in ballots counted after November 3rd, a legitimate count expected to favor Democrats are evidence of election fraud. Many prognosticators say that on election night, Trump will likely appear ahead in Pennsylvania, though the state's final outcome could change substantially as mail-in ballots are counted over the following days. Trump's team is preparing to claim baselessly that if that process changes the outcome in Pennsylvania from the picture on election night, then Democrats would have stolen the election. Trump's advisors have been laying the groundwork for this strategy for weeks, but this is the first account of Trump explicitly discussing his election night intentions. Now, we're about to find out what happens if he's able to do this. He can't pull this off if it's a blowout and Joe Biden wins pretty quickly and decisively. So this really will hinge on a few key battleground states. Now, the reason why people are worried about this is because if Trump uses his bully pulpit and starts partying at the White House as if he won, well, that can create this sort of bandwagon effect where corporate media will feel pressured to respond to OAN and Fox News likely announcing that Donald Trump has in fact won. Now, it is the case that since 2000, which is when basically Fox News announced that George W. Bush had won and other corporate media outlets followed suit, they did make some changes. So that way there isn't a likely scenario where one media outlet will announce and then we'll see this domino effect. Basically, The New York Times lays all of this out in an article. The data analysts of all networks, including Fox News, they're actually separated from the news anchors who are reporting on the results as they come. So that way these data analysts won't feel pressured to make the call too early and producers won't be in their ear about pressuring them to say who won or will win. So that is something that is encouraging. The problem, however, is that even if Donald Trump says that he won and outlets say Trump falsely claims that he won, his supporters aren't going to listen to the news outlets. So just the mere fact that he is speaking this into existence, they're going to take his word as if it's gospel and they'll think, okay, well, he won. He said he won. So I trust him over the fake news media. So he won. And so he's setting up the situation where his supporters are going to sow chaos as they believe the media or Democrats are trying to steal this election away from Donald Trump when in actuality, that's not happening. Now, what could they do? Who knows? I mean, they could try to stop more votes from being counted. They could disrupt the counts, intimidate voters at the polls depending on how early he tries to declare victory. And we don't necessarily know how this is going to play out, although again, we'll find out soon. But Trump is hinting that violence might actually occur. So as Lachlan Markey of Daily Beast explains, a Supreme Court decision extending timeframes for states to count mail-in votes may result in physical violence President Donald Trump predicted on Monday. They made a very dangerous situation. And I mean, physically dangerous, Trump said at a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was referring to Supreme Court decisions allowing officials in Pennsylvania and North Carolina to continue accepting and counting mail-in ballots in the days after Election Day. They did a very bad thing for the state. They did a bad thing for this nation, Trump said of the decision. The danger that could be caused by that extension and especially when you know what goes on in Philadelphia, he added, Trump and his allies have described mail-in votes tallied after Election Day as tantamount to election fraud and insisted that a winner of the presidential contest should be declared on Tuesday. So understand what he's saying here. He's not technically advocating for violence. So, you know, he's speaking in a way that gives him plausible deniability. But what he's saying is because these states are going to be able to count all of the ballots and since that might take a while, that's going to lead to violence. Well, where's the violence gonna come from? He knows where it's gonna come from. His supporters, who over the weekend, have been shutting down highways and bridges to intimidate voters and literally ran the Biden campaign out of Texas.  So as we try to warn voters that we might not get the results on Election Day, we warned them about the possibility of a red mirage situation where it seems as if Donald Trump is ahead from the in-person votes and then the mail-in votes tip it in Biden's favor, he is trying to undermine our attempt to inform voters. And he's trying to use the red mirage at worst to seal the election, but at best to sow chaos and division throughout the country using his very loyal, cultist supporters who will do whatever he wants at the behest of his presidency. And it's not like they're only implying that counting all of the votes is tantamount to Democrats stealing the election. His advisors are saying explicitly, if we count the votes past November 3rd, past the day, then that is election theft. That is them stealing this election. It's a different world now, George, and that's why we're trying to turn out our supporters. We feel good about it. And one final thing, George, if you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electorals somewhere in that range. And then they're gonna try to steal it back after the election. We believe that we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night. So no matter what they try to do, what kind of high jinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense they try to pull off, we're still gonna have enough electoral votes to get President Trump reelected. Now that wasn't some random Trump supporter. That is a senior Trump campaign advisor who literally just said on national television to no pushback, mind you, that if Donald Trump is ahead based on where they're at when they're counting the votes, well, if Joe Biden somehow pulls ahead, that is tantamount to Democrats stealing this election. So he's literally saying that if all the votes are counted and who is in the lead shifts throughout the process as we count all the votes, that is election theft, that is insanity. This is anti-democratic rhetoric. They don't want the votes to be counted. They want to just look at who voted in person, assuming that that will most likely be Trump supporters disproportionately and then stop all the votes. Stop the rest of the votes from being counted. Pause where we're at when Trump is in the lead and then that's it, we claim victory. But that's not all because Trump's deputy campaign manager sent out this email to supporters warning that it's actually the Democrats who are trying to delegitimize this election as they warn about a red mirage situation, saying Democrats are panicking because Joe Biden has not run up a large enough lead in early votes in battleground states and they know that President Trump's in-person votes on election day will make up the difference and propel him to victory. Biden's political operatives have been distributing talking points and research to delegitimize election day results by coaching surrogates to refer to the President's election day success as a red mirage. The operatives are advising surrogates and media to create a smoke screen by casting blame all around, imagining postal delays or falsely claiming that mail-in ballots that have simply not been returned should be considered legitimate votes that need to be counted. None of this will be true, but it will be held up as proof that President Trump's victory is a so-called red mirage. No one should fall for it. Now this is of course incorrect. This isn't Joe Biden's surrogates talking about the red mirage. It is data analysts who are warning about the red mirage, anticipating more Republicans to vote in person and more Democrats to vote by mail. It's not a talking point from the Joe Biden campaign. And all that people are saying is that we should count all of the votes. See, the problem is that what they wanna do is if somebody mails out their ballot and it doesn't get there on election night by November 3rd, well, even if they sent it in weeks ago and it's postmarked before November 3rd, they wanna say, nope, that is no longer acceptable. That ballot is illegitimate. They wanna invalidate that ballot, not count that ballot. And the argument that they're making, well, if we count that ballot, that's Democrats dealing the election. I mean, this is projection because that's exactly what they're trying to do. Now, we don't necessarily know what's gonna happen. Like it could be an anti-climatic evening, right? Joe Biden could end up winning quickly. Trump could end up winning quickly. We don't know what's going to happen. But even if Donald Trump isn't able to steal the selection by using the red mirage to create some sort of legal battle or try to stop the counting process, still the amount of chaos that he's trying to sow is truly astounding. Over the weekend, we have seen Donald Trump supporters increasingly ramp up their efforts to intimidate voters across the country with the most high profile case being this viral video where Trump supporters in multiple vehicles literally ran a Biden campaign bus out of the state of Texas. Riding them out of Texas? It is hilarious. I'm about to run out of gas, which I'm sure some of you would love. Shit, look at that. Now the Biden campaign, because of this, literally had to cancel an event in Texas. Now, if this was just some like impromptu protest when they saw the Biden campaign bus, I think that that's fine, right? Nobody cares if you're going to protest politicians. In fact, we should be protesting politicians, but this was a coordinated effort to intimidate the Biden campaign to get them to leave the state of Texas. That is something very different, something much more nefarious than protesting politicians. This is intimidation, suppression of the opposition forcibly. And this isn't a new phenomenon, as this Twitter user points out, saying, I'm in East Texas. Since about September, we've been subjected to these tactics. For instance, every weekend, they have a MAGA parade through town.  It's designed to intimidate us. And he's 100% correct. This is specifically designed to intimidate voters, intimidate people who don't fall in line and support Donald Trump. And it's not something that's unique to Texas. As you can see from this tweet here, there were cars in New York driving around with an anti-fascist on their hood to signify them, I guess, running over anti-fascists. So this is them signaling their support for violence of the opposition. And also in New York, Trump supporters literally blocked and completely shut down Mario Cuomo Bridge.  These are the same people who tell us that we should run over protesters who block traffic. But now they're literally shutting down a bridge. And in New Jersey, Trump supporters completely shut down Garden State Parkway. So it's okay for them to shut down highways. They're just being patriotic and showing their love and appreciation for the president. But when Black Lives Matter protesters do that, they celebrate when cars drive through them. This is what we're dealing with now. Now in this next video that I'm gonna show you, we don't have the context as to why this altercation happened, but basically a group of Trump supporters circled a 20 year old girl and what happened was horrifying. They're blocking me in. That's fine. They're blocking me in. The patriots followed me. This is their true colors. I want everyone to know they came. This is a hate crime. They're coming up to my car right now. I'm not scared. If I was scared, I would have left. I need everyone to see this. That's why I'm chilling right here. For what?  I got... I'm kidding. I'm kidding myself. Oh my God.  Ew. You came strapped up like that for a 20 year old female?  For a female, bro. For a female. You're an old man. Get up to us. Come get it? Are you saying come get it? For a female. Hey. What? Is she the female? No, so you guys can jump me? So you can jump me? It's a toast for me. Hey, it's your f... Do something!  Do something!  On my phone.  They boxed her in. They yelled at her. They called her racial slurs. They were trying to get her to come out of the car. They were confronting her. I mean, presumably they're trying to fight her. Now, I don't know, again, what happened, what led to this. Maybe she yelled something at them. You know, one of them was saying, I wanna talk to you about what Black Lives Matter means. So maybe she yelled Black Lives Matter when she saw the trucks. Maybe she flipped them off. I don't know. But whatever she could have done, would that really warrant them trying to box her in to a parking lot so where she can't leave and they confront her and they can seem as if they're going to physically harm her? Is that really warranted? Is there anything that she could have said to warrant this type of behavior?  