Hello and welcome to Newsclick and People's Dispatch and we are here looking at the US election results. Now the elections were held on November 3rd, that's yesterday. The results are beginning to come out and it is a very, very close contest indeed. In fact it does look like the results are not going to be clear today, even maybe by the end of today, India time, it may take a couple of days before some key states which are going to determine the results, the final results are announced there. So there's a lot of uncertainty, a much more closer contest than many people expected and we have an excellent panel today, we are going to be looking at the numbers, we are going to be looking at the political implications and of course the US elections are so important for the rest of the world as well as every four years people across the world sit and wonder what does this mean for us. So we are going to be looking at all that but first here's a short video which explains what were the numbers involved, what was his take in the US elections, take a look. And welcome back to Newsclick and People's Dispatch and we have a very interesting discussion ahead. In the studio we have with us Bappa who's going to provide the information about the data, very complicated numbers and on Zoom with us we have with us Prabhupur Kaisar of Newsclick. Thank you both of us, thank you both of you for joining us. And to first Bappa let's start with the numbers. Quick, could you just take us through what has been announced and declared right now, what is very much in the, what is uncertain and what are the likely trends that are going to happen? Sure, so to start off with just before the counting started people were predicting a blue wave, right? So we were talking about a blowout in favor of Biden, we would get it anyway, like people were talking about numbers of 350 to 400 electoral votes, all that is out of the window. Now it's a much more tighter race and as of now the things which have been announced and so there is some confusion because different networks are calling things differently, right? But as in some networks have announced some states and other networks haven't. So the consensus announcement till now has Biden leading with 209 electoral votes and Trump with 118 electoral votes. So why things are different from what the opinion polls were saying is that there are really three interesting regions in the US which kind of determine the elections because the states like, the big states like California, New York, they are already decided they are going to go either completely democratic or republican. So one of the three regions was the Rust Belt, right? Which is the south? No, the Rust Belt, which is the northeast, right? And this is where Trump in 2016 broke through what is called the blue wall, right? So Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and that's how he won the elections. This time those states are actually slow in calling, right? So Pennsylvania is not going to be called today because there is been a lot of early voting and Pennsylvania does not count, start counting those votes till much later, right? So and while Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota have started counting and they've reached roughly 50% but there's still a lot of counting to go, right? So those states are not calling, are not being called right now. So that adds to the confusion. The other region is the south, where the south has been traditionally been republican but in this election they were saying that Biden has a slim lead in three major certain states which was Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, right? And Biden is actually underperforming the polls, right? So Trump is doing very well in Florida. So while Florida hasn't been called by all networks, some networks have called Florida. So about Georgia and North Carolina, there are some absentee ballots which still have to be counted. So it's not as given as Florida is but I would say 85% chance that North Carolina and Georgia will also go with Trump. So the other interesting part is the southwest which is Arizona, Nevada, that area. It looks like and Nevada numbers are not out, Nevada has only done 1% counting so we don't know anything about Nevada. Arizona looks like it's advantage for Biden. So that makes it interesting. The called states, it's Biden 209, Trump 118 but if you make some assumptions, we give Arizona to Biden, we give Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa to Trump and we make the assumption that the Rust Belt states except for Pennsylvania will go to Biden. In that case, it's very close. It's 263 to 247, right? So one big state, either of the two win. It finishes the game. The interesting part is if Biden wins Nevada, which is one of the southwestern states where Biden seems to be doing well, then it becomes a tie. And then it's possible for Biden to actually win the election by either winning one of the two states which split their votes. So the two states, Maine and Nebraska, which split their votes and so if he wins one of those split votes in either of those two states, then he can just squeak through. Absolutely. So just to remind our viewers again, the way the system works is that each state has a particular number of electors. These electors come together and elect the president and in most states, whoever wins that state gets all the electors. So what happens basically is that the decision can be determined by a very small number of states, a very small number of votes as well. Prabir, I want to bring in here so your quick first thoughts on the results. Like Bapa said, there was a strong belief that there was a possibility of even something called a Biden blowout where he would just sweep through the South, the states in the North, which Bapa was talking about Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. He would maybe even win Florida and Texas, which are traditionally Republican states. And that is definitely not happening today. So how do you see it happening? Well, I think everybody has been, at least the pollsters have been again surprised that there is a hidden Trump vote. Now, how hidden it is, why it is hidden is something for post-Mortem. So I'm now going to deal with it here. But Trump has certainly performed better than what the pollsters expected. The second, I think, important point is also, if you look at the exit polls and the exit poll results are there now, you will see that the constituency which we thought Trump was favored to get support from, that is stood with it, the white male vote and particularly the post-65 age group. This has held constant for Trump. And though among women voters, younger voters, you perform less well, but the fact that more than 65% of the white male vote has gone to Trump is an indication that there is a deep racial undercurrent in this election, which is what we expected. But that is what has really firmed up the Trump vote in spite of the disaster of the COVID-19 handling that he did. So I think these are some of the quick conclusions we can have. We are not going to turn sephologists at this juncture where the votes are being counted. And I think it's also the vagary of the American system where each state, each county counts its votes. There is no something called election commission, which is what we are familiar in India. And it's a locally elected officials also who deal with a lot of this, who themselves are also partisan. So there's a huge amount of controversies possible. And that's why the final call, if it is very close as Bappa is saying based on his current syphology, then if it is very close, it may end up in the courts. So all those possibilities exist. But the key issue really is going to be Pennsylvania. As he was talking about, if Pennsylvania goes to Trump, I think we have a huge Biden is unlikely then to find a path to victory. You may still find it, but it's going to be that much more difficult. If Pennsylvania goes to Biden, then I think for Trump the game is over. So this is really the issue at the moment. What happens to Pennsylvania? And Pennsylvania, the rule areas have been counted. So Trump is quite a bit ahead on that. But since the heavy population centers, which the urban votes are going to be counted later, we have to wait or the finishing of that counting is going to take place later. We have to wait for Pennsylvania to really see which way it's going. So too early to call a much closer election than we thought. Biden still has an edge, but the edge is much slimmer than people had anticipated earlier. So yes, we have to analyze later why Trump has performed better than after all the correction posters had made for the predictions. So what really is happening is something that we really, we have to analyze later. But currently still poised, but Biden with a slight edge and difficult for outsiders of the American scene to understand the American elections. But unfortunately, US being the global overlord still, it's an election which is drawing attention from all over the world. Because a lot of countries, there is a stake in the American elections, unfortunately. Absolutely. And one interesting aspect, of course, is that the electoral college system also has its origins in the early times of the Republic where slavery was very much a factor. And it does privilege certain states, states with actually a lesser population than the states with more population. So as we have discussed, you can win the popular vote in the US. You can win by millions and still be the loser as far as the electoral college is concerned. So, Praveen, please go ahead. The Senate composition also favors exactly those states where the electoral college is also favors. Basically, what you said, the more predominantly white population, that rural areas, those are privileged over essentially more popular states with large urban populations. Absolutely. Probably there is one interesting thing which is coming up, which is true that the white working class has held its support for Trump. It hasn't gone down. 65 and above is slightly, as of now, Trump is underperforming as compared to 2016. Very slightly. But he is underperforming, which could be because of COVID. But more