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Trump's Coup d'état.

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The Atheist said:
82% of Trump voters believe Biden's win isn't legitimate.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ieve-the-current-onslaught-of-disinformation/
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Trump primed his supporters for months. He's used this technique successfully his entire life. He simply repeats a lie over and over again until people believe it. It's how he ran his businesses and convinced everyone he's a fantastically successful businessman when he wasn't. He repeated his "mail-in ballots will be fraudulent and the Dems will steal the election from me" for months and prepared his supporters to believe it so that when he lost they were well primed to accept it. He's a consummate con artist and his followers just can't see it. As the saying goes "It's easier to con someone that convince them they're being conned." We've got a few in this very forum.
 
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Stacyhs said:
Trump primed his supporters for months. He's used this technique successfully his entire life. He simply repeats a lie over and over again until people believe it. It's how he ran his businesses and convinced everyone he's a fantastically successful businessman when he wasn't. He repeated his "mail-in ballots will be fraudulent and the Dems will steal the election from me" for months and prepared his supporters to believe it so that when he lost they were well primed to accept it. He's a consummate con artist and his followers just can't see it. As the saying goes "It's easier to con someone that convince them they're being conned." We got a few in this very forum.
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I’m waiting to hear that John Barron has been calling journalists.....
 
If Trump supporters really believed the election was stolen, they would start a General Strike or indeed make a March on Washington or anything beyond just voicing their opinion.

The vast majority of Trump supporters only do so when it doesn't cost them anything.
 
The Don said:
Hmmm......

Looks like the "40% of Republicans think that Biden won" poll has changed somewhat :mad:
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So much for the theory that the Trump base is shrinking.

This is the type of thing that happens.

Trump does some obviously ridiculous thing

THEN

There's a bit of silence and confusion while his supporters struggle with their cognitive dissonance

THEN

The marching orders are agreed on

THEN

What Trump said isn't only NOT ridiculous, but the obvious truth!
 
angrysoba said:
So much for the theory that the Trump base is shrinking.

This is the type of thing that happens.

Trump does some obviously ridiculous thing

THEN

There's a bit of silence and confusion while his supporters struggle with their cognitive dissonance

THEN

The marching orders are agreed on

THEN

What Trump said isn't only NOT ridiculous, but the obvious truth!
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....and this is why I'm not 100% sanguine about Joe Biden becoming President. It seems that the Republicans are prepared to do anything necessary to get the result(s) they want and that the overwhelming majority are perfectly happy to toe the company line, regardless of their personal feelings.

If faithless electors in Pennsylvania can turn the election in President Trump's favour then that's what they'll do.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Which makes it hypothetical!
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Only if they don't actually have a plan to overturn the apparent results. Seems like an odd thing for anyone to infer, given that they aren't mounting legal and/or legislative challenges to the electoral process in the states with close margins except for the ones they appear to have narrowly lost. The question isn't whether they hope to overturn the results, the only question is how they are hoping to get there. Again, I recommend the Four Seasons video in which Rudy straight up talks about equitable relief from the courts.
 
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The Don said:
....and this is why I'm not 100% sanguine about Joe Biden becoming President. It seems that the Republicans are prepared to do anything necessary to get the result(s) they want and that the overwhelming majority are perfectly happy to toe the company line, regardless of their personal feelings.
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Trump probably will not get his way (however, folk need to not operate based on this assumption —and if they are not totally incompetent, I'm sure that, behind the scenes, the Biden campaign is not). However, the most troubling part of this is that it is clear that most Republicans are not acting in good faith. They will stop putting on a show of support for Trump when it is clear that they are no longer benefiting from doing so & not earlier. If that means standing by (or actively collaborating) as some seemingly unlikely strategy manages to overturn the electoral results, they are all fine with it.
 
deadrose said:
Apparently only 50% of each donation to his vote-counting fund goes towards the actual vote-counting fund. The rest, IIRC, goes to retiring his election debts. Which is probably exactly why he's doing all this. He just wants to vacuum up all the money he can before he slinks off.
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The fine print suggests that the percent that goes towards vote counting is far less than 50%. It might be in the neighborhood of 0%.
 
The Don said:
If faithless electors in Pennsylvania can turn the election in President Trump's favour then that's what they'll do.
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Right now they are trying very hard to figure out if they can do it. It's hard & they probably can't and if they do not do it, that is why they will not (it is probably not something that they would do if doing so changed nothing about the election so unless Trump has more than that, they won't —Biden probably has 306 EC votes so flipping 16 still leaves him the winner). Do not think that they won't because of previous statements saying that they will not. Such statements carry no weight.

In PA, Republicans have repeatedly said that this won't happen (I believe that they have even written an editorial to that effect). But if they can get away with it, they will do it. Here's a more recent article where one Jake Corman dismisses the question saying he does not wish to address "hypotheticals" but he gives Republicans an out by making sure to point out that previous comments on the matter applied to "normal circumstances":
When asked Friday to confirm if the state legislature will award the state electors to the party that wins the popular vote, Corman said he does not like “to get into hypotheticals” but outlined his understanding of the election code.

“We will follow the law,” Corman said. “That’s all we’ve asked for in this process all along.”

“Under normal circumstances,” the legislature plays no role in selecting electors, he said.
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So now statements to the effect that they will not do such a thing have become dismissive, generic non answers indicating that they "will follow the law" (is doing this illegal? My understanding is that it is not or that at a very minimum whether it is is open to interpretation) and that the legislature having no role in selecting electors is how things are done under "normal circumstances" (does this election qualify as "normal circumstances"?).
 
The Don said:
....and this is why I'm not 100% sanguine about Joe Biden becoming President. It seems that the Republicans are prepared to do anything necessary to get the result(s) they want and that the overwhelming majority are perfectly happy to toe the company line, regardless of their personal feelings.

If faithless electors in Pennsylvania can turn the election in President Trump's favour then that's what they'll do.
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Unless Trump somehow overturns another 2 states, all the electors in PA placing faithless votes for Trump wouldn't be enough.

And while I know Trump is a destroyer of norms, there has never in the history of the country been a case where faithless electors have changed who became president. Most faithless votes are protest votes, making a position heard. None of the 7 faithless votes in 2016 were for the opposing candidate.

Electors are selected by state parties.

For Trump to win by faithless electors, he'd need to have unprecedent and based on the current evidence, unwarranted success in overturning current state counts, more than any recount has ever offered. Then at least ten people, vetted by the PA democratic party would need to be secret MAGA hats in waiting, willing to essentially sleep with one eye open the rest of their lives after doing something we haven't come close to in 244 years of existence as a country.

There's still room for shenanigans, but that's not a plausible way it could go down.
 
angrysoba said:
Huh??? What are you talking about?

You are using the Tweets from a journalist quoting an aide as evidence that Trump is taking baby steps to accepting a loss.

My point is that this is not evidence!!!
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If that's evidence, here we have another journalist talking to a Trump advisor more recently and the advisor is saying the opposite:

https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1326989666055299074:
I'm in a zoom mtg now w/top #Trump advisor:
- Says he ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT concede
- few legal options right now to contest
- Electoral College is next target: claims there are "faithless electors" who can be turned for 20 states. Working on it now.
Electors meet Dec 14th.
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Do we believe the first, this one or do we provisionally ignore both?
 
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