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Cont: 2020 Presidential Election part 3

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Aridas said:
I just see that as big incentive to lie.
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I have a relative who is a Green Beret. He said that when the U.S. offered bounties for informing on Taliban collaborators, huge numbers of people came forward to turn in anyone they had a grudge against.
 
I don't know which is the sadder possibility; that people honestly believe that we buy for a second that they have just assumed the role of "Constant on-call strike team to defend someone in every discussion, nitpick and attack their opposition, and pitch a hissy fit whenever an argument is critical of the person" without being a supporter or that they honestly think that is really something you can do and they are doing.

In politics there is no difference between a supporter and a defender and the amount of defense Trump gets for someone who nearly nobody admits to actually supporting is hilarious.
 
Tweets flagged by Twitter:
This claim about election fraud is disputed


Trump Tweets

The Fake Pollsters at @ABC/@washingtonpost produced a possibly illegal suppression Poll just before the Election showing me down 17 points in Wisconsin when, in fact, on Election Day, the race was even - & we are now preparing to win the state. Many such “deplorable” instances!

A guy named Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia Commissioner and so-called Republican (RINO), is being used big time by the Fake News Media to explain how honest things were with respect to the Election in Philadelphia. He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!
 
I had been enjoying Trump's suffering up until this point. Now he's going to Arlington National Cemetery where I'm sure he'll piss and moan about how butt hurt he is while standing on the graves of our war dead.
 
Vixen said:
There may need to be a new thread: Trump's Coup d'état.
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Yes, I think it is needed.

I am really worried how calm the other side is. It's like 'Oh, he's just having a tantrum, let him play while he still can. It will be all over soon...'

I honestly don't think so. They are setting things in motion, preparing positions. Slowly, one by one. And at some point he is going to flip the switch and everybody wakes up and says: 'Wait a minute, he can't do that!'
And he says: 'Watch me!'.
And this is it. Half the country is on his side. And his half has most of the guns... I'd say his chances are pretty good for getting away with it.

This is far from being over.

:boxedin:
 
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carlosy said:
Yes, I think it is needed.

I am really worried how calm the other side is. It's like 'Oh, he's just having a tantrum, let him play while he still can. It will be all over soon...'

I honestly don't think so. They are setting things in motion, preparing positions. Slowly, one by one. And at some point he is going to flip the switch and everybody wakes up and says: 'Wait a minute, he can't do that!'
And he says: 'Watch me!'.
And this is it. Half the country is on his side. And his half has most of the guns... I'd say his chances are pretty good for getting away with it.

This is far from being over.

:boxedin:
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In every case, it will come down to the Supreme Court, and Roberts and Gorsuch in particular, I think. If state legislatures try to install their hand-picked electors, the Dems will file suit and it will go to SCOTUS. Any Trump lawsuit will wind up at SCOTUS.
 
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I believe that Trump's game is to keep filing lawsuits and appeals to keep the results unresolved until the December deadline for the states to certify their results, try to get swing states with Republican legislatures to seat Republican electors to elect him to a second term. I think there is a small, but non-zero chance that this will actually work. Although a significant number of Republicans are not going along with this, far too many seem willing to stay on the Trump train for me to be completely confident. If he gets away with stealing this election, American democracy (such as it is) is toast.
 
The election will be certified for Biden before the Georgia Senate Election 2.0.
At which point Republicans will have to pick whether to stick to Trump and the lie, looking like wore losers, or accepting the results and pissing off Trump.

Not sure which result will help the republican candidates more.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The election will be certified for Biden before the Georgia Senate Election 2.0.
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Sadly, at this stage I'm not 100% convinced that the election will be certified for Joe Biden. Could GOP Senators refuse to certify the election because there are outstanding lawsuits and ensuring that the electoral process is robust for the future is far more important than certifying a single President, in dubious circumstances, today ?

The Great Zaganza said:
At which point Republicans will have to pick whether to stick to Trump and the lie, looking like wore losers, or accepting the results and pissing off Trump.

Not sure which result will help the republican candidates more.
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IMO sticking to Trump and the lie.

If they move away from Trump then he will instruct his base not to vote for them and they'll lose by a considerable margin. If they stick with Trump then it'll likely be a close race and if they lose, they can attempt to litigate their way out of it.

Of course if Joe Biden isn't President then IMO all bets are off.
 
Paul2 said:
In every case, it will come down to the Supreme Court, and Roberts and Gorsuch in particular, I think. If state legislatures try to install their hand-picked electors, the Dems will file suit and it will go to SCOTUS. Any Trump lawsuit will wind up at SCOTUS.
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I hope it doesn’t come down to that. If SCOTUS gives Trump the win then it is time to look at the calendar in order to call the precise time of death of US democracy.

And if SCOTUS gives Biden the win then Trump’s response will be loud enough to be known as the Yowl Heard ‘Round the World.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The election will be certified for Biden before the Georgia Senate Election 2.0.
At which point Republicans will have to pick whether to stick to Trump and the lie, looking like wore losers, or accepting the results and pissing off Trump.

Not sure which result will help the republican candidates more.
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There's also the matter of the Leadership PAC that Trump announced he's creating. "Support me or you won't get any of the money I'll be raising."
As if the money would be going anywhere other than into his own pocket.
 
