With Election Still Too Close To Call, Americans Brace

I’m not breaking any news by telling you that, as of this morning, the election is still too close to call. More and more, it looks like the election will come down to Pennsylvania and their 20 electoral votes.

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And frankly, this is scaring the crap out of a lot of Americans on both sides of the aisle.

Normally, Americans go to bed on election Tuesday and wake up to find out who won the election. While there are often some states still up for grab here and there, someone’s garnered 270 electoral votes and will be set to take office the following January.

This year is a smidge different.

With legions of absentee ballots–an effort pushed by both parties as a way to get turnout amid fears of COVID-19–many states were simply not equipped to give quick numbers, unlike previous years.

Now, as Americans lay in bed facing what they may believe to be Schrodinger’s Election–until they look, their candidate has both won and lost–they will get out of bed to find that absolutely nothing has changed.

What does this mean for gun rights? Well, who the hell knows?

After all, we know that anti-gunner Mark Kelly has won his Senate race against Martha McSally, but that really shouldn’t be overly surprising. Arizona has started trending blue over the last couple of elections and McSally wasn’t exactly a beloved candidate. While I, personally, respect her, the truth is that she’d lost her previous Senate bid and only served in that chamber because she was appointed to fill the vacancy left by John McCain’s death.

The fact that she couldn’t hold onto the seat isn’t overly shocking to much of anyone, though disappointing.

However, that’s just one seat in the Senate.

Instead of one side celebrating and the other planning for the midterms, everyone seems to be holding their collective breaths.  We simply don’t know what’s coming, and that can be frightening. Instead of the feared rioting and looting, we’re on pause as we wait for the results to come in.

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Americans are bracing for the worst.

Honestly, that’s an uncomfortable place to be for all of us. I’ve dealt with an uncertain election before. I voted in the 2000 election, after all. The Bush-Gore race was one for the ages, of course, so I’ve been here before.

At the end of that race, though, no one was really afraid of us seeing riots. We may not have liked what the other guy represented, but few of us feared outright civil war.

Today, we do.

Sure, there aren’t any riots to report this morning, thankfully, but that’s only because everyone is still holding out hope that their guy will still pull it out. Again, it all seems to hinge on Pennsylvania.

This would, of course, be the same state where they elected a governor who encouraged and supported a local mayor to violate the state’s preemption law regarding gun control. You’ll excuse me if I’m less than confident.

Then again, though, as of this writing, Trump is winning the state. However, there are a lot of votes left to count.

It’s set up to be a long day or two as things currently stand.

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