You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only.

Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is Episode 264. I am Thomas Smith and I am here to talk about what happened in this election.

Yeah, so I mean if you listen to my last episode I didn't have a positive view of what happened. I still don't have a positive view of what happened.

Roughly speaking I think everything held up in that episode where I assumed that Biden was winning and I assumed by a narrow margin. Now it turns out probably a little bit bigger margin than I thought.

But when all is done adding up, when all the states have come in, I am actually curious to do the comparison of how close these swing states were that would have put Trump over the top.

I think it will be a little bit more in Biden's favor than Trump was over Hillary so as I said and as we all remember in 2016 it was roughly 80,000 votes in three states.

I think for Biden it will be more than that seems like his lead will be a little bit more than that but it's still not going to be millions in terms of which states you need to flip to alter the outcome.

Now of course he's winning the popular vote by time of recording five million votes which is just inconceivable.

It is amazing that that a candidate could win by that much and still it's almost a you know a bit of a nail bider in the electoral college.

The electoral college system is crap. We all know this. But anyway as far as the Senate goes I think what I said was right on last week if I remember right we aren't winning the Senate.

Maybe if we win the Georgia runoffs we have a chance to tie which would give us the tie breaking vote now that 50th vote though is Joe Manchin and that's still not great now it's still imperative.

I know this sucks and especially because Joe Manchin just came out and said he was not going to support court reform you know adding justices to the court.

He's not going to support a game where the filibuster so that that's awful. I hope he's saying that to you know who knows maybe saying that to try to not scare people so that the Georgia elections go better maybe he'll go back on it probably maybe not but even if he doesn't it'll it'll be devastating.

I want that on the record that's devastating.

It will still be worthwhile to win those votes and when the Senate still makes a world of difference because the difference between getting zero and I mean this zero appointees zero judges on any level on the federal courts and in the Supreme Court if there are any other vacancies during all of Biden's terms that that will be the difference because Joe Manchin will and whoever the majority leader if if we you know if we win these two races.

That person will put forth Joe Biden's nominees for votes unlike McConnell who just wouldn't won't won't even do that and that that makes a huge difference there are a lot of other ways it makes a difference so you know it still makes a huge difference even though Joe Manchin has said that he won't do these things that we really need to do that sucks and what I you know I guess what what's tough though what's tough to keep in mind is

Joe Manchin will say these things and then people will go oh Democrats right and it's hard it's so hard because Joe Manchin is in a red state if Joe Manchin weren't there it would be a Republican who would be worse so we just have nothing and it's it's something about human psychology where it feels worse to have a Democrat Joe Manchin call himself a Democrat kind of but then not do all these things then it would imagine if it was the other way and it was just a Republican.

It's just a Republican who then said oh no I'm actually going to vote I'm I'm going to caucus with the Democrats in order to take the gavel away from Mitch McConnell like imagine if that's what it were if it was somebody was a Republican and that Republican said nope I'm switching parties at least to caucus with the Democrats to vote to have a Democratic majority leader I'm taking that gavel away from McConnell and furthermore I'm going to get through all your appointments all your

cabinet I'm going to vote on and I'm willing to work on some legislation you know that would feel like wow what a what a how awesome that that Republican is doing that they have a backbone you know that would what a boon you know it but but to have a go the other way feels horrible but that is the difference that that I said this before I'll say it again

Manchin has one of the best net Trump scores in all of the Senate that is based on where he is the percentage of his voters voted for Trump what you would expect him to do and the difference between that and what he's done is better than a lot of safe blue Democrats as in we're getting more bang for our buck

this doesn't mean I like Joe Manchin it just means that the alternative AOC is not going to win that seat you know or Bernie Sanders or you know like that that's just not how it works if you're in a red state and you're able to win as a Democrat by taking some of these centrist positions

and that kind of sets up today because okay here's what happens so in the wake of Democrats losing somewhere in the neighborhood of six or eight seats it's not totally finalized but something like that in the house there was a phone call with all the representatives and they were there's blame going on blame thrown going on and representative Abigail Spanberger said that she kind of chastise progressives for

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