Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States.

Some state races are very close so there will be some recounts in places like Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania but it's almost certain Biden will prevail.

The U.S. implemented widespread voting by mail in early 2020 to cope with COVID but because it was done so quickly, eligible voter verification was largely ignored. Registered voter lists have many inaccuracies because of people moving or dying yet they were used to mail millions of ballots. Each state has its own election rules and deadlines for ballots so this election has been more chaotic than ever in history.

As a result, there were many 'miracles' mostly in favor of Democrats. For instance, a batch of ballots in Detroit was received by election officials with 134,000 votes for Biden, -0- for Trump! ‘Dead” people voted in record numbers. A man in Pennsylvania died on August 1, 2020 and registered to vote August 8th! I believe his name was Lazarus.

Clearly the Dems outplayed the Republicans, spurred on by their intense hatred of Donald Trump. Trump will likely start some type of news channel for conservatives, continue to speak out against Democrats rudely as is his style, and there are rumors he will run again for President in 2024. He will be running against Biden (if he's still alive and healthy, he'd be 82 years old!) or Kamala Harris, who is an ultra liberal who might have trouble appealing to moderates.

All is not lost for conservatives. They control the Supreme Court and the Senate, the latter for at least the next 2 years. This means no Green New Deal, no additions or ‘packing’ the Supreme Court from their current number of 9, and no change to the tax laws. It also means no massive move to public health care, although Biden pledged to introduce a public "option" while allowing private insurance to continue to operate. We will see how successful he is with a Republican Senate.

If Trump was re-elected, we would have massive conflict in the U.S. for another 4 years. With Biden, the conflict will be much more civil and subdued. If conservatives had to pick a compromise, this is a good one.

Everyone is curious about how aggressive Biden will be with COVID strategies. Vaccines will be announced by the end of the year but it's uncertain how quickly they can be distributed to millions of Americans and whether Americans will feel safe taking them. Biden may announce a mandatory national mask policy and possibly another national shut down, which will cripple our economy as it did earlier in 2020.

Most Americans feel a sense of relief that the election is almost over. For the past few days, COVID has not been the main topic of the day. Now it’s time to return to reality and hope that the right decisions are made to contain COVID and keep the economy healthy.

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