Weasels and chainsaws distracted me from getting to the obvious first thing I feel I'm supposed to blog this morning. That's how dull it is.

 

Biden tottered out onto the national stage last night and said some words. I was asleep, so good for him. The old man stayed up late. Or got up early, maybe. Ha ha. What was it, 11 p.m.? 

I'll just read the transcript. Excerpts:

Good evening, my fellow Americans. We don’t have a final declaration of victory yet but the numbers tell us it’s clear. They tell us a clear and convincing story we’re going to win this race....

So he came out, not to prematurely declare victory, but to tell us he sees it in the future. He uses the legal phrase "clear and convincing" — which is a standard of proof more than "preponderance of the evidence" and less than "beyond a reasonable doubt." He's assessing evidence and essentially asserting that if he had to decide whether he'd won based on the evidence before us right now, he'd say he did, and that he's telling us this opinion because the standard "clear and convincing" is good enough for the purpose of when it's a good idea to come out on the national stage and assert your opinion. 

The evidence is still dribbling in, however, so he also could have waited. There must be some political advantage to claiming the stage and expecting us to listen to his prediction. I'm just guessing the reasoning had something to do with its being Friday. We need something semi-tangible to end Election Week.  

And what’s becoming clear each hour is that a record number of Americans of all races, faiths religions chose change over more of the same. They’ve given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism.

Oh, now that's a stretch. He's barely won, if indeed he's won. We still don't know. But if he's won, he wants you to know, that there's the mysterious thing called "a mandate." And he specifies the components of the mandate — "a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism." Wasn't it more of a vote just to be rid of Donald Trump? But that's the claim, the 4 elements of what we supposedly want — do something about COVID, the economy, climate change, and systemic racism. 

I say "we," but I see that Biden called us "they" — "They’ve given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism." They've given us. I take it "us" is the Democratic Party, and "they" is the people. They the People of the United States...

They made it clear they want the country to come together not continue to pull apart.

Yeah, he meant to "they" us. And he pictures us agglomerating into a more perfectly manipulable blob. Don't pull apart! Get together so that We the Democratic Party can take action on the Big 4 — COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism. I'll call it "CECS" to be snazzy. 

The people spoke, more than 74 million Americans and they spoke loudly for our ticket....

It was so loud we're still straining to hear it after 4 days.  

Look, we both know tensions are high, they can be high after a tough election, the one like we’ve had but we need to remember we have to remain calm, patient. Let the process work out as we count all the votes... In America, we hold strong views, we have strong disagreements and that’s okay. Strong disagreements are inevitable in a democracy and strong disagreements are healthy, they’re a sign of a vigorous debate of deeply held views. But we have to remember the purpose of our politics isn’t total, unrelenting, unending warfare, no. The purpose of our politics, the work of the nation isn’t to fan the flames of conflict but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to get to improve the lives of our people. We may be opponents but we’re not enemies, we’re Americans. No matter who you voted for I’m certain of one thing, the vast majority of them, almost 150 million Americans who voted they want to get the vitriol out of our politics.

That would sit better with me if he hadn't begun and ended his campaign by portraying President Trump as a racist. I think Biden fanned the flames and relied on dividing us. All winners claim to represent all of the people. It's a convention to say that after you've won... or after the votes are in and you're perceiving victory just out there in the near future. But I have no confidence that the Democratic Party will use whatever power it's managed to scrape together to unite this country. Let them prove it... with clear and convincing evidence.

We’re certainly not going to agree on a lot of issues but at least we can agree to be civil with one another.

And that's where you get my "civility bullshit" tag. You're only calling for civility to get your opponents to stand down. "Civility" is a value that comes and goes.  

We have to put the anger and the demonization behind us.

Now that you've been successful at demonizing Trump, you want the demonization to stop. We "have" to do it. You should have set an example when you risked something in declining to demonize. Now, it's in your interest to put demonization off limits. Talk about things that are predictable.   

It’s time for us to come together as a nation to heal.... We don’t have any more time to waste on partisan warfare.

You haven't won yet, and I think there's some partisan warfare left. You're not nonpartisan for saying let's stop fighting at the point when you are ahead.