interestingly, Cuban Americans in Florida are what Trump is majorly overperforming from 2016 amongst Cuban Americans and amongst Latinos. So the Latino numbers could be skewed because the Cuban Americans are, Trump is hugely outperforming his results from 2016. That's one. The other is Biden is slightly underperforming amongst blacks as compared to 2016. So those are two interesting things. And the Cuban Americans are saying that's because Trump raised the bogey of socialism and then the Biden will have a socialist program and that scared the Cuban Americans. But amongst blacks, the underperformance of Biden, it could point to the base not turning out as enthusiastically as it should have. Those I think still need to be seen after we get the urban centers in. Cuban Americans, of course, we expected in Florida to rally strongly behind Trump. That was a factor which had been already been identified by various pollsters. So when you see about 65 performance of Trump, of the white demography, as you said, we have to also look at the gender divide over there. I think among white women, Trump has lost some support. And that's because of the abortion issue. Don't forget that for the women, the abortion disease is much more important than, for instance, among the white men or men, so that matters. And white women have also not been so kind, shall we say, to the packing the Supreme Court and making it anti-abortion majority, in which case there is a real danger of the roadway being overturned. And if that happens, the women are back to the scenario they were in when you had back room abortions and all of that. So I think there is a strong opinion amongst women about abortion much more than among the men. And that I think also shows a little bit up in the above 65 white population that you're talking about. Anyway, I think it's a little, perhaps a little too early to talk about based on the exit polls alone. We are really talking about the exit polls and they are not again representative of the entire voting. But yes, I think the interesting point is that these issues have already been identified. But the extent of the swings, I think that's what has taken, at least the pollsters have been my surprise, because we also get conditioned by what the pollsters are saying, even though we may deflate them a little based on the 2016 elections. But mentally, I was always thinking that, hey, they must have now done enough correction so they won't repeat the 2016 mistakes. But it seems there is something which is different where the people who they are polling, what they are saying and what they are voting could also be different. So there may be a shame-faced Trump support, which people are not willing to accept in public. Maybe that's true. We don't know. Absolutely. Through the some of the key Senate races as well, because like Praveen mentioned, this is equally an important part of what's happening. So if you could take us to the map and see, show which are these key races, there was some belief, some expectation that the Democrats might actually take over the Senate. There have been, of course, in a minority for which you need 51 seats or 50 seats if the president is going to be a Democrat because the vice president can break the tie. But does it look like it's happening? The Senate race is not, it's going to be again very tight. So before the elections, the current Senate, Republicans are 53 seats and Democrat, the Democrat coalition, Democrats plus two independents, they have 47 seats. So there was, with the blue wave expectation, there was expectation that the Democrats would win 51 or 52 seats. In which case, they have to pick up a net of four or five seats. Now, one seat, Alabama, that was a fluke victory last time around. So Alabama has now reverted back to its deep Republican base. And so the Democrats have lost Alabama, the seat which they held. So to come to let's say 51, they have to now win five seats. Colorado has already been called for Democrats. So Hickenlooper, who was governor of Colorado, he has won. In Arizona, it hasn't been called, but it looks likely that Kelly will, Democrat, he is going to... The former astronaut, I believe. The former astronaut, right? He's going to win the election. So that makes it 47. So that makes it plus one. So that makes it 48, right? Now, the other ones in the next most likely seat was North Carolina. And there, Kyle Conningham, the Democrat, was leading in the polls. But about a month before the elections, there was a sexting scandal. He was caught sending sextex to somebody. And that appears to be hurting him, right? And so he is currently behind and with not too many votes left to be counted. The other surprising thing is, again, because Democrats are underperforming in South in Georgia, there were two elections. One is a special election, which is not going to be decided in this round, right? The special election is a free for all runner. So there are multiple Republicans and multiple Democrats running there. And the top two go to the runoffs, right? So the top two have been decided. So there is one Democrat, which is Warnock and one Republican. Kerry Loeffler. So that's not going to happen now. That election is in January. The other race in Georgia, where the Democrats were projected to pick up, that they are losing. In Maine, they were projected to pick up a seat. Susan Collins, who is a four-time senator, was supposed to lose. The Maine counting is like just 25%, right? So it's too early to say what's going to happen in Maine. In Montana, currently the Democrats are leading, but they're saying that the Republican areas are still to be counted. So again, Montana is not... We can't call it right now, right? Iowa is very tight. The Republicans are, I think, slightly ahead. So if you look at all these seats, these were the seats which were Democrats were supposed to pick up, and they are not picking up. And so at that point, they may not even reach 50. So if they win the special election, maybe they reach 50, but as of now, they don't seem to be picking up the Senate either. Absolutely. So just building on some of these questions, what we are also... It is true that irrespective of what happens regarding the results, there seems like the American system is definitely headed for more political chaos. We can more or less be certain on that, because the victory margins don't seem very close. There's no blur as we predicted. So even if, suppose Trump loses or Trump wins either situation, we are looking at a massive deadlock as far as the American political system is concerned. And one of the key questions we have talked about in NewsClick over the past many years, of course, is what kind of an impact it has, maybe a bit too early to say, but do we see the possibility of an essential continuity still continuing as far as countries like India are concerned or, say, in West Asia and China and areas like that? You know, for a long time, we have believed that political instabilities occur only in the global south. That means the global north, the quote-unquote centers of global power, which is the United States, Western Europe, they are stable quote-unquote democracies and they ensure that there's a continuity of the global international order, as they say, and the rules of the game. This has been the assumption that has been there for quite some time and particularly after the end of the Cold War, this is the assumption on which the global system seems to have worked. Before that, there was an accommodation between the West and the Soviet Union, the socialist countries that decisively swung in one particular direction in the 90s. Now, I think first time we were seeing the fractures which are talked about in other countries as something that happens in unstable global south countries is also enveloping the north. The fractures are deepening and the United States is a classic example where you're talking about deadlocks, you're talking about the kind of certainties breaking down in different ways. You were seeing the Supreme Court becoming the arbiter of a lot of the politics and the Supreme Court itself can be loaded in one particular political direction, which it has been for now. And this is set for now next 20 to 30 years. It is a 60 majority of the right in the Supreme Court. So you see the rules of the game are not holding in countries like the United Kingdom, countries like the United States and the United States, the fractures are deepening. It's very clear. These are stable deep fractures. Nothing explains why a Trump should be such a viable candidate in a country where he has mishandled the epidemic. He has taken a hammer to the international trading system. He has not delivered anything that is visible and yet he represents a strong political force as we can see in the elections. And even if Trump loses, the Trumpian politics is going to stay. That's not going away. So I think you have also seen a shift of the Republican Party much more to the right. And that capturing of the Republican Party by the Republican what we would call the Lulee right earlier, but that seems to have become the mainstream Republican now. So the fractures are going to deepen and the American system seems to be entering a much more unstable phase. What it has, what its implication for the global system is the credibility of the US as a power is going to go down. So countries like India, which have already run into the anti-China issue partly because of the northern border clashes may still stay on the American side, but you can already see in Southeast Asia countries like Indonesia say we are not going to be a part of this. This is also happening in some parts of West Asia, not in the monarchies, but in the other South, you know, West Asian countries, this is visible. So what you are going to see is a fluidity in international relations in the global order because a quote unquote stable global order with the United States is no longer going to be there. It's going to be a much more openly transaction. America has always been more transactional than any other country. It's going to be much more openly transactional. And that tenor of Trumpian politics I think is going to have its shadow, even if Biden wins. I don't think a lot of