2020 Election

Election 2020: Voices on the Changing Wind

Celeste Fremon
Written by Celeste Fremon

Editor’s note

We’ll be back to our regular reporting tomorrow, but in light of all the intense emotions sweeping the nation this weekend having to do with the 2020 presidential race, we decided we’d bring you a variety of reactions — moments of relief, fury, grief, joy, and hope — expressed via Twitter by an array of people, many of them writers and other artists.


Clint Smith, writer for the Atlantic, Author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, June 2021


Ted Lieu, USAF veteran, Member of Congress, CA-33.


Sherillyn Ifill, President & Director-Counsel of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund


Sharon Chinchilla, Navajo photographer based in New Mexico.


Shondiin Silversmith, Diné asdzáán. Indigenous Affairs Reporter for The Arizona Republic.


Brendon Woods, 1st Black Public Defender of Alameda County. Currently the only Chief Black PD in CA.


Amber Phillips, Reporter @washingtonpost’s @TheFix, Alumna @LasVegasSun


Ibram X. Kendi, author, essayist, Director, Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, National Book Award-winning author, of How to be an Anti Racist</a>, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, with Keisha N. Blain, to be released, Feb. 2, 2021.


Walter Isaakson, professor at @Tulane, author of “The Innovators,” plus biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Franklin, Einstein, and Steve Jobs.


Dr. La Shawn Paul, DSW, LCSW-R, Therapist. Clinical Supervisor. Mental Health Advocate. Documentary Producer.


Jelani Cobb, Staff Writer, @NewYorker, Professor, @Columbiajourn


Jamil Smith, Senior Writer, @RollingStone, @RSPolitics


Robert Reich, Berkeley prof, former Sec of Labor. Cofounder, Inequality Media. New book: The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.


Jacob Soberoff, Author of “Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, @NBCNews
and @MSNBC correspondent.


Judith Lewis Mernit, writes about climate and politics for Capital & Main, and other publications.


Stuart Neville, Award-winning novelist of Northern Ireland. His 2009 first novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, about the aftermath of “the troubles,” won the LA Times Book award for that year.


Paul Holdengraber, former director of New York Public Library’s Public Programming, most known for organizing literary conversations for the NYPL’s public program series, LIVE from the NYPL, which he founded. He hosts The Paul Holdengräber Show on the Intelligent Channel on YouTube, and is the founding Executive Director of The Onassis Foundation LA (OLA), a “center of dialogue” in Los Angeles.


The Academy of American Poets, the nation’s leading champion of poets, poetry, and the work of poetry organizations


Brandi Carlile, singer/songwriter, Grammy winner. The Joke, the song she sings with her two daughters in the tweet below, which she posted Sunday night, won her three Grammys in February 2019.


Photo of American flag billowing in the wind by Mark König on Unsplash

37 Comments

  • The people of America spoke and were granted relief, resulting in one helluva victory party.
    Trump 2020, “You are fired!”

  • With all due respect to the voices on the breaking wind, has anyone’s mind changed on any issue simply because if this election?

    It’s now the people on the true left’s turn to be betrayed , a la the Bernie Saunders voters.

    It’s professional wrestling, today’s hero is interchangeable with tomorrow’s villain, the real players are permanent and never at risk.

  • Yes, changing wind: use of TheHammer and Scorecard really changed things.

    And what say you about the rumored drive to get thousands of democrats to temporarily move to Georgia to sway the senate election, all to provide Schumer the opportunity to “fundamentally change America”?

    You might want to wait until recounts and lawsuits are resolved before you gloat.

  • Madame Kong, you are right, no one has changed their minds, but it does feel good to see a bunch of racist wallowing in their sorrows, at least for the next few years. Rural America was suckered by a con man. They are still waiting for the manufacturing jobs Captain Orange was going to bring back and that “illegals” took from them. Nothing, Nothing has changed for them in the last 4 years. Aside from the joy they got from keeping a few refugees in Mexico, they are back to where they started – still in the trailer, jobless, on disability and on Oxycotin or heroin, with a declining life expectancy. Its a shame.

    Dope of Reality – Its nice to see that you hang on to your conspiracy theories. Sure, there are hordes moving to Georgia, most of them illegal aliens. They are coming and they are going to take your white women. I guess you need something to hang on to.

    Again, gentlemen, several of you promised to leave the state if Trump lost. I assumed you were being honest. Or, was it the testimony many of give in court – bullshit. What say you, did we make America great again, or was it basically a 4-year Klan rally?

  • Not happening.
    The Dems are about to shitcan AOC and her America hating core of terrorists.
    Moderates barely hung into their seats and they sure won’t throw in their chips with AOC.

    Although I hope they do becaus that would guarantee a red wave 2022.

  • AOC needs to go back to what she does best – be a bartender who thinks there are “three chambers of government: the house, senate, and president.”

