Why did it take so long for people to sue the right for lying, defamation, slander and libel?

Politics & Elections
#1

The right are now being sued by at least 2 major lawsuits from election companies.

The issue is the right lies all the damn time. Why aren’t they constantly being buried under an avalanche of lawsuits? When they accused antifa of being behind the capitol building insurrection, why couldn’t a representative for antifa (however you’d find that rep) sue the right wing media and media spokespersons for a billion dollars for blaming them for their act of domestic terrorism?

Basically why are election companies the only ones holding the right accountable for their lying with massive lawsuits? These people should be buried under lawsuits for all the lies they promote.

Is it that the left is collectively too passive to sue them when they lie? Is it easier for a private company to sue than an individual or an organization? Or is there another reason?

#2

Antifa is a decentralized movement comprised of separate independent groups. There’s nobody to represent them in a court case.

#3

Then why aren’t the people being accused of being satanic pedophiles suing the right? Get a rep to speak for them and file a suit.

#4

Streisand effect – suing means more attention paid to the issue.

Lawsuits aren’t cheap; are the people going to be able to prove enough damages (AND collect those damages) to make it worthwhile? Smartmatic thinks (or at least claims to think) it is in an existential crisis; Hillary Clinton, e.g., isn’t, and what dollar amount could she assign for the damage caused by loony-tunes accusations?

#5

Eh, yeah but if done properly it does seem to terrorize the targets. Didn’t Giuliani walk back his claims after being sued, and didnt newsmax tv freak out when the my pillow guy was pushing lies about voting machines? If they weren’t facing massive financial penalties they’d be happily lying, but because they faced consequences they altered their behavior a bit.

These people only understand negative consequences for their actions. massive financial fines are the only thing that works to stop their behavior.

#6

It also can be hard to quantify damages. One antifa person sues for defamation. If they don’t have a public reputation and a business that’s been harmed, how much can they claim for? and what lawyer would take taht on contingency against Fox and their battalion of defence lawyers?

Dominion Voting and Smartmantic are both well-established businesses who can show clear finanicial harm in the millions, if not billions, because of the hit their reputation for reliability has taken.

They also have a strong factual record, like, Smarmantic only provided service to one county in all of the US, but is alleged to have flipped votes all over the country, and the two were alleged to be working together, when they were actually competitors, and neither had any dealings with zombie Chavez. Those aren’t difficult facts to prove in court, and are very difficult for Fox and Lou Dobbs to rebut.

#7

What “representative for antifa” would have earned a billion dollars but for statements made by “the right wing media”?

#8

Proving defamation of any kind is notoriously difficult, and gets even more difficult when it’s political speech.

The voting machine guys have a unique weapon in their arsenal. They will point out that Giuliani et al made these claims over and over again in public, but not in their court filings. They will say this is proof of malice - if they actually had proof of fraud, as they said every day on the news, they would have used it in their court cases.

#9

Note that public figures have a higher standard than private individuals to prove slander or libel against themselves.

#10

There is also perhaps a slightly longer term strategy, both of these companies will hope to expand their businesses and the lied vote fraud would be one of the grounds that individual states might attempt to use to disqualify them from future contracts.

If any states now try to disqualify those companies from future electoral events it will be all the harder to justify it - and might pressure them to use their services.

Voter companies can portray themselves as guardians of democracy - who would argue against that in current circumstances?

Also worth mentioning - if some ordinary Joe had made these claims I doubt that it would matter, but when you have senior members of the legal profession making these claims, along with lamestream media, that has a much more fundamental impact - any sort of succesful claim of going to jeopardise Guilianis license but it’s also set a legal landscape that corporate America will have to negotiate.

#11

The primary liar of the right over the last 4 years has always been Donald Trump himself. E Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against him is over a year old now and still grinding through the courts, though perhaps it will go a bit quicker now that he’s finally FINALLY a private citizen again.

You need a lot of determination to take on something like that, and keep it going.

#12

There is this thing called “juries” and about half of every jury would be trump voters. Unless your case is ironclad, good luck with that.

And at least one of the jury would totally believe the lie, despite all the evidence in court.

