Turbulent_Singularity
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User ID: 3294
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
The New York Times just published an article on a trans study not being published for ideological reasons (Archive)
U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says
The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care.
Has anyone else noticed a clear "vibe shift" on trans issues recently? It would have been unimaginable for this article to be published in the New York Times just a few years ago, but now, it just seems like part of an overall trend away from trans ideologues.
I'm am curious where this trend continues. Is it going to go all the way? Will trans issues be seen as the weird 2010s, early 2020s political project that had ardent supporters, but eventually withered away and died like the desegregation bussing movement? Or will it just settle into a more moderate position of never using any medication on children, but allowing adults to do whatever? Or maybe it is just a temporary setback and the ideologues will eventually win out?
Also of note, trans issues are coming to SCOTUS again. The issue presented is
Issue: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
I recommend reading Alabama's amicus curiae brief for an in depth critique of WPATH. SCOTUS is set to hear oral arguments on this case on the 4th of December, so this is lining up to be an interesting oral argument to listen to. SCOTUS usually releases the big controversial cases at the end of their term, so the opinion on this case will probably be released in the summer of '25.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
Klein made a compelling case but I still disagree with him. The first Trump admin was a mess, but I don't think it was a mess because of a lack of personal loyalty, it was a lack of ideological loyalty that led to that lack of personal loyalty. Add on to that that personal loyalty is basically impossible to vet (I mean, are you only going to hire ride or die Trump supporters that were willing to storm the capitol?), and that leaves you with a much more ideologically lockstep second Trump term, but I still think will hold back the super crazy Trump tendencies when their personal loyalty to follow him no matter what is tested..
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I agree, there 100% should have been a 2020 election commission with equal D's and R's to investigate any and all alleged voter fraud. It would've healed the country. Let the R's and D's call whoever the hell they want to testify, including the cranks, let it all out in the open.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
It seems the disagreement ends up at disagreeing on our priors of how likely election fraud is, like with a lot of other people that have replied. My priors on fraud are way lower than yours, so I need way stronger evidence to overcome that. So, for your version of the hypo I would disagree with
There are many more reports of employees doing errands during normal business hours, more reports of overtime than usual, time card irregularities.
this part because it shows decently strong evidence (assuming the reports aren't spurious) for employees wasting more time than they usually do, thus explaining the bad year. Meanwhile, I don't see strong evidence for 2020 fraud that would explain Trump's bad year. I think it's not strong cause my prior on election fraud in the US is so low, but, if the same events occurred in a random third world country with a history of unstable democracy and fraud, the same evidence might actually push me over the edge and conclude that was fraud. (or maybe not. Depending how much I cared about this random 3rd world country, I still might not think there was fraud if the official explanation poked enough holes the fraud explanation). So, ultimately answering the hypo, yes it is reasonable for the boss to think he's being taken for a sucker, but the differences are sufficient enough that the hypo doesn't apply to 2020 Trump
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
The responses seem to group into a few categories. Here is, in my view, a good faith summary of these categories (that are not all mutually exclusive)
-
Some variation of "your priors for fraud occurring are too low meaning that your standard for evidence is too high"
a. the lack of voter security measures should increase your prior more than it did b. the history of past fraud should increase your prior more than it did -
Trump genuinely believed there was fraud. This made his subsequent actions all good faith attempts to right the wrong of electoral fraud
a. this belief was based on there really being fraud b. this belief was based on flawed but still believable evidence of fraud (a reasonable minds could disagree situation. See 1.) c. this belief was based on Trump being either dumb, crazy or something similar which made him ignore evidence to the contrary -
What Trump did is merely part of a series of tit for tat norm violations, and while they are indeed norm violations, they just another escalation, so it isn't really that big of a deal
Am I missing anything?
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I'm assuming you voted for Biden?
Starting with a response to this since it might shed some light on my posting motivations (if need be). I did not vote in 2016 (not old enough in '16) or 2020, nor do I plan to in 2024, mostly cause I live in New York state, among other reasons. However, if you dragged me in front of a voting booth, then I'm 99% certain I'd vote a straight R ticket in every election, including 2024. In fact, I'm probably the closest to voting than I've ever been mostly cause I really like Vance, even if Trump has soured on me. But, even without Vance, I'd probably still still vote a straight R ticket if you dragged me there.
