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Notes -
Several months ago, I decided not to renew my paid subscription for deBoer's Substack, having grown frustrated with how thin-skinned and unnecessarily combative he is, and his evasiveness and hypocrisy on specific issues.
Nonetheless, I agree with him here. Election night, November 2016. Trump wins. Almost immediately, there's liberal caterwauling and rending of hair. "There's no way this election result can be legit - it must be Russian interference!" Followed by 3+ years of investigations and vague gestures towards "evidence" ultimately amounting to a whole lot of nothing. Me and everyone else here correctly recognised this for the pathetic cope it was.
Then, November 2020 rolls around. Biden wins. Almost immediately, there's conservative caterwauling and rending of hair. "There's no way this election result can be legit - the Democrats must have hacked the voting devices!" Followed by 3+ years of investigations and vague gestures towards "evidence" ultimately amounting to a whole lot of nothing (as exhaustively catalogued by @ymeskhout).
There were many people who correctly identified "Russiagate" as a cope, but think that the 2020 election was fraudulent. They would surely have rubbished any similar claims about a fraudulent election had the boot been on the other foot. No, it's worse than that - many if not most of these people did rubbish similar claims when the boot was on the other foot four years earlier. If you somehow still think Russiagate was legit, but the 2020 fraudulent election claims were bullshit, you are the person deBoer is talking about in this post. If you still think the 2020 fraudulent election claims are legit, but that Russiagate was bullshit, you are the person deBoer is talking about in this post.
I agree, and when you actually ask ‘2020 was fraud’ proponents here about the arguments, the smarter ones will typically concede the practical points but then argue that there was just a general air of illegitimacy, a kind of stench of it, perhaps due to mail-in ballots or some shenanigans in a few counties, or maybe ‘the media propaganda manipulated people’ into voting a certain way (if that made a vote illegitimate, then no democratic election in history has been legitimate). Of course voter fraud occurred, as it has in every election since 1789. But the evidence that it was much more fraudulent than 1968 or 2000 or 1932 or whatever is very thin and largely self-serving. I’m also curious whether the claims will be retracted if Trump wins this year, since presumably that would be the deep state choosing to allow him to become president again, right?
Why would a sincerely curious person have reason to believe a 2024 Trump victory would negate or disprove beliefs of deep state opposition to Trump?
The core argument on the idea of a deep state is that it exists and is organized and has power that it utilizes for a cause, not that it is all-powerful and all-determining. There is no requirement for some Nybbler-level nihilism that the deep state determines all and resistance is futile because the deep state determines all. The premise of a deep state is that it is still a state, and while people frequently have unclear ideas of the limits of states they are also very aware that there are limitations of a state and their ability to fail if key actors are opposed (the basis of politically organizing against a vague group of interests) or fall out (divisions within the private coordination mechanisms causing visible turmoil). Even the most famous examples of deep states of contemporary history, including some of the ones that popularized the term like the Pakistani deep state, can have both clear power and clear limits and failures to their attempts to influence. For a somewhat more public version, the current fallout over Biden that is breaking the Democratic coalition apart is a failure of system, not evidence of that Biden's new critics are secretly pro-Trump. The non-public Democratic coordination mechanisms are still anti-Trump, they just are in disagreement as to how.
Organizations- public or secretive- can simply try and fail. Their failure does not imply they were secretly for the other side the entire time. This is particularly true when the reasons for their failures are the over-use of increasingly ineffective/discredited tools that have become less effective with time and over-use.
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From the smarter deep conservatives I know IRL, there's either margin of fraud issues('Trump only won by five points but republicans need ten') which might not happen this time, or the political machines that are actually rigging the elections aren't as onboard with Biden as they were, or 2020 was exceptional and the deep state dropped the ball on faking a global pandemic this time, etc.
