If total failure isn’t evidence that it was impossible… I mean, AFAIK Trump filed 38 cases and won 1, which didn’t affect any tallied ballots… then what evidence could conceivably convince you it was never possible?
If you cannot imagine any counterevidence to your position, then is your position a reasoned one? (I suggest not, but I’m open to persuasion.)
Courts don’t enforce their own rulings. All it would take would be a couple of legislatures to substitute Republican electors for Democratic ones, and throw the Electoral College into dispute, throwing the election to the House of Representatives. It happened in 1876. All he would need is the cooperation of Republican office holders, and it’s not inconceivable that they would choose to go along, given how many times they’ve gone along with him in the past four years.
Our institutional protections are not self-executing. They depend on the individual decisions of people in power. The Republicans have shown time and again that they can’t be counted on to do what’s right. So, while it might have been unlikely that Trump would have pulled off his coup, it was never impossible.
“Total failure” is a silly term and means nothing in this case. He moved the ball. He moved it from unthinkable to “next time things are close, the Republicans will try this again.”
It’s precisely because he faces a mountain of legal and financial issues that I believe he is going to try to stay in the public eye as much as possible. The guy is fundamentally a con man. Above all else, he has to keep his con going. That’s the only way to keep his head above water.
He’ll use his public appearances and whatnot to suck up as much money as he can from his followers, and to do that he has to keep his political agitation going. He was doing this during the Obama years—he has a much bigger platform now.
Nothing energizes a cult like failure. Cults double down when their predictions are disproved.
I believe it’s likely that he’ll keep doing it until he drops dead.
This is not an original observation; every online forum I’m on is echoing this same trope of “SOYLENT DEMOCRACY IS PEOPLE”.
It’s entirely and 100% wrong. Society isn’t made by people consciously deciding to act like angels; it’s decided by the incentives (but mostly penalties) that influence people to follow the law. We expect people to act badly, and they do act badly, and we have sufficient social goodwill and political structures to prevent that from happening. Again, I will repeat for the 100th time, Trump brought 38 cases to challenge the election. He prevailed in maybe one that didn’t affect anything. The rest were squashed.
If you look at all the bugs smeared on your windshield and conclude the bugs are winning, I truly don’t know how to help you, but I wish you’d stop bothering the rest of us with that nonsense.
Alright. What sort of evidence could persuade you that Trump couldn’t have stolen the election?
If no such evidence exists, then what’s a fair thing for me to call that position? I’d start with ‘unreasoned’ or ‘unreasonable’. Can you tell me why that’s wrong?
Most of us feel that evidence exists. Just for instance, the legislature of PA considered a bill, before the election, to give them the power to overrule the results. They didn’t, but how can you extend that to conclude that they “couldn’t have?”
Asahi has the right of it. It may not have “almost happened,” but they tried it, and it could have succeeded.
It is impossible to provide “evidence that it couldn’t have happened,” and it is childish to call us “unreasoned” for recognizing that such evidence does not – and cannot – exist. This pitting is proper, and you’re doing nothing to show you don’t deserve it.
(Show me evidence that a comet "could not have " struck the earth on Dec 7, 1941.)
I think if in recent history, some kind of election controversy arose and there was any sign that Republicans legitimately tried to approach an election with a fair outlook, that would have made me less worried about them doing it blatantly in a presidential election.
What we’ve seen since the SCOTUS struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act is that Republicans are completely willing to cheat to win elections, they’re only concerned with taking small steps away from existing levels of acceptable voter disenfranchisement rather than leaps and bounds.
In the wake of that ruling, they’ve had efforts in several states to disenfranchise voters nakedly in response to the freedom they now had to do it, most of which have had lengthy court battles (which are impractical in elections which is part of the reason the VRA was structured the way it was). There was even the example of Georgia where Brian Kemp just blatantly stole the election in 2018. Then you had the Trump admin. out in the open, blatantly illegally sabotaging mail to prevent a fair election.
The other side of it is that if there had been a concerted effort by the GOP that actually involved officials refusing to certify and/or state legislatures appointing their own electors, and the controversy led to a lawsuit, we already have good reason to believe the SCOTUS would be happy to call an election on partisan lines, based on what a much less partisan court did in Bush v. Gore.
In the aftermath it’s tough to know what’s really going on. It’s pretty clear that the GOP is happy to remove load-bearing walls from our democratic institutions in order to win. It’s possible they recognize that actually destroying democracy altogether would have negative consequences. It’s possible that they weren’t ready for a lot of private sector leadership to revolt if that happened. It’s possible that there wasn’t enough trust to have multiple states get in not certifying the results, or that Trump’s people just weren’t competent enough. I really hope the GOP realizes there are some lines that would be dangerous to cross, but that still isn’t clear to me.
I think that the election of 2020 will be vindication for both the optimistic and chicken littles among us. The sky didn’t quite fall, but there are also storm clouds gathering.
