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Transcript

Hi there and welcome to the second minisode this week of the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that is also too close to call. Because I mean, I’m right here. Why use your phone? That’s just rude. This is gonna be a super quick one because if you’ve been following the action, or rather inaction through the night you’ll know that the dribs and drabs results from the US election could last longer than Joe Biden. As I record this, we’re waiting on the final count from 9 states, with first up being Wisconsin, a state that I still have no idea where it is despite deliriously looking at it on a map for most of the night, while final mail votes for North Carolina won’t be counted till next Thursday, by which point we’ll probably all have moved on. It’s looking like it’s now going to be a win for what if TinTin had a withering illness Joe Biden, though it did also look like that at the beginning. The exit polls were revealed, and they mostly showed that a lot of people were going to get COVID. Then it looked like it might be another win for Pumpkin Spiced haemorrhoid Donald Trump because he held onto Florida. I mean it is the sunshine state so of course they’ll vote for the candidate that is big, orange and glowing. Then it looked like no one might win and it’d have to be settled with a thumb war, or Trump doing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Biden doing Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and spending all that time reversing the things Trump had done the day before. Then on Sunday’s Kanye might get a go. But now, Biden already has received more of the popular vote than any other Presidential candidate in history, so it looks like it’s his for the winning, if you ignore that the Electoral College might get all malevolent spirit about it because they woke up on the wrong side of bed or something.

Trump of course declared victory in the early hours at the White House, despite being behind in votes at the time, but absolutely no one who’s been awake the last 4 years could have been surprised that he was trying to grab victory without consent. He still stated that there has been voter fraud and that the Democrats had stolen the election, which if they had been trying to do, you think they’d have done it a bit quicker and better than they have. If this is an election steal, it’s the political equivalent of only managing to tear off half the Mona Lisa then thinking it’s a good idea to pop into the gift shop on your way out. Trump demanded the Supreme Court stop more ballots being counted, something that they can’t really do, as nothing shows up how great another 4 years of his Presidency than him actively stamping on the last dying embers of democracy as it’s trying to happen. Joe Biden made a statement saying it wasn’t up to him or Trump who was president, but voters and that all votes must be counted, one of those things that you’d assume wouldn’t have to be said out loud in 2020 in a country that swears it’s in charge of the free world. It feels like the US is mere steps away from the Middle East having to invade it in order to restore democracy. Over the last few days Trump had had an unscalable wall erected around the White House, though that could just be unscalable by his standards and so only a foot high. Meanwhile his son Donald Trump Junior, a biro scribble of a man who looks like he spends his life alone in a roped off area of a nightclub because no one’s interested in his VIP night, had been tweeting images of his electoral map prediction that seemed to suggest Trump would win all but a handful of countries around the world. Either that or all ones in red were places that were embarrassed for him. Don Jr insisted that Joe Biden was a Marxist, making me wonder if he thinks Marxism is something invented by the Marx Brothers, and he’s just very scared that he might live in a world where people make smart quick quips that he’s too thick to understand.

So potentially by the time you hear this there’ll be a result and if Biden does indeed win, then its looking like not only will he have to spend the first year of his Presidency cleaning up everywhere Trump has dripped round the White House, but may also be up against a Republican senate which means he won’t actually be able to do anything for his four year term. Which will make a nice cover up for him not actually doing anything. Though at least someone not doing anything will make a nice change from a daily online meltdown, fuelling of fascism and trying to work out which stunt double the FLOTUS is using that day. If anything, four years of nothing may be exactly what everyone needs, like a long overdue anxiety holiday.

So look, there’ll be more gags and poorly informed analysis, as well as a guest who can explain things all a bit better on the proper episode of this out next week, and fuck knows what will have happened by then and if they’ll just pop a lid on top of Trump’s unscalable wall and leave him there till January before airlifting him into the sea. But I just wanted to note a few things. It is bleak to know that even after four years of Trump, so many Americans still want to vote for him. There’s a bit of me that understands that though, I mean why delay the end of all things when you could just get it over with straight away? There’s two things here though. One is that if there was no voter suppression and intimidation, correct online regulation of misinformation, and media goading, it might not be so and in fact numbers may still change once the final count is through. Also, if there were less shit people who just want to inflict cruelty on others and feel the need to make sure someone is worse off than they are in order to feel better. I don’t know how you change that but Trump’s rallies during a pandemic may well have helped. I think a big thing though, is that people were miserable 4 years ago and the alternative they were offered was to keep things the same or have something different even if it was batshit awful different. It’s the same again really, where Biden is really only offering the same shit that everything was 4 years ago, which is at least better than the current shit but is also the same shit that people got so frustrated with they voted in this shit. If it was a film, it’d keep repeating itself until someone did something so different it might change the loop. It’s very sad that there’s no real promise or hope of something better in a world that has changed so rapidly and the politics of the 2000s are no longer suitable for. If you’re saying to people you can stay in your shit situation and be happy about it, or burn it all down and see what happens, at least with the latter it can be exciting till you realise you’ve spilled gasoline on your shoe. Its what’s happening in the UK too. Our main opposition would just like things to go back to pre-Brexit days when everyone was so angry they voted for Brexit, but why isn’t there an actual hopeful option that doesn’t just feel like a poor quality student’s union night that only the rich kids enjoy. There’s two things that need to change and have needed to change for years. The conversation about where and how things could be and what radical changes are needed if those in charge were remotely interested in them. And also an awareness of just what is left and right wing and what the different ideologies mean, with that understanding being correctly projected. Those who voted for Trump seem so scared of the idea of socialism or Marxism, despite Biden being a through and through capitalist. There isn’t a far left in the US or UK right now that’s anywhere near power, there isn’t really a left that is either and all that means is that the far right get to pretend they’re in the middle and so everything ends up falling over. Just like it has been. I often think about how all the stories I was brought up on, not just Dickens, but Robin Hood or even the morals at the end of He-Man where everyone would laugh just because Orco said something hideously unfunny. All of those now would be classed as radical left ideas because they were about being kind, not bullying people, giving to the poor instead of the rich. A modern day Robin Hood film would have King John as the victim claiming he was being silenced by Robin’s Merry Band of Antifa. Letting those goalposts change means its ever harder to change them back and ultimately even less so when the opposite side just keeps kicking it into their own goal anyway and assuming it’ll make them electable.

So good luck for this week, and hopefully I won’t eat my words when I say it’s looking like it won’t be as shit as it has been and that’s is a relief. I’m off to try and eventually sleep and stop eating snacks. I ate so many snacks yesterday. I’m trying to be healthy but I thought I could have a cheat day as Trump was going to say it was one regardless. The podcast will return properly next Tuesday. Thank you for your very kind ko-fi, patreon and Acast supporter donations, shout outs will happen on next week’s show, but it’s so, so appreciated more than I can put into words without it just sounding pathetic in a way that would make you switch off. Review, Subscribe, shout about it to pals, and see you all on the other side when Kayne is finally declared winner.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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