If the presidency is a bully pulpit, Trump has used it to shout his unsubtle racism, sexism and xenophobia to an all-too-willing congregation… I’m not yet willing to concede that Trump has won a second term, but even if Biden wins, the Democrats better be prepared to face a reckoning of their own. In an America that lives up to its ideals, the 2020 presidential race could never have been this close.

It looked like Donald Trump was going to finally, definitively, be shown the door. There was something enlivening about that… Joe Biden still may win the presidency, sure. But a bigger proportion of the country than we thought is fine with things as they are. And they want more of it.

Maybe Democrats should stop assuming that they have African Americans and Latinos locked up, and stop reflexively labeling all opposition to any aspect of their agenda racist. Maybe they should recognize that Americans of all races, creeds, and colors own small businesses or dream of doing so one day and don’t see capitalism as an inherently cruel and unjust system.

Political polling is a fraud. It claims to measure something that, it is now unmistakably clear, cannot be accurately measured. Polling’s seductive promise is that it will take the guesswork out of understanding a complex and changing set of circumstances and replace that uncertainly with something that looks like science.

…we should never again put as much stock in public opinion polls, and those who interpret them, as we’ve grown accustomed to doing. Polling seems to be irrevocably broken, or at least our understanding of how seriously to take it is.

…with many votes still to be counted due to the influx of early voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, how the results compare to polling is still unclear. “I think everyone needs to take a deep breath,” Joshua Dyck, director for the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, said early Wednesday. 

A new group of Black progressives has officially been elected to Congress.

It’s been a year defined in part by nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, unabashedly progressive Black candidates ran in — and won — races around the country… Cori Bush from Missouri along with Jones, Jamaal Bowman, and Ritchie Torres — all who will represent districts in New York City.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican businesswoman known for espousing conspiratorial and bigoted views, won her House race to represent northwest Georgia, CNN projects Tuesday.

The future congresswoman drew the scorn of Republican leaders during her primary race against neurosurgeon John Cowan, after reports that she had promoted “Q,” an anonymous central character in a conspiracy theory that claims that President Donald Trump secretly fights to bring down a cabal of pedophiles. The FBI has warned such fringe views amount to a domestic terror threat.

The results, even with those still outstanding, mark a big win for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was reelected to his seventh term… Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the only Republican to vote against Barrett, was one of the most vulnerable members. But Collins was ahead early Wednesday in her bid against Democratic candidate Sarah Gideon, according to The Associated Press.

Israelis have their preference. Most of them want Trump to win. And this is not because they support his immigration policies, or admire his style (some do), or see him as the best shield against the coronavirus. It is because they see him as a true friend to Israel and as someone whose policies are better for dealing with Israel’s challenges.

Israelis are known for their tendency to be very direct. Thus, Trump’s courage to call a spade a spade is appreciated in Israel, even if some of his statements border on vulgarity. It is refreshing to the Israeli ear to hear an American presidential candidate not beating around the bush, but rather addressing issues without the constraints of liberal political correctness.

…he provided a tailwind for social Darwinism and Jewish hooliganism, which was expressed in contempt for the Palestinians and for the law, the justice system, state institutions and the media, as well as in alliances with anti-liberal regimes and the flourishing of populism.

If anything, it is the French government’s rhetoric that could end up convincing some Muslims that they are indeed different from other French people. The country’s leaders may well be accelerating the creation of precisely that which they fear: a distinct Muslim identity and community within France.

Unlike presidents of the recent past, Emmanuel Macron has risen to the occasion, taking the lead in honoring Paty as a martyr of free speech. He has vowed to uphold France’s unique secularism in the face of terrorist threats. And how have our media elite responded? By blaming France, of course… In Macron, Americans clearly have a champion for free speech. But does France have one in us?

The only ideology responsible for this is radical, violent, corrupted Islamism. To recognize this is not to stigmatize Islam. The perpetrators are not representatives of France’s Muslims, who were equally horrified and shocked by these attacks.

To seek other scapegoats, to engage in victim-blaming, or to obscure this reality, for political point-scoring or other motives — as some critics both at home and abroad have sought to do — is both disingenuous and dangerous.

With all the press attention Burger King is sure to get from its unusual gesture, it’s easy to be cynical and call it just another brilliant marketing maneuver. Maybe it is. But even then, the underlying idea is just as powerful: We’re living in uniquely painful times that demand uniquely compassionate thinking.

“Thank you, multibillion-dollar company for your incredibly heartfelt and sincere comment that isn’t totally an obvious ploy at increasing goodwill through an empty gesture by planting the seed that BK doesn’t completely suck,” says one unimpressed tweeter.

I think there’s something to be said for using your platform in a way that helps not only your own company, but that of the competition. Most companies aren’t comfortable with anything that might help a competitor. Most of the time, its easy to think of competition as a zero-sum game, and the goal becomes beating the other guy.

Maybe–with something as simple as social media post–Burger King just managed to show us that sometimes we’re all more likely to win together.