Presidential Election 2020

Nor You and I escape history.  And we shouldn't want to for many of us have been given much; liberty, opportunity, a sense of possibility.  The tasks of our times is to make sure those gifts are available not just to folks who look like me but to all of us.  Jon Meacham, August 20, 2020

Years from now historians will look at the Presidential Election of 2020 as that which democracy in the United States was really put to the test.  The incumbent president, Donald Trump was already governing under a cloud of scandal due to how he was allegedly elected in the Presidential Election of 2016 against Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

For the first three years of the Trump administration the national economy was humming along building onto what had been started in the previous eight years by Barack Obama.  But while the economy seemed to be going gang busters, many, particularly the overwhelming number of candidates for the Democratic Nomination felt that the United States was morally on a downward spiral.  Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States for eight years had no intention of returning to public life after his term was up in 2017, but when he saw the people in Charlottesville coming out of a field with tiki torches and the president declaring that there are good and bad people on both sides; Biden decided he needed to run to help restore the soul of America.

Then, in the middle of 2019, Donald Trump was exposed by a whistle blower for making a phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to find dirt on Joe Biden for the upcoming Election.  In what President Trump called “a perfect phone call” earned him two charges: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress resulting in an impeachment by the House of Representatives with a vote of 230 to 197 with one present and three not voting on Article I, Abuse of Power and 229 to 198 and one present and three not voting on Article II, Obstruction of Congress.  Ironically, the day that Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives it was one day shy of the 23rd anniversary of when Bill Clinton was impeached back in 1998.  The president would be acquitted in the Senate trial on February 5, 2020, the day after the State of the Union Address.  The vote was for Article I, 48 guilty and 52 not guilty.  Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote guilty.  On Article II, the vote was 47 guilty and 53 not guilty.

By 2020, the economy was starting to slow down some, but inflation was low and so was unemployment.  But then, in March 2020, the United States was forced into an indefinite lockdown due to coronavirus or COVID-19 attacking our shores.  For the rest of the year, Donald Trump and the Republican Party downplayed COVID declaring first that it would disappear by Easter.  The Democrats seemed to be cautious due to not knowing what the virus was all about and asked to wear masks and to social distance.  Then, by May 2020, businesses started to slowly open up, but the nation's children were still learning from home.  Because of this virus, Congress; under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Mitch McConnell in the Senate passed the CARES Act with 96 percent of the total Congress supporting it.  This law made it possible for anyone who filed a 2019 tax return, even if you were serving time in jail to receive a $1200.00 stimulus check.  They started going out by Tax Day.  The American people would receive another $1,400.00 check in the fall and by the new year, $600.00.

COVID-19 was the dominant issue of 2020 and many felt that the president was downplaying its seriousness due to it being an election year and historically, as was the case in the Presidential Election of 1992 and the Presidential Election of 2008; when the economy tanks, the Party in power loses the White House.  This virus was so bad that two days after the first presidential debate; Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19.  While we didn't know at the time, when he left the White House for Walter Reed Hospital, he was physically not doing well.

In February 2016, Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia had unexpectedly passed away.  Per the Constitution of the United States the president of the United States can place in nomination their choice for the Supreme Court…According to Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution states that He (the President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senators, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls (today we would call them Cabinet Officers), Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as the think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.  Barack Obama knew with a majority Republican Senate he wanted to make a compromise decision that Republicans would feel comfortable with.  Waiting a month for the nation to mourn Justice Scalia, President Obama went to Utah Senator Orin Hatch to ask whom they would be comfortable with having a hearing for to replace the late Scalia.  Senator Hatch agreed on the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Merrick Garland.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, eight months before a presidential election refused even a hearing as he used Senator Joe Biden's 1992 logic against President Obama to in an election year let the people decide who picks the next Supreme Court Justice.  Judge Garland never got his Judiciary Committee hearing and the newly elected President, Donald Trump got to appoint Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.

Fast forward to the fall of 2020.  Associate Justice Ruth Bater Ginsburg, who had been ill for some time expired.  The United States was faced with another Supreme Court vacancy during an election year, but unlike 2016 when Scalia died nine months before an election and 11 months before Barack Obama's term expired; Ginsburg's death was just approximately six weeks before the election and four months before Donald Trump's first term expired.  The Senate was still in Republican Party control and Senator Mitch McConnell was still the Majority Leader.  This time though, McConnell saw an opportunity to gain a super majority of conservative, activist judges to finally overturn Roe vs. Wade when taking up the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson (Mississippi) Women's Health Organization.  Donald Trump announced within hours of Justice Ginsburg's death his third Nominee to the Supreme Court; Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Amy Coney Barrett. By June 2022, the Supreme Court voted in the affirmative with all three Donald Trump nominees voting in the affirmative for Dobbs.  For the first time in history, depending on who you talk to, the Supreme Court had voted to take rights away from the United States' citizens, a woman's right to choose.

