Let us pause for a moment to savor what happened in Georgia. Very soon a Black preacher and a Jew will be walking into the Senate to represent that peach of a state, Georgia.

Raphael Warnock is the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate by a former Confederate state.

Jon Ossof is the first Jewish Senator elected by a Southern state since 1879.

Warnock has been working on social justice issues as a pastor for his entire career as a minister.

Ossof was an intern in the office of the great Congressman John Lewis. He is 33 years old, the youngest person elected to the Senate since Joe Biden in 1973. …

Yesterday was my niece Rose’s birthday. So the first thing I did yesterday morning was phone her. She lives in Denver. After we chatted about what she planned to do to celebrate (take a long hike in the mountains), I said, “Gee, I hope you don’t end up with some catastrophe on your birthday, like I did. November 27 is the day that Milk and Moscone were assassinated in San Francisco. So every year for a long time, there was a memorial march on my birthday.”

You see, I had a presentiment — just a funny feeling — that things might go terribly wrong in Washington D.C. on the day that Congress was counting the Electoral College votes. …

Whew. Okay. Seems like a long time since that glorious Saturday when we all danced in the streets for the victory of Biden & Harris & Sanity, doesn’t it?

Why am I reminded at this moment of the Marx Brothers’ hilarious routine that ends with them tearing the Sanity Clause out of their contract because “There ain’t no Sanity Clause!” I’d say you’re in deep water when a Marx Brothers routine seems to make more sense than the workings of the Republican Party.

I am absolutely certain that there ain’t no Sanity Clause in the Republican party today.

In a way, it’s understandable that Trump would refuse to acknowledge the brick wall he’s barreling toward, considering what’s happened in the past. After all, a lot of brick walls have dissolved since he threw his hat in the ring long, long…

#1:

WE FIRED TRUMP!

WE FIRED TRUMP!

WE FIRED TRUMP!

WE FIRED TRUMP!

Yes, we did. And while Der Toddler maintains that his re-election would have been a slam-dunk if it weren’t for the pandemic — nothing could be further from the truth, in my opinion. The pandemic made campaigning much more difficult for the Democrats. While Biden was in the basement trying to figure out how to balance campaign rallies with health precautions, the Prez and his Trumpian minions were gathering by the maskless thousands, spreading the Lyin’ King’s words, along with the virus.

We Dems looked forward to a campaign with 1,000s of foot soldiers knocking on doors in all the purple-hued states. I myself committed to spending all of October in Pennsylvania. But I never set foot outside of San Francisco and neither do I know anyone who canvassed for Biden in a swing state unless they lived there already — and that started very late in the campaign. Door-to-door canvassing is both the least efficient and the most effective way to convince voters. Even if people disagree with you, they’re very impressed that you took the trouble to show up on their doorstep. …

Thanks to all of you who responded to my last blog, I’M SCARED. Many of you felt I was speaking your own thoughts. Some of you thought I was overreacting, even a bit hysterical. Some of you thought it was better to ignore the violence and threats, that giving them attention only inspires the perpetrators. I haven’t answered most of you yet, but I will.

Writing that blog exhausted me in a way that no other writing has. I think it was a combination of just facing what scared me, and then trying to figure out how to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. True, I hadn’t slept well the night before. …

It’s now 6 am. I woke up at 3 am. Couldn’t sleep, having read somewhere online that 17 Attorney Generals of Republican states had joined together to back the Texas AG’s ridiculous suit to get Biden’s victories in the swing states overturned. ATTORNEY GENERALS! You would think THEY would have some reverence for the law.

So the 17 right-wing AG’s kept me awake. Decided to get up and read yesterday’s New York Times, which I had not yet perused because I spent yesterday gallivanting with my podmate.

And now I am really scared.

The NY Times told me that:

“Sixty-four Republicans in the Pennsylvania General Assembly signed a letter last week urging the state’s congressional delegation to reject the state’s Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden. …

If you are planning to take any level of risk over the Thanksgiving holiday that might expose you to the Covid-19 virus, I urge you to watch this video of Rachel Maddow first!

Before I watched this video, my podmate Elizabeth and I were planning to make dinner together tomorrow and then share Thanksgiving over ZOOM with some friends.

BUT…..

Yesterday I went to the Apple Store to get my new computer — which I didn’t end up getting after spending 1 hour and 15 minutes in the store while they fiddled with my OLD computer.

I did NOT feel good about spending so much time there. Look, let’s face it: Six feet is not the normal distance humans keep from each other. Everyone was masked but almost no one was truly social distancing. …

We have reached an important turning point. John Diaz, the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor, wrote an op-ed in Sunday’s paper with the headline:

“Call it what it is: an attempted coup.”

This is the first time, that I know of, that the mainstream press has taken the position that Trump’s actions amount to a “coup.” (You can see a smaller “coup” above the Chron’s headline. That’s in The Progressive Populist, which I just subscribed to.)

Here is Wikipedia’s definition of a coup:

• “A coup or coup d’état is the removal of an existing government from power, usually through violent means. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator.” …