Covid19 Pandemic, Unemployment and Saving Democracy in An Election Year

September-October 2020 I spent a good 20-30 hours per week phone-banking, texting through Bernie’s network and letter writing through Pramila Jayapal’s organizing efforts in Mobilize US targeted at swing states such as: MI, PA, FL, GA, AZ, NV, IA... I worked the local Alameda election for progressive candidates Malia Vella and Jim Oddie. But we know that Gretchen Lipow’s Alameda Citizen’s Task Force (ACT) created a PAC called “A Better Alameda” (ABA) which we suspect is how the pro-landlord groups inside and outside of Alameda organized to split engage in negative campaigning of Progressive candidates Vella and Oddie by splitting the votes between Trish Spencer, Gig Codiga and Amos White. Amos White was supported because he appears progressive but he isn’t on Measure Z (He supports Measure 26/A, exclusionary zoning…) The national presidential election debate with Trump was a reality show just like his presidency. The TV networks had to control Mr. Trump’s immature outbursts and rude interruptions in the second debate by allowing the interviewer to mute the debaters and to draw clear boundaries to tame mostly Trump’s domineering outbursts. U.S. Presidential debates were more side show than informative for the American public but Biden got praise for maintaining a mature attitude. Most activists on a range of issues such as on climate change/global warming (Green New Deal), Medicare for All, Corporate Money out of politics, Wall Street reform, Criminal Justice reform etc… voted for Biden in order to Get Trump Out. Over the next week and following weeks, President Trump refused to concede and would take to twitter to repeat again and again, “I won the election,” “the Democratic votes were fraudulent”, “the Democrats cheated.” Fox news and Trumps PR machine which includes companies such as Brietbart, and OAN, have continued to tell Trump supporters that Covid doesn’t exist, Trump won the election and the Democratic votes for Biden were a fraud – all of these allegations with no evidence, not based on science or expertise. President Elect Joe Biden and VP Elect Kamala Harris won nearly by a landslide both the Popular Vote and the Electoral Vote – it’s been revealed after days of courageous processing and counting of votes by State Election Officials in PA, NV, AZ and GA even in the face of insane Trump supporters posing as Election Observers, in some odd places with army jackets and wearing weapons to try to intimidate voters. Even if some of the fraud cases were to lead to changes in numbers there would not be enough of a change in the Electoral Votes to make any difference. On the contrary, international election observers from the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation for Europe) from some 13 countries saw no evidence of voter fraud alleged by Trump’s team of lawyers, many who risk their professional credentials for making false claims. Case after case by Trump’s voter fraud legal team lead by Rudy Gulliano, has been dismissed due to lack of evidence. Despite Trump’s attempt to change the numbers by suing, alleging fraud with no evidence, the Democrats must contend with the unfortunate fact that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have both been re-elected despite their pandering to and enabling of President Trump’s many dangerous, white supremacist enabling and numerous human rights violations among them the separation of parents from children, caging of immigrant and refugee children and use of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel to beat up and intimidate BLM and young protesters in Washington D.C., Portland, Seattle and Oakland. That is only the tip of the iceberg. Trump’s goal has been to privatize the entire federal government – such as by appointed Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee to take over the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and to destroy the institution’s capacity to deliver Mail-By-Votes on time. According to black civil rights and voting rights experts such as Stacy Abrahams, Cliff Albright and Latosha Brown, voter suppression all over the U.S. has been rampant, no longer in just the south. Both Trump and McConnell have said that, “…if everyone were allowed to vote who is eligible, then the Republicans would lose…”