  • Childish Fool,

    Weighing in on adult matters again? Who said anything about leaving California if Trump lost? First of all, only the news media has called the election – and many of them are recanting their calls. Second, why the hell would anybody leave a state due to a national election? It’s you libtards who always vow to leave the country but never follow through.

  • Votes are still being counted, lawsuits are just starting to be filed, and recounts haven’t even started yet.

    Ain’t nothing old about this except the stench of Chicago democrat voter fraud.

  • Actually, no. I had no sympathy in 2016 for the “not my president” crowd. He was elected, he’s your president.

    Thank God, don’t have to worry about it this year.

    Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we’re free at last.

  • Dope of Reality, you are such an ignorant sexist. She should go back to being a bartender? Maybe I have more faith in the working man and woman than you do. Politics is not a rocket science. Who knows, even you might be able to be a representative of the people. I am sure you criticized Ronnie for being a B-actor reading a teleprompter. Or Baby Bush being a business failure and former drug addict. He was the one that was “misunderestimated” or talked about how great the “internets” were. Or, Tom Delay for being a cockroach, he called it pest exterminator, killer. Or Capitan Orange for being a business failure and reality TV star. This is the man that claimed “herd mentality” would protect us from the virus. Or, that bleach would kill the virus. You cannot make that shit up.

    RealLOL, you are funny. You would have been one of those rednecks after the civil sitting on the porch with his wife-sister waiting for the South to rise again. I am glad you have faith. That and your government job will keep you going. Do not lose it, my friend.

  • Really?,

    What makes you think Trump lost? Is it the calls the media has already made? You know, the calls they are recanting. Just wait a little longer, little lib, things will be set right, and the totality of the fraud will be reversed.

    Trump 2020

  • “Little lib.”

    Uh, no, someone who despises a lying, narcissistic predator who deceived the American people and endangered them recklessly to serve his own ends, doesn’t have to be a liberal. Don’t recall anyone ever saddling me with that one.

    Name me one other conservative leader who has had the number of conservatives disavow him that your boy has. Can’t think of any, because no one comes close. Respected leaders with impeccable conservative credentials are sickened by this piece of crap. Good riddance. Keep on living in your dreamland while you can.

  • I know it is hard to process, however this is is what happens when someone suffers a loss, disbelief, denial
    & depression.

    My suggestion to those with these symptoms are to
    1. Seek counseling
    2. Join a support/focus group
    3. Learn to coexist

    As for Trump 2020, never again.

  • Fife,
    Why are you such an bitter, cantankerous flag waver?

    I’m aging myself with this but don’t turn purple and blow a gasket when you hear “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”. Lol
    Your chances of hearing that increases daily, something to think about.

  • U.S Citizen……

    “My suggestion to those with these symptoms are to
    1. Seek counseling
    2. Join a support/focus group
    3. Learn to coexist”

    Exactly. Those are the same steps I recommend for someone living in a alternate universe, devoid of reality who has been brainwashed like those in a cult to romanticize a “Utopian” society that has only existed in the minds of fiction writers, philosophers, and maniacal dictators.

    LMAO Progressive Democrats, PROC, Emperor George Soros, Socialism, Bernie Sanders, AOC, “Reimagined ????” and Commmrade Biden-Harris

  • My God I wish I could run into you knowing you were this bitch of a hateful fucking racist dick you are. I’d let you know who I am and you would do nothing, not a fucking thing. Nothing physical would happen, I know better then to do anything in my position and you would not even think of stepping up. I would just give you a verbal beat down no matter who you were with and you’d do nothing. People like you are all the same. Gutless fucks with only these type places to act out. Now go back to your garage and rest up for whatever vile shit you come up with tomorrow.

  • Much as you would like it to be true, “Bro”, the Left doesn’t ever get to dictate the conversation to anyone. Still America last I looked though the new regime will try it’s best to fuck it up and turn it into something that looks like something way different.

  • Why did you delete my comment Celeste? Do you not know the difference between a user and an addict? You let CF toss out his lies and I correct him and my post gets deleted. WTF is up with that? His racist constant anti-White remarks constantly get a pass from you, why is that?

  • @ D.O.R (Doubting Obvious Reality),

    How is that ballot recount working out for’ya?

    No need for Trump to tap out seeing that he’s getting kicked out, literally.
    No doubt you “cops for trump” and flag wavers will stand down & stand by, forever.

  • Calm down Sharpton. You don’t get to control what I say ever. You get that? You cop hating babies like your life partner CF who posts racist tripe and cop hate daily get a pass from Celeste but I get deleted and that speaks to her ethics, not mine. So calm down Tiny, roll over and give your boy a tug. It’ll make everything seem better.

  • The Hammer and Scorecard , German File Server and other wacko conspiracies theories spouted by Sidney Powell got her FIRED 🙂

    Even Hugo Chavez is laughing in his grave.

  • How are those baseless Trump lawsuits working out.

    Has Sidney Powell uncovered that infamous German file server

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