The day that never ended
By Dan Zak and Clyde McGrady,
Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post
Plywood capital of a screw-loose nation. Boarded up, braced for impact, zombie-eyed and pulse-crazy, bluer than blue but governed by a red menace with enduring appeal out there in the several states. There was supposed to be catharsis Tuesday night, or at least a preview of catharsis, but all Washington got was another round in the torture chamber of the U.S. electoral system, with the media as scourge, unable to escape or exclaim because of a pandemic (worsening once again) that’s put much of the nation under volunteer house arrest.
Election Day didn’t start out that way. It started with the usual clear contrasts. At 2:57 a.m. Tuesday, President Trump tweeted a video montage of his herky-jerky dancing to “YMCA.” A few hours later, when the sun was up, Joe Biden visited his childhood home in Scranton, Pa., and wrote in black Sharpie on the living room wall:
From This House
To The White House
With The Grace of God
Joe Biden
11*3*2020
God still hasn’t revealed any plans yet, only unending twilight. As the judgments commenced Tuesday, there were plenty of people in D.C. who believed that everything was going to be all right. Among Democrats there was a dance between the crouched trauma of 2016 and giddy anticipation that this might be the series finale of the Trump show. The president’s team was publicly confident, even as Trump himself seemed to betray a moment of reflection in the late morning, while visiting his campaign headquarters across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va.
“Winning is easy,” Trump said, sounding tired after a fierce rally blitz in the final 72 hours. “Losing is never easy. Not for me, it’s not.”
The District battened down the hatches, shielding the windows of its CVSes and banks and Washington Sports Clubs, and voted quietly as if nothing was amiss.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/businesses-board-up-store-windows-ahead-of-election-day/2020/11/02/d4282f02-f7d5-4311-9432-71e44957a792_video.html
“It’s a pivotal moment for us,” said Chris Smith-Flood, a volunteer at precinct 9, which in 2016 gave Trump his best margin in the city (at a measly 15.41 percent). “To see businesses boarded up in Adams Morgan, U Street, up Georgia Avenue — regardless of who the winner is, someone is going to be unhappy.”
At a polling station on Calvert Street NW, voters got free chips and salsa from a food truck whose windshield was plastered with “Democracy is Delicious.”
“The only issue, as far as I was concerned, was getting rid of Trump and his enablers,” said Morton Lebow, a 94-year-old retired civil servant, outside the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Lebow, who had already mailed in his ballot, characterized his vote for Joe Biden as nothing less than a vote for democracy itself. “We have an authoritarian person who is trying to win a second term. And if he won a second term I think it would be a disaster.”
Around 5 p.m. Cora Masters Barry walked out of the polling place for precinct 122 in Southeast D.C. wearing a plastic face shield and black sweatshirt that spelled out “NOW IS THE TIME” in red glittering letters. Only 41 people, or 1.76 percent of the precinct, voted for Trump in 2016, and Barry thought the current turnout and excitement rivaled her then-husband Marion’s comeback election for mayor, or Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.
“Two hours ago, a calm came over me,” said Barry, on her way to drop off snacks at other polling places. “As a political scientist, I can’t deny the data. We’re going to be all right.”
On the top steps of the Lincoln Memorial at sunset, two couples from Springfield, Mo., enjoyed the mauve twilight settling around the Mall. They weren’t preoccupied by the election, or rushing back to their hotel to watch the news.
“I have peace about this because I believe God’s in control,” said Patricia Miller, a grandmother who voted for Trump before her road trip to the capital. “I thank the Lord there’s no riots yet. Because we have to walk back.”
Matt McClain
The Washington Post
A worker boards up windows at a hotel near the White House as election results trickle in.
There would be no riots. There would only be a slow slide into anxiety and weirdness, with snowplows and salt trucks blocking off the roads around the White House. Much of downtown D.C. was 9/11 silent, apart from Black Lives Matter Plaza, the block party of resistance on Trump’s doorstep. The president has indeed built a wall, though it’s financed by U.S. taxpayers and surrounds his temporary residence. The black barricades have been turned by citizens into a wall of witness to the death of Black people at the hands of police, and a bulletin board of curses directed at Trump.
On Tuesday night there, the antifascists argued with the “Jesus Saves” people. A potpourri of weed, spray paint and grilled cheese wafted on the chilly air. Chuck Todd was projected on the plywood covering the Motion Picture Association of America, at 16th and I streets NW. People danced to Luther Vandross and Prince. They sat in McPherson Square and stared dumbly at a big-screen projection of muted CNN coverage as go-go music clattered.
Matt McClain
The Washington Post
Shannon Epstein, center, and Bekah Carlson embrace as they watch election returns in McPherson Square.
The mild crowd began to thin at 11 p.m. There was nothing yet to celebrate or rage at. A group of Biden campaign aides watched returns on a D.C. rooftop, where the mood was anxious until the alcohol began to kick in. “I can’t say that anything right now is shocking to us,” one aide said, even as a great deal of Twitter seemed to be shocked by the polls being off yet again.
The partisans were certain, though.
“We’re going to win,” tweeted Rufus Gifford, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, at 11:51 p.m.
“We are going to win!” tweeted Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign. Ellis was beyond the barricades in the East Room of the White House with a few hundred of the president’s closest friends, dining on beef sliders, mini fish fillets, and bouquets of french fries in cardboard cups emblazoned with the presidential seal. The room was all gold-rimmed china and flatscreens featuring Fox News. When Fox called Florida for Trump, you could hear the cheers elsewhere in the mansion.
And then the small agonies began. Fox called Arizona for Biden, then retracted it. The New York Times’s devil needle for Georgia began to thrum toward Biden, as the former vice president lost Ohio and Texas. There was much ado about a single electoral vote in Nebraska. Everyone on social media told each other to wait, to go to bed, to not wallow in the excruciating progression of our process.
“It’s nerve-racking,” said a Georgetown University student named Jeff at 12:30 a.m. at the now-sleepy plaza by the White House. “We’ve been talking about it all day. We were just talking about how bummed we are that we aren’t gonna know tonight.”
From his home just south of D.C., in Maryland, Ian Walters was monitoring five screens in front of him, admiring all the Republican voters that pollsters had yet again missed. Yes, it was a late night. Yes, the process wasn’t tidy. But how could it be?
“Life is cumbersome and occasionally agonizing, right?” said Walters, communications director for the American Conservative Union. “This is just a reflection of what it means to be a fulfilled human, as absurd as it sounds. Life is not cut-and-dried. Life is often complicated and nuanced and confusing, and requires work, time and effort to determine what is what, and how to move forward.”
As the capital became even quieter, the candidates began to issue their statements — another round of contrast and confusion in a nation starved for consequence.
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” Trump tweeted. Twitter marked it as “disputed” and potentially “misleading” about this quadrennial process we put ourselves through.
“Keep the faith, guys,” Biden tweeted minutes later from Wilmington, Del. “We’re gonna win this.” Also misleading, perhaps, but Twitter didn’t make a note of it.
