Election Night 2020 - Review

Election 2020 Finale

Having freshly watched the 2020 election unfold, with the build up, the stress and drama, a lengthy vote count, a sore loser, and ultimately the result, I couldn’t help but reflect how strange of an event it is to experience.

It’s like you’re at a movie premiere, but someone is interrupting you every five minutes to tell you their opinion and how the movie is going to end. Can we please just watch the movie and see what happens?! That “someone” is the media covering the U.S. election. But no analysis, extended media coverage, or punditry will change the outcome. The script has been written, the scenes already filmed; all written and directed by the citizens of the United States, as their ballots have already been cast. The producers (Biden and Trump) are also in the theater with you, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help produce the movie they want. Biden watches patiently for the end result, whereas Trump is making a scene, threatening to stop the film, and shouting for an alternate ending. But the director makes the final cut, and that is US.


While the film’s ending is consequential, the plot is quite boring. You are watching counting after all, the literal counting of ballots. It does not have to be this suspenseful. The media has perfected the art of storytelling the addition of numbers in an incomplete and quasi-random order. The movie preys on our hope and anguish, as if there is momentum to be gained by providing in progress commentary. But it has been written. There is no purpose besides entertainment.


Major plot element in Election 2020, look at those ups and downs. Credit New York Times 

Should counting election results be a form of entertainment? Must we watch the strenuous, tallying narrative and put ourselves through a rollercoaster of emotions?


My recommendation, skip the next Election Night movie and just hear how it ends. It’s too long of a movie anyway.

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