American Politics Discussion Thread

[Mjmd]

You assume here that the certification procedure is a pure formality, not a place for a substantive decision where senators need to determine whether what they certify is legit. This I am not sure is a tenable view, i. e. if they receive two conflicting lists of delegates from the same state, it is certainly up to them to decide which one to choose. Also they, I think, have a right to throw away a list of delegates which is clearly not real, e. g. consists of made-up people. In any case, it is a non-trivial question of constitutional law - what exactly the certification procedure represents. I do not see how a disagreement on this issue says anything about one's morality.

"legit" is far different from "trying to choose the electors that suits your side taking power". There has been one election where there was so much fraud it came down to a senate commission, but there was very much provable fraud and massive voter intimidation. If they were to do this OR TRY TO DO THIS for any election EVERYONE should take a close look at the facts and then take another look at the facts. If a side were to do this WITHOUT provable evidence its a pretty clear power grab.

While this was going down I asked myself "what if I'm wrong". What if I'm in a bubble and it was stolen. How can I determine logically. I think people should always question their beliefs. Even if I disregarded the recounts and audits the EASIEST logical way was that Republicans weren't doing what was being asked of them. Republican controllled state reps, attorneys generals, and governors were all getting pressured and were saying things like "no one wanted to find fraud more than me, but it just wasn't there". If a large group of people with the most to gain weren't trying to overturn at lower governmental levels it was a good indicator it was false. Mike Pence who hadn't gone against Trump the rest of his presidency went against him on this. We wont have that logical test next time. A lot of those Republicans have been forced out. A lot of Republicans are afraid of being primaried. Another good logical indicator was that Trump wasn't actually spending money in the effort to overturn; shows mens rae. Since then we've gotten additional information in more investigations and audit and things like revealed fox news texts. Also, the audits and recounts shouldn't be discounted, but its good to ignore for initial look.

[Gavagai]

You assume here that the certification procedure is a pure formality, not a place for a substantive decision where senators need to determine whether what they certify is legit. This I am not sure is a tenable view, i. e. if they receive two conflicting lists of delegates from the same state, it is certainly up to them to decide which one to choose. Also they, I think, have a right to throw away a list of delegates which is clearly not real, e. g. consists of made-up people. In any case, it is a non-trivial question of constitutional law - what exactly the certification procedure represents. I do not see how a disagreement on this issue says anything about one's morality.

"legit" is far different from "trying to choose the electors that suits your side taking power". There has been one election where there was so much fraud it came down to a senate commission, but there was very much provable fraud and massive voter intimidation. If they were to do this OR TRY TO DO THIS for any election EVERYONE should take a close look at the facts and then take another look at the facts. If a side were to do this WITHOUT provable evidence its a pretty clear power grab.

While this was going down I asked myself "what if I'm wrong". What if I'm in a bubble and it was stolen. How can I determine logically. I think people should always question their beliefs. Even if I disregarded the recounts and audits the EASIEST logical way was that Republicans weren't doing what was being asked of them. Republican controllled state reps, attorneys generals, and governors were all getting pressured and were saying things like "no one wanted to find fraud more than me, but it just wasn't there". If a large group of people with the most to gain weren't trying to overturn at lower governmental levels it was a good indicator it was false. Mike Pence who hadn't gone against Trump the rest of his presidency went against him on this. We wont have that logical test next time. A lot of those Republicans have been forced out. A lot of Republicans are afraid of being primaried. Another good logical indicator was that Trump wasn't actually spending money in the effort to overturn; shows mens rae. Since then we've gotten additional information in more investigations and audit and things like revealed fox news texts. Also, the audits and recounts shouldn't be discounted, but its good to ignore for initial look.

As I said, you can say this is very stupid for Republicans to believe that elections were stolen but this is not the question we are discussing. What we are discussing is whether it makes you a scumbag if you believe that stolen elections should be overturned in Senate. I do not think it necessarily does.
Republicans distrust the system as a whole, including those Republicans who try to work within the system. Even though I am skeptical the elections were outright stolen (even though the margins are so thin that I would not discount this possibility so easily), I think they have very good reasons to distrust it. And if you distrust the integrity of the process, you would care little about things which would constitute evidence under the rules of the process.
Try to exercise empathy for once and put yourself in the shoes of Trump supporters. Imagine you live in a country where Trump-like characters got elected president for about a hundred years in a row. And when, finally, a person with whom you can at least a little bit identify gets elected - and gets bullied from all sides, loses the next elections under suspicious circumstances, and now Trump-like people who ruled the country unchecked for the previous hundred years try to put him in jail. How much would you trust these people when they would say that there was no evidence of election fraud? How would you feel about their sanctimonious preachings about the "transfer of power" given that these transfers typically happened between (from your perspective) barely distinguishable clones? It is very easy to give up power when you know that the next president will be more of the same for you. It is more difficult when we are talking about a once-in-generation chance to make your voice heard.
You people went nuts after four years of Trump. Imagine how your opponents feel after a hundred years of presidents they detested with about the same intensity you detest Trump.

[Mjmd]

That is why its important to step back and try to prove it out different ways. Are there multiple different ways to verify it wasn't without relying on left leaning sources. Ok even IF it was stolen, but not provable before Republican judges and a Republican supreme court are there historical examples of bars you would have to pass to overturn. I do realize most people probably do not go through this exact thought process, so it is maybe unfair to judge them on that basis. I don't have the answer to this, but how much do you judge people for not questioning and blindly trusting. It certainly is true I've never understood the blind trust in Trump despite constant evidence contrary to his trustworthiness. But the same could be said of countless other politicians and people of power and I'm sure it will continue to happen again and again. So yes I probably am being too harsh.

