The Biden-Harris Victory Brings ‘an Outpouring of Joy, Hope, Renewed Faith’ (The Nation)

John Nichols writes about the celebration of the Biden-Harris victory announced on November 7, 2020: “ The car horns started honking to the rhythm of the chant ‘This is what democracy looks like!’ People came out of the houses and apartments, banging on pots and pans. Cheers went up. The music rose. Fireworks exploded. There was no sigh of relief when the news came that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. had finally defeated Donald Trump. There was jubilant recognition of the fact that, as Vice President–elect Kamala Harris declared at Saturday night’s victory party in Wilmington, Del., ‘When our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, with the very soul of America at stake, and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America.’” Read more.

Chomsky: Voting Is Not the End of Our Work. It’s Only the Beginning. (Truthout) 

C.J. Polychroniou interviews Noam Chomsky about the 2020 election. Chomsky says: “The very fact that someone could be considered a serious candidate after just having killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of Americans through a disastrous response to COVID-19 is an extraordinary victory for Trump—and a defeat for the country, for the world and for hopes for a decent future. [...] Trump has shown political genius in tapping the poisonous currents that run right below the surface of American society. He has skillfully nourished and amplified the currents of white supremacy, racism and xenophobia that have deep roots in American history and culture, now exacerbated by fear that ‘they’ will take over ‘our’ country with its shrinking white majority.” Read more.

How Stacey Abrams and her band of believers turned Georgia blue (Politico) 

Maya King discusses Stacey Abrams’ voter outreach activism in Georgia: “Abrams’ razor-thin loss in Georgia’s gubernatorial election made clear to her and other liberals in the state that demographic shifts in the suburbs had reached a tipping point. Their argument to the national party was simple: Democrats could win more races by expanding their coalition to include disengaged voters of color, as opposed to continuing the focus on persuading undecided, moderate, often white voters. Abrams had come close with the strategy: Her campaign and its allies registered more than 200,000 new voters in the run-up to the 2018 election. When Fair Fight and the New Georgia Project, two organizations founded by Abrams, tried again this year, they quadrupled their gains, registering more than 800,000 new voters.” Read more.

The Electoral College Is Racist — & That’s Exactly Why It Still Exists (Refinery29) 

Elly Belle describes the racist history and present of the Electoral College: “The Electoral College was the compromise the founders settled on to appease the demands of Southern states worried their politics—or, more specifically, their desire to maintain the system of slavery—might be quashed. Its existence allowed Southern states—and their white male property-owning voters—to preserve their power in part due to the three-fifths clause in the Constitution, which stated that enslaved Black people would be counted as three-fifths of a person, thus bolstering the electoral count of slave-owning states without actually affording rights to anyone other than wealthy white men.” Read more.

Love No Limit: The Messiness of Pandemic Sex (Bitch Media) 

Josie Pickens writes about in-person sex in the age of the pandemic: “Physical, in-person intimacy seems impossible right now, but we still yearn for it and need it for our health and well-being. This made me curious: If we’re unpartnered, unattached, and still choose to share in and prioritize physical intimacy and sexual pleasure, how can we make the best possible choices when deciding how to have sex and who to have it with?” Read more.

Miscarriage and Abortion: Both Are Pregnancy Losses, but Only One Is Criminalized (Rewire News Group) 

Allison Coffman shares her thoughts on pregnancy loss: “There is certainly one significant difference between abortion and miscarriage. One is by choice, and one is by chance. But when we look at individual circumstances, is this difference really that stark? There are plenty of unwanted pregnancies that end in miscarriage by chance, just as there are many wanted pregnancies that end in abortion by choice. How much is it about ‘personal choice’ versus going with the best option when faced with a fetal abnormality, potentially life-threatening pregnancy complications, poverty, or many other situations that you could be experiencing largely by chance?” Read more.

I’m Coming Out as Intersex After Years of Keeping it a Secret (Teen Vogue) 

Shana Knizhnik explains why she's coming out publicly as intersex: “I owe so much to the activists who have helped make the world we currently live in just a bit more bearable for me to reveal my full truth—to come out publicly, here, for the first time. [...] Despite the seemingly traumatic nature of my personal history, acknowledging that history throughout my journey of self-discovery and affirmation has allowed me to see beyond the limiting binaries of prescriptive social norms and has given me a more intimate perspective on how such socially constructed concepts as race, class, as well as gender and sexuality, perpetuate systems of disenfranchisement that have yet to be dismantled.”
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