anti_dan
1mo ago
But why wouldn't there have been fraud in 2020? There is significant fraud every year and it was made even easier in 2020 in most of the swing states that went for Biden. OTOH, states like Florida which implemented election security measures saw a highjinx-free election where Democrats (now deprived of their Miami fraud machine) tanked.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Well, yeah… The alternative is that Trump is completely untethered from reality, and that doesn’t appear to be entirely the case.
Not really. None of the issues in PA and WI happened in Florida. Florida is another state that used to have large Democrat machines that were routinely accused of fraud, but you could never quite prove it. Then Desantis came in, cleaned up the dirty voter rolls, streamlined the counting process, tightened up the vote by mail process (particularly post date rules and signature rules), got rid of insecure drop box, and then actually enforced all of that.
And magically no shenanigans. No more Miami-Dade reporting after the rest of the state had been done for hours. No more pallets of ballots magically being found at 3am. Etc etc. It turns out there is great evidence for fraud happening, because why you engage in active election security, all these suspicious activities disappear.
anti_dan
1mo ago
To me it looks like there's a huge disconnect between themotte's view of a typical democrat voter and reality. Just off the top of my head I'd assume there are more low socioeconomic class "that's why I shit on company time" democrat voters in the country than upper class "mcdonalds is too good for presidents" snobs.
They have both. Democrats dominate the people without income, people with extremely low income, and people with high income derived from sinecures.
They lose most of the rest.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Like is strong. They certainly have to pretend to like it because 25%+ of their voters love it and of those 25% it is one of the only jobs they can hold down.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Mcdonalds is not trashy, its also not classy, it just is. It is food that is scientifically engineered to taste good, so denying it does taste good just makes you a liar. Is it also bad for you? Actually controversial. Compared to something like an impossible burger, a mcdouble comes out ahead. Sure the fries are very calorie dense, but that is the potato for you. You can do worse, such as buying wonder or other store stable breads.
The currency exchange is trashy. Lloyds of London is classy. A lot of things exist on the spectrum between them, and Mcdonalds is probably almost exactly in the middle. Maybe trashy people eat there more than classy people, but basically everyone does eat there from time to time because it provides consistency. I rarely get coffee before work, but when I do, Mcdonalds is the most convenient close option. And reasonably priced.
anti_dan
1mo ago
The surprising bit is that the Harris campaign isn't targeting men with this but women, as indicated by ad targeting spend. My theory here is that Kamala is not offering a threat here, but selling a power fantasy. If you're a woman, vote for Harris, and you'll have a parade of men approaching you, who you can reject at will.
A plausible theory given the "White Guys for Harris" ads. Those also failed to address any real concerns of men and instead cast a bunch of gay men and gay-ish men to talk about womens issues.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Because its been/being colonized by anti-Israel youths who have bought into the neo-Marxist anti-colonial talking points. Also with immigration, and your longstanding black base, the average Democrat him/herself will be an antisemite fairly soon.
anti_dan
1mo ago
They polled an assortment of doctors working in Gaza
Oh. You find this a credible source of information? People who volunteer to be governed by terrorists?
anti_dan
1mo ago
But NYT has no compelling reason to post anti-Israel falsehoods.
Strong disagree. The NYT is emblematic of where the Democrats will be in the future, and the future of the Democrats is a consistently expanding Hamas caucus.
This is why Hamas and Hezbollah felt emboldened to do 10/7 and the expanded rocket attacks, and also why Israel feels pressure to deal with both problems NOW in a significant matter. The Democrats are signaling that within a few cycles sanctions on Israel akin to South Africa or Rhodesia are on the table.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Its not superior to a nice upscale neighborhood, just not as bad as the inner city or rural south, which is of course a different type of rural.
anti_dan
1mo ago
WV is objectively non-shithole compared to many urban neighborhoods, so maybe you are confusing realities here.
anti_dan
1mo ago
I know of there being problems with this in at least AZ, NV, OR, & FL (Desantis fixed it there, as he seems to do with every problem).
anti_dan
1mo ago
Saying J6 was unique ignores the important reason it was: Incompetence by the security forces. Giving a political speech to a large crowd in the capitol city of the polity is basically the MOST LEGITIMATE thing a politician can do. That the security forces were unprepared was also an intentional choice made primarily by the mayor of DC and the speaker of the House. Both were opponents of the speech-giver, and politically benefited from their own incompetence.
That is actually the most terrifying take away from J6: That Democrats can weaponize their own incompetence to humongous political benefit.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Rigging != Winning. If you are, like the Chicago machine that was caught 1 time out of decades (likely still ongoing) voter fraud you can manufacture 100k fake votes reliably, but you still sometimes lose. Such manufacturing was clearly at its easiest in 2020 due to the mail in, harvesting, and dropbox changes so you'd expect it to be at its greatest raw numbers of the modern era. Cheaters often still lose. See Tim Donaghy's book.
anti_dan
1mo ago
There was an attempt. Its magnitude was insufficient. It has been so in every election of my lifetime IMO. The margins of vote rigging is approximately 100k for an urban machine going to the early 80s, that has likely been increased by half or so by mail in and harvesting.
anti_dan
1mo ago
Well, they could start by legitimately doing election security. Eliminate mail ins. Eliminate anonymous drop boxes. Require photo ID for voting at at least TSA/FAA verification requirements. Purge voter rolls of noncitizens annually. Also the deceased and no longer residing in at the address. Count the votes in a single night in Democratic areas like almost all Republican areas are capable of doing. Sunlight the registration process so people feel that they are doing something a random person that stole their mail could not do.
anti_dan
1mo ago
The counterfactual is some org taking an IP like Barbie and basically cutting the ending. The movie Barbie is accidentally based. Ken learns about the patriarchy, brings it to Barbieland and creates a utopia where everyone is happy except the weird Barbie. This is then destroyed by the MC and her new friend by a contrivance, but if you just left it at that and added some American flags and explosions, you'd have the counter.
anti_dan
1mo ago
When I think of teenage boys, I certainly always think slipping in a Jane Austen reference will get their juices flowing.
anti_dan
1mo ago
They never seem to make the mistake of over-appealing to young males and thereby losing lots of money. So its pretty deliberate.
anti_dan
1mo ago
If that were true, 764 is probably better for Aiden.
On real Earth there are vanishingly few Aidens without outside forces pushing him there.
anti_dan
1mo ago
There are likely to be amply credentialed but that is different than qualified. This is a problem caused by the systemic discrimination that is now called DEI, but has existed since the 60s. I can be admitted to a very good school, say University of Michigan right next to a black woman, and there is a 90+% chance I was more qualified to get in. Then we can matriculate, and because no one fails anymore we will have similar GPAs. Then we will take the LSAT and again, this black women can get a mediocre score compare to me and we will both then be admitted to Michigan's law school. Again no one fails anymore, and now we graduate and my mildly better GPA (lets say 3.9 vs 3.8, that is generally the spread allowed at such schools now), means a law firm can justify hiring her over me. And they will.
She will wash out of biglaw, most people do, but the DEI hires do at extraordinary rates. But it will still say "Biglaw" on the resume forever, so now she can be picked for a make work government job paying 6 figures, and continue to do little to nothing for the rest of her "experience".
I am often reminded of Hillary Clinton when discussing this or similar topics. Recall how the media constantly called her the "most qualified" candidate ever? They love checking boxes. But checking boxes is not a qualification, its a credential, and they haven't been all that meaningfully linked for my entire lifetime.
To be fair, the only thing I get is the coffee and the dollar menu hamburger (which is now $1.50). These are still good deals.
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