(by Andrea Pinto) The most expensive election campaign ever, 10,8 billion dollars to guide the decision of the Americans. An astronomical figure never before, revealed by the Center for Responsive Politics. Opinion research institute that, at the time of the coronavirus, tries to rattle off the data and contradictions of the most high-tension presidential elections ever.
It is a heads-up battle between the two candidates, Biden's advantage increased over the night, 253 big voters compared to Trump's 213. It takes 270 electors to be appointed as the future tenant of the White House. However, there are still millions of votes to be counted, those cast by mail (sealed on November 3) due to anti-covid restrictions, votes that come, for the most part, from states where Trump had won last time.
On the national popular votes, a record was recorded by the Democratic candidate Biden with 70,5 million (Obama in 2008 stopped at 69,5 million) against 67.8 million in the Tycoon.
Trump, however, does not declare himself defeated and asks for a verification of the votes already now with ballots in progress.
Biden in the late afternoon he came out: "It is clear that we are winning enough states to reach the necessary 270 votes. I am not here to declare that we have won, but to report that when the count is completed, I believe we will be the winners ”.
According to the projections that are affected by the results of the polls still in progress the Senate would have a narrow majority in favor of the Republicans while the House would go for a few seats to the Democrats. A rift that will make it difficult for the future US president to be able to govern with the required momentum of the times when the world economy is suffering from the pandemic. Unemployment is growing exponentially in the country with stars and stripes.
Trump has contributed with his statements to increasingly split the electorate with heavy statements (perhaps it is the result of a very specific strategy): "They are trying to steal us from behind". Trump has therefore already announced that he will appeal to the High Court where he can count on six out of three judges nominated by the Republican, thanks to the new entry Amy Coney Barrett as head of the Court.
Biden's narrow victory by a handful of votes could generate the previously announced social uprisings, the taste of which the Americans have already experienced during the protests for the death of George Floyd.
It is no coincidence that the White House has already been surrounded by two rings of fences three meters high with agents already prepared in anti-riot gear. Trump barricaded inside the White House, in full swing (Commander in chief of the armed forces) until midnight after the outcome of the elections, could ask for the intervention of the army to quell the protests and why not to enforce his reasons during and until the recount of the votes of each single electoral roll.
Gen.le Milley in unsuspecting times close to the elections had declared: "In the event of a dispute over the lawfulness of the election, by law, the disputes are resolved by the US courts and the US Congress, not the US military. I do not foresee any role for the US military in this process. "
According to the NYT, senior Pentagon officials would be very worried that their commander-in-chief could order American troops to take action to quell the social unrest that could arise after the presidential election results, also because Trump was a month ago. refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
Trump already said a month ago not to be sure that the next election could be "honest".
The fear of the generals and admirals of the Pentagon because Trump already tried, appealing to the Insurrection Act of 1807, to use the army to quell the protests after the barbaric killing by the police of George Floyd. On that occasion, all the highest officials of the Pentagon strongly opposed.
If necessary, the task of quelling the riots, the officials of the Defense Department said, is devolved to the police, the "Marshalls" or the "Secret Service".
The army, by law, officials said, makes a vote to the Constitution, not the president, and that vote means the army commander-in-chief is the one who was sworn in at 12:01 pm on inauguration day. .
But senior Pentagon executives told the NYT on condition of anonymity that the matter is being studied in the secret rooms of the Defense Department. Different scenarios are analyzed but one among them, what to do if Mr. Trump, still president from election day to inauguration day, invokes the Insurrection Act to send troops to the streets.
The Insurrection Act, a two-century-old law, allows a president to send military personnel on active duty to quell unrest.