United States President Donald Trump. Photo / AP
OPINION
Political squabbles are under way in the American post-election period, even as an ongoing war of attrition with the coronavirus remains entrenched.
The United States is getting scarily ever closer to 300,000 deaths from Covid-19. On Thursday the country recorded 3124 coronavirus deaths - its highest daily total to date.
AP put it in grim perspective: The total "eclipsed American deaths on the opening day of the Normandy invasion during World War II [-] 2500, out of some 4400 Allied dead. And it topped the toll on September 11, 2001 [of] 2977".
More than a million people tested positive for the virus in the past five days. Unemployment claims are rising even as Congress still debates financial aid.
Team of rivals? Not so much. Biden's emerging administration is essentially a collection of longtime aides and friends that he has relied on for years. But some Democrats worry about insularity. @shearm @ShaneGoldmacher https://t.co/vtAn5N4jkP
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) December 11, 2020
It will take months for a vaccination programme to make headway against the pandemic, and the country starts from a mountainous 15.5 million coronavirus cases.
Yet at this staggering time, outgoing president Donald Trump is busy trying to overturn the result of an election he clearly lost.
The incoming president Joe Biden, who has no power to take on the pandemic as yet, is making preparations and navigating the competing interests of his party as he decides on his administration team.
Yesterday's endorsement by a US health panel of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was the only appetising part of a bubbling stew of dark days and broken dysfunction.
JUST IN: 106 House Republicans signed a court filing supporting the Texas lawsuit that seeks to overturn the 2020 election results by overturning millions of votes in four battleground states that President-elect Joe Biden won.https://t.co/HUjxLadBey
— The ReidOut (@thereidout) December 11, 2020
If the world is still governed by facts, fairness and reality, then the presidential election is clearcut.
Overall, Biden won with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232. The Democrat had 51.3 per cent support and 81.2 million popular votes - seven million more than Trump.
States have certified their results and Biden's win will become official next Tuesday.
But 18 states and 106 Republican congressional representatives are asking the Supreme Court to overturn it.
Wealthy and connected get antibody COVID treatments unavailable to most Americans https://t.co/a5eJ9nnd07
— Axios (@axios) December 10, 2020
This attempt via a Texas lawsuit comes after a string of legal losses. Trump appears determined to exit with no concession, which means going out as the smallest and sorest of losers.
The President and his allies have brought dozens of legal actions and tried to pressure election officials. He made Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp the focus of an ugly internal party brawl.
Kemp on Tuesday certified the state election in favour of Biden for a second time, following the completion of recounts.
Both Republican and Democratic-appointed judges have dismissed claims. On Wednesday the Supreme Court rejected Republicans' attempts to reverse Pennsylvania's certification of Biden's win there.
With a pandemic raging — and an outgoing President whose orbit is rife with people shunning public health guidelines and coming down with Covid-19, this January 20 is expected to include a deeper, more exhaustive cleaning than usual https://t.co/Eax6RewRJV
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 10, 2020
Trump is still able to make a majority of congressional Republicans look weak. Many have been unwilling to acknowledge he lost.
The President also has the clout of 74.2 million votes behind him and appears to have convinced many supporters that his claims of widespread election fraud are valid.
Key state Republican officials have shown more spine than their party colleagues in Washington.
The political pressure Trump has stirred has been intense. He invited Michigan Republican officials to the White House in an attempt to set aside the state's vote tally. Trump tried to influence Pennsylvania's Republican House Speaker Bryan Cutler, who said the legislature could not upend the will of voters.
Republicans’ support for Trump’s ongoing bid to overturn the 2020 election has crystallized a stark, & previously unimaginable, question: Does the GOP still qualify as a small-d democratic party—or is it morphing into something very different? My take. https://t.co/bHeHbj1BUU
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) December 10, 2020
He asked Kemp to order a special legislative session to overturn the state's results. The Governor refused.
At a rally in Georgia Trump said: "This election was rigged and we can't let it happen again. Your governor could stop it very easily ... Your governor should be ashamed of himself."
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News: "If you're not fighting for Trump now when he needs you the most as a Republican leader in Georgia, people are not going to fight for you when you ask them to get re-elected. There's a civil war brewing in Georgia for no good reason."
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican secretary of state, has faced death threats.
How did Biden pick California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for HHS? The answer tells us a lot about the current distribution of power within the party as Biden and his administration see it. https://t.co/atzjUUliZY
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) December 11, 2020
On the Democratic side, party factions and activists have been busy pressing Biden over nominee picks for his administration.
Some scrapping over influence was expected. Biden has said he wants his team to "look like America" and mainstream black and Hispanic groups and officials appear to have had success lobbying him. How much is Biden 'giving in' to pressure or alternatively showing he is responsive to concerns?
In some cases he has avoided more controversial choices. He is compiling a diverse staff line-up.
The selection of Xavier Becerra, California's attorney-general, for health could be inspired, even if Biden got there after a messy selection process.
Biden builds a team of longtime allies, with few fresh faces at the top https://t.co/dAFltCcUHP
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 11, 2020
But there have still been Cabinet picks of people he has known a long time, such as Tom Vilsack for agriculture and Denis McDonough at veterans affairs.
Susan Rice now gets to add domestic policy adviser to her foreign policy-heavy CV. The theme of familiarity is very pronounced among White House staff.
There has been criticism of his pick of a friend and retired general Lloyd Austin for defence, a post normally occupied by a civilian.
A waiver will be required and Trump had already broken that norm.
Many from the Democratic left actively campaigned for — or bit their tongues — while Biden worked to finish off Donald Trump in the general election. Now, they expect their payoff but have been confused and disappointed so far. https://t.co/gq4FPiQ7nT
— Axios (@axios) December 11, 2020
Perhaps it suggests Biden may take pragmatic advantage of some Trump changes, despite campaigning on restoring norms. The Senate, after all, could remain in Republican control, hampering Biden's ability to get reforms through and requiring him to think outside the square.
The tightness of congressional election results has constrained the choices of Biden, who needs to get nominees approved and also doesn't want to put existing seats at risk.
Even so he has not - so far - made progress on another pledge - that of being a "bridge" for a new generation of Democratic leaders. Progressives are most obviously under-represented.
This was at least a chance to give the prospects and profiles of younger former presidential rivals Pete Buttigieg, Eric Swalwell, Andrew Yang, Julian Castro and Cory Booker a boost. That could still change.
Could not agree more. And btw the result of picking comfort food is that women get left out. https://t.co/xXt1bi9Nqahttps://t.co/2DG3w2VWgn
— Jennifer 'the election is over' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) December 11, 2020
On the whole, the way is clear for incoming Vice-President Kamala Harris to establish herself as the heir and the real bridge for younger officials and activists.
With the staffing announcements, candidates are cleverly being unveiled in policy pods so the public can instantly assess them as teams with a mixture of experience and backgrounds.
Perhaps these are selections for now, with dominating crises at hand, and changes in personnel will happen later.
As with the election campaign, Trump and Biden are continuing to show their very different characters and methods in the aftermath.
Hurricane-force winds whip up fireballs that have leapt from home to home.