". . . “Whatever the final vote, it is already clear that the number of Americans saying, ‘Enough is enough’ was not enough,” said Dov Seidman, an expert on leadership and author of the book “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything.”. . . “There was no blue political wave,” he noted. “But, more importantly, there was no moral wave. There was no widespread rejection of the kind of leadership that divides us, especially in a pandemic.”. . . We are a country with multiple compound fractures, and so we simply cannot do anything ambitious anymore — like put a man on the moon — because ambitious things have to be done together. We can’t even come together to all wear masks in a pandemic, when health experts tell us it would absolutely save lives. It would be so simple, so easy and so patriotic to say, “I protect you and you protect me.” And yet, we can’t do it. . ."
". . . historically “America’s intent, if not always its practice, has been to exhort not extort other nations; to export not exploit; to collaborate not dominate; and to strengthen a global system of rules and norms, not overturn it in order to focus exclusively on its own enrichment. . . “Four more years of Trump’s America, and no one will have cause to give us the benefit of any doubt. The disillusionment will be shattering to our standing and influence — and only when we are received around the world as Russians or Chinese will we know what we have lost, for good.”. . ."
TRUMP: “Biden wants to LOCKDOWN our Country, maybe for years. Crazy!” — tweet Sunday.
THE FACTS: To be clear, Biden isn't promising to push wide-scale stay-at-home orders to stem the coronavirus if elected, and most certainly not “for a couple years," which is beyond when most scientists think a vaccine could become widely available. . . only if scientists and public health advisers recommended he do so . . .
TRUMP: “How do you like the $2 gasoline? You’ll have it for a long time if you elect Trump.” — Michigan rally Sunday.
THE FACTS: Trump is wrongly taking credit for lower gas prices that were the byproduct of a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 Americans. . .
TRUMP: "You can have the vaccine, but without it, we’re rounding the corner.” — Iowa rally Sunday.
THE FACTS: No, the coronavirus isn’t going away, and Trump is contradicted by his own top health experts. New cases are on the rise toward their summer peak. Deaths have also been increasing. . .
TRUMP: “You know, our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID. You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but, you know, everybody dies of COVID.’” — rally Friday in Waterford Township, Michigan.
THE FACTS: No, the virus death count has not been overstated because of doctors lying to get more money. No evidence has emerged of such systemic fraud. Over 230,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been confirmed. The true number is almost certainly higher by a considerable margin. . .
TRUMP: “In California, you have a special mask. You cannot under any circumstances take it off. You have to eat through the mask.” — Arizona rally on Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Those statements are false. California residents are not required to wear “special” masks. Nor are they required to wear them all the time and “eat through the mask.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide mask order allows Californians to wear basic coverings such as homemade ones and people are not required to wear them when at home, outdoors more than 6 feet from others or when eating and drinking. . .
TRUMP: “We have a spike in cases ... And you know why we have so many cases? Because we test more.” — Michigan rally Tuesday.
THE FACTS: No, increased testing does not fully account for the rise in recorded cases, and Trump is contradicted by his own top health officials. People are also infecting each other more than before as distancing rules recede, some shun masks and community spread picks up.
TRUMP: “It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November third, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don’t believe that that’s by our laws.” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.
THE FACTS: “Our laws” don’t require the immediate reporting of all election results in the country on election night. Delayed counting is unavoidable.
TRUMP: “Strongly Trending (Google) since immediately after the second debate is CAN I CHANGE MY VOTE? This refers changing it to me. The answer in most states is YES. Go do it. Most important Election of your life!” — tweet Tuesday.
THE FACTS:. . . Google searches for “change my vote” did not crack the top 20 searches that night or after. Jill Biden was the subject of Google’s 20th most popular search that day. On Friday, the new “Borat” movie, presidential polls and college football were among the subjects drawing top 20 attention. . . laws vary and many have restrictions. . . Minnesota, for instance, allows voters to “claw back” their vote and change it, but the deadline for that has passed. Wisconsin allows people to change their vote up to three times, though it doesn’t happen often. Florida allows voters who received mail ballots to choose to vote in person instead, but they cannot vote more than once.
TRUMP: “Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA.” — tweet on Oct. 26.
THE FACTS: No, the catastrophe Trump has warned darkly about for months in mail-in voting has not materialized. . . There have been sporadic reports of voters receiving mail ballots that were incorrectly formatted and other localized hitches in the record early turnout, but large-scale disenfranchisement has not been seen.
TRUMP, suggesting that Nevada’s Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak will add fraudulent votes: “We’re worried about the governor. ... Some of these people, in Nevada, they want to have the election. They want to have the count weeks after November 3rd. So let’s all wait for the governor to count them up good, and how many is he going to add during that two weeks, right?” — Arizona rally Wednesday.
TRUMP, on Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf: “The governor counts the ballots. ... This is the guy that’s counting our ballots? It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.” — remarks Monday in Pennsylvania.
THE FACTS: To be clear, governors don’t count the votes, and they can’t just manufacture votes in the election.
TRUMP: “In Nevada, they want to have a thing where you don’t have to have any verification of the signature.” -- New Hampshire rally Oct. 25.
THE FACTS: Not true, despite his frequent assertions to the contrary. The state’s existing law requires signature checks on mail ballots. A new law also spells out a process by which election officials are to check a signature against the one in government records.
TRUMP: “I say the biggest risk we have are the fake ballots.” — New Hampshire rally.
THE FACTS: . . . there is no evidence to indicate that massive fraud is afoot. Any delay in declaring a winner of the presidential race after Tuesday would not in itself be illegal.
