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The following is an excerpt from a commissioned article now running at The Piedmont Chronicles.
2020: An Election Like No Other
Back in 1983, Americans were shocked when a cadre of toddlers began making startling allegations of abuse. Beginning in metro Los Angeles, the matter spread as far and wide as Florida and Washington, DC. The extensive criminal case in California stemmed from rumors of ritual exploitation and sodomy occurring in tunnels under a daycare center. The matter gave rise to what was popularly called the “Satanic Panic.” After years of exhaustive investigation, all charges and cases were dropped without any convictions. The children’s tales were written off by experts as overactive imaginations. The concerns of parents and the Christian Right were dismissed, sometimes mockingly, as baseless accusations lacking any evidence and driven by hysteria and conspiracy theory.
Over thirty years after the last hung jury in the Panic cases was dismissed, the United States held another quadrennial presidential election. I was as happy as a clam the other day when old MB asked me to sum up the affair. As you know, this was a plain, uncontested victory followed by the smoothest of transfers of power … Just Kidding! Seriously, you likely have heard much about the matter already; this is the briefest of reviews of some of the more historic events, allegations, and ramifications. A word of warning: herein, I include links to voluminous reading material; however, I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible while also including a little information you may not have read elsewhere.
The election was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. When the dust settled, the official popular vote tally was 81,268,924 for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Biden) and 74,216,154 for Donald Trump and Mike Pence (Trump). In December, Biden tentatively defeated Trump with an Electoral College vote of 306 to 232. Congress jointly assembled to certify the vote on January 6, 2021, and following mildly entertaining antics did so certify Biden’s victory on January 7th. Surrounded by several dozen supporters and tens of thousands of soldiers, Biden was sworn in as the US’s 46th President on January 20, 2021. There were, as it turned out, a few hiccups along the way.
First, concerning the popular vote, to call it a “record turnout” is an understatement. Biden, who had barely campaigned, received the highest number of votes in history. Trump, who had barely campaigned coherently, obliterated Hillary Clinton’s winning popular vote from 2016 and both of Barack Obama’s victories in 2012 and 2008. In fact, Biden aside, Trump received the most popular votes in history – and yet still lost by over 7 million votes to a man who had barely campaigned. A very interesting anomaly. The final arrival of those winning votes was interesting too.
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