[greenline]

The problem both with Trump's assertions and the situation is that proving fraud was never an option. If one assumes that the Democrats were capable of manipulating urban centers to produce fake votes, then relying on auditors employed by said urban centers to recount would always produce the same outcome. Asking the enemy that you believe cheated to admit to cheating is not ever going to pan out. To me, and this should be the case to more people, this is solid proof that Trump himself is not anything like the steely eyed dictator he is made out to be by his detractors, but rather a chump who genuinely believes that American democracy is a free and fair system. If he was intent on seizing power with an iron fist and nothing else, he would not have tried something so stupid as lawsuits and political showboating to remain president. He would have been making friends in the army. But if he was willing to do such things, he wouldn't be Donald Trump.

The most suspicious things about the 2020 election are not evidence provided by Trump, but by the establishment. The people involved in fortifying the election were so proud of what they did, they felt the need to kiss and tell just a bit.

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

When reading this article, think to yourself: if this was published by Russian state media about how it was necessary to fortify an election to stop Navalny from winning, how would I view this?

[Gavagai]

That is why its important to step back and try to prove it out different ways. Are there multiple different ways to verify it wasn't without relying on left leaning sources. Ok even IF it was stolen, but not provable before Republican judges and a Republican supreme court are there historical examples of bars you would have to pass to overturn. I do realize most people probably do not go through this exact thought process, so it is maybe unfair to judge them on that basis. I don't have the answer to this, but how much do you judge people for not questioning and blindly trusting. It certainly is true I've never understood the blind trust in Trump despite constant evidence contrary to his trustworthiness. But the same could be said of countless other politicians and people of power and I'm sure it will continue to happen again and again. So yes I probably am being too harsh.

Why people believe Trump is trustworthy I can explain very easily. He can lie about anything but the most important thing: he does not lie about who he is. He is the only US politician who is genuine in that sense and there are quite many people for whom this is a dealbreaker. From their perspective, Trump is simply the only option.

[Charr Babies]

Why people believe Trump is trustworthy I can explain very easily. He can lie about anything but the most important thing: he does not lie about who he is. He is the only US politician who is genuine in that sense and there are quite many people for whom this is a dealbreaker. From their perspective, Trump is simply the only option.

More trust worthy, at least. Notice China doesn't even want talks with us anymore. 

How does that work? Blinken was just there to accuse and threaten China for helping Russia and imposed more sanctions (How did that work out?), while at the same time Ukraine's foreign minster went to China seeking ‘common ground’ with China in talks on ending war with Russia, talked about expanding bilateral relations and signed more trade deals.

[Mjmd]

@Greenline. If you can't prove fraud to the DOJ, Republican legislators, attorneys generals, governors, judges, or your own vice president you concede. If you can't prove it, then the right thing to do is concede (this is why I use the example of Andrew Jackson because its a case provable case of we know that election was stolen albeit legally, which if you can't prove it before a judge its legal). We know he pressured all these groups. We can listen to one of those calls with Georgia. We can listen to Republican saying "Mr President there is no proof of that". Again, we can look at him not spending money he raised with those lies, with the promise to use those funds in legal fights, and see he didn't spend said money on those efforts. Again, there are some easy logical tests here that may not be available to us next time. He also did replace some military officials right after the election and he would have replaced head of DOJ if not for threat of mass resignations on Jan 3.    

BTW: Gav has come up with a plausible logic for why many Republicans don't understand the irony that they are relying on Harris to do something they did not want to do. You've said you don't particularly care for our current system of government before and admitted that Trump is fascist before, do you understand the irony or relying on that system for the result you want? Does that give you pause?

[greenline]

Concession was basically what was going to happen after Biden won the election. Trump's fake electors plan was not taken seriously by anyone of importance prior to Jan 6. The mainstream press correctly assumed the plan would not go anywhere and Trump would end up walking out the door when his time was up. And it doesn't really seem like Trump had planned for Jan 6 to turn out as it did. He had requested extra security for the day (and was denied by some democrat apparatchik just like he was denied security again prior to the attempted assassination, lol), and was caught off guards when the crowds reacted as they did. That Jan 6 turned out to be the event it did I've only seen some strange figures online claim, and they said it was primarily disgruntled billionaires letting the powers that be know they weren't happy about COVID restrictions. So much of the Jan 6 and 'COUP!!!!' discourse conveniently forgets that it happened in the wake of the lockdowns.

[Mjmd]

He didn't concede. Until the last moment he was pressuring Pence to overturn. Again, just because he failed it doesn't make it NOT bad. I'm an accountant and if I try to wire myself company money and fail because of the controls in place I would still be fired, lose my license, and I doubt my employer would recommend me for another job. Just because he tried and failed, doesn't mean its ok.

BTW getting back to an earlier I was going to go back in this book of a thread and find but at one point I put together a comprehensive argument on why yes recounts would have found at least some of the fraud being accused and why some of those fraud conspiracies are improbable to a high degree, but I don't have time now. I'll try to find it tomorrow, but this thread is stupidly long.

[Charr Babies]

 Just because he tried and failed, doesn't mean its ok.

Majority of the voters disagree with you - If he is elected. Even if he loses, it will only be a narrow margin)