I really thought that, by the time I sat down to write this article, it would be really outdated. After all, election night was on November 3rd, and this edition of the Whittier is not released until the middle of December. My thoughts could not have been further from the truth. Over the past month, the Trump campaign has launched dozens of lawsuits against various states across the country and has instilled fear in a number of Americans when it comes to the proper conduct of the 2020 election. Though there has literally been zero evidence unearthed that proves that there was malfeasance, a large percentage of Trump voters believe, blindly, that the election was “stolen” and Biden was handed a victory. This, unfortunately, has extended the election process significantly and greeted even more partisan tension. Fortunately, thanks to the wonderful Democratic processes in the United States, Joe Biden will be sworn in January 2021. 

2020 has already been an interesting year for everyone. Hundreds of thousands of people have died of the Coronavirus, normalcy has been taken away, and unprecedented economic strife. This presidential election has been absolutely no exception. When I walked into the voting booth on November 3rd nothing could have prepared me for the fight that would come. First off, the results. They came in at a trickle, with the gimme states for each candidate being called, and the swing states leaving us in suspense. At a Biden rally that I attended later that week, the news became much more clear: he was going to win this election. Soon after, many hotly contested and important states were called as a Biden victory. 5 days after the election, it was clear that he had won, and victory was announced on that crisp Saturday night at the riverfront in Wilmington. So, this should have been the end, right? Over the course of the last few elections, the news-media and analysts have been the ones to call the race, and the American people have followed their decision (with the exception of the 2000 election, but I’ll talk about that later). In 2016, after a variety of news networks called the race for President Trump and Vice President Pence, President Obama and then-Vice President Biden immediately assisted in the peaceful transition of power, something that is the foundation of our successful and credible democracy. In 2020, however, President Trump seems to be incapable of accepting his clear and decisive defeat. The contrast between every other administration, and his own, is stark. The same networks that Americans trusted when they called the race for him in 2016 are now invalid. The processes that were used to elect him in 2016 now “riddled with fraud.” Many of his supporters are the same way, and cannot seem to fathom a world where Trump loses. They can’t seem to see a reality where “Sleepy Joe” somehow won the election because of all of the “fraud.” Fortunately for them, the courts would step in and reveal all of the inaccuracies of this election, right? After all, they stepped in and overturned Al Gore’s wins in Florida in 2000, right? Wrong. The 2000 election was literally separated by a tiny margin of votes. Joe Biden, at the time of writing this article, leads the president by roughly 7 MILLION votes. This is an insurmountable lead. But if there’s fraud, the results should be overturned! Well, over the course of roughly 40 court cases across the country, the Trump campaign has won ONE of them. ONE. So, about a month later, the truth is clear. Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States, and there is absolutely nothing Trump can do about it.