God, I never thought we would see a spectacle like this. In the aftermath of the strange election, we are seeing court challenges orchestrated through state courts and federal benches. It is exciting to watch this play out! It is a new form of Democracy, right here in America.

The media coronation of the new Administration has been a drumbeat in most of the press. Fox, the maligned source of misinformation, has been overturned and joined the mainstream media narrative. Mr. Biden is the President Elect, despite not being certified as such by any actual government agency. It was a strange campaign his people ran, featuring most of his time in the basement of his plush Delaware home. His historic running mate featured an odd, offsetting cackle when asked questions about her extreme liberal record.

The chart above shows a bit about what we yet have to endure before we have the answers we expected at the end of Election Day There is still the Georgia matter, with the balance of the Senate at stake, and very exciting. That will not be decided until after another chapter of this endless election. Sooner to come is the next major milestone contained in our founding document, the US Constitution. That would be the selection of the Electors who will eventually vote to confirm somebody as President. The first step is December 14th, and there will be a fight about that. The legislatures of the various states have options on how to do it, and depending on which ones are utilized, will spark more court challenges.

The unspoken but real threat of renewed street violence will be part of that. Note how most of the violence was curtailed in order to support the orderly transition of power to new masters and mistresses. About half of us, or at least the half whose votes were counted generously, want us to believe everything was fair and we just need to pull together and move forward. The other half- some say the majority- think someone was cooking the books. Their voices are suppressed in order to further the narrative of Mr. Biden’s legal triumph.

“Keep calm and count on” is one of the phrases we are hearing. Look for some interesting things before December 14th. The new Administration- see, they have me doing it too- has announced a primary role for one of the architects of the wildly successful Affordable Care Act. Mr. Emmanuel has also been noted for his view that citizens ought to pass from this life to whatever is next by age 75. Now, he supports a four-to-six week national shutdown to avoid a viral plague with a 99.5% survival rate.

That will kill small business. Dr. Tony Fauci noted that in a meeting I attended at the Department of Health and Human Services during the response to the SARS epidemic. He cautioned us that shut downs were potentially worse than allowing the infections to run their course. I liked and trusted him at the time, but I think I knew more then than I do now.

Of course, that was then and now is…well, like breakfast. I note in passing that the last shutdown hasn’t gone away. It was billed at the time as “two weeks to flatten the curve.” I think that was eight months ago. Some people seem to like untrammeled executive authority exercised under emergency powers. I am sure there will be more fun to report next week, but for now, violence is not useful to the people who use it. That is probably not going to be true as key decision points are reached, and then passed without resolution.

We polled the staff at Socotra LLC to get a sense for what our correspondents are thinking. Most responded they were trying to avoid that these days. It hurts.

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here!

– Vic

Copyright 2020 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com