Whenever they do something like this, he cheers it on. So in response to the Trump convoy driving a Biden campaign bus out of Texas, he tweeted out that video and he said, I love Texas. And he also then joked about it facetiously at a campaign event. It is something, do you see the way our people, they were protecting his bus yesterday because they had a bus. So his bus, they had hundreds of cars. Trump, Trump, Trump and the American flag. You see Trump and American flag. Do you ever notice when you see the other side? I don't even see much of the other side. They were just protecting his bus. I mean, if that were anti-fascist protesters driving out someone with a Trump flag out of an area, he would call them Antifa terrorists but because it's his supporters and they're intimidating other voters and they're also trying to forcibly suppress the opposition at the behest of Donald Trump. Well, he loves it. And it's not just Donald Trump who's cheering on this type of behavior. It is other Republicans who openly celebrate this as well. Listen, I saw yesterday, a video of these people in Texas. Did you see it? All the cars on the road with the... We love what they did, but here's the thing they don't know. We do that in Florida every day. We love it. We love what they did and they do it in Florida every day. Again, if the left were doing this, we know exactly how Republican Party politicians would react. We see the way that they act whenever they think that protesters aren't being civil enough. But when they have their people literally driving the opposition party out of a state, intimidating the campaign bus of the Biden campaign, shutting down highways, it's fine. There's a double standard here. When they do it, it's not violent. When we do it on the left, when we protest, well, by definition, we're bad because our protest is illegitimate and anything that they do to promote Donald Trump is good. So you have to understand that this isn't just like some unique phenomenon that will only occur because of Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Even if Donald Trump is defeated, fascism isn't just going to disappear. It's going to be here for a while because the Republican Party isn't just a far-right party or a proto-fascist party. They have become officially a fascist party because one of the hallmarks of fascism is forcibly suppressing your opponents and they are now doing that and sitting members of the Republican Party are cheering them on when they foster this environment where their opposition can't even hold a campaign event without armed militia members showing up to scare them out of the state. I mean, this is fascism and we've seen this happen a lot more in more rural areas of the country when there would be these more small-scale Black Lives Matter protests during the height of the George Floyd protests and you would see members of far-right proto-malicious show up, stand there with guns to intimidate the peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters and police officers would let them do it and, you know, they'd oftentimes coordinate with cops in many instances, including in Oregon, in rural areas of Oregon. It's happening everywhere. This is fascism and historians are warning that if we don't stop this fascism right now, then there's going to be a point where it's too late. We will reach a tipping point, a point of no return where we're no longer a democracy. We're just a flat-out authoritarian regime and as Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams explains over 80 historians of fascism and authoritarianism from around the world signed an Open Letter Sunday warning that American democracy is an existential peril and urging people to take action now before it's too late to save it. Regardless of the outcome of the United States election, democracy as we know it is already imperiled the letter opens. Whether Donald J. Trump is a fascist, a post-fascist, a populist, an autocrat or just a bumbling opportunist, the danger to democracy did not arrive with his presidency and goes well beyond November 3rd, 2020. It continues. The letter notes that while democracy appeared to be flourishing everywhere in the years following the end of the Cold War, today it seems to be withering or in full-scale collapse globally. As scholars of 20th century authoritarian populism, fascism and political extremism, we believe that unless we take immediate action, democracy as we know it will continue in its frightening regression, irrespective of who wins the American presidency in early November, the author is right. I've been an election observer in broken authoritarian countries and let me tell you Trump's behavior would be swiftly and unequivocally condemned by all international election monitors if it was happening elsewhere. Brian Klass, a political scientist at the University College London tweeted last month, he is behaving like the despots past presidents condemned and Berg, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose grandparents were Nazis in Germany, warned earlier this month that the U.S. is in a rapid descent towards fascism. People need to be aware of the risks we are facing right now, Berg told the Philadelphia Inquirer. So this goes deeper than Donald Trump. This is deeper than Donald Trump. Look at the GOP's efforts to undermine this election. Look at the way that the Republicans in Texas tried to invalidate more than a hundred thousand ballots in Harris County. All around the country we are seeing the GOP suppress the votes, try to make sure that less and less people vote and forcibly suppressing their opposition is one of the hallmarks of fascism and we are seeing this in the open now to where, you know, when one of their support groups intimidates voters, intimidates their opposition they're celebrating it, they're cheering it on. So what these historians are saying is this could be the beginning of the end we could devolve into an authoritarian regime if we don't stop it. So what do we do? They say that there's still time left, there's some hope, right? So what do we do to stop fascism? Well, they say we can stop it by boldly and unapologetically safeguarding critical thinking based on evidence including by supporting investigative journalism, science and the humanities and freedom of the press, securing commitments from corporate media, organizations and governments to tackle the dangers of misinformation and media concentration. Good luck with that. Building coalitions organized across differences of race, class, gender, religion and caste and respecting the perspectives and experiences of others. Revealing and denouncing any and all connections between those in power and those vigilante and militia forces using political violence to destabilize our democracies. Being prepared to defend pluralism and democracy against the growing dangers of communal violence and authoritarianism at the ballot box but if necessary also through nonviolent protests in the streets. Defending the integrity of the electoral process and ensure the widest possible voter turnouts not just in this election but in every election large and small in all of our hometowns. Recomitting to a global conversation on support for democratic institutions, laws and practices both within and between our respective communities. Now, I don't mean to be too cynical but when I hear this I think, yeah, this isn't going to stop fascism. We've been protesting. That's not gonna stop fascism. We've been calling out the relationship between militias and our elected officials. White supremacist groups like the Proud Boys and their connection to police departments and nothing's happening because we've devolved so far into fascism they're just suppressing these protest movements. I mean, we saw how Bill Barr, Trump's attorney general literally gasped peaceful protesters just to clear the path so Trump can have a photo op. So it's almost like we're past the point of no return but what do I know because these are the experts so they clearly know more about it than me but one thing that I do find persuasive is if there is this coalition, you know, this anti-racist union, anti-fascist union across the country that forcefully denounces this. If we can somehow defeat Donald Trump and really delegitimize fascism and fascist politics maybe that can do it. I don't know though because it seems as if with how far we've crossed into fascist territory it's really difficult to put the cat back in the bag. Like once you've opened Pandora's Box how do you close it? That's the question. So when I see all of this with Trump supporters like do you think that fascism and the threat of fascism is just gonna go away if Donald Trump goes away? The end of the Trump era is not going to mark the end of fascism. It will continue and somebody else will pick up the torch once Donald Trump is gone. So this should worry everyone. We should be educating people who we know in our personal lives if they support Donald Trump. Let them know that the GOP has become increasingly fascistic and if we don't stop then we're not gonna have a democracy left like we talk about how democracy is already like dying and declining in the United States. If you even want to argue that we were a thriving democracy from the get-go but whatever hope we had what progress we've made towards democracy in this country is being undone before our very eyes and this is something that we have to take seriously. Anyone who has studied political science comparative politics, the historians they know that what we're seeing is the breakdown of democracy the beginning of the breakdown of democracy but there can only be so much that happens so much erosion of our democratic institutions before it's too late and you can't undo the damage that's been caused. So we have to do what we can to stop fascism before it's too late. So even though polls between Donald Trump and Joe Biden are starting to tighten the GOP knows that they're not really going to easily pull out a victory legitimately. So the way that they are going to tip this election in favor is if they do what they usually do cheat, voter suppression purge voters off of the rolls invalidate ballots, limit the number of polling stations because they know that if they could suppress the vote keep turnout as low as possible they will most likely win. Now one story is very, very brazen in how they tried to invalidate more than 125,000 ballots in one county in Texas and thankfully we got some good news regarding that effort and a judge has decided to throw out their case. So as the AP reports a federal judge on Monday rejected another last-ditch Republican effort to invalidate nearly 127,000 votes in Houston because the ballots were cast at drive-through polling centers established during the pandemic. The lawsuit was brought by conservative Texas activists who have railed against expanded voting access in Harris County where a record 1.4 million early votes have already been cast. The county is the nation's third largest and crucial battleground in Texas where President Donald Trump and Republicans are bracing for the closest election in decades on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hannon's decision to hear arguments on the brink of election day drew concern from voting rights activists and came after the Texas Supreme Court rejected a nearly identical challenge over the weekend. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by conservative GOP activists who have filed a battery of court challenges over moves to expand voting options during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges have not involved Trump's campaign. Another 20,000 or more voters were expected to use drive-through polling locations Tuesday said Harris County clerk Chris Hollins, the county's top elections official. Several voters who already used the drive-through centers rushed to join mounting opposition to the lawsuit including a Houston attorney whose wife was 35 weeks pregnant when she cast her ballot. She gave birth to twins Friday. My vote counts, David Hobbs said. My wife's vote counts. So at a time when we are living through a pandemic during election, they're trying to limit the number of ways that we can vote. Why? Because they have to suppress the vote to win. They can't win by persuading voters to support their party because they know that they are a minority party and most of their ideas are very unpopular. So they suppress the vote. They try to limit the number of ways that we can vote during a pandemic when we should have more ways to vote than ever. So this party knows exactly what it's doing and it's getting so bad that even other Republicans are starting to speak out. So the former Texas House Speaker, Joe Strauss actually condemned what they're doing publicly saying the lawsuit attempting to disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in Harris County is patently wrong. All of us who believe in the core ideals of this country should want more votes counted and more voices heard. While it may be too late for the selection, the Republican Party needs to return to a place where we win with ideas and persuasion rather than trying to intimidate and silence our fellow citizens. I hope all elected statewide leaders in the Texas Republican Party will stand up against these desperate tactics. Yeah, I do too, but that's not gonna happen. One of the reasons why it's not going to happen is because even when we get Republicans who speak out against this, it's when they're not in a position of power. Like you were the Speaker of the Texas House up until 2019. Why didn't you speak out then? I get that this wasn't happening in Texas, but we still saw huge amounts of efforts around the country in 2018 to suppress the vote. Look at Georgia. So why don't Republicans speak out against their party more frequently? Is it because there's this like large swath of, you know, principled Republicans who just they're just watching all of this and they're disgusted, but they don't want to say anything? No, it's because this guy's an outlier and it's because the Republican Party, they want power, so they know that they have to get increasingly fascist in order to win elections. That means silence their opposition, rig elections effectively to make sure that they win by all means necessary, even illegitimately. Because they don't care at the end of the day. The goal is to get power. So, you know, the means are justified by the end goal. What they actually achieve. So if that means actually crushing democracy to win, that's what they're going to do. So, you know, I'm thankful that the judge throughout this case, that they filed at the last minute when drive-through voting was a thing that has been going on, that they knew would happen. But still, the fact that we have to fight to get them to not invalidate ballots, that shows you that this party is completely irredeemable. A political party in a democracy, a so-called democracy, as much as, you know, a democracy that we are, should never want to invalidate ballots, even if that means they're going to lose. Because if they try to suppress the vote and rig elections, that proves that they're no longer buying into this idea of democracy. They've become authoritarian. They've embraced fascism. So, at the end of the day, this should be a no-brainer. But the fact that we have to even celebrate a victory where a judge says, no, you can't just like invalidate 127,000 votes, that shows you how bad of a state we're in. Like, I get it, we're all breathing a sigh of relief, right? Because I was expecting this judge to not throw out this case, but thankfully he did just that. But we shouldn't have to celebrate things like this. Like, of course, it should be just a no-brainer that the votes are counted. Like, what are we doing? So, I mean, look, if Democrats somehow are able to win and take back the Senate, in spite of all of the efforts of the GOP and Donald Trump to rig this election in their favor, their number one priority is to make sure they do voting rights, electoral reform, make sure that you combat voter suppression efforts, and you strengthen democracy, and validate democracy, because if you don't, then it may be too late. You may not be able to have an opportunity to take back power again. So, I mean, this is troubling. Again, it's a victory, so I don't want to ran on everybody's parade, but it's a victory that we shouldn't have to even fight for. There shouldn't even be a fear that votes that have already been cast will be invalidated, but this isn't the end of it. Donald Trump is going to fight to basically stop the vote from being counted in advantage electorally from declaring early on election days. So, I mean, we're in a really tumultuous period, tumultuous period in American history, and it's going to get ugly if they actually are successful at carrying out their undemocratic agenda. So, at one of his rallies, Donald Trump was complaining about all of the coverage that COVID-19 receives, and that led to his cultists chanting Fire Fauci. Now, the reason why they don't like Dr. Anthony Fauci is because he is seemingly contradicting what Donald Trump says, because Donald Trump is anti-science, and because