As millions of Americans went out to vote on November 3rd for the next president of the United States, many started to think that they would have to wait days or even weeks to find out who the winner was. This fear ended up being true, specifically in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, as they took longer to tally up the results. Once the in-person ballots were counted and began to project a lead and possible win for Trump, he then declared victory on the night of November 3rd, something that only an authoritarian would do.
Furthermore, a campaign to “Stop the count!” was launched by his followers, trying to retain Trump’s win in states like Pennsylvania and completely ignore legitimate mail-in votes that could shift the outcome. Due to the nature of how the votes were counted in those states, Trump started with a lead, but it then slowly but surely went down as the mail-in votes were counted. These mail-in votes heavily skewed Democrats, as Trump had repeatedly questioned the safety of this voting method and encouraged his voters to vote in person. So, states that were originally thought to be won by Trump ended up being won by Biden instead. For example, Georgia, a state that Republicans thought would be red, turned blue for the first time since Bill Clinton’s win in 1992 partly thanks to the hard work by grassroots organizers and Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who lost in the 2018 Georgia senate race by a very close margin.
With a win in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Biden’s victory was secured as media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News projecting that Joe Biden would become president-elect. President Trump did not accept this, going on to launch lawsuits against practically every battleground state while claiming voter fraud with little to no evidence. “I won the Election!” and “Most fraudulent Election in history!” were claims that would be repeatedly posted and spread on Twitter, with Trump even retweeting fraudulent “evidence” on the site. Such accusations were so misleading that Twitter moderators had to step in and report them. Currently, Trump has yet to concede, unable to accept the will of the people while Republican lawmakers and close friends of the President have done nothing to adequately respond to his behavior, with some even promoting it. However, as world leaders have already started to congratulate Biden on his win, everyone is already preparing for a Biden presidency. What Trump must do is clear, he has to concede and admit loss so that a peaceful transition of power can be ensured and retain the minuscule amount of integrity that he has left.
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