Probably not this specific instance. But how many specific instances are needed before it might sway the election?
Did you read my comment about the CEO and worker stealing money? I think this applies here.
Your assumption that the "public" would rally around any given evidence of fraud is laughable.
I know the US is incredibly polarized, but if Trump presented smoking gun evidence of fraud, I sincerely believe it would break through that polarization. The reason it didn't break through was that the evidence wasn't strong enough. Sure, you could say the left wing MSM would just bury any good smoking gun evidence, but if they did, the public would see through it ala Epstein killing himself, or, if you take the Hanania view that media is biased but still fundamentally truth seeking like I do, then media would cover the story in a biased, but still truth presenting way.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I'm unsure if this would've played out as simply as you and the author of the link claim. I would guess that, clinton would have won nearly all of the delegates, Obama would've had a fairly big scandal, but he probably would have also survived and still been the nominee. Looking at the wikipedia page for the 2008 Dem Primary, Indiana looked to be one of the last primaries, so I wonder if Obama would've clinched anyway. I didn't do the math, but I'd suspect that even with a moderate drop in support, given there weren't many primaries left, Obama would still win. However, if the scandal really did blow up then super delegates might all switch to Clinton, so hard to say.
Regardless of all that, kudos for finding a good example.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I am not entirely convinced the fake elector scheme was merely an incremental escalation, but I still find this argument more persuasive than most.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I agree the Dem norm violations are horrible too. The NY hush money case, the Georgia RICO case (still laughing at the thought of Fani Willis prosecuting a Trump RICO case when she can't even prosecute Young Thug in the longest trial in Georgia's history), the dumb Koi pond thing, the point about the vaccines that @AnonymousActuary mentioned below, etc. But, that doesn't really justify Trump's actions.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
The fact Dems always fight voting security measures certainly increases my priors that fraud occurred by Dems, but definitely nowhere near enough to make it the more likely explanation.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
We judge it based on our priors. If we have two alternative explanations to explain the same set of facts, we choose the explanation that is more likely based on our prior belief. If it's wet outside, it could be that it rained, or it could be that a forest fighting helicopter dropped their bucket of water by mistake. Both explanations fit the facts, but the rain explanation is more likely cause our priors of rain occurring are much higher than a forest fighting helicopter dropped their bucket of water by mistake.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
What is the steelman for the establishment being unable to steal elections?
Just being sure, but I assume that the unwritten assumption here is "unable to steal elections without being caught", right?
After reading the post you linked, my basic counterargument is that massive electoral fraud is just much harder to pull off than anything else we've caught the government doing. Given that it is harder (because of the highly decentralized nature of US elections), there would be way more "breadcrumbs" left behind so we would have good evidence if it happened. I'm having a similar conversation with many people here which is that my priors for election fraud are clearly much lower than yours, so I need much stronger evidence to convince me compared to you.
A premise that flat Earthers are just dumb or crazy, and therefore shouldn't be doing science, doesn't steelman the assertion that the Earth is flat
I agree, it doesn't steel man that the earth is flat, but it does steel man that the people claiming the earth is flat aren't doing it out of malice/willful deception. The first line in my post is "What is the steel man for the Trump fake elector scheme being no big deal" and saying Trump is dumb or crazy satisfies that since it is a way smaller deal that Trump is just dumb or crazy than he tried to overturn the election. Another way to say it isn't a big deal is to say that the election really was stolen, or that this was a normal process, etc. So, it depends what exactly the steel man is for.
Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. At the time, he found Sydney Powell, Mike Lindell etc more convincing the Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, White House council, the head of election security, etc
Trump sincerely believing the election was stolen seems to be the most common reply to this that I've talked about in a bunch of other comments, so I guess that is the ultimate steel man.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
The lawsuits were never heard. And when they were dismissed, they were dismissed on standing.
Repeating from another comment, not every lawsuit was dismissed purely on standing. And even for those dismissed purely on standing, many judges talked about the merits anyways. They probably did to expedite any appeals in case their standing portion got overruled.
A big problem here is there simply wasn’t enough time to actually conduct a serious investigation. In order to actually investigate the election fraud claim that voting machines changed votes, you’d have to forensically audit dozens of machines in every...
