Congratulations, America — Once More, with Feeling [UPDATE-1]
[NB: Updates at bottom of post./~Rayne]
FINALLY we can breathe again. I swear the White House minions must have worked together to push Trump to get out and go play golf so that the media could finally make the call.
Election coverage has now taken over the entire Washington Post site, which now shows Biden at 273 electoral votes to Trump’s 214. This number varies depending on the news outlet; some have already added Nevada though that state is still counting ballots in Clark County.
People are celebrating all over the country:
People are dancing in the street on the #upperwestside!!! pic.twitter.com/tq98pGxH7C
— Harlan Erskine (@harlanerskine) November 7, 2020
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Brooklyn dancing in the street between green lights pic.twitter.com/9dux0OJHZc
— nina pullano (@NinaPullano) November 7, 2020
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People are driving around horns a blaring. Dancing in the street. I’m crying (again). ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/obTI14tupk
— HonestDogBooks (@BooksHonest) November 7, 2020
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Celebration at the Silver Spring Farmers Market. Dancing in the street! feels great! #BidenHarris pic.twitter.com/xbe5BDD1HZ
— Eileen Kessler (@EileenKesslerDC) November 7, 2020
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Such joy. Such relief. pic.twitter.com/pOL1cO9DM7
— Lindsay Sabadosa (@SabadosaMA) November 7, 2020
Nothing yet from central to western U.S. but probably just a matter of time. The relief is so palpable even over social media.
It’s difficult to convey the amount of joy women especially women of color feel right now.
I can’t tell you what it felt like to get the AP tweet and realize what it meant. To see the recognition on my kiddo’s face that a Black woman, child of immigrant parents from similar places as her family, is the Vice President-Elect of America & that love trumps hate. No words😭 https://t.co/BoK0gsW3qx
— Tatiana Bacchus (@tbacchus20) November 7, 2020
Words fail trying to express what it means to have so many firsts finally achieved — first woman, Black, South Asian, Jamaican American as VP — when the Equal Rights Amendment remains unratified since 1972, when so many Americans of color were denied their right to vote by myriad forms of suppression.
There will surely be attacks on Joe Biden’s history; his role in the Anita Hill hearings remains a bone of contention for me. But by choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate he kept faith with more than half of this country which has been systematically denied representation in their own democracy.
And in choosing Harris, Biden has also ensured the executive office hasn’t lost sight of the transition of power from one generation to another.
We have a lot to celebrate, not only because we can finally see an end to the Trump administration in 74 days. We can celebrate real change is coming.
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UPDATE-1 — 3:00 PM ET —
Still joy-scrolling through my timeline. Someone cracked wise and said the celebratory crowd in DC is bigger than Trump’s inauguration crowd. Based on the photos I’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit.
#dcmood pic.twitter.com/IWDbcTFRXh
— Kirsten Powers (@KirstenPowers) November 7, 2020
Sure hope somebody gets a drone shot or two from a decent elevation so we can guesstimate a head count.
But this one made me sniffle:
BELLS ringing across PARIS!! 💙
17h45 November 7, 2020
Biden/Harris
The world has been watching. pic.twitter.com/YdFcCEHeTC— Aliaèna (@aliaena) November 7, 2020
It’s as if we’d been at war and the war is finally over. How horribly sad this is. And yet we really have been at war with the rest of the rational world; the U.S. formally left the Paris Agreement on climate change yesterday after Trump announced we would leave a year ago.
Now the work begins as we fix the damage, restore other allies’ faith in us, and return to work together on the existential crisis facing humans.
p.s. bmaz launched a Trash Talk post for those of you who still need a sports fix.