Foster Zygote said:
I have a relative who is a Green Beret. He said that when the U.S. offered bounties for informing on Taliban collaborators, huge numbers of people came forward to turn in anyone they had a grudge against.
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Similarly, I was involved in a case of a missing person. When the police talked to the family, they said DO NOT offer a large reward. The bigger the reward, the more it attracts the loonies.
 
turingtest said:
This is the part where I disagree, without necessarily disagreeing with the rest of what you say. Seriously- you don't see any future problems arising from the fact that one of the two major political parties in our country is making an absolute *********** of our electoral process, for no other apparent reason than their political gain? They have already, in the last few years, set the precedent that the only thing that matters in politics is having the numbers needed to obstruct the other party- no need to be right, just have the technical right. They're making mouth-noises about protecting the integrity of the process and the confidence the American voter should have in it, while everything they're actually doing is to the effect of destroying that integrity and confidence. Do you really believe all those people that are being deliberately riled by manufactured evidence to think that Trump is a victim of fraud and theft are just going to sit back calmly and say "oh, well, guess we were wrong. Best of luck to Biden"? They think they are victims as well as Trump, that it's their victory that has been stolen. Evidence and reason aren't going to work to convince them out of something that evidence and reason had no part in convincing them into. And that will be the way going forward.
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It's already the way, and has been for a while. The (probably needless) investigation would put to rest some of the concerns, and potentially strengthen our election system, because it does have loopholes. Even if the impact of those loopholes is small, they do exist, and thus will always be a source of conflict.

The tactics are different by party, but most of the strategies are the same. For the Republicans right now, it's voter fraud (which they've used before as well). In 2016, it was the Democrats crying that Russians hacked the voter booths. The Obama Birthers got replaced by the Pee Tapers. This isn't new. But Trump sure does make it blatant.
 
Georgia secretary of state announces hand recount of presidential race

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday his state will conduct a manual hand recount of all ballots cast in the presidential race in the state, as he faces growing pressure from fellow Georgia Republicans over unsubstantiated accusations of voting irregularities and mismanagement of the state's elections.

"This will help build confidence. It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvass all at once," Raffensperger said at a press conference. "It will be a heavy lift."

He said the presidential contest will undergo a risk-limiting audit, which requires a full by-hand recount in each of Georgia's 159 counties.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-election-hand-recount-audit-presidential-race/
 
acbytesla said:
I agree with Turing. I definitely believe it has a material affect on the country.

Truth matters. Gaslighting creates a great cognitive dissonance with much of the public. It divides us even further. I can resolve differences with people based on the facts, but not if we distrust us each other to what the facts are. I use to have cordial, civil debates with people and then share a beer with them. This is impossible if they think you're a liar and/or the devil.
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Yes, truth matters. But so does the ability to separate fact from interpretation. And that's where a whole lot of the discourse breaks down - and it's not just one side doing this. There may be agreement on actual objective facts, but there is almost always deep disagreement about what the impact of those facts are, what they mean, and the motivation behind them. And a lot of it comes down to rhetorical selection and narrative.

For example: It is a fact that almost 240,000 people in the US have died during this pandemic. Nobody disagrees with that number. It's the inferences and the satellite assumptions that prompt disagreement, and a lot of it is based on rhetoric. Some people insist upon saying that Trump killed those people, or that he is directly responsible for all of those deaths. That's not a fact - that's an interpretation and an opinion. Still others look at it and say "so what?" People die all the time, and at the end of the day, we're still at less than a tenth of a percent of the population, and think that in the grand scheme of things, it's not worth the economic fallout of massive unemployment, business closures, etc. And that is also interpretation and opinion.

Some people also question the validity of the count, and whether or not all of those people actually died as a result of COVID, or whether there is overcounting. Others suggest there may be undercounting. In neither of those cases are people not acknowledging the fact of the count, but they are challenging the assumptions behind that count.

The overwhelming divide is not about actual objective facts - it's about the interpretation and the assumptions wrapped around those facts.
 
They will be recounting the presidential race and all other offices on these ballots I assume?
Because if ballot counting was wrong it's wrong for all seats on that ballot right?
 
CORed said:
I believe that Trump's game is to keep filing lawsuits and appeals to keep the results unresolved until the December deadline for the states to certify their results, try to get swing states with Republican legislatures to seat Republican electors to elect him to a second term. I think there is a small, but non-zero chance that this will actually work. Although a significant number of Republicans are not going along with this, far too many seem willing to stay on the Trump train for me to be completely confident. If he gets away with stealing this election, American democracy (such as it is) is toast.
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Several months ago when the possibility of the election being stolen came to my attention, I did some reading of election law in several battleground states. My memory isn't allowing for particulars, but I think there are deadlines for filing lawsuits related to elections to forestall the very problem you mention. Furthermore, courts are inclined to handle such lawsuits before the state certification deadlines so the election can be certified. This is a basic scheduling issue that legislatures seem capable of doing, and I think they have done. Would be incompetent if they didn't.

ETA: Ballotpedia is the resource I started with, it was generally very good.
 
slyjoe said:
Similarly, I was involved in a case of a missing person. When the police talked to the family, they said DO NOT offer a large reward. The bigger the reward, the more it attracts the loonies.
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Unfortunately, if they uncover a few isolated, statistically insignificant accusations of fraud with any merit, a mountain of utter ******** heaped up beside it will be both implied to be, and inferred to be, just as valid.
 
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