#13

Republicans have been lying for decades (and let’s not pretend that some Democrats haven’t been lying as well). But up until 2016, they lied like professionals. They knew what the truth was, know what false impression they wanted to convey, and understood how to pass on a lie without saying anything that could be proven as a lie in court. They knew where the law drew its lines and always made sure to stay within them.

Trump lies a lot. But he doesn’t lie well. In fact, it’s amazing how somebody who tells as many lies as he does is so bad at it.

#14

That’s because he doesn’t actually tell lies, at least not in the strictest sense. A liar knows what the truth is, and intentionally says something else. I don’t think that’s what Trump actually does. He says whatever seems to him to be useful to him to say in the moment he says it. The “truth” is utterly irrelevant.

I’m not sure it’s quite right to say he genuinely believes he won in a landslide and the election was stolen from him. I’m not sure he really has solid factual beliefs. I think he thinks it’s useful to him to think and act as if he won in a landslide and the election was stolen from him. It’s not exactly a lie because whether it’s objectively true just isn’t part of his cognitive process.

The result is that his “lies” seem transparently false to a truly bizarre degree to many people. But to someone who wants them to be true, for whom it would also be useful if they were true, well, motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.

#15

But Trump lies so poorly is often doesn’t serve his purposes. Sure, he fools some people but those are really stupid people. If Trump was a better liar he would be able to fool smarter people. If Trump was a more skilled liar, for example, he might have gotten re-elected.

I think Trump’s privileged background kept him from being a better liar. Most people have to face consequences when they get caught lying. So they learn to lie more convincingly (or to avoid lying). Trump grew up in a very privileged environment and never had to face any consequences for lying poorly.

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#16

I mean…he did get elected in 2016. And even if he isn’t as wealthy and successful as he likes to pretend to be, he’s still wealthy and famous.

Sure, that’s a significant part of it. But, as I state above, I think at least as big a part of it is that objective facts just don’t enter into his cognitive processes. Whether a better constructed lie would serve his interests better just doesn’t enter into it, because, again, I don’t think he actually thinks out what he says. He doesn’t carefully strategize and carefully construct lies to maximize their utility. He just satisfices with whatever pops into his head in the moment.

Again, even though you (and I for that matter) think he’s a clumsy liar, he convinced over 74 million people to vote for him, and he’s convinced millions of them that he won, in a landslide, and that the election was stolen from them. Something seems to be working for him, to some extent.

#17

As fun as it is to pretend he literally has no brains, this isn’t right.

Background - my dad is a smart guy, but he doesn’t know everything. However, for as long as I can remember, when he didn’t know something, he tends to just make something up so he could sound like he knew something. He does that less now because everyone instantly calls him on it, but it was something he really did - make shit up if he didn’t know, because “I don’t know” wasn’t really something a smart guy like him should have to say.

Trump clearly knows things, and he clearly knowingly lies about things. Sure, he makes things up if he doesn’t know, and as his mind has been going (and it has been going) he makes up more and more stupid shit. But he was on record from early on that he knew the pandemic was real, and still lied about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t know - it’s that he lies as easily as breathing.

#18

I’m guessing it’s this ^

A person can sue whenever they like, but the fact that they waited means that they’re calculating damages. They also want to wait long enough to establish a track record of behavior. There’s a difference between a defendant who says “We misspoke, retract what we said, and sincerely apologize for any unintended implications,” and “You’re suing me? Kiss my ass.”

#19

As I understand it a valid claim of defamation has to involve 1) a claim of fact (so it someone said “Dominion is run by awful people, who do terrible things,” no luck - that’s an opinion, not a claim of fact), 2) that was untrue, and 3) caused damages (or was of a class of statement that is assumed to always be damaging). This is a pretty high bar - but publicly accusing a company that makes voting machines of making voting machines that don’t work right meets that threshold enough that the suit will (probably) require actual litigation instead of a request for dismissal because one of the element is missing. (I am not a lawyer).

#20

Yeah, I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. I’m not “pretending” anything, and I’m not having fun. I certainly don’t think that Donald Trump “literally has no brains.” I just don’t think that “lying” really accurately describes what Donald Trump is doing. I’m not saying that I think he doesn’t know factual information about the pandemic. I just don’t think that he cares.