This is an impossibly high standard to meet. You can say this after every election that has ever occurred. You do not need an investigation into every single machine say "there was probably no fraud here". What happens, as with every other event, is you have some initial prior for how likely an event is to occur, case A: an asteroid is going to fall on earth, case B: it will rain tomorrow. In case A, you have a very low prior. In case B, it is much higher. If someone at work tells you case A, you don't believe him. If that same person tells you case B, you do. The difference is the prior. In case A, you would google it, probably check twitter, probably also check government websites to make sure, and you probably also double and triple check you are on the actual government website and not a spoofed website. You'd do none of this for case B (well, you might google it later). Saying there is election fraud is obviously closer to case A than B, or at least that is where my personal priors are. That means that Trump would need to provide evidence there was fraud, meanwhile, all the other side has to do is debunk those claims. They do not need to prove each and every machine was free from fraud since the prior for there being fraud is so low.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
why don't you try a steelman: put yourself in the shoes of a Trump who was absolutely positive that there was significant fraud in PA, GA and NV, but can't prove exactly how much.
It is hard to put myself in these shoes without knowing why I am so positive there was significant fraud in the first place. This is obviously because the moves I make depend on why I am so sure. Am I sure because I had someone admit they committed fraud? Okay, I'd pursue that and hope they rat more people out. Am I sure because of statistical anomalies? Well, if I am positive there was fraud based off of statistical anomalies then I'd use that to target my investigation to look for harder, specific evidence. And if the statistical anomaly is strong enough by itself, I'd do a fireside chat that is amounts to a powerpoint presentation on "here is statistical evidence of fraud", and if it really is strong enough, then the MSM will either be forced to report on its strength, or their contortions trying to debunk it will be obvious to everyone, winning the public to your side. If the reason I am so sure is that I have video evidence of fraud, I would post that to the world as well with the same MSM reaction. Either way, now you have the public on your side (assuming the evidence really is that strong), so now, when you go to court, even if it isn't technically within the law, courts are to bend over backwards to find a legal interpretation to give the election to Trump if there is huge public pressure to do so (public pressure acquired from posting very strong public evidence). And if the courts still don't work, with enough public pressure, even Democrat politicians would be forced to admit there was fraud and they'd join the Republicans in not certifying Biden. I hope that makes sense since it's hard to be concrete without knowing why I am so certain.
What actually happened is that Trump followed a million different leads, but none really went anywhere. This is much more consistent with a person doing motivated reasoning. If Trump did have rock solid evidence, then that would be the evidence would be repeated everywhere from people defending Trump's actions. But it's not that way. It's a hodgepodge of different things more akin to a gish gallop.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I 100% agree that the there should be radically increased voter fraud protections, all paper ballots, require IDs, etc. I also 100% agree that perceptions of fairness are basically as important as actual fairness, so the voting system should be hardened to reflect that. However, that doesn't change the fact that, despite not having those protections, there hasn't been good evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in past US elections (at least in the modern era), and that no one before hand questioned the actual outcome of the election, even if there might have been a few gripes here and there.
An analogy: say you have an employee that manages the cash at a company. This position has existed for hundreds of years. Over the years, there have been cases of employees in that position swiping a few dollars here and there, but nothing major. A new CEO comes in and, after a bad quarter, says that the employee has been stealing money. He says they've stolen so much money that it is the reason the company is in the red this quarter. He might have evidence of small scale money stealing, but no good evidence of anything large scale. He wants to install a new system that tracks all the money to the dollar so that nothing goes missing. Every other CEO in the past, good quarter and bad, knew there was cash stealing here and there, but no CEO in the past blamed that minor cash stealing for a bad quarter.
My thoughts on this analogy:
- the CEO is right to want a system to track cash
- the CEO is wrong to say there was major stealing without strong evidence for it
- the CEO is right to say there was stealing, but should be careful to make it clear that it wasn't the reason the quarter was bad
I asked someone else, but I'm curious your response to this too.
What would it take to convince you that Trump knew there was no outcome-determinative fraud? More generally, what would it take to convince you of any fraud? Say Alice gets a check in the mail signed by Bob. Alice calls Bob and asks about the check. Bob says he didn't sign it. Alice asks her check forgery friend to see if the check is real and they say it is fake. Alice goes to multiple different banks and they all say the check is fake. Alice then tries to cash the check. At what point would you say Alice knows the check is fake? Or do you say Alice still doesn't know the check is fake?