You can have as many epicycles about history as you want. What matters is epicycles about the future. You can believe that the the JFK assassination never happened, that the moon got where it is as an alien death star to wipe out an advanced ancient civilization, stonehenge was built by aliens, there was an ancient nuclear war that destroyed Mohenjo-Daro, the Nazis built pyramids in Antarctica before their base was destroyed by American nuclear weapons disguised as a test, cats were domesticated by the Annunaki to implant cameras in and spy on the progress of civilization, the earth is 6,000 years old, the printing press was invented in 800 AD but suppressed by the inquisition until Gutenberg, the last prince of Wales reached north America and that's why the Cherokee are white-looking, the Incas were regularly in contact with China, Atlantis had a Mars colony, the Olmecs were the original black people who colonized west Africa, Eleanor Roosevelt was transgender, whatever, and still be a smart, well functioning person who accurately predicts what's going to happen in the future, even on related subjects. And the guy who told me the cats theory was a physics professor. Why? Because those are matters of fact, not function. Kind of like scientific theories- it's a term to describe processes. Denying whats doesn't matter. You're simply factually wrong about something that happened once, and it probably doesn't affect your day to day life if black people originated in Mexico instead of Africa, nor does it really affect anything in the future. Denying hows does. If you believe elves built your car you can still fix it. If you believe elves power your car by running in hamster wheels inside of it in exchange for gasoline, you can't.
Elections are a lot like that. It's not hard to come up with a just-so story as for why the deep state can rig the election in 2020 but not 2024. It doesn't even have to make sense. What's important is that it doesn't impinge on future processes.
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Honestly I am beginning to drift towards the position you described in your last paragraph. Deep State rigging for Biden in 2020, Deep State rigging for Trump in 2024. I think the Deep State might have decided it’s better to get Trump in the Oval Office to get middle America on board for World War III. They would have to undertake some maneuvers to get Trump personally on board for a war, and to contain his domestic political impulses, but I think they believe they can do that. That might be easier for them to manage than the French Revolution nightmare scenario of a simultaneous existential foreign war plus a hot civil war at home.
I always thought the insinuation that the federal civil service was near-uniformly Democrat was unlikely. Academia? Sure. Journalism? Definitely. But DC is filled with ex-military and other middle aged straight white guys in senior positions in the federal government who live in the suburbs and who, statistically, are at least substantially (say, 50%) Republican. Especially in the CIA, full of Mormons anyway, and in the Pentagon. These people aren’t revolutionaries, probably consider Trump vulgar, but that doesn’t make them Democrats.
https://www.fedsmith.com/2021/02/12/political-donations-and-federal-employees/
Sure, I don’t dispute that, but even that article suggests that in many of the most important departments like State, 30-35%+ of employees are Republicans. Also, since Dems in the federal government are likely more committed than Republicans it doesn’t tell us everything about the ratio of employees.
what makes you think that they are more commited?
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I mean we did have real fraud in 2020. It’s just people ignore the obvious frauds.
The expanse of mass-mail in voting is considered fraud by historical Democratic principals. Trump wins in a landslide without that.
At this point it is beyond proven that the FBI interfered with social media with regards to the Hunter Biden laptop. They knew it was real the entire time. The CIA helped cover that up.
These things aren’t conspiracies. They are proven and changed the election.
I don’t know why we are doing both-sides here.
Now I agree the right has gone too far. I know people who never rational think thru issues anymore and just assume they are being lied to.
I disagree. At worst, by weakening the secret ballot, it makes more opportunities for fraud. That’s different.
Regardless, to get from there to “Trump wins in a landslide,” you have to have a chain of beliefs.
Sure, #1 seems obviously true. But proponents have consistently failed to bring evidence for #2 or #3. Where are the legions of dead or duplicate voters? The confessions of Democrat strongmen who went door to door coercing Biden votes? The sob stories from would-have-been Trump voters?
If the Democrats successfully weaponized MMIV, there should be more evidence. Same goes for Trump’s hypothetical lead. Polling (then or now) doesn’t suggest that he has massive support. Either there is a powerful conspiracy hiding and weakening the evidence, or it doesn’t really exist.
The average voter hasn’t committed fraud. He also knows that his neighbors and teammates haven’t committed fraud, haven’t talked about the option, haven’t been visited by team officials in the dead of night. He correctly concludes that his team is not benefiting from fraud. He fails to extend this conclusion to everyone else.
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And if the expanse of mass mail-in voting had caused him to win in a landslide, you'd be saying the election was illegitimate and stolen from Biden, yes?
I agree, and this was an outrage, and I said so repeatedly at the time and since. But this doesn't prove that the election was fraudulent - as pointed out by @2rafa, if media propaganda manipulating people to vote a particular way makes an election illegitimate, then every election since the invention of democracy was illegitimate. We'll never know the counterfactual where the Hunter Biden laptop story is allowed to freely circulate on social media - it might have swung the election, it might not. There are obvious parallels with Russiagate truthers constantly asserting that Trump only won because of sketchy Facebook ads from Russian accounts!!! targeting swing voters, something something Cambridge Analytica.