these things are going to change. So I think we are in for a more unstable United States and a more unstable global order, whichever way the elections go. Absolutely. And Bapa, one last thing before we close this session, a quick look at the House of Representatives as well. Do we have any numbers regarding what that's going to happen? Of course, the entire House of Representatives was up for election. There has been one major development which is one of the proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theories which Donald Trump has also indirectly supported, has actually won and become a member of the House of Representatives which really explains what Prabir was talking about in terms of the loony right becoming more and more of a phenomenon. But nonetheless, as far as the numbers are concerned, what do we have? So as of now, the called races has 147 Democrats and 151 Republicans. But that lot of the races in California, for example, remain to be called which will lean Democratic in New Mexico, Arizona, in that entire southwestern belt, those numbers are yet to be called, right? So they're saying that it's probably going to be similar to the current House which is a slight Democratic majority. So that status quo might remain in the House. There is the, it sets up even if Trump thinks that it sets up for deadlock because the House will be Democratic. But if Biden wins and the Senate is taken by the Republicans, then again it sets up for deadlock. And the deadlock is not probably talked about the global deadlock but there is also a big debate about the size of the stimulus and who the stimulus is directed to, right? And with COVID and continuing lockdowns, there is a serious risk of a deepening of the recession. Absolutely. And with this kind of deadlock, you would get into problems even economically. Absolutely, right. And one interesting thing, of course, is that Trump has, of course, like Prabir mentioned, packed the Supreme Court with six judges who are, six judges are now Republicans or conservatives for that matter. Trump himself is appointed three. But one overlooked aspect of the Trump administration is that he's also packed the lower courts, which means a huge number of judges, very conservative, very young, have been appointed to stay long. So just like in some senses the RSS is filling up administrative institutions in India. We have an entire ideological body there which is actually doing the same. So in fact, when the deadlock happens, a lot of these cases will go to court and it's very likely that they rule in favor of the conservatives. So one of the hopes, at least for the progressives were that there were talk of Biden, one, packing the courts, right? So increasing it from the current nine to two... To various numbers. To various numbers. Even 18 years. Yeah, so the progressives would have, there were more progressives. The other was to get rid of the fellow buster, which is a peculiar American thing where you need a supermajority to pass anything. But with these kinds of numbers, they're not going to be able to do either of those two things. So then we are going to get into this. Into a phase of major deadlock. Absolutely. And Praveer, I just wanted to return one last bit to something we talked about earlier that was regarding the Latinx vote. And as you said, it's maybe too early to predict. But one thing definitely that may have helped, Trump is the fact that the kind of policies he's unleashed against Cuba, the kind of policies he's unleashed against Venezuela, Bolivia of course, is maybe likely to have definitely helped with that vote. Well, it depends on where the people have come from. Latinx vote you may talk about as if it's a homogeneous politics. It is not. Depending on where the refugees have come from, they are likely to work one way or the other. So obviously from Cuba, the refugees who have come, the expats who have come into the United States have been people who are deeply anti-left. To some extent, it's too far Venezuela as well. So those are the kind of things that that go into which way they vote in America, in the United States. If you are coming from a right-wing dictatorship and you're fleeing the dictatorship, you're likely to vote left. But if you are abandoning a country because the left has one there, then of course your politics could be quite different. So it's not again a homogeneous issue. Absolutely. But more than that, when they come into the United States, some of them also change their demography in the sense that if you are, how do you identify yourself? Do you identify yourself as white or as brown and black? That is one issue. How conservative you are in your social values. So the question of abortion, for instance, for a lot of the Catholic devout population becomes an issue. So there are a large number of other issues by which we, unlike the white-black divide, which is much sharper, the Latinx divide is actually more difficult to call because of all of this. I don't think they're as homogeneous politically or socially as we would think of the other two. So you can think of bigger constructions of race over there. But I think the Latinx population really falls somewhere in between. And therefore, there is more determinants of which way a group will behave or not. And finally, it's the people who vote. It's not that you vote only according to your identities. So I don't think we should lose sight of that. But what we are talking about is the dominant vote amongst the white men and the dominant vote amongst the African-American population. That is very clear. If you take the Indian population, for instance, the fact that Modi might have a much larger support than Trump has had in this elections. Earlier, the Democrats probably used to win about 90, 85 to 90% of the Indian vote. Now they're winning only about 75% of the Indian vote, mainly because in the US, they don't identify themselves with Trump as much as they identify themselves with Modi. So these are the shifts that take place. Yes, the Latinx vote is more probably democratic inclined. But to what extent it is, is really the question. And that had taken some of the pollsters a little bit by surprise. So the Latin vote seemed to be the one which was more with, there were sections of the Latin vote more with Trump than they expected. And Florida, of course, shows in the results itself that that has not only held, but it has actually overperformed than the expectations. Absolutely. Thank you so much Praveen and Bapa for this first session. So we're going to be coming back soon with some more guests, some more discussions on the races that are happening right now. And as we head into this break, we bring you an interview which we did recently with Ben Becker. Ben is the editor-in-chief of Breakthrough News, a US-based independent media outlet which covers a variety of issues related to the working people, related to issues of race, issues of poverty, issues of unemployment. And in this small interview, he talks about what impact these kind of issues were having on the elections. It's a tale of two Americas that we're seeing unfold before us. The stock market in a few months ago hit a new record high, and the billionaires have brought in an additional over $650 billion since the start of the pandemic. So while it's true that the people are suffering, not all people are suffering, and in fact it's been a big boom for those who own the majority of the corporate stocks in the country. And on the other side, it's the exact opposite. We're seeing people waiting in long lines for food. The poverty rate, as you said, has gone way up. The unemployment rate is officially gone down to 7.9%, but the unemployment rate is extremely deceptive. It doesn't count those who have stopped looking for work altogether. And if you have a very low-paying, part-time job, even if you're looking for a full-time job, you're not considered unemployed. So the real number of unemployed, some estimate to be around 31 million, perhaps even up to 35 million, just in August and September alone, for instance, 1.1 million workers who dropped out of the workforce, which really means that they've given up. They have a life of such despair that they won't even be able to look for work and are just trying to survive through other means. They're not going to be counted as unemployed. By contrast, they said the economy added 600,000 jobs. So in other words, more workers dropped out of the workforce altogether than the number of jobs that were added.  And that's an aspect of this jobs crisis that is somewhat new in the 2008 financial crisis. It was women who basically powered the recovery women workers. And this one, it's 80 to 5% are actually dropping out of the workforce altogether because they're dealing with the additional burdens, of course, of household labor and other things that are just making it impossible. And because women are concentrated in the economic sectors, whether it's the government or a service work that have been deeply impacted by the crisis. And of course, if you don't have a job, you don't have money. And under capitalism, you need money for everything, especially in the United States. You need it for healthcare. You need it to pay your bills.  You need it for food. So really an economic crisis or a jobs crisis is a full-scale social crisis for tens of millions of workers. I mean, you're talking about two arch-capitalist candidates. So for them, they wouldn't even accept that there is a capitalist crisis or that there's something to be saved from. For them, this is sort of the way the economy has always worked. It's perhaps accelerated its basic inequality and features during this period. So, I mean, to be honest, there is a difference. We couldn't say that there's no difference. Donald Trump basically has a program of a death march. Just march everybody back to work. And that's really the proposal of large sectors of the capitalist class, too. Get everyone back to work. People who have underlying conditions, comorbidities, older people are more likely to perish.  