At a certain point, you need to either conclude that Alice is lying about not knowing the check is fake, Alice is incredibly dumb, Alice has some sort of amnesia, or that Alice is crazy in a way where she doesn't trust anything she hears.
Edit: I read your other reply to me after posting this, so I see that the example doesn't really apply since your priors of election fraud happening are much higher than mine. In order to make it actually apply to your world view, I'd have to add "Alice has a long history of receiving checks in the mail that everyone around says are fake, but are actually real", which would match your higher prior on election fraud being a common occurrence (and not match mine)
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
I am not pretending it wasn't at least a little suspicious the way the vote counts jumped as we all went to sleep that night (the blue line jumping over the red line me was funny). I'm just saying the innocent explanation of partisan difference in mail in votes is the far, far more likely explanation than widespread, outcome-determinative fraud. That is a high, high bar to clear and needs a lot of very strong evidence.
So, yes, in your third world country hypothetical I would probably say it was fishy and there's a good chance of outcome-determinative fraud. But, if I later learned there were innocent explanations of this that outweighed the probability of outcome-determinative fraud, I would believe those innocent explanations. A big difference with third world countries is that my priors for outcome-determinative fraud are way higher. If you tell me a random country in Africa had outcome-determinative fraud, I would probably believe you without even looking it up. And if I did, I'd probably just look at headlines or check if that country has a history of election fraud. However, if you told me the French or British or US elections had outcome-determinative fraud, I would need much stronger evidence since that is a much more surprising conclusion.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
This all seems to hinge on whether you believe Trump genuinely thought there was outcome-determinative fraud or not. If you did, then all of Trump's actions are just pushing the boundaries and gray areas of the law in pursuit of trying to right his perceived wrong. However, if you think that he actually knew there wasn't outcome-determinative fraud (with the best evidence of this being Trump's own advisers repeatedly telling him there wasn't along with repeated legal losses), yet pushed to overturn the election anyways, then the parade of horribles of "threat to democracy", "coup", "change the results", etc. would be fair to apply to him.
Also, repeating what I wrote in the other reply, if the best steel man involves Trump being so dumb or crazy to realize there wasn't fraud despite it being obvious to anyone else that would've been in his shoes, then it replaces the best reason to not vote for Trump with another really good reason to not vote for him.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
The reason I have a hard time accepting this is that, in hindsight, an implied condition of my request for a steel man of Trump is that it would also not negatively effect the reasons to vote for him. It's kind of hard to say "Trump is either incredibly dumb or incredibly crazy" as a way to defend him while simultaneously saying he should be president (to be clear, I'm not saying you think that he should or shouldn't be president)
The best reason to not vote for Trump is all the 2020 election stuff, so that steel man is probably the best argument to defend Trump in his 2020 election scheme, but simultaneously adds a whole new best reason to not vote for him.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
Thanks. I agree this an important point. To add on, even if Trump's plan was to simply have people object, debate, then reject the proper slate without using his slate, that would still be wrong since the only reason to reject the proper slate would be if they believed there was fraud. So, Trump pushing for this is him pushing that there was fraud or other irregularities so extreme that they shouldn't even get a slate of electors.
Turbulent_Singularity
8d ago
Trump clearly believed that the election was stolen, often even when everyone else in the room was telling him to give it up.
What would it take to convince you that Trump knew there was no outcome-determinative fraud? More generally, what would it take to convince you of any fraud? Say Alice gets a check in the mail signed by Bob. Alice calls Bob and asks about the check. Bob says he didn't sign it. Alice asks her check forgery friend to see if the check is real and they say it is fake. Alice goes to multiple different banks and they all say the check is fake. Alice then tries to cash the check. At what point would you say Alice knows the check is fake? Or do you say Alice still doesn't know the check is fake?
Those cases were all spurned on lack of standing. This is lazy argumenting.
Not all of them. And even for those dismissed on standing, the Judges frequently talked about the merits anyway. If I had to guess, they probably did this just in case they got overruled on appeal as a way to speed up the legal process given how time sensitive this was. That way, if the standing portion got overruled, the appeals could keep the overall dismissal since they touched on the merits. Even if they all were dismissed on standing, there is still the problem of people that Trump himself picked repeatedly telling him there was no outcome-determinative fraud.