What's this un-fraud of the gaps(analogous to god of the gaps)?
I don't get it
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“And if the expanse of mass mail-in voting had caused him to win in a landslide, you'd be saying the election was illegitimate and stolen from Biden, yes”
“There are obvious parallels with Russiagate truthers constantly asserting that Trump only won because of sketchy Facebook ads from Russian accounts!!! targeting swing voters, something something Cambridge Analytica.“
This is also different because it’s external versus internal. It’s different when Russia plays some games we don’t have the tools to prevent and our own CIA decides to back candidate X. The CIA interfering in an election is bad. Especially when they are spreading known false information. They have done this during war times but during an election is different.
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In what possible sense? Oregon has had vote-by-mail for a while now, I think it's hardly sensible to claim that all elections in Oregon are fraudulent by any sensible principle.
Now sure, maybe mail-in voting could induce or enable fraud. But you seem to be suggesting that the means of voting is itself fraudulent, even if the result is generally reflective of the indicated preference of valid and eligible voters.
Oregon didn't expand mail-in voting. The fact that they've done it for years doesn't mean every other state in the union can implement the same voting methods in months.
At least address what's being said before accusing people of a gish gallop.
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It's not (inherently) fraudulent in Oregon -- it was fraudulent in 2020 in the states where it was banned by statute and 'worked around' by various illegal policies implemented by Democrat-aligned administrators without going through the proper legislative process. (eg. Wisconsin (IIRC?) with their expansion of 'indefinitely confined')
Jesus, the
Gish Gallopdistributed Motte & Bailey of rotating arguments. First it was inherently fraudulent[1]. Then it was fraudulent-by-method-of-adoption[2]. Then it there-exists-fraud-in-fact via stuffed ballots or water leaks[3].In any event, do you think the result in Wisconsin numerically reflect the intended desire of the eligible voters?
I'm not responsible for whatever other arguments people are making -- mine is true.
If by 'eligible voters' you mean 'the ones that voted in accordance with State law', then no, probably not. If you mean something else, you should be working towards legislative reform to make it easier for people to (legally) vote -- as in Oregon I suppose.
For the sake of reducing confusion, if you’re replying to their thread, it helps to distinguish.
And by eligible voters, I mean those which are entitled and not otherwise forbidden to vote.
I think it's quite obvious that opinions I state in a thread are mine and not somebody else's -- do I need to add a disclaimer?
If an otherwise eligible voter submits his ballot in the form of a homemade crayon-drawing, it is not a legal ballot and should not be counted. Same goes for mailins, in jurisdictions where the legislature has not passed a law allowing them and defining the procedures for their acceptance.
I agree, they should not be counted, perhaps allowing for some amount of reliance of voters on reasonable expectations. Obviously no voter should expect that a homemade ballot counts.
But it would still be true that the complaint against them would be “this is not procedurally appropriate” and not “this is not an accurate rendition of voter intent” or “this is fraudulent”. Those have specific meanings.
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That’s not a Gish gallop.
At worst, jkf is defending a different position than sliders. Call it sanewashing, or maybe distributed motte-and-bailey?
Also, I'll add, that JKF is defending a different position that sliders, but he could also clarify it because he's responding to a thread of comments relating to sliders.
For example, if he is advancing fraudulent-by-method-of-adoption[2] then he could also write "VBM is legitimate when properly adopted but not when adopted via procedurally-invalid means, hence I believe in Wisconsin it is illegitimate because ".
That would probably elicit a very different response. It would also clarify what is the crux of JKFs argument.
[ And if JKF believes that VBM is illegitimate even when adopted via procedurally-proper means, then clarify that would also be helpful! I don't mean to say he can only adopt the position above. ]
Yeah, I think your question about Wisconsin is a good way to clarify.
I put my own objection to sliders here. “Fraud was plausible” is very easy to defend. “Fraud changed the result,” not so much.
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That is fair. I accept the correction and have edited it.
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I live in Washington; we've had universal vote-by-mail for a while now too.
I don't know if all our elections are fraudulent. They're doing a lot of good things to secure them, but there're still inherent gaps. And I'm very uncomfortable about that.
