What a terrible election. As far as I can tell from the vote analysts, Biden is highly likely to pull this out — the outstanding votes in WI/MI/PA and, for different reasons, GA are likely to be very Democratic, he's probably won AZ and NV. But then what? 1/
The good news is that if Biden has in fact won, we've avoided an immediate collapse into authoritarianism. Yes, it was and is that dire. But will Biden be able to govern? 2/
He'll probably face a Republican Senate, which also means a rigged Supreme Court; and everything we know says that they'll be ruthless about sabotaging everything he does 3/
This means no effective response to an exploding pandemic. No income support for those left destitute. No infrastructure. No action on climate. 4/
Biden kept saying about the awfulness of the Trump era, "that's not who we are." Well, it's not who the majority of us are — he's probably going to win the popular vote by 5 percent or so. But it is, it turns out, who a lot of us are. 5/
And the wildly unrepresentative nature of the Senate empowers the large minority of voters who actually like the authoritarian style — which turns out, shockingly, to include not just white guys in diners but many Latinos. 6/
Assuming Biden wins, the thought police won't be locking up journalists, scientists, etc anytime soon — and yes, that was something I really feared. But America will look more and more like a failed state. 7/
The fight for truth and justice will have to continue. But it's going to be far bleaker than seemed likely just 24 hours ago. fin/
You can follow @paulkrugman.
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