Donald Trump doesn't want to listen to the input of health experts, well, you know, it seems as if Dr. Fauci is anti-Trump, when in actuality, Donald Trump is anti-science. But having said that, though, I mean, this is to be expected from Donald Trump supporters. Anyone who contradicts Daddy Trump, they're by definition but what Donald Trump says is what I really want to zero in on here, because he hints at what he will do after this election with regard to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Rounding the... I say it drives him crazy. It's rounding the turn. Because all they want to do is turn in the news. COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. We'd like to talk about COVID and then next time here's what happens November 4th. You won't hear too much about it. Don't tell anybody, but let me wait till a little bit after the election. I appreciate that. Now, he's been wronged a lot. He's a nice man, though. He's been wronged a lot. All right, so first of all, this is a cult. They act as a hive mind with Donald Trump basically being like the hive mind leader. But in response to them chanting Fire Doctor Anthony Fauci, he says, I might do that. But after the election, now, if Dr. Anthony Fauci is wrong, why would you wait until after the election? Just do it right now. Why wait? Well, because he knows that Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of the most trusted public health officials in the country because he is an apolitical individual. He is not a political actor. He is giving raw information about science and what we know about COVID-19. But because Donald Trump is an imbecile who does not want to listen to scientists and epidemiologists and health experts, because he cares more about the economy than actually containing the spread of the virus, then, you know, he is against Anthony Fauci. They've butted heads multiple times. And what Trump doesn't realize is that you can't just choose to, you know, save the economy if we throw everyone else under the bus. If lots of people suffer from this illness and they die, that's also going to hurt the economy. But he doesn't care. He's a child, basically. And his supporters don't like that Anthony Fauci is saying things that Donald Trump doesn't like, so they want him to be fired. Because how dare you question Donald Trump? If you're working in the White House, you have to be unequivocally, you know, loyal to Donald Trump under every single circumstance. It doesn't even matter if he's incorrect and he's spreading misleading information about a virus that we all are suffering from currently, it doesn't matter.  It's a cult.   I mean, Europe is seeing their second wave, record numbers as well. So are all of the other countries in the world just going to stop talking about COVID-19 and pretend as if it's not important after this election? Well, no, of course not. That's preposterous. But Donald Trump, according to him, you know, being the narcissist that he is, he's the center of the universe. So this pandemic is really just a conspiracy to hurt him. Now, mind you, he didn't have to make it be this way. Like he could have actually been competent and not bungled his response from the beginning. He could have made it so that way this wasn't a political issue for him, but because he's incompetent, because he has decided for whatever reason to undermine our attempts to contain the virus at every step of the way, well it is hurting him.  And guess what? He unilaterally stopped that because he didn't want to create a panic. He has made us less effective at dealing with the virus. So, because COVID-19 hurts him, that's on him. A competent leader would not be harmed by a pandemic if they actually took it seriously. Now, the reason why this is important is because it gives us a little bit of a sense of what to expect. Him saying that he may fire Dr. Anthony Valci after this election, it's telling. Because if he is re-elected, then he's going to take the virus even less seriously because he doesn't feel as if he has to even pretend that it's important during an election because he wants to get re-elected. Or, you know, who knows what he could do. The damage that he could cause during, you know, the period between which he loses this election if he loses, and January 21st when Joe Biden is sworn in, like that could be a lot of damage. He could fire Dr. Anthony Fauci then. You know, and even though Joe Biden could bring Anthony Fauci back, you know, that's a long period of time. That's two months if Trump loses where we're operating in the dark. Where we have nobody that's giving us actually factual data from this administration. We've already seen how he's tried to basically silence the CDC. So, you know, and that's if he loses, if he wins, the damage will be even worse. So either way, like we are disadvantaged comparatively speaking to other countries because Donald Trump refuses to take this seriously. Even Boris Johnson, you know, after he got COVID-19 he started taking it seriously. You know, at first he was not, but he got the virus and then he took it seriously. Donald Trump still got the virus, isn't taking it seriously. So we're almost uniquely disadvantaged when we're the richest country in the world. We shouldn't be at this disadvantage, right? But because we have an imbecile in the White House who doesn't actually care and who has actively tried to undermine our efforts to contain the spread of the virus, I mean, this is going to stick around longer than other countries, I would imagine, right? Now, over the next four years, Donald Trump knows that he doesn't have to do anything because a vaccine will become more widely available. Whether or not people can afford it is a different question. But he knows he doesn't, if he gets elected, he doesn't even have to pretend to care about the virus anymore, right? It'll probably be gone by 2024 and even if it wasn't, he doesn't care because he can't seek re-election in spite of him wanting to do that. So, you know, it's going to be around longer in the United States because of Donald Trump. And because of that, there's going to be more and more suffering. So my only hope is that if Trump loses and Biden comes to power that he takes this pandemic seriously and then, since someone with a D in front of their name is in power, hopefully Trump supporters will begin to realize how much damage this has caused. I don't care who they blame, they could blame Joe Biden, but hopefully they actually take the deaths of Americans seriously.  So, the fact that they're not taking this seriously when the response to 9-11, which was 3,000 deaths was never forget. Now, all of a sudden, we're forgetting as it's happening and it's just it's astonishing. It's because Trump is the one who's in charge and Trump is the one who isn't taking it seriously. So, it's cognitive dissonance and that's to be expected when you are in a cult. So, you know, Trump here saying that he might fire Dr. Fauci it's not surprising, but it still is really it would be harmful, I think. I'll tell you, when Donald Trump said that he could literally stand down Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it he was so correct. Like, that's the truest statement that Donald Trump has ever said because even though he treats his own supporters terribly they will never abandon him. There's a certain share of the population in this country who will never abandon Donald Trump no matter what even if he personally abuses them. I mean, we saw last week at a rally that was held at an airfield in Omaha, Nebraska hundreds of his supporters were left stranded in freezing cold weather while they were waiting on buses to pick them up and take them back to their vehicles. Some had to walk three miles because they couldn't take waiting any longer and others literally had to be taken by ambulance. It was that cold and guess what? This happened again, but this time in Rome, Georgia, because his supporters were once again left stranded after a rally while they were waiting on buses to transport them back to their cars. So Trump didn't care he got in, did the rally and left. But, believe it or not, that's like the least bad thing that he's done to his supporters in terms of things that he's done to harm his own supporters because the worst thing that he has done is expose his supporters to COVID-19. Because he's holding these rallies I believe on Monday he did 10 events in a day where people are in these really large crowds packed tightly together nobody's wearing masks or a few people are wearing masks they're cheering loudly, spreading germs and guess what's happening they are being exposed to COVID-19. And you'd think that after one of his loyalists Herman Cain showed up to a rally contracted COVID-19 presumably at that rally and died he would take this more seriously acknowledge that he should at least care for the people who support him the most I mean he doesn't care about taking this virus seriously because he doesn't care about Americans but the people who support you in theory you'd care more about their health and well-being but he doesn't care. So the question is how do we quantify the damage that these rallies are causing how many people is he exposing to COVID-19 with these rallies Well, the researchers at Stanford University attempted to find this out and they have determined that it is a lot of people who are being exposed to COVID-19 and hundreds have died as a direct result of his rallies So as Jordan Williams of the Hill reports a new study from Stanford University found that 18 of President Trump's campaign rallies have led to over 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and likely led to over 700 deaths Researchers examined rallies held between June 20th and September 22nd only three of which were held indoors the researchers then compared to spread of the virus to counties that held the rallies to counties that were on similar case trajectories before the rallies occurred the authors concluded that the rallies increased subsequent cases of COVID-19 by over 250 infections per 100,000 residents they found that the events led to over 30,000 new cases in the country and likely resulted in over 700 deaths but recognized that the deaths were not necessarily among attendees quote, our analysis strongly supports the warnings and recommendations of public health officials concerning the risk of COVID-19 transmission at large group gatherings particularly when the degree of compliance with guidelines concerning the use of masks and social distancing is low the authors wrote in the paper the communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death the study was published to pre-print platform SSRN on Friday so using data from cities where rallies were held similar trajectories they were able to extrapolate and estimate that hundreds of people died because of Trump rallies and this isn't super surprising and sure they're not directly confirming that these cases are linked to Donald Trump but the data is sound because when you look at these videos and you just see them it's common sense like of course more and more people are going to contract COVID-19 especially assuming that Trump supporters aren't taking this seriously to begin with they're not wearing masks they're not social distancing they're pretending like it's not a thing they think that it's exaggerated they think that the number of deaths is being overinflated when in actuality it's probably a lot larger and it's just you think again that he would care the most about the people who are the most loyal to him but he doesn't and he genuinely enjoys these rallies and he thinks that this is going to help him because it shows how enthusiastic his supporters are in comparison with Joe Biden supporters who aren't very enthusiastic look at his crowd sizes so he wants to try to gin up some sort of excitement knowing that he needs anything to help him cross that finish line and as a result his own supporters are paying because of it but I mean they're willingly exposing themselves by going to these rallies where nobody's social distancing when you know you're going to be in a crowd I mean what do you expect? I mean this is exactly what you can expect play stupid games win stupid prizes you're showing up to these rallies with a bunch of maggots who think that the virus is probably a hoax and you're surprised that you're exposed I mean it's sad like I don't want people to have to take the virus seriously only after they've gotten it or know a loved one who died because of it but unfortunately some people like they don't wake up until it's too late and Trump is endangering his own supporters for political purposes and you know it's disgusting but don't fall too right you can't only blame Donald Trump because they are willingly showing up to these events even though Donald Trump is leaving them stranded and exposing them to COVID-19 and they're exposing each other to COVID-19 I mean it's like they're suckers for punishment and they like it so whatever I mean anything for daddy Trump this is what happens when you're in a cult you do anything for dear leader even if it means that you're hurting yourself physically directly well yesterday was the big day and a lot has happened and we are getting more results as I film right now so I can't necessarily speak with much specificity because everything that I'm talking about is subject to change things are moving rapidly so I can only speak broadly about this election but I do want to give you some takeaways basically what we expected would happen did end up happening early on in the night you know based on the polls we were kind of hoping that this all end up in one big anti-climatic ending where Biden wins Florida and then basically Trump doesn't necessarily have a path or if he has a path it's very narrow so we can kind of breathe easy but that didn't happen and what we instead got was the red mirage situation where it seemed as if in states like Michigan and Wisconsin Trump was leading going to bed we kind of thought alright you know since Biden is underperforming the polls in other places it isn't illogical to think that maybe the red mirage isn't in fact a mirage I mean I fully expected the mail-in ballots to come in and heavily favor Biden the question was whether or not there would be enough to make up that difference and the answer is that yes there was enough to make up that difference and because we got that red mirage scenario Trump capitalized on that opportunity to prematurely declare victory but as it stands right now Biden is in the lead and they just called Wisconsin I think they're on the cusp of calling Michigan for him and Trump is running out of paths to win this in fact I would say that Biden is very likely going to reach that 270 number we might not even need to wait to see the results of Pennsylvania it might not necessarily be something that we're waiting on which was what it seemed like last night when okay we don't know when we're going to get the counts in Pennsylvania and I think that Trump's team is really trying to get the result from the Supreme Court flipped which allowed them to continue