This is the rhetorical trick. The disputed 2020 election results are an "outcome," so disputing them becomes "changing the outcome". Neat. 🙄
I don't understand the critique/trick. I wasn't trying to make a grand statement here, just trying to say "he thought this thing and then acted on those thoughts". It would be the same as me saying "Alice knows the check is fake and decided to cash it anyway". It's more of a connecting statement to tie his thoughts to his actions and not anything else.
Election Night 2020 Florida wraps up results early, great results pour in for Trump, then half a dozen swing states stop counting ballots simultaneously before huge 6am Biden drops. For four years now I have been told that this doesn't count as evidence, for no particular reason. You could try to prove that the 2020 election was legitimate, if all the ballot chains of custody hadn't already been destroyed.
Of course it is evidence, it is just very weak evidence. Another theory consistent with this set of facts is that, in many states, mail in votes and early votes were not allowed to start being counted until election day, so, the surge in mail in and early voting from COVID meant that results would take a while to count. Combine that with the partisan split between election day voting and mail in/early voting and you get what we saw in 2020. If you followed any of the people closely covering the election, you'd know they all said this would happen months prior. Counterpoint that I've heard a lot so I'll preempt it: "that is just evidence they were preparing to rig it beforehand". My reply is that is certainly possible, but now you need to convince me that this plot is somehow so grand that random journalists are talking about it, yet so secretive that the best election fraud evidence is vague statistical maybe anomalies or super unclear video of something maybe wrong happening? That seems incredibly unlikely.
Show me the text you want a steelman before you editorialize it.
I worded that section poorly in hindsight. Basically, I listed a bunch of critiques of Trump, so the steel man I'm asking for would be the best argument against those critiques. The critiques are obviously framed against Trump cause they are Trump critiques, so the the argument against the Trump critiques can accept or deny the frame as it sees fit.
What do you think you're saying, exactly? Everybody knows, including Trump, that his alternate electors were not the officially certified electors. That's not the argument!
Well, those electors did sign pieces of paper saying they were the officially certified electors. And Trump and co. are all trying to say "use this slate, use this slate" which only makes sense if the slate was certified, otherwise see the next section.
What's the point of providing alternate electors if you don't attempt to get them counted as alternates? Note that this is completely precedented: The disputed election of 1876 faced a number of alternate elector slates.
Perhaps, assuming that Trump genuinely believed there was fraud, trying to get his slate certified by the state legislature was fine. But, since he didn't, he shouldn't have tried to have his slates be used. The election of 1876 is precisely the reason they created a law to say what happens when there are disputed slates of electors. However, what we have with Trump isn't a case of "which slate was properly certified?" (maybe we do assuming you agree with me above that Trump thought his slate was certified), it was a case "one slate was properly certified, this other slate wasn't, but Trump wants the other slate to be picked anyways".
If the 2020 election were stolen, then the most important norm was already broken before Trump did anything.
I agree with this. In fact, if it was stolen then not only would J6 be justified, much further violence would be justified.
Turbulent_Singularity
9d ago
What is the steel man for the Trump fake elector scheme being no big deal? To be clear, I'm not talking about a steel man of Trump's behavior as it relates to J6 itself (the tweets, the speech, the reaction to the crowd, etc.), I'm talking exclusively about the scheme where, according to the Democrat/J6 report/Jack Smith narrative, Trump conspired to overturn the election by trying to convince various states, and later Pence, to use a different slate of electors. Here is the basic narrative (largely rephrased from this comment along with the Jack Smith indictment):
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There was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election (in the event someone replies with evidence there was, you would also need to prove that Trump knew it at the time to justify his actions)
-
Trump's advisers, advisers that were appointed by himself, repeatedly told him there was no outcome-determinative fraud after looking into it. Despite this, Trump still insisted there was outcome-determinative fraud. Trump still insisted even after he started losing court cases left and right about there being outcome-determinative fraud. Assuming 1 is true this means that Trump is either knowingly lying or willfully ignoring people he himself picked
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Trump, despite knowing there wasn't outcome-determinative fraud (assuming 2), still tried to change the outcome of the election. First, he tried the courts where he knowingly lied about there being outcome-determinative fraud in court filings. When that failed he tried contacting various state legislatures and other state officials to ask them to certify his slate of electors. When that failed, his final option was to try to convince Pence to either use his slate of electors to win (a slate of electors not officially certified despite claiming to be certified), or to invalidate enough state's electors to make it so no one gets 270 electors, throwing the election to the house where Trump would then hopefully win given it becomes 1 state 1 vote there.