It's basically a price worth paying for them in order to get the economy going again. They're even entertaining ridiculous, unscientific ideas like herd immunity privately. They won't quite say it publicly. But really, the Trump team is very seriously toying with these types of ideas. And you see it in terms of how they relate to the question of masks and other things that they really think that we should just rush the country back to work and whoever dies dies. The Biden camp does have a different proposal. And for instance, it's to have lots of stimulus, government payments, especially to state and local governments, which would make a big difference in terms of alleviating some of the situation. But they haven't really taken on the core aspects of the policy, which would be necessary to really stop the suffering. And that would be, for instance, to cancel rents and other payments for basic utilities, cancel the debt payments to give full paycheck protection. The government has so much money when it comes to the military, when it comes to bailouts. I mean, they just opened up the spigots and let all the money flow to the biggest banks within two weeks of the pandemic. There's nothing like that for the working class. There's been one $1,200 check. There's been very little to small businesses. Half a million small businesses have gone under during the pandemic. A lot of them are barely hanging on. And if they don't do well during this sort of holiday season, they're going to lay off lots more workers. So the scale of the problem is not being met by either candidate. I think to meet the scale of the problem, you'd have to infringe on the rights of capital. You'd have to infringe on the rights of property. You'd have to tell the landlords you cannot expel anyone from their houses. You cannot evict them.  But if you don't, and you have to tell insurance companies, you have to cover people.  But in the United States, millions and millions of people have lost their healthcare coverage during the pandemic. And 1 million healthcare workers have been laid off during the pandemic. So, you know, this is the anarchy of our economic system, which is on full display. And while some stimulus checks, which is what Biden and the Democrats are proposing, would be very much, you know, welcomed by millions of people. They would really just be a temporary solve and wouldn't solve the problem. Welcome back to NewsClick and People's Dispatch. And we have with us, Bapa at the studio and Vijay Prasad is soon going to join us. But before we go into that, we're going to be taking a look at the map again at the latest results of the U.S. presidential elections, because that is really what the contest is really about right now, where all the uncertainty is. So, we're going to be taking a look at the map once again and just see where exactly the uncertainty is, what exactly the toss-up states are right now, so to speak. So, Bapa, could you just sort of take us through what exactly these numbers mean, because there's a wide variety of colors and a wide variety of numbers on the map. So, if you could just quickly take us through these numbers again and what looks like happening right now. Sure. So, I think we should start off with a caveat that the headline, we shouldn't be looking at the headline numbers, right? So, the numbers in dark blue and dark red are what have been called by the networks, right? And so, based on what has been called by the networks, Biden is at 213 and Trump is at 174, right? Now, on top of that, there are states which we are adding to Biden and Trump, which haven't been called by the networks, but which appear to be going that way, right? So, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, these are the certain states they most likely will end up with Trump. And those are in the south there, we see Texas with 38, Georgia with 16 and North Carolina with 15. Those are all in light red to pink. Yes, and also Alaska. Right. And that adds to 73 there. Yes. And so, if you add those things, it comes to, well, and we have added one of the seats in Alaska. So, there are two states, Nebraska and Maine, where they don't give all their electoral votes to the person who wins the majority. They split their votes. So, Nebraska, one seat most likely will go to Trump. That takes the number to 247. And for Biden, Arizona has been called by Fox News, right? So, we're giving Arizona to... That's on the west with the 11 electoral college votes. Right. On top of Arizona, Maine, which is on the northwest corner, Maine against splits his votes. So, we have given three of those things to Biden. The one, the second district of Maine is still to be called. And then, assuming that Minnesota where Biden is leading with about 75 plus percent of the vote counted, Biden is leading. In Wisconsin and Minnesota, which we are showing as blue, currently Trump is leading there. Right. You mean Wisconsin and Michigan? Sorry, Wisconsin and Michigan. On top. Yes. On the northeast. On the north side. Wisconsin has counted about 70 percent of its votes. And Trump is currently leading. However, the greater Milwaukee area, the metropolitan area there, the votes still haven't been counted. Or majority of the votes haven't been counted. So, that's why there is expectation that Wisconsin will eventually go with Biden. And Michigan, about 50 percent of the votes, Trump is leading. But again, the greater Detroit area, a lot of the counting hasn't happened there. So, assuming that those fall to Biden in large numbers, we will give the states to Biden. At that point, it is very close for either candidate, right? 263 to 247. Then it really depends on these two states, right? Pennsylvania is a big state. If Biden wins Pennsylvania, Biden wins. Pennsylvania is most likely not going to be called, not just today, but may not be called for many days. Right. Okay. So, if Pennsylvania is not called, then Biden's road to victory is by winning Nevada, which is very early stages of counting today, which is in the Southwest, and then winning one of the two split votes in Maine or Nebraska. Right. So, it's going to be raised, if Pennsylvania goes to Trump, then Biden basically has, it becomes a total coin cost at that point. Right, absolutely. Right. So, what we're seeing right now is that it is a very, very tight race. Very difficult to say who's going to win. And we have with us Vijay Prashant, director of the Tri-Contains Institute of Social Research. Vijay, thank you so much for joining us. Please, my pleasure. Yeah. I'm sorry, I was a little delayed because my computer got so scared when I opened CNN.com, it crashed. And so, I had to restart everything and I had to pacify it and tell my computer, my computer, I should tell you Prashant, there's an apple, so it's a liberal. And so, it was terrified to find that in fact, there might be a genuine Nazi going to, I have to forgive my computer. If I had done things differently, I might have bought a Republican computer, but you know, that's where I am. So, there it is. Right. Vijay, so I mean, at the risk of sounding a bit naive or maybe asking a bit of a naive question, and I ask you this also because you were one of the authors behind the book, Strongman, which came out a few years ago. And that really sort of looked into Trump, Modi, Erdogan, all these people who exert a particular kind of political and ideological sway. But we also went into this election with the coronavirus. We went into a horrible recession. There was unemployment, soaring. And you know, your general expectation is that there's a point like this. A lot of the right, say, Trump's promises start to crumble. He gets exposed. That's your general understanding often. And I think maybe even a lot of polling sort of tried to point that out in the sense of saying, coronavirus, people are unhappy with his performance. But what we see right now is actually a very, very close contest. So how do you sort of analyze this? See, look Prashant, there's maybe two different ways to go about this. One is there's a long view, a long historical view, and the other is a much more conjunctually immediate view. The long view is the United States, since its origin, has an unfinished fight, which is the fight around racism.  And in 1865, there was not a result. You know, the Confederacy, let's call them for just simplicity, the pro-slavery branch of the civil war was not defeated. You know, they lost the battles, but they were not defeated. I mean, they continued to flourish. In fact, these statues that have come down in recent years of Confederate generals, these statues were put up after the war ended.   No, but well in the U.S. south, it's littered with, you know, Confederate signs. So there was no defeat. And that Confederacy incubates a deep white supremacist attitude right through the United States, which is why if you look at the map, there is this enormous red space that runs from, you know, the northern, the border with Canada all the way down a swath across the American south, including, you know, the panhandle region of Florida where the Republicans just win almost every vote. And that has been the case regardless of, it's not about Trump, it's not even about George W. Bush. It's a long standing slavery day Republican hold, which before used to be held by the slavery supporting Democratic Party, you know, it just, it's just that the name of the party switch, that's one explanation. There is this unfinished civil war that continues. You know, now it's called the culture war, but I think that's a misnomer. It's the old civil war that's just, it was in half time in 1865 and then it just keeps picking up and keeps going into half time and keeps picking up. The immediate conjunctural thing is that the Democratic Party, and by the way, Biden might end up winning, but by a whisker, you know, you may win by a whisker. That's the scandal.  People thought, how could Hillary Clinton not have walked all over him? She was defeated by him. She won the popular vote. Biden will most likely win the popular vote, but they lose the presidency, most likely Biden as well.  They can't carry anything. They refuse to talk about universal health care. They refuse to talk about even the most basic, decent policies, you know, in the middle of a pandemic. Let's, you know, refund public health care. Let's provide people with just, let's forget our debates about universal basic income. Let's provide a universal basic income.  