to count votes received I believe up to three days after the election now that Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed his team legally is trying to stop that but even if Trump is successful there well if Biden wins Nevada and Michigan he just won Wisconsin that's 270 that's it so your path diminishes and he's running out of ways to steal this certainly he's going to try to steal this you know as we speak we're getting reports that his legal team is pursuing actions to halt the vote he's complaining on Twitter a lot about how they're finding votes and counting them that's part of the process but he is going to try to rat fuck his way to victory will it work that's yet to be seen but we can at least eliminate one scenario and that was Barton Gelman's scenario where if it were close in a state that was controlled by Republicans such as Florida Trump can try to use his loyalists in that state to appoint their own electors to the Electoral College to flip the votes the problem with this strategy if Trump was in fact trying to pursue this is that in states like Michigan Wisconsin, Pennsylvania these are controlled by Democrats they have Democratic governors so he can't necessarily do this so the best thing that he can do legally is try to stop the vote counting process and they're already almost finished so what it's looking like is if Trump is going to be successful at stealing this election it's going to have to come from a recount and there's going to have to be some more votes that were there were going to have to bank on it being super inaccurate that's really unlikely so Trump's running out of options and so all he can do now is create a lot of chaos to try to win I mean his tweets on Twitter that is damaging I mean he warned just the other day that there's going to be violence in Pennsylvania he was predicting this if they take a while to count the votes so he knows what he's doing this is a signal to his base to try to stir up chaos to stop the process but again he's losing his path now a lot can change after this video but still it is looking very likely that Biden pulls this off now we can't necessarily talk through a lot of the implications here being discussed because I don't want to bank too much of my commentary on exit polls but there are some preliminary things we can talk about just right now first and foremost obviously is that this was not a complete repudiation of Donald Trump which is unfortunate as I stated before Joe Biden he's a terrible candidate and doesn't deserve to win in a landslide but Donald Trump deserved to lose in a landslide and it's close so this isn't a complete repudiation of Donald Trump and Trumpism and white supremacy and fascism it's close so what this means is that really this came down to Donald Trump having COVID-19 he didn't deliver didn't even pretend to take it seriously so right now it seems as if Trump's failure there not Trump himself is ultimately what I expect to be the reason why he loses if he does in fact lose and the results hold having said that though Democrats this is kind of a repudiation of their horrible strategy to court Republicans because guess what there's not very many pro-Biden Republicans and that strategy was a failure and Democrats I mean it's honestly astonishing how poorly they campaigned I mean I get that Donald Trump also ran a terrible campaign but we have to focus on Joe Biden and Democrats this strategy I mean they are so lucky if Joe Biden wins like he's very lucky because he ran a terrible campaign his team I think rightfully so today for a lot of this process after the primary and I think that's the right strategy because you don't want to put him in front of people and have him damage himself but overall that's not very inspiring you have to have a message and do we know what Joe Biden's message was overall restore the character of the nation what does that mean we all know why Joe Biden is as successful as he was because he's not Donald Trump it's not about Joe Biden that resonated with people and we really have to look at the way that Donald Trump improved his numbers among people of color and also with LGBTQ plus folks and I think that part of this is Democrats not doing enough to appeal to these types of marginalized communities but also Joe Biden there was a leak from his campaign that they didn't see Latinos as part of his path to victory so was there outreach and I think that we know that in terms of just grassroots activism Joe Biden didn't really have that I mean there were articles throughout the course of this race where you know Donald Trump was knocking on a million dollars per week his team was doing that and Biden wasn't doing anything they were focusing more on digital organizing and you know it seems as if it's a missed opportunity look I don't want to be too down on Joe Biden now that we don't have the results we don't necessarily know I mean we still win Georgia, North Carolina so maybe he does win more easily we don't necessarily know yet but it shouldn't have been this close still it should have been a blowout in Florida when you have someone like Donald Trump fumble in a pandemic and you know a subsequent economic crash I mean this is an easy election the incumbent always gets blamed and Donald Trump made it very easy to pin blame on him he was his own biggest enemy so that's a layup for Democrats and they still fumbled they probably lost the Senate now again we're speaking with uncertainty I don't necessarily know I hope they win the Senate but it's a real plausible scenario right now at the time that I record this at almost 1pm on the west coast that Joe Biden could become president and Republicans retain control of the Senate with Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader meaning that not much is going to get accomplished another stimulus very very unlikely which is why we were pushing for it to get done before the election so Joe Biden as president even if he doesn't have control of the Senate he can still accomplish quite a bit right he can sign executive orders and he's gonna have to be basically the executive order president until Democrats can possibly take back the Senate in 2022 but he can get us back into the Paris Climate Accord the Iran nuclear deal he can reinstate DACA there are things that he can do but in terms of really broad structural reforms that were even a possibility that's eliminated if Republicans do in fact hold on to the Senate so it's a situation where we got rid of Donald Trump potentially who is leading to a spike in COVID cases I mean yesterday we had over 90,000 new cases of coronavirus that's astonishing so you know Donald Trump lost but at the same time Democrats didn't necessarily do enough I mean Sarah Gideon lost to Susan Collins Jamie Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham, Amy McGrath lost to Mitch McConnell so you know we have to acknowledge that the strategy that Democrats were using to court Republicans has been a failure but you know we see across the country pot legalization passing $15 minimum wage increase passed Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs that passed so this isn't rocket science Democrats know what they have to do and understand you are going to be very frustrated because you're going to hear Democratic Party strategists and pundits say well look this just proves that we were right to court Republicans and centrism is the ticket to victory we're going to come away with the common sense conclusion so Democrats failed however I also want to point out that there is a reason why Americans are voting for Donald Trump in spite of how much of a disaster he's been and I think a large part of that is propaganda but I don't necessarily believe that that's the entire explanation I think that Americans do bear some responsibility here I mean yes propaganda and corporate media is an issue but the American people have to take responsibility we have to reckon with the fact that there is a large portion of the American population that is comfortable with someone who is a white supremacist pretty openly so in the White House maybe they feel as if you know economically Trump is better for them incorrectly so unless they're wealthy but still they voted for him in spite of the fact that it's pretty obvious that he's a white supremacist I mean the other day with the way he was attacking Ilhan Omar you would have assumed he would call for an ethno state a white ethno state so you know there is you know a degree of responsibility personal responsibility not to sound like a conservative ironically that we have to look at with regard to the electorate sure there's propaganda it often times you know corporate media will get Americans to vote against their own self-interest as we saw with the ballot initiative in California with Uber and Lyft we'll talk about that in a different video but the American people also even though Democrats failed them and the media failed them who doesn't know that Trump is an obvious white supremacist so we have to grapple with the reality that after watching Donald Trump boast about extra judicially murdering an American civilian being openly fascistic cracking down on peaceful protesters and straight up being a white supremacist they're okay with it and Trump increased the amount of support that he had with people of color he doubled his support with LGBTQ plus people after appointing a Supreme Court Justice who will almost certainly overturn Obergefell V. Hodges after banning trans people from serving in the military so we have to try to we have to balance what's happening here we have to try to really do a thoughtful analysis about what's happening here I think that we can blame the Democratic Party's failure and we should we can blame corporate media and we should but where's this disconnect coming from why are so many people voting against their own self-interest for someone who clearly doesn't care about them I think that now is the time to be introspective and try to figure out what's going on and this may become more clear as we get more numbers in because we're operating with incomplete information so we can only make inferences but maybe we don't have enough evidence to make really large leaps and take away any big conclusions but currently in theory this shouldn't have been a close election we should have expected it to be over on night one Joe Biden should have won Florida the fact that he didn't, the fact that Democrats were not able to take back the Senate after spending more than a hundred million dollars on these races that speaks to a failure you know it's not a repudiation of Donald Trump so far based on what we're seeing now but I think that it definitely is this election is a repudiation of Democrats strategy to appeal to centrists that's not working and this isn't rocket science Democrats have to give people a reason to vote again you know that anti-Trump fervor in this country helped propel Joe Biden to victory if he does in fact win but that's not enough and you know the answer legal weed Medicare for all I mean this isn't this isn't rocket science Democrats are trying to play 4D chess but meanwhile they're hurting themselves when they try to appeal to people on the margins they knew more about Joe Biden's stance on fracking and how he doesn't want to ban it than we did about his actual climate change policy which wasn't as bad as it was during the primaries he improved it he actually did speak with people from the sunrise movement and it's not as good as Bernie's policy but it was still better he made an improvement but yet we didn't hear about that we only heard that he doesn't want to ban fracking you have to connect the dots for voters you have to do better so there's a lot you know and my thoughts are somewhat jumbled because this is all new information that I'm trying to process but I mean either way Republicans and Democrats have to be introspective and you know they have to try to figure out what happened and I think that the explanation for Donald Trump's fail is definitely COVID-19 which means that I think he probably would have been easily re-elected had it not been for this pandemic and a subsequent economic crash but when it comes to Democrats I mean I think that this basically is confirmation that the left is right and Joe Biden was not the most electable candidate Bernie Sanders did really well with Latino voters Joe Biden did not Bernie had enthusiasm with young voters Joe Biden did not so you know there's a lot that we have to look at but I think that it is important for all of us to be introspective look at where we were right where we were wrong and don't be afraid to admit that maybe this strategy failed but that strategy was a success like this isn't a perfect thing there's no right or wrong answer really but I think there are some common sense conclusions that we can immediately draw and that is that Democrats should have done better they should have won back the Senate the fact that they did not shows that their strategy has not worked even going up against the monster like Donald Trump but again this is all you know me speaking with incomplete information I don't have the full results I will continue to make videos and update you but this is basically my first post Election Day video explaining my thoughts and this is going to be either a really long drawn out week or we could know by today that you know Joe Biden crosses 270 we don't know but I think that we need to all just take a moment step back just breathe try not to panic and acknowledge that you know this red mirage the Trump Trump attempt to steal this election this was all expected you know so can he do that we're gonna wait and see but right now you know we'll just buckle up and see what's gonna happen it appears Joe Biden's gonna win but it's not over yet because Donald Trump will be an angry lame duck president until January 21st that is going to be a nightmare so lots happening stay tuned for months there has been this fear that Donald Trump would not accept the results of the election and predictably now that Joe Biden is leading seems as if he is on the cusp of clenching 270 electoral votes Donald Trump is doing what we all expected him to do not accept the results of the election and cry foul claim that he's actually the winner and Joe Biden is only in the lead because the Democrats committed fraud now I'm gonna explain to you how Donald Trump is trying to steal this election now that's the worst case scenario at a minimum he at least wants to have some sort of damage control so that way if he does lose he didn't lose because of his own failure he lost because the Democrats cheated but if he can somehow use this claim of fraud to tilt it in his direction that's what he wants to do now of course this has been a months long effort by Donald Trump to lie about mail in ballots and claim that they will lead to fraud and there is two reasons why he's been claiming that mail in ballots will lead to fraud the first reason is so that way in the event a red mirage did happen and it did well he can declare victory and claim that all of the mail in ballots that are coming in