Columnists

We've had more than a week to consider the election results and several things jump out:

1.It was a big win: The Biden-Harris campaign brought out a huge vote. 538's Nate Silver estimates: "Extrapolating out from current vote totals, I project Biden winning the popular vote by 4.3 percentage points and getting 81.8 million votes to President Trump’s 74.9 million, with a turnout of around 160 million." To put this in perspective, no previous candidate has ever garnered more than 70 million votes. (Biden's win was the largest popular vote margin since Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2009.)

Biden flipped the 2016 results and garnered 306 electoral votes. This included the key Democratic objective of carrying the mid-West "blue Wall" states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) along with Arizona and Georgia..

Trump joined the infamous "one-term" President club, alongside Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush. -more-

Election 2020: Winners and Losers

Car horns started blaring at 9AM on November 4, prompting me to wonder "Could it be…?"

And then I saw people dancing in the street.

Yep, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were on their way to claiming the largest number of votes in the history of US presidential politics.

The good news is that Joe and Kamala won by a 5 million-vote margin. The prospect of a Trumpless White House seemed assured. (Barring GOP lawsuits, trickery, manipulations of the Electoral College, and flirtations with "faithless electors.")

But now we're left with the question: How much damage can a vindictive, lame-duck Trump do in his remaining days in office? More billion-dollar arms deals with the Saudis? A war with China? An attack on Iran? Firing Dr. Fauci? The possibilities are endless.

The next question is: What will Joe do? Look for his cabinet choices. Will there be a spot for Elizabeth Warren (Secretary of Treasury) or Bernie Sanders (Secretary of Labor)? -more-

The United States again shattered pandemic records, reporting more than 153,000 new coronavirus cases on Nov. 12 as some 66,000 people were hospitalized nationwide with the highest daily death toll of 1,893 since May. It was the seventh time in nine days that reported U.S. infections reached new heights. -more-

A person can harness a great deal of energy and power by becoming hyper-attached to something. It can cause immunity to much of one's emotional and physical suffering, it can allow a person to bulldoze over opponents and perceived enemies. and it can enable a person to do seemingly superhuman feats. However, there are many downsides, including for someone who is strictly self-interested.

In 1981, I tried to harness the power that comes with hyper-attachment. Hyper attachment was one of many contributing factors to becoming mentally ill at the beginning of my adulthood.

(There were a number of other problems, not of my making, that contributed to becoming ill. I am not going to dredge them up.) -more-

It is hard not to be drawn into the pandemic that is raging across the country and it is disappointing to hear Berkeleyans planning social get-togethers thinking somehow all this concern about coronavirus doesn’t apply here. This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to exponential spread of COVID-19.

It was even more disappointing to hear our Health Officer say last Monday that celebrating Thanksgiving with up to three families all of whom are “bubbled” and not socializing beyond that group would be fine. The problem is not everyone defines what it means to “bubble” the same way. I am not confident that current luck of low incidence in Berkeley will hold.

This column is about what happened locally in city meetings and community group, so let’s get to it. -more-