2020 US election - The fat lady is warming up in the wings

[Labster]

In the other thread, Beau of the Fifth Column noted that Biden has had a shadow State Department for months.  Too many officials for a campaign, but not if you're hiring the people you need to hire to run foreign policy on your own.  The New York Times reported that in addition to administration officials not being allowed to talk to the Biden folks, Biden has issued an edict that his own people cannot talk to people in the administration -- even through back-channels.  They are, however, expected to talk to people who left the government.  Observations:

1. Biden has been planning for this specific situation of a no-help transition for a long time
   
2. Biden's team doesn't actually need the administration's help (although the secure phone lines would be nice)
   
3. Biden's team doesn't want to chance talking to current officials, probably to negate the risk of intentional misinformation and to keep "leakers" from getting needlessly terminated.
   

I wouldn't put high hopes on the opening of diplomatic relations between the two parties any time soon. But when people on TV tell you to worry about this, just remember that Biden isn't worried, so why should we be?