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If nothing else, Americans should be pleased with voter turnout

Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States. I’m reserving judgement on whether he’ll actually do well, but at least you know he’s not going to spew anti-democracy rhetoric.

Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States.

I’m reserving judgement on whether he’ll actually do well, but at least you know he’s not going to spew anti-democracy rhetoric. Biden’s not going to make a plea to stop counting votes, and if he loses an election, you can be sure he would want a smooth transition of power.

And if there are threats of violence against those working at polling station, Biden would speak against it.

It’s too bad that we’ve spent the last week talking about contested mail-in ballots and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, because something happened during the U.S. presidential election that should be celebrated by all sides.

Voter turnout was historically high.

Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris received more votes than any other presidential ticket in U.S. history.

President Donald Trump and his running mate, Vice-President Mike Pence, received more than 70 million votes – the second-most of any presidential ticket ever, other than Biden-Harris.

Trump-Pence received more votes than they did in 2016, more votes than Barack Obama-Biden did in 2008 or 2012, and more votes than Ronald Reagan-George H.W. Bush received in their historically dominant victory in 1984. 

Say what you will about Trump, and lord knows, I have, but you can’t deny his appeal to certain demographics of voters. Yes, you have the Trump stooges who believe everything Trump says, not matter how bizarre or unfounded it might be, but there are also a lot of educated, middle class people out there who will tell you their lives are better off now than when Trump first came into power.

And while I won’t deny a lot of the votes were votes against Trump or votes against Biden, Americans should be lauded for the high voter turnout, regardless of whether it’s at advanced polls, on election day or through mail-in ballots. 

Once all of these mail-in ballots are counted, it will be interesting to see how many Americans actually voted, but it’s believed that this will be the highest percentage for eligible voter turnout in the U.S. in decades.

We barely had 50 per cent turnout for our provincial election last month – a figure that nobody in Saskatchewan should have been happy about.

It’s also great to see that a woman will be the vice-president for the first time. I look forward to the day when it’s a more common occurrence. And you have to wonder if Harris will be president before the 2024 election.

This election followed a lot of the narratives I expected. The Democrats did better on the advanced polls and the mail-in ballots. The Republicans had their best showing at the polls on election day itself.

Trump tried to declare victory prematurely, and did what he could to try to undermine the voting results while stirring up his base.

And it was a close vote.

It will be interesting to see how Biden governs the country, especially given his age, and how he will go about mending the fractions, both within the U.S. and internationally, that have occurred during Trump’s tenure. In his victory speech Saturday, he did more to reach out to his opponents than Trump ever did during his four-year tenure.

The first challenge will be trying to reduce the burden of COVID-19 on the U.S. He won’t be inaugurated until January, so don’t expect any major changes before then.

COVID-19 has killed more than 235,000 people. There’s absolutely no way a nation as developed as the U.S. should be among the world leaders in COVID-19 caseload and deaths.

And we’ll see how Biden’s election affects Canada. We should expect a good working relationship between Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; the two were chummy before.

If nothing else, dealing with the U.S. will be much easier and more stable. You won’t have to worry about trade restrictions that seemingly occur on a whim, although you can expect protectionism from Biden.

He has said he’ll cancel the permit for Keystone XL Pipeline, a project that has had an on-again, off-again status for more than a decade. That’s bad news for Canada, it’s bad news for Saskatchewan and it’s bad news for our energy sector.

Keystone XL should proceed and it should be finished one day.

But on the list of his priorities, Keystone XL is going to be pretty low for Biden. And you doubt he’ll spend much time dwelling on the decision once he does cancel Keystone XL.

We won’t like it, nor should we.

But at least we can look forward to a much more productive relationship with a president who will bring stability, predictability and respect for democracy.