They try to triangulate to the right. And look at Trump. He is gained in demographics.  Because this guy, he's nuts.  That conviction actually carries more weight, I feel, than the content of his policies. He comes with conviction. It's the same with Erdogan, you know, he comes with a certain conviction. Erdogan, like Trump, appeals to the pious nationalism which pretends to be submerged. It's not submerged. Modi is the same, you know, Hindus. Hindus should be proud to be Hindus. This pious kind of patriotism and nationalism which again pretends to be submerged. They share, all of them share this.   It's okay. And they then motivate people.  Democrats say, no, no, you need a safe candidate, like Biden rather than Bernie, not a safe candidate. Well, the safety means basically the gag order. Safety means you can't speak your mind. Absolutely. And Vijay, in this context, a lot of thought already, I mean, irrespective of, like you said, what the result is, a lot of thought probably already going into what kind of happens after this. And one inspiring sign, of course, for the past few months was a sheer extensive protest that took place following the murder of George Floyd, of course, but also around the pandemic itself. They were protests around evictions. They were protests around rent. They were protests around poverty, a lot of community mobilizing as well. And like you said, I think this election probably even more conclusively demonstrates the limitations of the safe candidate argument, because Biden was even a more safer candidate than Hillary. The point was people liked him. A lot of polls saying that, you know, the likability factor was much more with Biden and still we are at a place where he's so close to losing. So in this context, how do you see, for instance, in the coming years, the kind of organizing and mobilizing that needs to take place? There is talk of third parties, of course, but also in terms of the social movements, how do you see taking place? Well, firstly, the protest movements that took place took place in states that largely vote Democratic. You know, it's New York state, it's California. And, you know, these protest movements have produced results. The minimum wage is raised in many states already.  You know, they've been able to move an agenda. I have to say many states voted for legalizing not only marijuana, but also psychedelic mushrooms and so on. So not to say there's a correlation between, let's say, protests for higher wages and psychedelic mushrooms, but these are states which anyway are liberal and refreshingly open and have a socialist bent. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez re-elected, Ayanna Presley re-elected, Ilan Omar re-elected. You know, I mean, these women are back and they're going to be there. New York state legislature, four members of the Democratic Socialist Organization elected, one of them, by the way, Mira Nayar's son. You know, the filmmaker Mira Nayar's son will go to Albany to be in the New York Assembly. So, you know, it's not like these protest movements don't have it, but these protest movements are not happening in the so-called red states or in some of these battlegrounds, say, but certainly not in the red states. I mean, when does Texas actually change its colors?  But in the last couple of months, he's been going to every single constituency in Texas and been motivating and mobilizing people to vote. And apparently it is having an impact. So, these are long-term projects. It's actually the case that you need more, trade unions need to be much more active like a state like Ohio. You know, Ohio used to, until the 1980s, have a congressman who was very, very progressive. You know, he was out there as anti-war person and so on. Why? Because that was a time when Ohio had major manufacturing. It had, therefore, trade union activity. And then it was able to have, you know, political figures who represented workers in a very real way. I don't mean, I mean, I don't think we should underestimate those histories. But as you deindustrialized these parts of the country, unions lost their focus. Unions began to chase the Democrats and they all lost their way. I mean, you've got to rebuild from movement up. You can't just go and win elections. You know, if you don't have strong movements, if you don't build the reservoirs of something different, you can't win elections. Elections are one based on, you know, culture and movement. These are the two things. Culture is against the left in general because culture is dominated deeply by, you know, wretched things we inherit, but also the media and, you know, that's colonized by the right. That's culture. But movement is our domain. And unless we're out there building movements, building capacity, putting leaders up from movements, not bringing in leaders from outside and saying vote for them, you know. So this is the kind of thing that's a long-term game. I don't want to denigrate the movements for higher wages and, you know, black lives matter because I think they have an impact. Unfortunately, they take place in Massachusetts and in California, which are guaranteed states to vote for the Democrats. Absolutely. Right. Thank you so much Vijay for talking to us. We'll be talking to you in the coming days as well as things become clearer and the chaos either gets settled or it gets worse, both of which might happen. I think all of it is good. All of it will happen. Okay. Take care of yourselves. Bye. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you, Vijay Prashat. And we are going to move into our next segment soon where we'll be joined by Eugene Pudir of Breakthrough News. Eugene has been doing a live on the elections. It's been quite, to say the least, both exciting and confusing and chaotic a mix of emotions. So before we are joined by Eugene, he has a short interview with him, which he gave a couple of days before the elections when he talked about some of the key scenarios and possibilities. You know, with the mail-in ballots, the biggest question that is facing the country, and I know for many people worldwide, this may seem amazing, but in America, there are no universal rules about voting. Every state makes individual rules. So one of the biggest issues for mail-in ballots, of course, is what happens if a ballot is postmarked by Election Day but because the mail isn't working right or whatever it may be, your ballot doesn't get there until after Election Day. Now, some states just say, forget it too late, that's on you, many states allow there for to be a small period, some say three days, some say nine days, but something that where, as long as the postmark on it that says you put this in on Election Day or before Election Day, it can still be counted. So the Republican Party in particular has been aggressively challenging this, potentially, you know, because they know the vast majority of Democrats will be voting via mail this year. So there have been a range of different issues that have happened and there have been different rulings. Pennsylvania, which is gonna be one of the key states here. The Supreme Court has ruled that they are allowed to accept the ballots as they planned up to three days after, but that they could revisit that decision after the election. So right now in Pennsylvania, if it comes in up to three days after, your vote can be counted, but that could actually change. So we could have three or four different shifts. North Carolina, also another big state. You know, Biden seems to be relatively well ahead in Pennsylvania. North Carolina, which is a key state, absolute dead heat here. And this could be the key state of the whole country, honestly, is North Carolina. But one of the main ones, they have a nine-day window. The Supreme Court has allowed the nine-day window, but they've also said we could revisit that. Wisconsin, another major state. Now, in that case, the Supreme Court has decided they can't count any ballots after the election. So that is just out of the blue. And then last night, or late afternoon, in a sort of, I don't know if it was unexpected decision, but a major decision, Minnesota, which is usually democratic, but has been trending a little bit more towards Republicans as of late. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that they cannot have a nine-day window, which means that everyone who voted yesterday, and maybe many people who didn't see the story in the news and voted today, their ballots are now invalid. So we've got Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, all states where maybe not all traditional battlegrounds, but that are all sort of battleground states this year where there's been heavy campaigning. That could be the major states where this comes out. Those states are all at a position where we don't even know what's going to happen because the rules could change. But in most of those states, it's very close. And so a 10,000 ballots here, 5,000 ballots here, 100,000 ballots there could make the election. And we can have three or four flip-flops in the week after the election. So who knows? Now, voter suppression, which is also a huge issue, is going to come into play in a couple other states that are also critical. For instance, Georgia. Georgia is a state that has almost never a swing state for years it was solidly Democratic during the Jim Crow era. And now it has been solidly Republican for really about three or four decades. But there's been a tremendous voter mobilization in Georgia. In the Senate race, there are one of the Senate races. The Democrat is up in a way that seems pretty significant. And another one, it's very, very close. And so there's a lot of conversation. State of Georgia tried to purge 300,000 voters from the rolls, including get this a 92-year-old woman who had voted for the same place for 50 years in a row. And they tried to tell her that she couldn't vote. So there's a lot of efforts going on to sort of fight back against this to get people to re-register. This has been happening for months to challenge some of these things. But it's unclear if those 300,000 people, how many ultimately will not be allowed to vote, or will have to cast something called a provisional ballot, which means they can't certify you the person, but they let you fill something out. Many of those aren't counted. Now, Wisconsin, which I previously mentioned, and this is why the issue of the ballots is crucial, Wisconsin is a major voter suppression state. There have been tens of thousands of people purged this year. It's actually, there's still some litigation going on around this, so it's not clear. But to give you a sense of how wild voter suppression is, basically what happens is they send you a card in the mail to say, are you a voter? Are you not?  