that heavily favored Joe Biden that is evidence that Democrats are cheating now it's not necessarily a shocker that more mail in ballots favor Joe Biden after for months he told his supporters who believe him that mail in ballots lead to fraud so why would they want to vote by mail after you told them not to trust mail in ballots so it's not surprising but I mean this is all part of the plan now the second element he appointed postmaster general Louis DeJoy to control the US postal service now what this means is that he can use his crony to slow down the process slow down the delivery of ballots give himself the advantage make sure that his voters know not to vote by mail because all of those Democrats that are going to vote by mail we're going to slow down that process make sure that their ballots don't get delivered on time so it was a months long ploy that contains two elements him lying and prematurely declaring victory when he wasn't in the lead when he didn't have enough electoral votes to claim victory and two absolutely crippling the US Postal Service to make sure that mail in ballots aren't effective so we're going to talk about his attempt to steal this election in two parts the first is him using the red mirage to declare victory so last night this is what he said when he had not been declared the winner but because it appeared as if he was in the lead well to him that warranted him claiming victory this is a fraud on the American public this is an embarrassment to our country we were getting ready to win this election frankly we did win this election so our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation this is a very big moment this is a major fraud in our nation we want the law to be used in a proper manner so we'll be going to the US Supreme Court we want all voting to stop we don't want them to find any ballots at four o'clock in the morning and add them to the list okay it's a very sad it's a very sad moment to me this is a very sad moment we will win this and as far as I'm concerned we already have won so what he's basically saying is I'm ahead right now stop the counts because he knows that if the count continues if we count all of the mail in ballots well those are going to heavily favor Joe Biden because he told his supporters not to vote by mail so he's saying I don't want the votes to be counted now he also took to Twitter to double down this claim of fraud saying how come every time they count mail in ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction they are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear ASAP likewise Michigan and others we are winning Pennsylvania big but the PA secretary of state just announced that there are millions of ballots left to be counted so he's insinuating that it's weird and nefarious that as more and more these mail in ballots get counted well Joe Biden tends to overtake him but this shouldn't be weird after for months you have told your supporters don't vote by mail mail in ballots lead to fraud so if they don't trust this system then it shouldn't be a surprise to Donald Trump that more Democrats who are less likely to believe him are going to vote by mail but he knows exactly what's happening this is all part of the process because you know he is using this publishing lead to cry fraud about mail in ballots and use some sort of legal fight to at least slow down the process and now we have this news as AP reports Trump's team is suing Pennsylvania and Michigan and asking for the counting to be halted until his campaign officials gain access to the process and he's seeking a recount in Wisconsin so his best hope here is to try to slow down the process but what he's hoping for with regard to Pennsylvania is to invalidate lots of ballots because before he was able to confirm his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court well it was a 4-4 decision they were gridlocked and basically what they determined is that ballots that come in after November 3rd that are postmarked for November 3rd those are counted now knowing that those are mail in ballots that would heavily favor Joe Biden this was not good for Donald Trump who wants to stop those votes from being counted so now he's trying to create a legal battle that goes quickly to the Supreme Court in hopes that Amy Coney Barrett will now end the gridlock and vote in his favor 5-4 so that way any ballots that were received in Pennsylvania late they don't actually get counted which means he's trying to actively invalidate ballots now while all this is taking place while his legal team tries to at least slow down this process his supporters are doing exactly what he wants them to do exactly what we expected them to do because as NBC News Reporter explains large animated crush of stop the count protesters are trying to push their way into TCF Hall in Detroit where ballots are being counted they're being blocked by guards at the door pizza boxes are pushed against the window to obstruct the view it's tense and here's a video of what's happening okay now remember even though we know that Donald Trump's claims of fraud were expected and are false they believe Donald Trump Donald Trump is saying that these mail-in ballots they're fraud I was in the lead at first and all of a sudden they seem to be finding more ballots for Joe Biden something nefarious is going on so when he says that they believe him they're there because they genuinely believe that this election is being stolen from Donald Trump and this isn't the only place where this is happening you see other people lashing out feeling as if this election that Donald Trump claims he won is being stolen before their very eyes as I mentioned so even though you and I might know that when Donald Trump talks about how fraudulent mail-in ballots are he's blatantly lying his supporters trust him and they are reacting how we would expect someone to act if they genuinely believed that an election is being stolen that this is a coup but in actuality this is all Donald Trump's attempt to delegitimize this election that he can win somehow use this legal process to stop the counts which is tough to do when they're already almost finished or at least invalidate as many ballots as possible in Pennsylvania if Amy Coney Barrett does in fact you know rule his way if this reaches the Supreme Court but all of this like this attempt to invalidate and delegitimize this election this was just a backup plan because really what Trump has been wanting to do is basically destroy the US Postal Service using his crony, Louis DeJoy this was his main plan and as the Washington Post reports nearly 7% of ballots in US Postal Service sorting facilities on Tuesday were not processed on time for submission to election officials according to data the agency filed Wednesday in federal court potentially leaving tens of thousands of ballots caught in the mail system during an especially tight presidential race the Postal Service reported the timely processing which includes most mail handling steps outside of pickup and delivery of 93.3% of ballots on election day its best processing score in several days but still well below the 97% target that Postal and voting experts say the agency should hit the Postal Service processed 115,630 ballots on Tuesday a volume much lower than in recent days after weeks of warnings about chronic mail delays of that number close to 8,000 ballots were not processed on time a small proportion but one that could factor heavily in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin which do not accept ballots after election day and could be decided by a few thousand votes earlier Tuesday US District Judge Emmett Sullivan of the District of Columbia had ordered the Postal Service to sweep 12 Postal Processing facilities that cover 15 states for ballots but the agency rebuffed that order and said it would stick to its own inspection schedule which voting rights advocates worried was too late in the day for found ballots to make it to vote counters the directive came after the Postal Service disclosed that more than 300,000 ballots nationwide could not be traced those ballots received entry barcode scans at processing facilities but not exit scans the agency said the likelihood of that many ballots being misplaced was very low mail clerks had been ordered to sort ballots by hand in many locations and items that were pulled out for expedited delivery were not given an exit scan so in addition to them not delivering these ballots in time they are reporting that 300,000 ballots across the country are just lost take a look at this map as you see in Pennsylvania, Arizona Florida thousands of ballots were reported missing in these states crucial battleground states and again this does not include the ballots that were not delivered on time these are just the ballots that are missing and as a result of this, Louis DeJoy is in trouble because as NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner reports Judge Sullivan is hauling USPS back into court at noon on November 4th to address its apparent non-compliance with his court order of paramount importance getting 300,000 ballots delivered to Joyce Crimes must not be allowed to thwart delivery in counting of all ballots so what we are seeing is the culmination of a months long strategy by Donald Trump to use mail-in ballots to try to steal this election or at least tilt it in his favor number one, you make sure that your postmaster general who is loyal to you make sure that those ballots don't get out on time or at least not all of them get out on time which means that Democrats who disproportionately are more likely to vote by mail will be harmed by this and for the ballots that do get delivered on time assuming they weren't lost you try to halt the process like stop them from being counted, literally that's what his team is trying to do now they may not be able to do it I think maybe legally they know they can't really do that so they're just trying to slow down the process slow it down so they can try to figure out what to do next slow it down and say we need to get our observers in there because currently this looks really fishy this is exactly what we expected would happen it's basically the worst case scenario playing out before our very eyes Trump is trying to delegitimize this election and he's working his supporters into a frenzy to where they are now showing up to the places where ballots are being counted and demanding that those ballots not be counted because they believe that this is a fraudulent process this is really dangerous if Joe Biden does in fact clinch 270 Trump is trying to make it seem as if he did not win legitimately and that's not great for a country who is incredibly polarized and divided currently so this is Trump's plan he wants to steal the selection or at a minimum delegitimize the results and this is a direct attack on democracy we'll call it what it is it's an attack on democracy so last night we saw the red mirage play out the scenario where Donald Trump would appear to be in the lead but then as mail in ballots come in that lead diminishes and a couple of weeks ago Bernie Sanders appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and he predicted all of this would happen with pinpoint accuracy so I can't play the video clip for you because there's probably going to be some copyright issues but here's the audio of Bernie Sanders basically saying exactly what happened the election is November 3rd and it's been said that we won't know the results until days later when do you think we'll know the results? Jimmy you raised an important point and I hope the American people understand it because this is something I worry about my view is every vote must be counted for reasons which I don't have the time to get into tonight you're going to have a situation I suspect in states like Pennsylvania Michigan Wisconsin other states where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail in ballots unlike states like Florida or Vermont they're not being able for bad reasons to begin processing those ballots until I don't know election day or maybe when the polls close that means you're going to have states dealing with perhaps millions of mail in ballots here is my worry and what studies have shown is that for whatever reason Democrats are more likely to use mail in ballots Republicans are more likely to walk into polling booths on election day it is likely that the first votes that will be counted will be those people who came in on election day which will be Republican and here is the fear and I hope everybody hears that it could well be and I hope nobody does but it could well be that at 10 o'clock on election night Trump is winning in Michigan he's winning in Pennsylvania he's winning in Wisconsin and he gets on the television he says thank you Americans for re-electing me it's all over have a good day but then the next day and the day following all of those mail in ballots are getting counted and it turns out that Biden has won those states and Trump says see I told you the whole thing was fraudulent I told you those mail in ballots were crooked and we're not going to leave office so that is a worry that I and a lot of people have so the results we don't know what's happened maybe the results will be in our election day so Bernie Sanders was accurate down to a T and I'm not showing you this video to toot Bernie Sanders horn you know he's some psychic because really the scenario that we all expected even though it was kind of a more worse case scenario it still played out exactly as we thought it would Trump appeared to be in the lead he declared victory and then as the mail in ballots come in he's losing that lead because Democrats for whatever reason as Bernie Sanders pointed out are more likely to vote by mail Republicans not so much that's more explainable because Republicans have been told for months now that vote by mail leads to fraud so of course they're going to show up to vote in person but Democrats not necessarily believing Donald Trump probably worrying about the pandemic not wanting to vote in person they voted by mail so we're seeing everything play out exactly as we expected but I'm not showing you this to tell you how right Bernie Sanders was I'm playing this for you because it's really important that we all get this on the record we show Donald Trump supporters right now he won't believe us but maybe some will that this is not fraud this is exactly what we expected this is not a various ploy by Democrats to steal this election using mail in ballots that just inexplicably appear out of nowhere if Joe Biden is down if that were the case wouldn't it be happening in Florida wouldn't it be happening in states that he needed to win but didn't so we have to show them that this is something that we expected based on data not feelings based on what voting habits are Democrats more likely to vote by mail Republicans not now this varies depending on the state depending on the demographic but by and large Democrats were more likely to vote by mail so Donald Trump was going to use this to his advantage to delegitimize the results of