I’ve managed to get a good bit of sleep.There are hopeful signs that Joe Biden has a path to win the US election, but we’ll have to be patient while the votes are counted. There are already hopeful signs from Arizona and Nebraska’s second district. I have also seen results from Wisconsin’s Dane County which are encouraging.

Just a few minutes ago I witnessed one of the most insane and disgraceful events in American political history.

Trump came out in the White House. First of all, the vast numbers of American flags lined up behind him and the playing of “Hail to the Chief” as he came on and left – all gave the event something of the air of a Monty Python sketch.

But the gist of his speech was that a fraud was being perpetrated in the election process. He basically said he wants the votes to be stopped from being counted in certain parts of the country where he thinks he has already won in those states. He said he would go to the Supreme Court to do this.

Jim Acosta CNN’s White House correspondent reacted:

Our founding fathers are probably rolling in their graves right now. They did not envision an American president delegitimizing an election. That’s what Donald Trump did a few moments ago. It’s historic and it’s historically awful.

On the same channel, Republican electoral lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg was “shocked” and “distressed” by the speech – calling it an act of “disenfranchising…legally cast votes”.

Even former Republican Senator Rick Santorum said he was very distressed by “using the word fraud…by people counting the votes”.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.