Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

They can’t declare victory, only project. Personally, I’m suspicious of the results, but if nothing changes, if fraud is not discovered, it’s a fair call.

The makeup of the US government does not reflect it's population. Harris wasn't the first female VP candidate to run for a major party. Geraldine Ferraro was the first, and Palin also ran in 08. Being a minority candidate doesn't mean they are qualified, but the lack of diversity in the US government is a huge problem. About 50% of America are women, and a large portion of America is not white. That's not represented by our government. Those firsts are important.

I think see what you are saying, but your framing to me supports a dangerously wrong idea that seems to have a lot of currency . Trump is not some sort of wild outside anomaly, his gaining power is more of an emergent property.

Chaos monkey is intentionally outside the system, poking at it. Trump isn't this.

As a Canadian, what stands out for me about the last two elections is that many Americans seem to desperately want a variety of political reforms, but neither party seems interested in providing them. Trump and Sanders both sold themselves as reform candidates in 2016, but only Trump wound up on the ticket.

Sanders might be the real deal, but he's not going to represent a major party until donation and campaign spending limits (like we have in Canada) reduce corporate influence on U.S. politics. Sanders scares away the "big money" that U.S. elections depend so heavily on.

Trump has not proven to be a reform candidate in any sense of the word. As a political outsider with control over both the house and senate for his first two years in office, he had the power to deliver meaningful reforms, but didn't. Americans desiring reform should have felt deeply betrayed by Trump's first term.

The democrats had a smoother primary in 2020, but decided on an utterly bland candidate. Biden is a return to the status-quo. I predicted that, after the last four years, a return to the status quo would appeal to many, but this election proves otherwise. This should have been an easy slam dunk for the Democrats to win, but it's turned out to be a squeaker!

If the democrats ride the status quo for the next four years and both parties were to run the same candidates again, I suspect Biden would lose. The Democrats need to pay attention to what Americans want.

I would suggest that Biden's administration should, despite running on a thoroughly status-quo platform, embrace reform. Too many Americans mistrust their own political system, to the point that they're willing to picket polling stations because they think fraud is being committed. That must be fixed. Finding ways to reduce the influence of money on politics (e.g. campaign spending limits) would be a good start. It will also be an easy sell to devolve and distribute some of the powers that have accumulated in the white house over the last several decades. If you're not comfortable with some of the powers Trump wielded during his time in office, then perhaps those powers shouldn't rest with the POTUS.

Bottom line, if the democrats try to pretend Trump never happened and couldn't happen again, they're in for unpleasant surprises.

> Likewise this time around, nobody I have talked to seriously voted for Joe Biden on his own merits.

I voted for Biden because although I didn't always agree with Team Obama/Biden, they weren't 10% as divisive as Donald Trump.

Anecdotes aside, I'd love to see any real data you have on this topic.