this election and knowing that Democrats more so would vote by mail we saw what he did throughout the summer his postmaster general Louis DeJoy crippled the US Postal Service and when they were supposed to get at least 97% of ballots delivered on Tuesday they only hit 93% and now we're learning that 300,000 mail in ballots are missing so if there's any attempt to steal this election going on it's not Joe Biden and the Democrats it's Donald Trump who is using the institutional power that he has as an incumbent to do everything to not only delegitimize the process but use our government in his favor to win so it's important that we show people that this is predicted it's not some sudden plan to steal this election away from Donald Trump if Donald Trump won legitimately I have no doubt that Democrats and Democratic Party voters would accept the results but because Donald Trump is a baby because there are reports that he literally threw a temper tantrum as he saw the results come in well he is going to bring the entire country down with him make sure that his voters you know, believe him and they cause chaos like he wants to make sure that if he if he loses this election he gives us you know that one last fuck you and look he's not immediately out of office it's gonna be a long two months between now and January 21st when he leaves office if he does in fact lose and I promise you he's going to make it as insufferable as possible to punish us for not voting for him buckle up it's gonna be a bumpy ride folks look things can change very fast in this race and it is very possible that by the time you see this video a winner will have already been declared either Joe Biden or Donald Trump may have already reached 70 electoral votes so what I'm gonna talk about it captures one moment in time and as I record this video Joe Biden is currently in the lead he has 264 total electoral votes and all he needs is 6 more if he pulls ahead in Georgia that'll do it if he wins Nevada which he's currently leading in that'll do it he may not even need Pennsylvania so as it stands right now it looks as if Joe Biden is going to become the next president of the United States that can change however at this moment in time Donald Trump is seeing what we're all seeing and he's freaking out he is utterly melting down and we expected this and part of me wants to laugh because you know to see someone who caused so much harm and damage to this country finally see the consequences of his actions it feels nice at the same time however what he's doing is dangerous the things that he's saying what he is doing to get his supporters to watch the polls try to get the votes to stop this is dangerous this is undemocratic and even though it's nice to see him suffer a little bit after so many Americans have suffered under his watch at the end of the day this is all horrible I would rather him act like an adult and accept the results of this election as Joe Biden would but he's not and he is throwing temper tantrums literally people close to Trump are confirming that he was watching those results come in and throwing literal temper tantrums you've been working the phones what was going on behind the scenes of the White House so as a Republican source said to me this is a senior official who is normally an ally of the president said that Trump had a temper tantrum last night that he saw that the numbers could start going against him that he wanted to declare victory while he thought that he was ahead as you've been saying John this was not a surprise to us the White House had been sort of forecasting for weeks that this might happen but here's the thing we know how to count votes counting out all morning what the president did last night was so chaos confusion undermine democracy and I will tell you the Republicans I spoke to this morning are not happy with him let me read three quotes from three different officials the first person said he is behaving as expected badly the second person said that Trump is afraid of mail-in ballots and the third person said that what he said last night was quote indefensible and just to reiterate there is no evidence that we have seen of fraud these states are just trying to count the vote no matter what Donald Trump said at 2.30 in the morning a grown man in his 70s throwing temper tantrums I mean it's not surprising but to literally have that be reported which I believe is still it's something now to all of the Republicans who are quietly criticizing Donald Trump and you know anonymously taking shots at him saying that he should behave himself I have no respect for these people you should go on the record if you actually care about democracy you should actually say that what he's doing is terrible someone who I probably agree with on nothing Ben Shapiro even he has enough integrity to admit that when Donald Trump declared himself the winner last night that was dangerous and irresponsible so it doesn't matter like this isn't about whether or not your Democrat or Republican or where you lean ideologically speaking this is about democracy and everyone regardless of their political ideology or party affiliation should care about democracy and if you're a Republican who's not speaking up and condemning Donald Trump's blatant attempt to delegitimize this election and steal it away by stopping the counts I mean they're cowards and I don't even know like Trump supporters currently are showing up to places in Wisconsin and Michigan as far as I know I'm not sure how many states this is happening but they're chanting stop the count stop the vote like you have to understand that as it stands now that's how much Joe Biden wins so do you want democracy to actually play out do you want the votes to be counted or do you not because if I'm Donald Trump I want the votes to be counted especially in states where you know it hasn't been called yet like Nevada at the time I record this now what's interesting is that Michigan was already called hours ago and after it was called Donald Trump took the Twitter to declare victory in states that have not been called for him have been called for Joe Biden like Michigan he tweeted out we have claimed for electoral vote purposes the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which won't allow legal observers the state of Georgia and the state of North Carolina each one of which has a big Trump lead additionally we hereby claim the state of Michigan if in fact there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported now again Michigan has been called for Joe Biden you did not win this so it doesn't matter you went to Joe Biden and he's talking about a secretly a large number of secretly dumped ballots that has been widely reported where zero evidence for this the only shenanigans that's happening is occurring because of you because your postmaster general is intentionally trying to sabotage mail-in ballots only delivering 93% of mail-in ballots on election day missing thousands of mail-in ballots across the country but yet assuming it's Democrats who are the ones who are trying to cheat and steal this election after he's been fear mongering about mail-in ballots and trying to sabotage mail-in ballots instructing his supporters to not vote by mail while he sabotages the system that Democrats will most likely use to vote but it's Democrats who are stealing the election not Donald Trump fuck outta here so as he throws this temper tantrum like I hope he really feels horrible right now shame on him for just blatantly undermining democracy this is what dictators do this is what authoritarian regimes do and we have a president who refuses to concede most likely if it is in fact called for Joe Biden we have a president who is refusing to accept that the state of Michigan did not go his way and on top of that what he's encouraging among his supporters who believe everything he says is even more dangerous his campaign sent out this email trying to steal this election just like I predicted from the start mail-in ballots are leading to chaos like you've never seen plain and simple the radical left is going to do whatever it takes to try and rip a Trump-Pence victory away from you and that's why I'm coming to you now I need your help to ensure we have the resources to protect the results we can't allow the left wing mob to undermine our election I'm asking my fiercest and most loyal defenders like you to fight back now we don't have the full screenshot of that email so the person who shared this cropped out where he then asked for money so he's not explicitly saying fight back go do violence he's asking fight back by giving us money so we can fight this legally just for context however the language that he is using is still deeply deeply undemocratic and troubling he's saying democrats are trying to steal this election mail-in ballots are causing chaos like we've never seen words like the language that he's choosing to use very specifically and intentionally are designed to make his supporters take action as they are now he refers to the left wing mob and wants them to fight back and even though he has plausible deniability because the way that they're saying they should fight back is by giving them money I mean these words are very very explosive he's saying right now explicitly so they're trying to steal this this is fraudulent so even if he didn't say give me money what he's saying here this is undemocratic he's trying to delegitimize this election because it's not going his way so this is it's partially funny because his meltdown is fun to watch in a way but it's still terrifying to watch because this is now an incumbent president this isn't an outsider who has not yet secured power this is an incumbent president who has power who will be a lame duck president if he in fact loses until january 21st so imagine the chaos he's going to cause between now and then ugh it's gonna be a long journey and I'm already exhausted so I can't imagine how we will all be feeling come january but you know this is what we've got it seems like Joe Biden's gonna win and if everything goes the way it's looking right now with Nevada leaning Biden it's over for Trump so one way or another he's gonna have to accept the results he can try to steal it if he wants to but you don't get to deny reality as Ben Shapiro would say facts don't care about your feelings so regardless of what you say how loud you cry and scream how violent your supporters may get the person who will win is the person who got the most votes period end of story and we will count those votes fuck your feelings the votes get counted if you don't like that that's democracy for you sometimes it goes your way sometimes it doesn't in 2016 Donald Trump won I didn't like that liberals didn't like that socialists didn't like that and we were mad but we couldn't overturn the fucking results as a Bernie Sanders supporter Democrats all united to stop Bernie Sanders Obama made some calls to pee put a judge at Amy Klobuchar and everyone dropped out to back Biden to consolidate the vote we lost that election it sucks but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes can't do jack shit about it right now can't cry over spilled milk all you can do is get better at organizing appeal to more voters Donald Trump for completely bungling COVID-19 because had he actually handled this pandemic like a grown-up he probably would still be the president probably wouldn't even be close I think had it not been for COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crash Donald Trump would have won easily he would have beat someone like Joe Biden who nobody is enthusiastic about so I mean look it doesn't matter what Trump says the results are the results they're not what he says they are they're what they are in actuality it's what we can see with our eyes what the votes say so we count the votes if you don't like that too fucking bad that's democracy for months now I have been bringing progressive after progressive after progressive on this program in an effort to expand the squad and get them elected every single Saturday I usually have a brand new congressional candidate to introduce you to and quite a bit of them saw success they won their Democratic party primaries and on Tuesday night we had more than 30 progressives up for election now I'm not including the progressives who are already incumbents, Primila Jayapal Katie Porter, Ro Khanna Barbara Lee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Ilhana Omar, Rashida Tlaib Ayanna Presley we're not including them so when I say there were 30 progressives up for election I'm referring to new progressives who if elected would be adding to our numbers in Congress, expanding the block of left wing people in Congress so the question is how many of them actually were successful how many of the progressives who won their Democratic party primaries were successful well I'll be honest with you I was disappointed with the results but it's not all bad there were some really important key victories but we lost a lot of big names and that's disappointing to me and there were a lot of key races that didn't go as we suspected so there's a lot there's some puzzling congressional victories in here that we're going to talk about but first of all we're going to get to all of the progressive congressional candidates that lost and since there were so many I can't go through and give you the breakdowns as to the margin and how big the loss was I'm just going to name all of the progressives that lost unfortunately is huge so that includes Nate McMurray running in New York's 27th congressional district Adam Christensen running in Florida's third congressional district Adrienne Bell running in the 14th congressional district of Texas Antonia Eliasson running in Mississippi's first congressional district Audrey Denny running in California's first congressional district Beth Doglio running in Washington's 10th congressional district Kathy Conkel running in West Virginia's second congressional district Christine Olivo running in Florida's 24th congressional district Cindy Bandjai running in Florida's 19th congressional district Dana Alan Ferguson running in Michigan's first congressional district Donna Iman running in Texas's 31st congressional district Giorgette Gomez running in California's 53rd congressional district Hillary Turner running in West Virginia's 3rd congressional district John Headley running in Michigan's 6th congressional district Julie Oliver running in the 25th congressional district of Texas Cara Eastman running in Nebraska's 2nd congressional district Kathy Ellis running in the 8th congressional district of Missouri Kim Nelson running in South Carolina's 4th congressional district Liam O'Mara running in California's 42nd congressional district Mia Mason running in Maryland's 1st congressional district Mike Siegel running in Texas's 10th congressional district Nick Robondo running in Ohio's 5th congressional district Kossum Rashid running in Virginia's 1st congressional district Ray Lensie running in Illinois 12th congressional district and last but certainly not least Shahid Buttar running in California's 