With that narrative, here are the Trump critiques that I want a steel man defense of:
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Trump knowingly lied about there being outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election. This is wrong.
a. In the alternative, Trump is so dumb that he continued to believe there was outcome-determinative fraud despite evidence to the contrary. This disqualifies him from any political power. -
Trump tried to use this lie to change the results of the election. This is wrong.
-
Trump used this lie to get slates of electors to falsely certify they were the chosen electors of that state. This is wrong
-
Trump tried to convince various state legislatures that these were the lawfully chosen slate of electors and to decertify the Biden slate and certify his slate. This is wrong.
a. In the event you think this was legal, Trump tried to convince various state legislatures to break norms that would be tantamount to a constitutional coup. This is wrong. -
Trump tried to convince Pence to step outside of his constitutional authority to make him president. This is wrong
a. In the event you think this was legal, Trump tried to convince Pence to break norms that would be tantamount to a constitutional coup. This is wrong.
The strongest steel man that I can come up with involved the case of Hawaii in 1960
The New York Times summarizes the situation,
In one of the first legal memos laying out the details of the fake elector scheme, a pro-Trump lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro justified the plan by pointing to an odd episode in American history: a quarrel that took place in Hawaii during the 1960 presidential race between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The results of the vote count in Hawaii remained in dispute — by about 100 ballots — even as a crucial deadline for the Electoral College to meet and cast its votes drew near. A recount was underway but it did not appear as though it would be completed by the time the Electoral College was expected to convene, on Dec. 19, 1960.
Despite the unfolding recount, Mr. Nixon claimed he had won the state, and the governor formally certified a slate of electors declaring him the victor. At the same time, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, holding out hope that he would eventually prevail, drafted its own slate of electors, claiming that he had in fact won the race.
In his memo, Mr. Chesebro suggested that this unusual situation set a precedent not only for drafting and submitting two competing slates of electors to the Electoral College, but also for pushing back the latest possible time for settling the election results to Jan. 6 — the date set by federal law for a joint session of Congress to certify the final count of electors.
The competing slate conundrum in Hawaii was ultimately put to rest when Mr. Kennedy prevailed in the recount, and a new governor of Hawaii certified a freshly drafted slate of his electors.
Then, on Jan. 6, 1961, Mr. Nixon, overseeing the congressional certification session in his role as president of the Senate, received all three slates of electors — his own, the initial Kennedy slate and the certified Kennedy slate — but agreed that the last one should be formally accepted.
While this is the closest prior case of something similar, and thus no big deal, what Trump did is still different enough that it can be meaningfully distinguished:
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Both Nixon and Kennedy had good reason to believe they won. Trump didn't.
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Kennedy's first slate of electors, the ones that weren't certified, weren't the ones eventually counted. Only the ones certified by the state were counted. Trump's false electors were never certified, so asking Pence to certify them was completely unprecedented.
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Nixon accepted that Hawaii had final say over what was and wasn't their slate of electors. Trump didn't and continually insisted his slate was correct.
Another argument that I don't think is strong, but nonetheless might be the strongest steel man:
it was legal or it was in a gray area of legality and Trump had every right to push the boundary to stay in power as long as he doesn't break the law
This is not a strong argument because then it would've just been a constitutional coup and those are still wrong. The way many Latin American countries have constitutional coups is that they stack the court that allows them to reinterpret their constitution to give them more power or that allows them to violate term limits. This is still wrong despite technically being legal. The problem is the norm breaking, not the technical legality.
Well, yeah, but I'm assuming an actually equal commission, not whatever the hell the J6 Committee was. An actually equally commission where the R's that believe in fraud get to call all the people they want to call and force them to testify. Where they get to question all the witnesses the D's and never Trumpers call.
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