US President-elect Joe Biden today showed off his new website and its fancy ‘.gov’ URL, effectively brandishing those three little letters as a subtle ‘fuck you’ to President Donald Trump.
Taking to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, Biden’s account shared the link to buildbackbetter.gov, the official website for his transition into power.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 24, 2020
The website itself is pretty standard fare for Biden, and it outlines a bunch of his policy positions.
But its use of the ‘.gov’ URL – which is reserved for official government organisations – has some folks pretty worked up.
Here’s Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s communications director, on the issue:
Dot – and I cannot stress this enough – gov https://t.co/MCEt4ObCWJ
— Kate Bedingfield (@KBeds) November 24, 2020
And here’s a bunch of other politics-watchers oohing and aahing at the URL’s significance:
https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/1331074423990808577
And we are off dot gov https://t.co/xXizkbQ2kx
— Dara Kass, MD (@darakass) November 24, 2020
Be advised Objective Dot Gov has been reacquired Repeat Objective Dot Gov is secure Over https://t.co/TBsxJIY2Eo
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) November 24, 2020
Trump can now DOT GOV his way right the fuck out the White House. https://t.co/Sz1fKs4alo
— Kyla in the Burgh 🏴☠️🔥 (@KylaInTheBurgh) November 24, 2020
His post came just hours after the head of the Government Services Administration (GSA) – essentially the office managers for the Federal Government – declared the transition could take place.
Notably, it is the GSA itself which approves ‘.gov’ URLs, which it says denote “bona fide government services.” Following this to its logical conclusion, the GSA now sees the transition as a bona fide government service.
But lapping a ‘.gov’ on the end of your website is hardly the only sign a transition is taking place. Around the same time as Biden’s account shared that link, the Pentagon announced it’s moving to assist Team Biden.
The Department of Defense is “prepared to provide post-election services and support in a professional, orderly, and efficient manner,” the organisation said.
All up, the ‘.gov’ thing doesn’t really matter, if the Pentagon just confirmed Biden is gonna have access to the nukes.
Anyway, this would all be pretty unremarkable if Trump himself hadn’t taken extraordinary steps to contest the results of this month’s election, which he lost.
In his own tweets discussing the GSA’s decision to greenlight the transition, Trump did not formally concede, and declared his team will continue to “fight” results from the ballot box.
What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history? We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots & “Dominion”.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2020
Barring any kind of miraculous legal result for Team Trump, Biden is slated to be sworn in as America’s 46th president on January 20, 2021.
At the very least, Biden will have the website ready to go.