12th congressional district against Nancy Pelosi and while I have seen the results of these progressives lost and some of these hurts really bad to where when I saw the results it was like a gut punch and when I say that these are progressives these are progressives I saw a lot of graphics being spread online about all of these progressive races to look out for and when I say that these are progressives I am telling you I spent countless individuals to ensure that these are actually progressive people. They were either endorsed by justice Democrats or a brand new Congress or endorsed by someone like Bernie Sanders. And more importantly, the policies on their page were displayed clearly and explicitly. I saw, you know, confirmation that they support either Medicare for all or single payer. If I see any rhetoric relating to expanding access to healthcare, I don't count them as a progressive. So these individuals are just the ones that are progressive. And these ones lost. And that's really disappointing. Now having said that, it wasn't all bad. There were some victories. First of all, 85% of DSA endorsed candidates running at the local level in states across the country, won their races. This is according to the Gravel Institute. This is excellent news. Now in terms of who won, of course, all of the incumbent progressives, they won easily. We're talking about the entire squad, Katie Porter, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, they all won. Now, who are the new progressives that will be going to Congress? How many new members of the squad will there be? Well, it's not a lot, but it's still, it's still important. We're looking at potentially five new members of the squad, four confirmed, one hanging in the balance in a race that has not been called. So who is hanging in the balance currently? Well, in the 34th congressional district of California, David Kim is currently facing off against Democratic incumbent Jimmy Gomez. David Kim is a progressive and currently with 77% of precincts reporting, Jimmy Gomez is leading 52.6 to 47.4. So it is not over yet. There are still more votes to be counted. We could have a progressive oust and incumbent corporate Democrat. If David Kim pulls this off, he will unquestionably be a very progressive member of the squad. I had him on the program. I was thoroughly impressed. Basically, if you take Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and Bernie Sanders and you squash them all together into one candidate, you get David Kim. If he wins this, if he pulls this out, this is huge news. Now, we did get four confirmed victories. The first one is Cory Bush. Now this was expected. Nonetheless, it still is really important in the first congressional district of Missouri. Cory Bush defeated her Republican opponent, Anthony Rogers, by a landslide. We're talking almost 50 points. This is huge. In New York's 16th congressional district, Jamal Bowman defeated his Republican opponent, Patrick McNamis also in a landslide, 83 to 17%. When it comes to the third congressional district of Illinois, Marie Newman, who ousted conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski, she defeated her Republican opponent, 53.2 to 46.8 when it comes to the 17th congressional district of New York. Mondaire Jones defeated his Republican opponent, 47.5 to 44.1 with 35% of precincts reporting. Although this race has been called for Mondaire Jones, so it was close. But it seems as if there is enough confidence to assert that there is going to be a Mondaire Jones victory. I'm not sure of the criteria, but it's been called and he won. So that is four, possibly five new progressives that will be going to Congress. And when they do go to Congress, they will be just as loud and unapologetically progressive as AOC, as Ilhan Omar. Will they be perfect? No. Will we disagree with them and be disappointed in their votes from time to time? Yes. But this is a victory for us. This is a huge victory. And my favorite of all of these is going to be a tie between David Kim and Cory Bush. Cory Bush really is just, she's a phenomenal candidate. I think one of the best congressional candidates running in the country. So the fact that she made it and she will be a member of Congress, this is honestly, this is huge for the movement. Now having said that, there's more than just the house races. There were some really important races for the U.S. Senate. In terms of progressives, we had two that I was watching very closely. Paula Jean Swaringian in West Virginia going up against the Republican incumbent, Shelley Moore Capito. Unfortunately, Paula Jean Swaringian lost. That was a hard pill to swallow. That was, that was tough. Now another one is Marquita Bradshaw in Tennessee. Unfortunately, she did not win. Another one is Lisa Savage, a Green Party candidate running in Maine who had a shot because of Maine's ranked choice voting system. Unfortunately, Lisa Savage did not win. And also Susan Collins was reelected. So the Democrat didn't win there either. But other key races, not necessarily progressive people, but individuals who were running against high-profile Republicans, Amy McGrath, to no one's surprise, she lost to Mitch McConnell. What is it? More than a hundred million dollars wasted, went up in flames. And she ran a terrible campaign. Amy McGrath lost to Mitch McConnell. He won in the landslide. So the most destructive member of the Senate will likely remain in control of the Senate assuming Republicans retain control of the Senate. So that's awful. Additionally, Jamie Harrison, not a progressive by any stretch of the imagination, but I was hoping he would pull out a victory against Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham clung to power. Now John Ossoff is someone who I think ran a good campaign against David Perdue. I was dunking on him back in Georgia before when he ran in, I think, 2017 on the special election. But he stepped up. He's better, still not a progressive. I mean, we're still waiting on results in Georgia. So we can't say anything about this race yet. John Hickenlooper, though, he did defeat Cory Gardner.  So he's going to Congress for whatever reason. I mean, I'm glad that John Hickenlooper defeated Cory Gardner. But it's like, was there not anyone else in the entire state of Colorado that could have run in place of John Hickenlooper? Really? John Hickenlooper? We've got to do better, Democrats. What are we doing? Why are we running people like this? Who have zero charisma, zero policy ideas? Like what's the end goal here? Just to hang on to power forever and make sure that the left and progressives are like perpetually dissatisfied? Like what are we doing?  I'm talking about some right-wingers who won. Now first of all, the good news, Laura Loomer, she lost, wasn't expected to win because this was a district that leaned heavily in favor of Democrats. But the Republican Party has some new individuals who I'm assuming they will trot out as rising stars in the Republican Party. I'm referring to two QAnoners and one Nazi who got elected to Congress. Madison Cawthorne, he was elected. And the first thing that he said was cry more libs or something to that effect. I mean, this is a member of Congress now talking about owning the libs. Brilliant. Now I've talked about him before. The dude is a dunce. He has zero policy ideas. Doesn't know what he's talking about. Somehow won against a Trump backed candidate. He wasn't expected to win, but now he's going to go to Congress.   So that's great. Good job, Republicans.  OK, now QAnon has got two members of Congress now. Laura Boebert got elected to Congress in Colorado's third congressional district and perhaps the craziest of all Republican candidates running in this cycle, which is a really high bar to pass. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia's 14 congressional district defeated the Democrat by almost 50 points. It was not even close. It was the landslide. So on one hand, we did elect some more progressives, not nearly as much as I wanted. But on another hand, a Nazi and two QAnoners will be going to Congress. I mean, the Republican Party is so irredeemable, so beyond the pale that they are now literally electing members of a conspiracy cult and people who have an affinity for Adolf Hitler. If that doesn't tell you how far gone they are, nothing will. So we need to stop talking about the radical left and start actually talking about how the radical right truly is off the spectrum. The Republican Party is now the Donald Trump Party. Even if Donald Trump loses, I mean, this party is now openly embracing fascism and conspiracy theories. And it's just it's not shocking. I was going to say shocking, but it's not really shocking. It's just disappointing. So overall, you know, Democrats did not take back the Senate. The House Democrats lost a little bit of ground so far based on what we know with preliminary results. So they're actually discussing possibly a leadership change. Will that happen? Will Nancy Pelosi actually relinquish power or will she try to back everyone into a corner and try to force her way back into a leadership role again after she has been approved in failure? We'll wait and see. But at least we can look forward to Corey Bush, Jamal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, possibly David Kim and Marie Newman in Congress serving alongside members of the squad. So that's something that's genuinely exciting to look forward to. But overall for congressional candidates, not the best results. And I think that once we really see all of the votes counted, we need to talk about whether or not the lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden hurt down ballot Democrats. And we're not just talking about progressives. We're talking about corporate Democrats everywhere. I mean, Jamie Harrison lost, Amy McGrath lost. Democrats centrist and progressive lost is Joe Biden not being, you know, a good enough candidate part to do with this. I mean, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But for now, I'm a little bit disappointed to say the least. But, you know, it's it's OK. You know, I was hoping for some surprise victories here. But maybe next time, maybe next time, we're doing better each election cycle. I just hope that, you know, by 2022, we'll have even more victories. So I want to take some time to talk through the ballot initiatives that we saw take place in certain states. We had some really interesting things up for a vote. And some of the results were really inspiring and groundbreaking and revolutionary in some ways and other results, not so much. They were disappointing and, quite frankly, perplexing, if I'm being honest. So let's get to the good, first of all, because there's a lot to celebrate. I don't want to be a doomer. So right off the bat, I'm going to hit you with some really good news. Four states voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota, which means that we now have a total of 15 states plus DC that have fully legal recreational marijuana. So the tide is turning. The domino effect is happening. It started with Colorado and Washington State back in 2012. And little by little, every single election, more and more states vote to legalize recreational marijuana. It's been highly successful. And this is going to be a thing in all 50 states. I believe Mississippi actually passed medical marijuana. But at this point, when we have so many states that have legal recreational marijuana, I find it hard to celebrate that, but I'll take whatever progress that we can get. That's better than nothing. Sure. But, you know, it's astonishing because you see how popular marijuana is. And yet no major party is adopting this on their platform. Isn't that astonishing? Like zero of the two main parties support legalizing marijuana. The closest that we have is the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, supporting decriminalization. Like 15 states are now past that. I mean, why does it take so much time for politicians to catch up with where the rest of the country is? It's frustrating. Now, on top of that, Oregon broke new ground. My state, I am just so thrilled with the results. Not only did we vote to legalize medical mushrooms, we overwhelmingly voted to decriminalize all drugs. I repeat, all drugs. And this won by 17.6 points. And as Oregon Live explains, Oregon made history Tuesday night in the movement to reconsider the nation's war on drugs by becoming the first state to decriminalize small amounts of heroin and other street drugs. Voters overwhelmingly supported Measure 110, a coup for the New York based Drug Policy Alliance, the same criminal justice reform group that backed Oregon's successful marijuana legalization effort in 2014. Peter Zuckerman, Campaign Manager for Measure 110, called the win a big step forward. Today is a huge day of celebration, but the work is not over. And we have a lot more work to do to win a better system for everybody, he said. So I'm thrilled with this. And let me tell you that when we voted to legalize recreational marijuana back in 2014, it really took a lot of convincing people in my own social circles were really hesitant about this. And now that it passed, it is extremely, extremely popular. People who thought they'd never try pot, they did because you could walk into a store and easily buy as much as you want, basically as much as you need, at least for a while. And so since that was so successful, it didn't take much to convince people like I don't know anyone in my immediate social circles, including people who are conservative, who were against decriminalizing all drugs and anyone who is a little bit reluctant. All I do is point them to this article from The Guardian where it talks about how Portugal, when they decriminalized drugs back in 2001, the results that we're seeing now are stunning, they're effective. This is the way to go. So, you know, all it takes is a little bit of progress and the dam will burst open. You know, it leads to more and more good policies. So now that we are decriminalizing drug in Oregon, once we prove that it's effective, if we can do that, which I think we will, you are going to see more states follow suit and I'm going to predict Colorado, Washington State, DC. These are going to be the next ones who are going to to go this direction as well. Now, let's talk about some other really interesting ballot initiatives. So in Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans narrowly voted to become a US state. Now, this doesn't mean that they have statehood immediately. But what this does mean is that they will now pursue statehood by appointing a seven member commission and by developing a transition plan in order to become an actual state.  