We’ve documented pretty well the disturbing trends in this country, but what’s also being overlooked is that there are also worrying global trends. Ideas - both good ones and bad ones - are often not self-limited to one area; they spread. Fascism spread. Communism spread. Illiberal democracy is being viewed by many around the world as an alternative to the failures of liberal democratic and capitalistic societies - that’s not only found in the US but abroad. And these creatures of right wing populist authoritarianism support and encourage each other.
Also, when a movement is somehow dealt a political setback, they don’t necessarily fail; the individual who attempts to grab power might fail for his own peculiar reasons, but “the base” or group of people who espouse those ideas, who are moved by those ideas, guarantees that the movement remains viable for someone else to take over - and that’s what concerns me.
As others have expressed, the fear is that someone else in the future might be a little more adept at code switching between normal and populist, and might be a lot more knowledgeable about how to weaponize government’s massive resources against opponents. And going forward, the country faces dangers that are intensifying, regardless of who is in power.
I do find it heartening that the dozen or so judges who heard these arguments dismissed them. What I do not find heartening is that the sanctity of our election was placed in the hands of a dozen or so judges, who were tasked with telling the President, and his 70 million gun-toting and increasingly irrational followers, to go fuck themselves.
It’s no longer 6 million voters deciding on who Pennsylvania will support, but a handful of judges who could all sit at my dining room table at once. A tremendous concentration of power, which will work perfectly well to support the will of the people, up until the point it doesn’t. That point won’t be telegraphed.
Okay, amend my comment. Hypothetically speaking, is there any possible persuasive argument or logical steps or factual information that could, if it were somehow brought to light, that could persuade you that I have this right and you have it wrong? If the answer is no, then what kind of position is that?
It’s partly right and partly wrong, and you’re perfectly free to remain with the wrong crowd if you choose.
I would be careful about making assumptions of the judicial system in this country. Without question, the independence of our judiciary has been one of the strongest safeguards within the system. But even in this case, we’ve seen a sharp rise in partisanship and ideology exerting influence on the judicial system.
This is about where I’m at. The system “worked” only in that a check was put on the executives attempt to exercise inappropriate power. Would have been better if the executive (a) hadn’t tried to exercise that power, or (b) the legislature had pre-empted such an attempt by crafting a better system of laws.
I’m duly impressed (and in a bad way) by how vulnerable the system is given the power that the executive has in appointing judges.
Consider the progression.
From 2009 to 2012, Palin, Trump and others were spreading fake news about how Obama was going to completely socialize the economy and how he wasn’t born in the US. As outrageous as those claims were, his legitimacy was generally not questioned and nobody even thought of challenging the results of the election.
Now fast-forward to what we just observed these past few weeks. We have demonstrably false claims about election fraud that has been shot down by court after court, and yet the political party that lost is supporting a president that refuses to concede, with a senator reportedly asking a secretary of state to toss out certain types of votes, with a party asking states to abandon the certification process (normally a formality), and even convincing a member of one state’s certification board to abstain for absolutely no valid reason at all other than political fealty.
What will we be dealing with 4 or 8 years from now? That’s a serious question.
The underpants gnomes themselves didn’t know how they were going to profit. It’s doesn’t matter whether or now we know the game plan, it only matters that they do.
That’s what a whole lot of this conversation is, is looking for what that step 2 may be. We’re nobodies talking on an internet messageboard, we don’t have access to the information and tools that those who would like to make step 2 a reality have, and so do not know all the things that may fit in there.
So, that’s the whole point, come up with scenarios, hypothesis or conjectures as to how they could pull this off, and see if they are realistic or not. That one has not been found is great. It strengthens my confidence in the outcome. That does not mean that one cannot be found, it certainly does not mean that we should stop looking. At the very least, we know that they are looking.
Yesterday, rather than going to family, I went to the park. On my way, I saw a number of “Stop the Steal” signs in people’s yards. They certainly think that there is some realistic scenario in which this trainwreck of an administration gets to continue.
If someone is worried about a small chance of something disastrous occurring, are those who assured them that there was nothing to worry about “vindicated” when it does not occur?
My parents had a years long debate over real Christmas trees. My father thought that they were a fire hazard, my mother thought that they were necessary to properly celebrate Christmas. Was my mother “vindicated” every year that the house didn’t burn down?
You are correct, and you should expect and deserve no congratulations. I think that you are right right now, I don’t think that he’ll pull off a coup. That doesn’t mean that I won’t keep a watchful eye, to make sure that he and his cronies don’t think of something that we haven’t.
My definition of right does involve having room for uncertainty, yes. When we smoothly transition to the Biden administration, you will have been right in your prediction of a fairly probable event, but you will not have been proven right that it was a 100% sure thing.
Then don’t comment on it.
