Heading into election day, there were two crucial questions. First, who would win? Second, in a divided era, how would the loser respond?

Joe Biden won by more than 4 million and is calling for unity. Donald Trump lost and is inciting division.

The president’s reaction to a “Dear Donald” letter from the American voters has so far been appalling. His ego maniacal personality prevented him from seeing the breakup coming. He has rejected the message and is attempting to enforce a broken relationship on the country, possibly making him the most dangerous jilted lover in the world.

Many critics predicted this temper tantrum; what few imagined, including me, is that the GOP leaders would go along with the kinds of treacherous behavior that humiliates America before the world.

This is not the Republican Party that I knew. The first Republican President in my lifetime was Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero to my family and our middle class neighbors in a post-war neighborhood in St. Louis. Ike promised to end the Korean War and did. He also built the Interstate Highway System.

The second was Richard Nixon who before leaving office in disgrace opened relations with China, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and helped the cause of Native Americans.

Gerald Ford brought the country together after Watergate.

Ronald Reagan was the JFK of the conservatives who brought image and style to the White House and is credited with bringing down the Berlin Wall signaling the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His successor George H.W. Bush lost a second term because of a act of patriotism when he raised taxes to control a spiraling deficit.

His son’s star-crossed Presidency saw 9/11 and never ending war in the Middle East

Then came Donald Trump. He unleashed on America a form of angry Populism that appealed to millions who felt left behind by the high-tech secular culture of the 21st Century. Trump trounced a weak Republican field and squeaked by a very capable but tone deaf Democrat.

He inherited a presidency whose power had been greatly expanded by Barack Obama who resorted to rule by executive order when blind opposition from a Republican Senate majority blocked his programs.

Trump used it on steroids. Before long he simply ignored Congress. He built 300 miles of border wall with money appropriated to fill the needs for military housing. He filled cabinet offices with so-called “temporary appointees” in order to avoid the inconvence of Senate confirmation.

Donald Trump inherited the world’s greatest democracy and left the beginnings of autocracy.

Now Mitch McConnell and his allies will have to decide whether to continue that mission or take a walk with Joe Biden on the road to restore our democracy.

But if they have chosen Trumpism as the future of their party, I pray for Joe Biden — and the country.

MASON, Texas — The change at the Sunday prayer service was so subtle it went unnoticed by several congregants. Tucked in between calls for divine health and wisdom, the Rev. Fred Krebs of St. Paul Lutheran Church, who rarely brings up politics, fleetingly mentioned this month’s presidential election.

“We pray for a peaceful transition,” he told his congregation of 50 people. The carefully chosen words underscored the political reality in Mason, Texas — a rural, conservative town of roughly 2,000 people — after Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump.

Not everyone thought the election was over, and not everyone said they would respect the results.

“My Democratic friends think Biden is going to heal everything and unify everyone,” said Jeanie Smith, who attends the more conservative Spring Street Gospel Church in Mason, which is about 100 miles west of Austin. “They are deceived.

“Now you want healing,” she added. “Now you want to come together. You have not earned it.”

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-asked-republicans-him-chance-162845294.html

(Reuters) - The Trump Administration will take key steps to finalize a sale of oil drilling leases in the sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska just before Democrat Joseph Biden, who opposes drilling there, becomes president, a government spokeswoman said on Friday.

The White House will be sending out a call for nominations in coming days, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Anchorage, Alaska. The call is a request to energy companies on what specific land areas should be offered for sale.

That would start the clock on a 60-day period before sales could take place in ANWR, where drilling had been banned for decades before a Republican-led tax legislation signed in 2017 removed that ban. Biden opposes drilling in ANWR, while lawmakers in Alaska have long pushed to open up the ecologically sensitive area for oil and gas exploration.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-trump-oil/trump-administration-pushes-to-sell-alaska-oil-leases-pre-biden-inauguration-idUSKBN27T2U5

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — After months of resisting ordering the people of North Dakota to wear masks and limit the size of gatherings, the state's Republican governor relented in an effort to stem a coronavirus surge that is among the worst in the U.S. and that threatens to overwhelm the state's hospitals.

Gov. Doug Burgum's executive order Friday night came as a surprise and only hours before the state recorded new daily records for hospitalizations and infections. Throughout the pandemic, the former software executive had been leaving it to individuals to take personal responsibility for slowing the spread of the virus, beseeching the public during his weekly press briefings to wear masks but emphasizing a “light touch” by government.

Coronavirus cases have surged to their highest levels yet, but conservative state legislators across the U.S. are fighting to limit governors’ ability to impose public health restrictions — and have succeeded in two states with rising caseloads in the heaviest hit region of the country.

In public health emergencies, governors have broad powers to impose quarantines and other actions to stop the spread of disease. As emergency orders have stretched on for months, state lawmakers around the country have objected to what they say is governors’ unprecedented use of power for such an extended period of time.

The efforts to limit their power have targeted governors across party lines, but those that have had the most success have been in states with Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures. In Michigan and Wisconsin — two states with Democratic governors, GOP legislatures and largely conservative courts — several challenges have succeeded, limiting state executive authority as cases in those and neighboring states rise.

Similar court battles between Democratic governors and GOP elected officials in Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, and North Carolina have all been decided in the governor’s favor. A challenge to the Louisiana governor’s emergency order is headed to the state supreme court, but an appellate court this week ruled in support of his use of power.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/covid-cases-soar-gop-state-lawmakers-keep-fighting-limit-governors-n1247801

A Republican House candidate prematurely claimed victory in a race to unseat Democratic congresswoman Lauren Underwood, and then went to new member orientation even after she was declared the winner


Jim Oberweis, the Republican challenger for a House seat in Illinois prematurely declared himself the winner against the Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood last week.

Underwood was declared the winner of the race on Thursday.

Despite this, Oberweis attended a House new member orientation on Friday.

The Republican challenger to Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood prematurely claimed victory in the race for her House seat and attended the first day of new member orientation, even after Underwood was declared the winner.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-house-candidate-prematurely-claimed-011818427.html

To the editor: Hillary Clinton congratulated Donald Trump on his win in the middle of the night after election day on Nov. 8, 2016. She formally conceded before noon on Nov. 9. That was a show of grace and patriotism, putting country before self, even when she knew that she would win the popular vote despite losing the electoral college. (“Trump slows Biden transition with denials, lawsuits,” Nov. 9)

I don’t expect anything approaching grace, patriotism or class from President Trump. But what is wrong with other Republicans? They’ve been waving the flag and citing “God and country” all these years, and for what?

When the time has come for them to show what they are made of, it appears that loyalty to the Constitution and respect for the will of the people are, shamefully, not part of who they are.

And they wonder why people kneel during the national anthem and protest in the streets. Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.