What Just Happened?
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2020
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David, Helen and Gary convene on very little sleep to try to make sense of another extraordinary election. Though we still don't know who won, we do know that some things are going to get even harder for American democracy. What's the nightmare scenario: the loser refusing to lose, or the winner being unable to govern? Why did the pollsters get it wrong again? And what's likely to happen when the contest reaches the courts? Plus we ask if the American Constitution can cope with close elections any more.
Relevant Episodes:
From our Mini-Series:
- History of Ideas on Tocqueville and American democracy
- American Histories: The 15th and the 19th
- American Histories: Deporting Mexicans
- American Histories: The Great Abortion Switcheroo
Old Episodes on Trump:
- What Trump Means to Us
- One-term presidents
- Can America Cope
- American Fascism: Then and Now
- America First?
- Michael Lewis on Donald Trump (And Michael Lewis Updated)
- Trump and History
A Broader Perspective on US Politics:
- The Talking Politics Guide to … the US Constitution
- Police State USA
- Adam Tooze on US vs. China
- Judith Butler: Then and Now
- Where Power Stops
- The Talking Politics Guide to… the Gilded Age
- Inaugurals
From the LRB
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name's David Rundsenman and this is Talking Politics. |
| 0:14.3 | Gary Girstle, Helen Thompson and I are going to try and make sense of what the hell just happened. |
| 0:23.1 | Talking politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books. |
| 0:27.6 | If you enjoy listening to Talking Politics, you'll definitely enjoy reading the LRB. |
| 0:32.9 | That's why they publish a reading list of relevant writing from the archive to accompany |
| 0:36.9 | every episode on LRb.co.uk |
| 0:40.6 | And also why you, Talking Politics listeners, are invited to subscribe for just one pound an issue via the URL, lrb. |
| 0:50.5 | dot me slash talk. |
| 0:53.3 | That's lrb. dot me slash talk. That's LRB. |
| 0:54.5 | dot me slash talk. |
| 0:57.4 | Talking politics in partnership with the London Review of Books. |
| 1:15.6 | It's 745 in America. I've turned on the telly. |
| 1:17.6 | I don't know how I'm going to get through the night. |
| 1:20.6 | In Ohio, I don't think, I mean, I think what we see here is that Joe Biden's also benefiting from early vote there. |
| 1:25.6 | This definitely didn't go as planned. |
| 1:29.1 | They just called Ohio for for Trump. |
| 1:33.9 | I think when the night started, many of us didn't even have Ohio on our radar, but. |
| 1:39.5 | Well, it's about 10 o'clock and dreams of a Biden landslade are gone. |
| 1:45.0 | Right there gets Trump down to 273. |
| 1:47.5 | So imagine that, right? |
| 1:48.7 | So then if you're looking around, Joe Biden, you have a chance to have... |
| 1:51.5 | This time it feels like all the way along, it's felt like Biden was winning, and then maybe he wasn't. |
... |
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