What Joe Biden won – and what he didn't

after four long tense days we've reached a historic moment in this election joe biden is president-elect america's democracy is not guaranteed it is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it [Applause] when i look back on biden's campaign i think the single most impressive thing he did were the biden sanders task forces that followed the primary cbs news projects the former vice president beats senator bernie sanders in florida illinois and arizona biden now has more than half of the 1991 delegates needed to clinch the democratic nomination my goal as a candidate for president is to unify this party and then to unify the nation he invited all of these different players who had been harsh critics of the bibing campaign the sunrise movement which is the the youth-led climate movement he invited the sunrise movement into the task force they'd been incredibly critical of biden they've given his climate plan an app you've had at least some hand in shaping kind of forming joe biden's climate plan joe biden's plan will present a seismic shift in climate policy at the federal level than anything that we have seen in the last 40 years alexandra ocasio-cortez who had said in another country her and biden wouldn't even be in the same political party into the task force and it worked voting for joe biden is not about whether you agree with him it's a vote to let our democracy live another day that's what this is about it's so beautiful to see someone who stood for oppression and the system changed because of activism and just the voice of young people crying out but there is no reason to think that because joe biden won the election he'll be able to govern i think the likeliest outcome they're going to have a joe biden presidency and a mitch mcconnell senate and that means that lots of things joe biden wants to do are not going to happen i was looking at some data from a fox news analysis there's these questions like how concerned about the effects of climate change are you and you're getting 46 vary 26 somewhat gun laws pathway to citizenship changing to a government-run health care plan it seems clear from this data that what the american people want is not being translated to law and policy and i'm wondering if you can give some context as to why that is those numbers don't in any way surprise me we've seen numbers like that for a very long time as of right now joe biden holds a lead of about 13 500 votes the key thing to understand about the modern republican party is it is a party that routinely is not able to win the most votes at any level of the national system it has lost a popular vote in seven of the last presidential elections it has gotten fewer votes in the last three or four senate elections in a row a party that wins power without winning the most votes is going to turn against democracy itself many forced to wait for hours in part because of new voting machines that were either missing or not working 20 fewer polling places than we had in 2016. this line of people wraps around the block there's a line of cars to curbside vote people waited in line for two three four hours just to cast a vote right after the house attempted to pass a bill that would have made voting during a pandemic easier post office to deliver ballots what trump said on fox and friends was they they had things uh levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a republican elected in this country again what i'm wondering is obviously there are conservative parties in other democratic systems that win power all the time in canada or great britain or australia other um majoritarian democracies he's wrong that the republican party would never win power again what he's right about is that his republican party would never win power again a party that is increasingly afraid of what would happen to it if it was exposed to full-on actual democracy right you're saying if they really had to compete for votes that they would have to begin to embrace some of those policies as conservative parties in those countries have done yes thank you very much as we speak donald trump is functionally engaged in what we would understand in another country as a coup attempt if you count the legal votes i easily win if you count the illegal votes they can try to steal the election from us if our goal is to defend the integrity of the election we'll not allow the corruption to steal such an important election or any other well we're interrupting this because what the president of the united states is saying in large part is absolutely untrue it's a very dangerous moment but even beneath that what you then end up having is when a party wins power without winning votes they will tend to use that power to make it easier to win power without winning votes all signs guys all signs point to a runoff in georgia not just one but two senate races here in georgia what that means here is that georgia could be at the center of the political universe through early next year january 5th is when the runoff is so those georgia runoffs they're really really really important record number of americans of all races faiths religions chose change over more of the same if democrats win the senate and choose to make democracy a priority there's a lot they can actually do uh dc and puerto rico should be offered statehood that's obvious things like automatic voter registration mail and balloting like we should just make elections a lot simpler to participate in make sure people's voices are being heard more clearly democracy works and i want you to know that our work is hard for those who voted against me as those who voted for me that's the job that's the job you

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Keywords: 2020 election, joe biden, donald trump, republicans, democrats, democracy, voting, joe biden acceptance speech, who won the election, Vox.com, vox, explain, explainer

Id: S4ugBZmctKA

Length: 6min 15sec (375 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020