To our Trump-supporting relatives, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances:
We need to talk.
Let’s settle this once and for all.
He lost.
President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 Presidential Election to former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden by 306 to 232 electoral votes. Roughly 51 percent to 47.3 percent. 79 million to 73.4 million, more or less.
He lost.
We’re sorry. It was sort of close, but he lost.
It’s clear. It’s simple. It’s undisputed. It’s backed up by facts, evidence, reporting, and common sense.
Yes, there are outstanding court cases. They’re failing. Across the country, state after state, they’re all failing. Law firms are fleeing with their tails between their legs. The lawsuits aren’t even trying to claim widespread fraud. They’re just nitpicking around the edges. If all of the lawsuits were decided in Trump’s favor today, they still wouldn’t overturn the election.
Yes, we understand there are still recounts underway. We will acknowledge that these could, theoretically, in some bizarro version of reality, change the results of the election. Yes, we understand that the fat lady is still warming up, and the chickens have not fully hatched.
But look at those numbers again.
George W. Bush agrees. Mitt Romney agrees. Every foreign country that matters agrees. Fox News agrees. The conservative Republican secretary of state in Georgia agrees.
Even Mitch McConnell agrees, though he won’t admit it. He says Trump deserves his day in court.
And when the court cases peter out, you know what will happen as much as we do.
Trump will have lost.
There’s no conspiracy.
It’s all been thoroughly debunked.
Debunked: Hackers are not breaking into voting systems and switching votes. (Dominion? Not a Venezuelan company, by the way.)
Debunked: Antifa militants are not pulling up in trucks to polling places in the dead of night and unloading boxes of fake ballots.
Debunked: They did not find 10,000 Trump ballots in a ditch.
Those people they caught on video writing up phony ballots, were not writing up phony ballots. The guy they caught on video burning Trump ballots, was burning blank sample ballots.
The dead guys who voted? Not dead.
The 119-year-old woman who voted? Turns out she wasn’t 119.
The flood of votes in Pennsylvania that arrived after Election Day? They don’t matter. It wasn’t a flood, it was a trickle. Not nearly enough to change the results.
Yes, Georgia found two thousand-whatever uncounted ballots on a memory card. They were counted. The gap narrowed. Trump gained! Guess what? He still lost.
No, the election was not “rigged.” How do you rig 80,000 votes across multiple states right under the noses of reporters, state officials, county officials, volunteers, lawyers, party observers, and law enforcement anyway? Without leaving a trace?
You don’t, that’s how. Even Danny Ocean couldn’t pull that off. Besides which, if you didn’t see the one with Sandra Bullock, Danny Ocean is dead.
Please be realistic. Be rational. Be logical.
He lost.
It’s not going to change.
No, Republican-led states are not going to send a bunch of faithless electors to vote for Trump. They’ve already nixed that idea.
No, Rudy Giuliani isn’t going to conjure up a whirlwind legal strategy to change the outcome.
No, Amy Coney Barrett is not going to swoop in and magically declare the entire election a fraud.
You’re being ridiculous. You’re grasping at straws that are themselves grasping at other, shorter straws.
This is not complicated. Trump just lost.
Yes, we remember Tara Reade. We remember Hunter Biden and the Magic Laptop of Azkaban. We suspect those last two were both phony scandals, but they don’t change the outcome of the election. Which was, for those just joining us: Trump lost.
The election is done. That’s it. It’s over. Finito. He lost.
Trump actually did much, much better than expected, for which he deserves some credit. He’s a tough hombre and a fierce competitor. He’s a master at manipulating the media.
You know what else he is? The loser of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Don’t try to tell us nobody voted for Joe Biden. The vote happened. People stood in line for hours. We all saw it on the news. People mailed in ballots all over the country. The pundits said there would be a red mirage in states like Pennsylvania. They said the same-day turnout would drastically favor Trump, while the mail-in ballots would drastically favor Biden.
You know what? Holy fuck knuckles, there was a red mirage in states like Pennsylvania. Same-day turnout drastically favored Trump. Mail-in ballots drastically favored Biden.
Trump lost.
Biden won.
306 to 232. We think. Georgia could possibly, maybe, flip-a-coin-and-land-on-its-edge odds, still go for Trump. North Carolina won’t go for Biden. We’ve accepted that.
(You know what we still won’t accept? We still will not accept that Max Scherzer missed a perfect game by one pitch in 2015. We think Jose Tabata leaned into that last curveball and got beaned on the elbow on purpose.)
Trump lost.
And you know what? It’s okay. We’ve been there.
We remember 2016. We threw many things and said many unkind words. We were butt-hurt snowflakes. We were enraged that the country narrowly chose to elect Donald Trump over that sterling, brilliant, incisive, principled woman Hillary Clinton.
We remember 2004. We were enraged that the country narrowly chose to re-elect George Bush over that other guy.
We hated the way that felt. We stewed. We yelled. We were not always charitable.
But in the end, it was simple. Hillary Clinton lost. John Kerry lost.
You know who else lost? Donald J. Trump.
(And seriously. Watch it again. Tabata practically lunged into that pitch. He was snickering as he trotted over to first base. Snickering. And twirling a waxed mustache. Max was a good sport, but he deserved that perfect game. Admit it.)