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Secret ballot principles are violated. It’s been when discussed here. Every organization that defines what makes a good Democracy before 2020 said mail-in ballots had issues. After 2020 it’s all good.
We probably do have the technology today to make mail-in voting fine. You could have an IPhone do facial ID and watch you vote in secret.
That is a tendentious appeal to consensus that doesn't exist. Oregon has been doing vote-by-mail since 1996.
FYI, I think my comment is what @sliders1234 is referring to when he says that it's been discussed here before. In that comment, I survey international pro-democracy organizations which set out what it means for an election to be fair and free. It is clear that a consensus did exist across these organizations. That some locations have been bucking that consensus and that some groups have now turned entirely against that consensus does not mean that the consensus did not exist.
The consensus that you point to is for a different topic than the one you are claiming.
You are trying to manufacture a consensus against VBM by pointing to universal support for the notion of secret ballots. The core of the disagreement is whether VBM (especially optional-VBM where anyone that wishes can go in person if they choose!) is sufficiently protective of the right to a secret ballot.
If anything, the point that one can derive from this is that mandating VBM is not good policy. On that, sure, we can easily agree.
Those cites were pretty clear that the only consistent way to ensure the secret ballot and voter faith in such is in-person voting, with only one person being allowed in the voter booth at a time. They explicitly call out weaknesses of VBM in these terms. I am manufacturing nothing. It's there, in black and white, preserved by the beauty of the internet.
You can't see that a bunch of consensus in favor of the secret ballot is not a consensus against VBM unless one also believes a separate fact about it?
Maybe it's best to return to pragmatics. I got my ballot in the mail, I filled it out at home where no one was here. I sealed it and dropped it off personally at a drop box inside the police station. I am totally satisfied in the secrecy of this ballot, and I don't even think that going in person (which was a choice I could have made) would have further protected it.
In terms of attack modeling, if the police and the registrar are in on the scheme, then neither method would have protected it.
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Ok then I assume you don’t believe the secret ballot is important to free and fair elections.
No issue if spouses pressure their partners or children fill out ballots for grandparents with dementia.
Sure perhaps saying it was considered the standard pre-2020 is an appeal to consensus, but I agree with the logic the experts were using in before 2020.
Sometimes I think it’s fine to reference prior work and assume people have familiarity with it. You don’t need to rewrite every argument.
Bruh, this idiotic “so I guess (a bunch of crazy shit I don’t believe)” is tiresome.
Yes I believe in the secret ballot. I do not believe that the option to do mail in seriously erodes that.
Less antagonism. You've been warned about this repeatedly. Next time is going to catch you a ban.
I've asked at least 5 times in this thread for folks not to reply to a post saying X with "oh so you believe Y and Z and beat your wife". That seems like the minimal amount of non-antagonism required as well.
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And if we defund the police. Crime won’t skyrocket. If we get rid of the SEC - no one will insider trade. If the MLB isn’t enforcing bans on steroids then even those who don’t want to do steroids will (like Barry Bonds a later user) because the players getting ahead are cheating. Maybe I just know more people who are willing to cheat that if you remove the enforcement preventing cheating that people will cheat.
If you remove the enforcement even if society is 99.5% trustworthy those who abuse the commons are going to rise in power.
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I’m going to jump in to ask, why?
I agree that VBM by itself doesn’t really enable classic vote-buying: if someone offers you money to vote a certain way, sure the buyer can verify your ballot before it goes in the envelope prior to handing over the “wages”, but you can easily get another ballot (unbeknownst to the vote-buyer), vote however you want, and invalidate the previous ballot.
But the examples given above (spouse pressuring spouse, filling out ballots for non compos mentis elderly relatives) seem to be much easier to pull off when mass VBM is the norm. To belabor the point re: the spouse example, if you live with someone, you presumably have access to their mail and can see whether they have received another VBM ballot with which to try and evade your spousal pressure to vote a certain way.
Not to mention, “ballot harvesting” seems vulnerable to unscrupulous harvesters steaming open the envelopes, changing the ballots that don’t vote for the right candidate (e.g. by filling in all the bubbles, so the ballot gets rejected) and then re-sealing the envelope.
Those are all valid points!
I agree that there is the possibility of fraud in VBM, but the original bombastic claim was that VBM is itself intrinsically fraudulent:
There is a huge difference your nuanced points and this blanket statement.
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