What Just Happened?
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2020
⏱️ 54 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
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello my name is David Ronsman and this is Talking Politics. Gary Gerstle, Helen Thompson |
| 0:15.8 | and I are going to try and make sense of what the hell just happened. |
| 0:23.6 | Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London reviewer books. If you enjoy |
| 0:28.3 | listening to Talking Politics you'll definitely enjoy reading the LRB. That's why they publish |
| 0:33.9 | a reading list of relevant writing from the archive to a company every episode on |
| 0:38.5 | lrb.co.uk and also why you, Talking Politics listeners are invited to subscribe for just |
| 0:46.6 | one pound of an issue via the url lrb.me slash talk. That's lrb.me slash talk. |
| 0:57.5 | Talking Politics in partnership with the London reviewer books. |
| 1:04.5 | It's 7.45 in America. I've turned on the telly. I don't know how I'm going to get through |
| 1:20.4 | the night. You know, I don't think, I mean I think what we see here is that Joe Biden's |
| 1:24.1 | also benefiting from early vote there. But there definitely didn't go as planned. They |
| 1:29.6 | just called Ohio for a four trump. I think when the night started many of us didn't even |
| 1:37.6 | have Ohio on our radar but well it's about 10 o'clock and dreams of a Biden landslater |
| 1:44.3 | gone. Right there it gets trumped down to 273. So imagine that right. So then if you're |
| 1:49.7 | looking around Joe Biden you have a chance to see it. It's time it feels like all the |
| 1:52.6 | way along. It's felt like Biden was winning and then maybe he wasn't. And now he is again |
| 2:00.4 | and then maybe in an hour he won't be. But look, we feel good about where we are. We |
| 2:09.0 | really do. I'm here to tell you tonight we believe we're on track to win this election. |
| 2:17.2 | It's a very sad moment. To me, this is a very sad moment and we will win this and as far |
| 2:29.5 | as I'm concerned we already have won. So I just want to thank you. So I think we should |
| 2:39.4 | time date this. We're having this conversation at quarter past 12 p.m. UK times the Gary |
| 2:46.3 | is on the east coast of the US. So Gary it's 715 with you. Yeah. That's correct. Yes. |
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