[ad_1]
Wednesday, 5pm: If you expected (half) a rerun of 2016, you don’t. On this day and at this time four years ago I was drunk – ranting drunk too. I do not recommend drinking excessively; Every time I get a couple more than I should, I have been known to mess up my sentence construction, but I never, ever go crazy for throwing pillows. Apart from that day.
At this point, four years ago, Trump had taken Florida. Florida was the deciding factor. It was too real and yet unreal; the end of the discussion and yet impossible to believe.
Once it was all over, President Obama and Hilary Clinton made public statements: Trump was owed an open mind and an opportunity to lead (Clinton) and we were all “rooting” for him to succeed (Obama). How picturesque those words seem, America is now a shattered spectacle of division and enmity. Remember that wrinkle back in time when some thought, once in the White House, Trump would drop his snake oil stunt and become … presidential? Where did they get that confidence from? After four years of exhaustion, we know that he really is incompetent, a liar, unable to lead.
Wednesday, 6pm A new electoral jargon should be noted: the “blue mirages” and the “red mirages” created by one hundred million early votes. In some states they are the first to be counted and in some they will be the last and the result is a changing picture of a vote that initially breaks down for Biden or Trump, but will change later.
READ MORE:
* Elections in the US: Concerns about the safety of vote counters and debate on election observers.
* Election in the United States: Biden is close to victory in the race for the White House
* Anthony Scaramucci, fired by Donald Trump after 11 days, suggests that America needs a leader like Jacinda Ardern.
AP
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their second presidential debate in 2016. Although Clinton also led the polls and lost, Biden’s lead is greater than hers.
Arizona is the first to do so, according to early reports from, of all places, Fox News. The president is reportedly incandescent (fluorescent orange?) Angrily and calls Rupert Murdoch to demand a retraction. Don’t get one.
Wednesday, 7pm: No one has turned up at our open house on election night, but I have none of the heartbreak that I normally might have (what a friendless loser!). a group thread. Much better than watching me carry a clue on the living room rug. I am a cartoon exhausted with anxiety; spiky hair, obsessed, less than five hours of sleep a night since the weekend. At 2 a.m. Wednesday, I FaceTimeed my sister, who has lived in Manhattan for over a decade. Happy Election Day, I said. He grimaced – our usual absent brotherly joke. How would she feel for another four years in Trump’s America? The question hung in midair, but neither of them wanted to answer.
Wednesday: Times get confusing. Joe Biden calls for calm and patience, too big a job even for Santa Monica, much less for a deadly politician. A week ago I was reassured when I re-watched the 2012 election episodes of The news room, where producer Jim Harper confuses his states and calls Michigan early, watching in horror as the race tightens to just hundreds of votes. His day is saved, of course (this is fiction) and Jeff Daniels as network presenter Will McAvoy calmly calls for the Obama presidency, before midnight. There is no deranged orange that casts unfounded doubts on the democratic process. In light of today’s events, it all seems ridiculously naive.
There is no Biden landslide. On TV3, Paul Henry says that Democrats once again failed to really understand Trump’s appeal in rural America. Who can argue? Here’s what the world now knows about the United States: It’s even more deeply divided than it was in 2016.
Wednesday, 8:00 p.m. Trump was expected to be in the East Room of the White House for what seemed like hours. There are agonizingly slow minutes that local coverage hosts must fill (every television host’s nightmare) and on TV3, they are understandably desperate; Enough to draw on Anthony Scaramucci’s accounts. Like many Americans, especially political experts, ‘The Mooch’ talks about a great game. His cheek fills the void and is a bit reassuring, until one of the hosts suggests that he tell us, from his close acquaintance with the man, what Trump is. really like. Scaramucci knew Trump from the New York money scene a decade ago, but as president? The fact that he was the White House Director of Communications for a single week is put aside, ignored like his drunken uncle at Christmas dinner.
AP
Trump clenches his fist as the United States waits.
A broken water pipe disrupts the vote count in Georgia. You couldn’t make these things up.
Wednesday, shortly after 8 pm Trump appears and the resulting spiel drips with icicles of foreboding and is very boring. Snorting like a tragic Hollywood cocaine with a septum that disintegrates, whines and swings against democracy, he hints that the elections have been stolen. Our group message thread gets livelier, with descriptions like toddler and numpty, and cruder, more precise words that I can’t list here.
TV One interrupts Trump to go to Location Location Location – a wise decision.
Wednesday, 11:00 pm: Local coverage comes to an end; we call it a night. And he sleeps very badly.
Thursday (all day): Biden takes Michigan. Soda and soda and soda. By the time I leave office, The New York Times still has Biden in 253 electoral college votes; other outlets bring him closer to victory at 264. S The number of viewers for Stuff’s live election coverage is huge and growing; New Zealand is mesmerized by the slowly moving sands.
Friday, 12:15 pm: Time, schmime. What is it even? I lost my control over it, maybe a day ago, a month ago? The constant renewal of results (which never come) feels like a fool’s game; there is a more human story that I am in danger of missing while looking at the graphics. Connected with the count, but not with the count itself, not with the numbers, but with the pure bloody mind commitment of the vote counters on the east and west coast, ignoring the pressure and intimidation. Nevada recorder Joe Gloria becomes a hero for his handling of the man who rants with barbecue, beer and Freedom T-shirt. This must be the hardest job in the world right now.
AP
People protest in support of the recount of all votes in the Clark County Elections Department.
After tweeting furiously from the White House residence since election night, Trump must return to the stage.
Friday, 1:15 pm: The cameras tune in to the president, but this time his blatant nonsense forces three major networks to cut their coverage mid-speech. CNN’s Anderson Cooper sums up: “That’s the President of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world. And we see him as an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the blazing sun, realizing that his time is up. “
Friday, 1.30 pm: My daughter walks in and out of the room reporting updates as I type: The race in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona is on a razor’s edge. CNN will not call Arizona as Biden’s 2 percent lead is shrinking. In Georgia it is a difference of 0.1 percent.
Saturday, 1:00 p.m. I call my sister again. She is cautious and will not join my burgeoning convictions of a Biden win, all she will say is “things are looking a little brighter today.”