And then they say that you're no longer there. A study was done by investigative reporter, Greg Palace, where they looked at thousands and thousands of these votes about, did people really move? Spoiler alert, the vast majority of them did not move at all. And that's the essence of voter suppression is they say, well, we're just trying to keep the voting roles clean. But they do everything possible in many of these states of voter suppression to get you to not return the ballots. And so it's this interesting dichotomy, but in states like Wisconsin and Georgia, I think this could end up being one of the biggest issues because Democrats are at a knife's edge. But these, like if the Democrats win Georgia, Trump loses the election. So they're gonna have a huge amount of energy on the Republican side to try to block this. And they've already been doing it beforehand. I'm sure they'll do it afterwards. And I think that that's more or less where we stand right now. But more states could come into play, Arizona, Texas, where there have also been similar issues, especially Texas with massive voter suppression, closing down of polling places, making it difficult to vote early, all these different issues. So, you know, in the primary, we saw this in Texas, in one place in Houston, where people had to wait for six and a half hours to vote. And this is a Democratic primary in a Democratic city where they're trying to help people vote. So it gives you a sense of the state affairs. Hello, and welcome back to News Click and People's Dispatch. We are discussing the U.S. elections, especially the presidential race, where there is a lot of uncertainty still, things very much unclear. This was expected, but not really to this extent. The race being this close was not as expected. And according to New York Times, around 223 electoral college votes have been decided for Joseph Biden, 174 for Donald Trump, and 141 are still uncertain. They aren't decided as of now. And this could take a couple of days even to get resolved because counting in Pennsylvania, which is probably one of the most important states right now, is probably going to take some time. So we need to, each candidate needs to 70 to win. So both candidates have a fairly good chance, depending on how things turn out. And now we're joined by Eugene Pudir of Breakthrough News. Eugene, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Right, right. So you were in the Breakthrough New Studio, you were doing a live a couple of hours ago, coverage of the elections, of course. What's in your mind right now, as in was this what you were anticipating, or is it something very different from what you thought might happen? You know, I think that it's not very different from what I thought might happen, but it is a little different from what I bet a couple of people. So I'm in trouble here. But I mean, I think we're sort of at a coin flip election. And I think even though the polls were trending towards Biden, many of the states were so close. And as I'm sure many of people who are watching this know, you know, there's a sampling error in polling. There's three or four percent. It could kind of go either way. So there were a number of states that it was clear it could go either way. And I think that's basically what we're seeing here now. I would say my biggest takeaways so far is two-fold. You know, one, we're seeing a bit of a change in the electoral map. Arizona, which has been great for Republicans in the past decade, looking good for Democrats. Georgia, which has been great for Republicans in the last decade, also looking good for Democrats. But you look at states like Wisconsin, which for years good for Democrats, while it was run by Trump, looking good for President Trump. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, where Democrats have been very, very effective. You know, a lot of different things that are happening that you have gone against the trends in maybe the past 20 or 30 years. And I think that there's a lot to that. But I think it's interesting to note that we're seeing at least some slight shifts in sort of the traditional electoral map in the United States. I would say the second thing that is really sitting with me is the reflection about how people's consciousness really isn't linear. I mean, you look at Florida, which has been called for President Trump and pretty handily for President Trump. But over 60% of voters in Florida voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. So out polling a Democrat who is running on a minimum wage of $15 an hour. So obviously many Republicans and others voting for third parties were embracing that. And I think you can look around the country and see somewhat similar things. I mean, the war on drugs here in the United States was the driver of mass incarceration, which imprisoned so many millions of black working class people. Big rebuke around the country from decriminalization of most drugs in Oregon to legalization of marijuana in a number of places. And these are really votes that are directly linked to the criticism of the war on drugs being racist. That has really been the tipping point over the past few cycles. So we're seeing that even though the races is maybe a coin flip at this point, even though Donald Trump has a very good chance to win, that there are quite a number of indications that there are many people, even some who are nominally considered themselves conservatives who are willing to back a pro working class agenda and at least to some degree to back policies that are really bucking the trends of the conservative past 30 or 40 years we've seen in the country. Absolutely. And even in this context, I wanted to also raise maybe a development that's happening kind of counter to this, which is that there is also a strengthening of the right which is unprecedented. We have, of course, the QAnon, an open supporter of the QAnon movement who has been elected to Congress, another extremist congressman as well. So we do see that the right is also kind of bringing in a new generation of young activists, young, for lack of better word, activists who are really pushing extreme right-wing agenda across the country. So how do you see this development as well? I think that's an extraordinarily important point. I think it's serious. I mean, in Marjorie Cohn, I believe it was in Georgia, who supports QAnon and is a major, you know, very, very against Muslims, very, very heated rhetoric against Muslims. Madison Cawthorn, who I believe is in North Carolina, who took some sort of trip to Hitler's vacation home and posted about it on his Facebook. I mean, even candidates who are going to lose, like Laura Loomer, who's sort of a far-right kind of prank artist is maybe the best way to describe her also deeply Islamophobic, just the fact that she could become a candidate is notable. Matt Gaetz, who of course ran his race. I think you're very right. I think the way you described it is true. I think the impact of the Trump administration has been to drive out many center-right forces inside of the Republican Party, or at least make them feel very uncomfortable within the Republican Party, and to really sort of reboot with new people who are more in tune with the Trump base that I don't think it's too far off what Republicans had been saying for some time, really since the Nixon administration, where they switched to something that in America was called the Southern Strategy, really using racism as a major wedge issue as Democrats started to embrace civil rights. But I think we have seen that Trump has really brought so much more of the sort of ethnic grievance politics into the open, and his argument is very clear that the hollowing out of many rule and working class places, especially in the Midwest, by deindustrialization, that that can be directly linked to a rise in rights for undocumented immigrants, for black people, for women. And obviously there's not a connection there, but there's sort of an Occam's razor. They say, well, remember when things were good. Well, seem like black people knew their place, that women knew their place, that there weren't all these immigrants coming into the country. And so there's no real connection, but there's sort of a cultural feeling that the changes in some of the demographics in America have gone along with the economic decline. And it's created this very toxic mix of what is sort of, it speaks in many ways to the lower middle class and to the working class that have been deeply harmed by capitalism in America, especially neoliberalism and deindustrialization. But on the same token, it's not a straight up class appeal. It's sort of like an ethnic chauvinist appeal linked up with some of the broader elements and the broader changes we've seen. And I think we're seeing more politicians. And ironically enough, even if Joe Biden is to win, I think the trend you have outlined will continue and could perhaps grow stronger. I think we're seeing it really around the country in Republican primaries, that the more right-wing candidates, the more extreme candidates, the more semi-fascist candidates are winning because they're willing to tap into the Trump base and to abandon a lot of the orthodoxy of the center-right Republican Party, particularly on foreign policy and particularly on quote-unquote deficit issues, i.e. retirement insurance and government-funded health insurance for older people, Social Security and Medicare. So they're jettisoning some of that neoliberalism while bringing in sort of an extra dose of ethnic nationalism tied up with sort of a convoluted semi, I wouldn't even call it a class appeal, maybe semi-pseudo class appeal. And I think that will continue and it will grow stronger and we're seeing it. We're really seeing it in pretty much every state. I mean, it's notable in some of the ones you listed, but I think we've seen it even in New York state where I am, which is a very liberal state. You've seen the Republicans. There's like a big time Trump supporter heads up the Republicans in Manhattan.  