If you are not a Republican, I should say anyone who's on the left, socialist, this is good news, because if they were to become another state, that means we get two more senators. And that's just if we're talking with regard to self interest. But now people in Puerto Rico, if they actually have a chance to become part of the United States, they would get full citizenship representation. So I think this is great. But this was always up to them to decide. We don't get to decide for them. It's about self determination. And it seems as if they want to become a state. I think this is great. Now, additionally, in Nevada, voters approved question six, which requires utilities to acquire 50 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2030. This isn't necessarily revolutionary, but it's a huge step in the right direction. And I really applaud them for this. Also in Florida, they voted to approve a $15 an hour minimum wage, although there's kind of a catch by 2026. So starting in September of 2021, it'll increase to $10. Then in 2022, $11, 2023, $12, so on, so forth until it reaches $15. This is good news. Don't get me wrong. But by the time it's actually $15 an hour, it will need to be 20, $25 an hour, depending on where you are in Florida. So we've been fighting for 15 for so long that now we need to ask for a lot more. But this is this is progress, right? It's incremental progress at this point, but it's progress nonetheless. But it's good. It's a good thing. And what it shows is that when you put progressive issues on the ballot, more often than not, voters are going to opt for the progressive option, but not always. So in the state of Louisiana, they had a vote on whether or not they'd amend their constitution to ban abortion effectively, including that there is no right to abortion in their constitution. Amendment one passed. So this means that in the event Roe v Wade is overturned, the state of Louisiana will automatically and immediately have an abortion ban in effect since this is now going to be codified in their constitution this past. And that's really disappointing because the people who are voting for this, they think that, oh, well, if we just ban abortion, that's going to stop it. But they don't apply that same logic to guns. They think that liberals want to ban guns, but they say, oh, well, if you if you do that, it's just going to lead to, you know, the black market being emboldened. They don't also apply this to drugs and whatnot. But what is this going to do? This isn't going to stop the number of abortions. This will just increase the number of unsafe illegal abortions, which means that women are going to be hurt by this. If Roe v Wade does, in fact, get overturned. Now we don't know, but this is them putting their foot forward saying, we just got away for the Supreme Court to do its thing. And abortion is illegal immediately under our state constitution. Very disappointing because this result is. It's barbaric. It's irrational. If you want to stop abortions from happening, there's a very easy way to do that.  You allow people to access contraception, give it away for free. That's how you stop abortions, not by banning it, because you're not banning. You're not stopping abortions by banning them. You're just making them take place under the shadows. Now, there is another referendum that happened in Massachusetts that I was ecstatic about in Maine. In 2018, they passed ranked choice voting. And I predicted back then that we will now see the domino effect as we did with pot legalization when Washington and Colorado did that. And so Massachusetts had a ranked choice voting on the ballot. And for whatever reason, they voted against it. They voted against giving themselves more of a say, more options without worrying about the spoiler effect. This is astonishing. It doesn't make sense. But anyone who's from Massachusetts, if you voted against this, you don't get to complain about the spoiler effect anymore. You don't get to complain about the two party duopoly because you just voted to make that a reality. What are you thinking? Now, I don't know what the ad campaign, both campaigns were like. Maybe there was a lot of propaganda and misinformation. But either way, this is a result that is irrational to say the least. Embarrassing. I'm sorry. This is embarrassing. If Oregon voted down ranked choice voting, I would be deeply disappointed in my state. But propaganda and misinformation and big money oftentimes leads to a result that doesn't go in the reasonable pro labor way because California's Proposition 22 passed, which exempts companies like Uber and Lyft from treating their drivers as employees. So as CNN explains, in a major win for gig economy companies, CNN projects. California voters have passed a costly and controversial ballot measure to exempt firms like Uber and Lyft from having to classify their gig workers in the state as employees rather than as independent contractors. Backed by more than two hundred million dollars from Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Uber owned Postmates, Proposition 22 or Prop 22 is the costliest ballot measure in California's history, according to Ballotpedia, underscoring how important its passage was to the future of their businesses. Uber and Lyft stocks are both up over 11 percent on the news. Yes. So this is anti worker. These drivers are employees of these companies. And people in California, probably because they were duped by lots and lots of misinformation and propaganda voted against having these companies treat employees as employees, preposterous. So I hope that this is either overturned or the legislature in California takes action because this is ridiculous. Now, this initiative or this proposition, I should say, I think that the catalyst for this was actually state action from the legislature. So we'll see how this plays out. But the fact that California voters fell for this, it's really frustrating. Now, I think that this is a little bit of self-interest because the fear mongering, at least that I'm familiar with, is that, oh, well, if we do this, if we force Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers as employees, well, then the costs will go up. And for me, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm not an Uber driver.  Let's let's vote in favor of these big companies. It's disappointing. And we see the same type of sentiment, which I think is misguided when it comes to the minimum wage, or at least we did before where people would say, look, I don't want the minimum wage to increase because that means that there's going to be inflation. When in actuality, the way that the minimum wage has been implemented, the $15 an hour minimum wage in cities across the country, it hasn't led to that. It's had phenomenal results.  Now, Prop 17 in California, they voted to re-enfranchise felons. Excellent news. Excellent news. You can't have a democracy if you do not have universal suffrage. You just can't. It's not a thriving democracy if a large portion of the population can't vote. So the fact that they expanded eligibility and made it so felons can vote, this is a win for democracy. This is this is great. So overall, we had some really gigantic revolutionary steps forward pass at the state level. But, you know, it's not 100 percent victories, but overall, I'm really excited at least when it comes to, you know, recreational marijuana. We are moving forward in this country, regardless if, you know, the national government isn't doing anything. But, you know, you win some, you lose some ranked choice voting past and main didn't pass in Massachusetts. Maybe going forward, we can educate more people about this. Either way, not too bad for ballot initiatives for the left. And it proves that, you know, if you are bold and unapologetically progressive, more often than not, you're going to strengthen your position, make it more likely that you win because in a state like Florida, where Joe Biden loses, but a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage passes. I mean, even though Joe Biden supports that, he should have been running ads in Florida, championing the fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. So I think that, you know, I hope that Democratic Party strategists pull their heads out of their asses and see that these types of ballot initiatives, they're very popular.  Claire McCaskill is a former United States Senator who lost her election in 2018 and almost immediately after she lost her election, she was hired by MSNBC to explain how Democrats can be successful in their elections. Let me repeat that. Someone who lost their election is now giving advice to Democrats on how to win elections doesn't make a lot of sense. But regardless, she is an analyst for MSNBC, and she's going to explain to us why she believes Joe Biden didn't perform as well in key swing states as he was expected to. Take a look. It's hard to pinpoint. I think it began around cultural issues. The Republican Party, I think, very adorately adopted cultural issues as part of their main theme, whether you're talking guns, or issues surrounding the right to abortion in this country, or things like gay marriage and the right for transsexuals and other people who we as a party have tried to, quote, unquote, look after and make sure that they're treated fairly. As we, you know, circle those issues, we left some voters behind and Republicans dove in with a vengeance and grabbed those voters. And you've seen this shift. You saw it the South. I've seen it in the rural areas of my state. So we've got to get back to the meat and potatoes issues. We've got to get back to the issues where we are taking care of their families. And we also need to quit acting like we're smarter than everybody else, because we're not. So first of all, big yikes on her referring to trans people as transsexuals. Second of all, if she were saying, look, Democrats can't just remain hyper focused on cultural issues and exclusively focused on identity politics, and they should also broaden their economic message. I would say, sure, I agree with that, right? Of course, you need to have good social policy, but also sound economic policy that will materially, materially improve people's lives. No disagreement if that were the case. But that's not necessarily what she's saying. Basically, what she's saying is Democrats need to be more racist. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Mike, come on, you are being way, way too cynical here. You should interpret what she's saying more charitably. But no, because we've seen what she thinks is a winning strategy back in 2018 when she was up in a tough reelection race against Josh Hawley. At the last minute, we know exactly what her strategy was. It wasn't to offer people sound economic policy, material benefits. She got more racist. I voted for over 70 percent of President Trump's judicial nominees. Seventy percent. I voted for more than half of his cabinet members. I vote with him half the time. He signed 38 of my bills into law. That doesn't sound like, to me, somebody who is knee-jerk. Some of my colleagues are knee-jerk against the president. I don't get up every day figuring out how to fight the president. I get up every day trying to figure out how I can fight for Missourians. To that point, you have this radio ad out now that says, at one point in an exchange, she's not one of these crazy Democrats. Claire's not afraid to stand up against her own party. Yep. And Claire's not one of those crazy Democrats. Who's the crazy Democrat? The crazy Democrats are people who walk in restaurants and scream in elected officials' faces. The crazy Democrats are... We have a state senator here in Missouri that actually advocated for the assassination of President Trump. That's a crazy Democrat. I don't do those things. I am not somebody who thinks that we should ever be uncivil. I think what most Missourians want is for us to listen to each other, figure out where we can compromise, not scream in each other's faces, not call each other names. So I'm really talking about civility here. I'm talking about being polite, having good manners. Just to be clear, there's not another crazy Democrat in the Senate. Well, I would say this. I would not call my colleagues crazy. But Elizabeth Warren sure went after me when I advocated tooling back some of the regulations for small banks and credit unions. I certainly disagree with Bernie Sanders on a bunch of stuff. So this caravan is getting a lot of attention. Stop at the border. And what do you do? When they get to the border, what do you do? I think the president has to use every tool he has at his disposal. And I'm 100 percent back him up on that. Big yikes. Now, she's not talking about broadening their economic message. She's talking about embracing identity politics, albeit the white identity politics that we see championed relentlessly by the Republican Party. So when she talks now about how Democrats can't just be hyper focused on identity politics and cultural issues, they need, you know, to appeal to people, let them know how to put food on the table. Right. But you didn't do that. So, of course, when she says this, we have no choice. We have to interpret this as her saying, Democrats should probably be a little bit more racist because that's what she did. And guess what? That was a losing strategy. Now, maybe I am being a little bit too cynical, too unfair to her. And maybe she realizes that her 2018 strategy was a failure and that you really do need to be more progressive. Let people know that you're going to help them put food on the table, strengthen our social safety net, offer people Medicare for All, a $15 an hour minimum wage, but that's not the case because she has been unequivocally against leftist policy ideas that are very popular, even in places like the Rust Belt. I mean, Joe Biden, he lost the Sunbell. He lost Florida. But yet a $15 an hour minimum wage was approved via ballot initiative. You have to put two and two together. It's not that difficult, folks. It's common sense. But yet they don't get it and they don't want to be more leftist. It's easier for Democrats to move to the right because that won't offend their corporate donors. So that's what she did. So her advice to Democrats after she lost by trying this is be more racist. I mean, look, you can say I'm being too unfair. That's fine. But again, I think that her actions speak louder than her words. Now, I love this because AOC took the Twitter to call her out for this saying, why do we listen to people who lost elections as if they are experts in winning elections? McCaskill tried her approach. She ran as a caravan hysteria Democrat and lost while grassroots organizers won progressive measures in Missouri. Her language here shows how she took her base for granted. And that is exactly it. Why are Democrats listening to people who lost? How often have we seen James Carville on MSNBC after this imbecile wrote a book titled something to the effect of why Democrats are going to rule the nation for the next 40 years?  They can't see the light of day. So why are we listening to them? Why are we taking electoral advice from Claire McCaskill, a loser? It's just it's so infuriating. Now, Claire McCaskill actually issued an apology for what she said, but not for everything. She tweeted out, I'm so sorry I used hurtful term last night. I was tired, but never a good excuse. People have misinterpreted what I was trying to say. Our party should never leave behind our fight for equality for trans people o