Race, just like in the Presidential Election of 1968 and 1992 before this one became front and center.  With the recorded murder of George Floyd by a, Minneapolis police officer in the spring of 2020, American cities were erupting in protest, even to the point that like 1968 and 1992; riots were breaking out.  President Trump, and this is reminiscent of Kent State in 1970, it came out that he wanted to have the DC National Guard shoot peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park across from the White House shot in the leg before his photo op holding a Bible at a church across the way.  But race in these four years was an issue before George Floyd.  In 2017, the President spoke of very fine people on both sides.  That moment was when Joe Biden decided to get out of retirement and run for President in 2020.

The other major issue was mail in ballots.  Because of COVID, many Americans were opting to vote by mail.  This came across as a threat to the GOP as again, historically when more people vote, the Democrats usually win.  Trump's team, having had a playbook ready for their imminent loss in 2016 against Hillary Clinton was going to have the Republican candidate talk about a rigged system and fraudulent votes.  The Post Master General, Louis DeJoy even went so far as to dismantle some mail machine and have mailboxes removed from urban areas of the country.

In the end, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump and Mike Pence receiving 306 Electoral Votes or 81,283,501 (51.3 percent) of the Popular Vote to 232 Electoral Votes or 74,223,975 (46.8 percent) of the Popular Vote.

But that was not the end of the story.  Early in the evening of the Election, even before all of the votes could be counted in states like  Pennsylvania as the Republican State Legislature passed a law that mail in ballots could not be counted until the polls closed.  President Trump went out to declare victory, but by morning; with the mail in ballots, Biden and Harris were taking a lead.  The Presidential Election that was held on November 3rd would not call a winner until November 7th; ironically the 48th anniversary of when Joe Biden was elected at the time the youngest United States Senator at age 29, turning 30 on November 20th, and now he was elected the oldest president at age 77.

With the Election over and the electors from each state declaring Joe Biden the President-elect in December, that should have been the end of it and a peaceful transfer of power could go on.  Donald Trump was still claiming fraud going into the new year and the Electoral Votes would be certified by Congress on January 6, 2021.

That morning, Congress met in joint session with Mike Pence in his capacity as the President of the Senate and Nancy Pelosi in her capacity as Speaker of the House presided.  Down the street at the Elipse Donald Trump was having a Stop the Steal Rally to take back the country.  The events are too much to describe, but you can hear it all in the DC Riot 2021.  These events did lead to a week later the president being impeached for a second time by the House of Representatives on a charge of incitement of insurrection with a vote of 232 to 187, and four not voting.  Ten Republican members of the House including Liz Cheney voted this time for impeachment.  The former President was acquitted in his Senate trial on February 13, 2021 by a vote of 57 guilty and 43 not guilty; ten votes shy of the 67 votes needed for a conviction.  Seven Republicans, including Mitt Romney for a second time voted for conviction.

As of this writing, COVID-19 is still present in our lives, but fewer people are dying from it due to vaccines that were starting to be made available in late 2020 under Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed.  As for January 6, 2021, the House of Representatives created a select committee where nine hearings were seen on television or heard on the radio, and since November 18, 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special council to investigate Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 and his removing of top secret documents from the White House and storing them at his Florida estate, Mar-a Lago.

See also Impeachment of Donald Trump, Indictment of Donald Trump, and DC Riot 2021.

See also:

• Presidential Election 1940
• Presidential Election 1944
• Presidential Election 1948
• Presidential Election 1952
• Presidential Election 1956
• Presidential Election 1960
• Presidential Election 1964
• Presidential Election 1968
• Presidential Election 1972
• Presidential Election 1976
• Presidential Election 1980
• Presidential Election 1984
• Presidential Election 1988
• Presidential Election 1992
• Presidential Election 1996
• Presidential Election 2000
• Presidential Election 2004
• Presidential Election 2008
• Presidential Election 2012
• Presidential Election 2016
• Presidential Election 2020