So we're seeing it happen in a big way. Absolutely. You can connect to that one last question. Last time after the elections, we did see that there was a lot of talk about how the white working class was what had given Trump the election, which was, of course, a problematic narrative in its own way. And I'm sure that after the selection, too, we're going to be seeing a lot of those kind of discussions as well. But I just wanted to ask you maybe something to slightly counter that in terms of, has there been a trend of also mobilizing some of these sections against the right wing? You kind of diagnosed the problem very well. But in terms of people's movements, in terms of organizations that are there in the country, has there been kind of a pushback against that kind of agenda that's happening? Yes, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that's most notable is all white people of all class strata and all political parties over the past three or four years, more and more people have embraced really a lot of the criticism of the police, racism and policing, mass incarceration. Even over 50% of Republicans earlier this summer were saying they wanted to see some changes. I think that it's also very important to think about class strata. When you look at the white working class in America, people who make this for America is a very low amount of money. Under about $30,000 a year in America, white working class people almost always vote for the Democrats, regardless of who they are. So the poorest people know what's going on. It's really kind of the middle strata of the working class who've been the most aggressively affected by factory, job factories closing and the changes in the workforce and so on and so forth. But I think there has been some effect. I think it's like when you see things like the $15 minimum wage in Florida, that's a sign of that, that a union-led campaign that's running a straight-up appeal that is going to improve people's lives can reach a lot of people who maybe are workers in a factory in Amazon or on the space coast in Florida who love Trump for whatever reason but sort of recognize what's going on. I think the real challenge is how to start to bring these things in a coherent whole that it can start to reach millions and millions of these people. But I think you look at Erie, Pennsylvania, that's an area, that very white working class area. Biden seems to be doing actually okay there. That's going to be an important county for Trump. So I think that we have seen some movement on this. I think that we have seen some victories in some ways, but it hasn't really found a full political expression. It's here, there, and everywhere. And quite frankly, Trump, his appeal is more potent because the Democrats are unwilling to put into the field a strong-class program. So they'll sort of speak to and genuflect in the direction of many of these people's concerns, but they won't just come straight out and start arguing for universal healthcare and $15 an hour tomorrow. All these different elements that might sway people because it would speak to their immediate interests and it seems like Trump is speaking more to their immediate interests because he'll say immigrants are the problem and I'm going to do something tomorrow. While, you know, Democrats will say, well, no, it's not immigrants, it's income and equality. I'll do something six years from now and it's a difficult piece. So I think that will be the big challenge for pushing back on this is whether independent political movements can start to find more of a coherent voice and present this kind of progressive front to people in a way that they can digest and understand. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Erie. Thank you for this live and as we kind of predicted in the morning, it still is completely uncertain. There is no clarity on what's going to happen in the coming days. So Baba Gedi, maybe before we wind up, take us to what's happening with the numbers right now. Yeah. So if you look at the maps, the states which have been called by the major efforts, Biden on that basis, Biden has 23 electoral votes and Trump has 174. If you then add some states which are likely to go to Biden and Trump, we come to 237 versus 231, right? So some things have changed since we last focused on the maps. Minnesota has been called. That's on the center north, the MN with 10 votes. Yeah. So that has been called for Biden. Georgia, which was, we were leaning towards giving it to Trump, now has been pulled back because the late numbers makes it a coin flip, right? So you can't really call it either way. Michigan is interesting, right? Because Michigan, more than 50% of the votes have been counted and Trump is leading by 10 percentage points. So whether the Detroit area will be able to overcome a 10% point lead. And Michigan is interesting because Biden was polling quiet, had a huge advantage in the pre-election. Both Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden had a close to 10% or let's say between 8 to 10% lead. So if he doesn't do Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because those three states, the three states. The working class population, the white working class, the states which are getting industrialized as similar problems. So those are now key. If Biden doesn't win those states, it is not going to be, it's really, let's say, I mean, the states other than those states is let's say Biden wins is able to win Georgia. So that is 22 votes, right? So that only makes him reach to 259, right? So even with the split between Maine and Nebraska, he doesn't reach anywhere close to 270. So he has to win some of those some of those Rust Belt states, right? And those, Pennsylvania is not going to be called for a few days. And we'll have to see what happens in Wisconsin and Michigan. So as far as Biden is concerned, we see suppose he gets Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, that still makes it 26 plus 632. So that still gives him only 269. So then he, then he's more or less, he just needs one more. One of Maine or Nebraska. Right. And he's probably going to get one of Maine or Nebraska. Right. He's just going to squeak through. It's going to be the, I think the closest election in history. Right. No, there was actually a tie once. There was a tie once, yes. So, but it would be the narrowest of wins. Right. But, So of those three states on the top, that's Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump does need to, Biden does need to win at least two. If Biden doesn't get, Assuming he doesn't get Georgia. If he doesn't get Georgia, then he has to get at least two of them. Right. Without that, there is no part to win. Absolutely. So what we're seeing is that it's kind of crazy because also these states are the states which are going to really struggle with the counting as well. They're going to take some time. I think at least two of the states have already said that they're not going to finish it today. And maybe one of them may even go up till Friday. So what we're seeing is that there is no real, we have a dangerous few hours ahead with the possibility that Trump might even go to court. Yes. Yes. And on the Senate side, now it's looking increasingly unlikely that the Democrats are going to win a majority. Absolutely. Because Iowa has been called for the Republicans. Montana, the Republicans are leading now. Like was predicted that the initial votes were from the Democratic areas and now the Republicans are leading. Maine is not looking good because with more than 50% vote counted, Susan Collins, the Republican has more than a 10% advantage. Interestingly, Biden is currently leading in Maine. So what it means is that if the same ballots have been counted, what it means is that Susan Collins is overperforming the Democrats by a significant margin, in which case they're going to lose that. North Carolina, they're behind. Georgia, they're behind. Georgia's special election is not going to be decided. In that case, the only two seats they pick up are Colorado and possibly Arizona, which only moves them to 48. They're short of 50 by two. And they're lost one, so which is why they're 48. Yes, so they've lost Alabama and so they won Colorado, so those cancel out. They look like they might win Arizona, so that's plus one. And other than that, none of the other things right now look promising. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bapa. So that's all we have in today's live with NewsClick and People's Dispatch. We started about one and a half hours ago and the situation hasn't changed much. We'll be following the US elections in the coming hours as well. We'll be doing shows today, tomorrow. So keep watching NewsClick and People's Dispatch for the latest to find out not only how this election is going to impact the United States, but also the rest of the world. What is going to be its impact on India where we are closely identified with the Republican administration? What is going to happen with China? What's going to happen in West Asia, especially Iran? Are we closer to a nuclear war? Are we even closer to climate crisis? Are a lot of questions riding on this US election? So keep watching NewsClick and People's Dispatch and we'll be following this issue as well.