There are those whose mental states that I am worried about. I do think that the election and everything about it will end up being rather traumatic to some people.
I don’t think that is any of our fellow posters here, though.
I really do think that that is a strawman. No one is saying that. What people are saying is that other things that we took for granted to keep him in check have failed, so they aren’t taking it for granted.
Well, baby steps, that’s all I can expect.
After this storm has passed, I have the feeling that we are going to be missing all of our lawn furniture, and most of our shingles.
The court cases don’t bother me too much - they do bother me in that trump has appointed many, many partisan judges so it wouldn’t take much to make these court decisions go a different way (i.e., if the margin between Biden and trump was closer). Plus these cases should never have been brought since they are so flimsy and the “irregularities” are not indicative of widespread fraud (or even fraud at all) and not enough to change the result unless you disenfranchise millions of voters. So it is disturbing. Plus I’m worried about what the heck that judge was doing who ordered any further certification in Pennsylvania to stop. WTF? Hopefully that case will be thrown in the dumpster post haste.
What bothers me much more is how much pressure has been placed on politicians in key states. Trump has been applying, himself and through surrogates, massive pressure on GOP politicians to just refuse to certify Biden’s win, send a GOP slate of electors against the will of voters, and whatever else. IMO there is still some danger up through the safe harbor date and certification by Congress that trump can find some lackeys willing to throw a wrench in the works. It probably won’t work, but we could still be in for a long ordeal and possibly even “President Pelosi” if the already gridlocked Congress decides to make a big stand via rogue GOP lackeys for trump.
Plus we’ve already been damaged by trump’s entire presidency and all the GOP claims of election fraud. Talk about projection - they’re the ones committing election fraud!
So yeah, it did bother me to read the blanket statement that anyone who was seriously worried was just practicing protective pessimism or thinks trump can magically do anything.
Hypothetically speaking, you would have to provide evidence of your opinion, not just re-stating a position of faith. It would be almost impossible. You’re falling into the classical trap of trying to “prove a negative,” and that is traditionally very difficult.
My position is evidence-based. Trump actually tried to overturn the results of the election. He failed, but nothing has been shown to indicate that his efforts “could not” have succeeded.
Proving the negative is actually what you (well, some of you) want me to do, to prove the negative statement that he had no way of stealing it. This would require me to exhaustively eliminate every path to a success. It puts a way bigger burden on me than on you. But you know what? I took a stab at it. I personally went through that exercise a few months ago, exhausting every reported path to success. I am a worrier and I found no serious worries. Not to say I wasn’t biting my nails anyway, but I got through it by assuring myself that I looked at every single underpants gnome and found no route to profit.
The reason people are now leaning on the fact that I don’t know everything, and none of us really does… is a classic indicator of asking folks to prove the negative. No information I can present will suffice to convince you; there always must be some unseen thing we must have missed, because… well, I don’t know. You tell me.
But that’s the problem with your position. You’re claiming that your understanding of the situation does cover every possible, conceivable, feasible, notional event – and our position is, there may be something everyone overlooked.
The actual historical facts have already included many things that no one predicted. How can you say your analysis is absolutely complete?
I don’t “want you to” prove a negative. I want you to concede that, in fact, you can’t, and that you blundered by claiming you could. (As blunders go, it’s pretty darn minor!)
(Edited…I made a minor blunder!)
Don’t be annoyed by people who didn’t exhaustively eliminate every possible path to Trump’s success. I’m assuming here that this was a significant piece of work, not something you hacked out while watching an episode of AGT.
If you want me, or other worriers to be as comfortable as you with this prospect looming over us, then you have to expect us to demand the same exhaustive work as you have done.
I’m not asking you to present all of your findings here for our critique, but just to appreciate that we would need that level of argument to satisfy us, just as you did, and in good conscience, may not even agree with your assessment of the risk.
For what it’s worth, personally I’m not bothered that those lawsuits were made, nor by the number of them. The purpose of the legal process in cases like these is to air the facts to the public. Assume for the moment that some of these cases had some kind of meat to them, such that the judges felt they required a public hearing. Then the thinness of the evidence in favor of the suits would have been fully exposed for all to see, and to be ground into the dirt by the defenders in the suits.
Those individual judges aren’t the only backstops to protection of the vote counts. A public trial is the next one. And then appeals all the way up the line if the decisions are adverse. So while it is possible that enough judges and justices would be corrupted that the challenges would ultimately succeed, the likelihood that this would happen, against the evidence, and in the full light of day, is almost vanishingly small (in my opinion, of course).
It seems to me that there is no law you could pass that could prevent such lawsuits, people must always be able to challenge potentially corrupt voting processes or actions. Having the best people as judges is, of course, always desirable, not just for election results. But the only real protection is having a literate and sensible voting public. If we want to prevent another populist nightmare, that is where our energy needs to be focused.