Now the morning of Ashurah comes, you've become Abu Talib the 73rd companion of Imam Hussain al-Asr. Now imagine the Imam turns around and says to you, Abu Talib you can help me in any way you like whether it's to get water with Abel Fadr al-Abbas al-Asr or whether it's to bring back the bodies of the fallen ones, whether it's to guard the tents of the women and children, whether it's to stand in front of the Imam in Salat, it's completely up to you. Where would you like to participate and volunteer your services? Wherever I could put myself at the bottom of the rank so I could do the the the worst job just to serve the best. What do you think the worst job would be in that situation? If it's guarding Imam Hussain's horse or being a shield for him so I just you know give away what I most valuable have and it's my life just so I can have Imam Hussain for myself and make him happy for a follow-up. Now imagine you you've gone to work one day you've come home you open the door you see your family running around frantic everyone someone's preparing food someone's preparing food drinks etc you've got guests at your house so you walk in home and you ask your dad your mom what's going on they say someone's come to see you Abu Talib so who where is he how can I see him say he's waiting in the living room so you go you open the door to the living room and you see in the living rooms Imam Hussain alaihi salam sitting there waiting for you in that moment what would you say to him what would you want him to say back to you what would you talk about see the silence you just had right now I'd have the same silence I'll just look at his shadow I won't have the toughness to look at him personally just look at his shadow because Imam Hussain is a very big topic to me he's not just the person we say he is it's not just Imam Hussain no well I say it personally because I feel I have a very strong relationship with Imam Hussain especially serving Imam Hussain so I won't have the toughness to look at him personally I'll have I just look at his shadow and I think that would be like too much of a treat for me to look at his shadow what would you want to hear from him what would you be happy with if he was to turn around and say something what would you want it to be what would you be expecting to hear would you want to hear I've accepted you would you want to hear I'm happy with you I just really want him to say that I was embassy for him in this world which I try to be and I actually represented and presented what he taught and what he fought for and it's a true Islam and it's the salam our religion is named roughly now there's about 50 days left to Ashura and with hindsight might be easy to say the events that took place knowing the events that took place you know maybe I could have stopped this from happening or I could have prevented that from happening or I could have made a difference within this particular aspect and a lot of us often forget that our 12th Imam is among us and in a way him being physically absent from us has given us the opportunity or choice to be able to serve him in any way we see fit so what do you think you've done for the 12th Imam what you think he deserves from you how do you think he feels about you given that on that day I'm a similar salam had at least 72 companions with him how many does this Imam have well I tried to learn from Imam Hussein's companions and see how loyal they were to one person and how they serve the man Hussein although their their time and period and their generation and their technology and their conditions are different than today's conditions so I try and advertise and present Islam and 12 imams in the best possible way spread the peace and love that they taught and make people aware that you know he's still there and he's still coming and he's still you know gonna grab you know I don't know how to say he's gonna come and pick up Imam Hussein's flag you know really bright and high so he can show the rest of the world that you know although there's so much corruption although Islam has been spreading such a negative image although there are so many haters to Islam she Azzam haters to Ahlul Bayt he will actually prove the true Ahlul Bayt and how I can be one of his followers I don't know I try be as religious as possible as possible be polite be giving be thankful be peaceful help and try to follow some other hadith that have been written and say doing these acts are acting on such specific ways will faster the process of my Mehdi actually coming as a savior to us


Show your rings, okay. Good morning guys, welcome to vlogmas day one. I'm gonna kind of explain what vlogmas is and how it works right at the beginning of this vlog, but I just wanted to show you how clean and magical our house is looking. We have a very special thing that's happening today and I don't know if I can tell you everything, I don't even know if I'm gonna get a lot of footage but we'll save that for later. Our kitchen is all nice look, everything's cleaned off. Well there's still a few little things obviously.  So basically, how vlogmas works is a daily vlog up until Christmas. I think I'm still gonna vlog Christmas. I don't have any good plans or interesting plans for Christmas, but basically what vlogmas is and how it works is I am going to vlog today, which is December 1st and I am going to get this vlog up on Tuesday, on the second, so it kind of goes like that. Vlog the first, upload second, vlog the second, upload third, you know how it is. And I'm hoping to get every vlog up around seven, I don't know, I'm going out of town like tomorrow. So hopefully Disney Vero Beach has a good and fast Wi-Fi because I'm gonna need it. Anyway, I'm just having my breakfast. It's 8.30, gotta leave at 8.45. But anyway, we got the vitamin D, we got the Flintstone of vitamins, and my bar, always have this. Anyway, I gotta go because I gotta hurry and get to school because education, edumication is important, so we meet again in the art room, we have to draw that thing again, as you saw in my last vlog, and I don't know how much, like, how long this vlog's gonna be. My life's not that exciting, I guess. So we were supposed to draw a zoomed out version of negative space, so. I'm keeping that in there just so you know. No. So yeah, that's the drawing, and then this is, that's what I drew. So, the bar stool with the stick hanging through it. Yeah, it's harder than it looks, guys. Okay, finished product, yep. So we just shaded in everything so to give it the 3D effect. So now I'm in my car, I'm just gonna have my regular lunch. You guys know me personally, if you do, then you know what my regular lunch is, but if you go and search in my past vlog, I talk about my regular lunch, and that, like, I always, like, had that in high school and stuff. Well, I still have it, so. It's just like hard boiled eggs with, like, nothings, which are, like, really, really good chips. You should try it. Nothings, celery, and I love Oreos, as you guys know, so I always have that with a bottle of water that is my regular lunch. I can't believe I only have five clips. Like, I don't know. This is gonna be really challenging for me to get, like, enough footage, you know what I mean? So I just ran into the store to get a card for my parents. I'm so excited, guys, so excited. Hi, guys. So, right now I got some packages that I'm going to unbox on camera because I wanna make at least the first day of Vlogmas really good and entertaining, which I think it will be, but, you know, you know. So this comes from Luca and Gray. It's Aspen's store, formerly known as Shop AOF, and I'm just, like, really excited, and it's so cool. Well, I don't know. I think it's kinda weird and cool at the same time that, like, these packages were in Aspen and Parker's vlog, you know? It was in it, and I just thought it was pretty cool. Okay, so, got it open, you know? So, it looks like this. It's so cute. It says wifey on it. Isn't it ironic that I got a wifey shirt when my parents are getting married? Look at how cute it is. It says wifey on it, even though I'm, like, single AF. Like, let's just not talk about that. It's just depressing, but it's really, really soft. Next package comes from Target. You guys know I was struggling to find the film for you guys for the giveaway. I just looked online. That's why online shopping is so much better than regular shopping because they actually have the items. But anyway, I found what I was looking for at Target, so whoever wins my giveaway can find the film for the Polaroid camera at Target. And I just ordered this online. It came really, really fast, so. All right, so here's the invoice, and then here it is. Why did they have to pack this little thing in this big of a box? Like, isn't that funny? That's so silly. It is just the Polaroid 300 Instant Film, and it's the brand Polaroids, so make sure when you purchase film it's Polaroid, it's not Fuji film because it won't work. The correct film and the camera are going to be shipped out after I pick the winner on December 17th. Someone asked me when the giveaway ended, so just go back to the video and look at it. I have a reminder on my phone to pick the winner and stuff. I'm really happy that this came in, and everything's in. I'm really, really happy, and I'm excited to wear my shirt. Valerie's home! Hi. From Ohio, they haven't seen you in ages, so. Hi, how are you? So Valerie's in there just getting everything ready. Our house looks amazing. I wish it looked like that all the time. Yeah, I have to go grab something to eat because we didn't wanna mess up the kitchen in there, so I think I'm gonna get Chick-fil-A, because it's not too far from my house, and I had a healthy lunch. So, let's go. ["Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"] Okay, so I got my big camera out with my SD card that I'm gonna film on, and then I got my tripod all set up. I don't know what angle we're gonna do. Probably like here. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just really, really excited, guys. We are gonna start the ceremony pretty soon, and that's not gonna be online, but maybe a little bit after it will be online. I don't know. I have to convince Valerie, you know how it goes. Okay, so as you guys know, my parents got married. We're going to Bureau Beach. Yeah, okay. All right, good, and guys, you just got married. Where are you going? We're going to Disney World! Show your rings, okay. Cute. Rough hands. Rough hands, whoa! Okay, so that is going to be it for Vlogmas Day One. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Oh, guys, I'm wearing clothes, sorry. That looked really weird. It was certainly a very memorable day, night for our family, and yeah. So without further ado, don't forget to subscribe for tomorrow's video, and I will see you in my next video. Bye!