This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
How do you justify this, given that you find the majority of her policy positions abhorrent?
It's simply a vote against Trump. He's the linchpin holding the Democratic coalition together. Once he's gone, many of us want nothing more to do with the Democratic party.
As for why I'm so against Trump I have a couple of reasons. They basically boil down to a) I like living in a stable society and b) I like living in a rich society.
Stability:
There are really only 2 stable forms of government: Autocracy or aristocracy. We live in an aristocracy. These tend to be the more stable of the two, since there are competing factions with overlapping interests. Because of that, it's hard to enact change without stepping on anyone's toes. So change comes slowly. This allows a lot of institutions to be built on the bedrock of a (somewhat) stable system.
When an aristocracy changes into an autocracy, things usually get ugly. You get a lot of purges, and often a bunch of erratic government behavior. Look at the early Roman empire. For a more modern analogy, look at China. They were briefly an aristocracy with competing factions holding each other in check. Now they're an autocracy with Xi making questionable decisions. Life in China now does not look as good as it did a decade ago. Yes, there are multiple reasons for this. But the change in government structure is certainly one of them.
I think the whole "stolen election" affair moves us a lot closer to autocracy. Mainly by casting doubt on the electoral process, but also by normalizing the use of extra-legal means(fake electors) to hold on to power. To be fair, i don't think Trump will become an autocrat. He's not Julius Caesar. But he might be the Gracchi. Using populism to upend the old order doesn't usually lead to a better system. Instead, you just get chaos.
Wealth:
The US has a large empire. It is largely economic but there is a military component. The US dollar is only the reserve currency because the US is able to project force around the world. When the perception of strength goes, the huge inflows of cash will go too. The more the US leans into isolationism, the faster this will happen. And Trump's refusal to support the provinces/maintain the boarders is really pushing us in that direction.
All that being said, I'm not a big fan of the current culture of the "aristocracy" in the US. I think it's decadent and weak. But I also think that reform from within is possible. I think culturally the pendulum is swinging. Maybe not back to where it was, but certainly away from some of the craziness that we just saw over the last decade. I'd much rather see where that process goes, as opposed to opting for populist chaos.
At the end of the day I'm an institutionalist. I think the institutions in this country took a long time to evolve, and I'm not ready to abandon them, even if some of the people running them are crazed cultists.
I think I agree with a lot of what you've said about institutionalism, etc.
How do you fit this framework with all the Democrat-led attacks on the Supreme Court? They seem intent to add new justices who will be servile towards their interests (court packing, terms limits bills), or to let Congress strip them of whatever power they feel like, whenever they feel like it (the No Kings Act). Either of these, but especially the latter would be extremely destructive towards our Constitutional order.
To be fair, I'm strongly against changing the Supreme Court. The difference there is that the Democrats are still working within the framework of government that exists. The constitution gives the president the right to appoint justices, and there is no cap to the number. Would it be a break with tradition to pack the court? Yes. Would i support an amendment capping the number of justices? Also yes. But the fact remains that everything being done is following a precedent that has existed for quite some time. Partisan justices are nothing new. Even threats of court packing are nothing new (FDR).
When you start acting outside of the institutional framework, you get into really dangerous territory, especially with respect to elections. The threat of escalation is high. If one side does something, the other side will do it too. I really don't want to see every election being questioned by the loosing side. If that happens, it's only a matter of time before we get real political violence.
Hmm. Two points. First, I don't know that I'm seeing that big of a line between what you're using as a deciding factor (Trump using dubious legal theories and severe norm-breaking to try to remain in power) and what I'm pointing to (democrats using dubious legal theories and severe norm-breaking to try to seize power). Both of these look really bad to me, perhaps assuaged very slightly in each case by there being some people in each camp thinking that they're fixing genuine wrongs. Both are sort of operating within the institutional framework, sort of not. (In the case of the SCOTUS schemes, they have components that are probably unconstitutional.)
Anyway, court packing has been widely held to be a terrible and destructive idea for years—people are not at all in favor of FDR's actions, across the political aisle. And I'm not aware of any precedent for doing things like the No Kings Act. I don't think you're realizing just how destructive the latter would be. Letting Congress move court jurisdiction to whatever justices they prefer, and instructing them to rule whatever way Congress prefers is very bad.
The continuing independence of the federal judiciary matters, and Republicans are the only ones treating that institution as worth anything.
I agree. I think an independent judiciary is one of the better aspects of the US government system, and I'd really hate to see it done away with. That being said, in my mind, it comes down to probabilities. I think simply allowing Trump to win after having attempted to circumvent the election results the first time would signal that doing so is now fair game. I think we would see far fewer uncontested elections. And I think ultimately it could lead to electoral violence in the fairly near future.
On the other hand, I think the probability of a Democratic sweep is relatively low. Even in the case of a Democratic trifecta, I think the likelihood that all senate Democrats would be onboard with something like this is very low. And finally, if that law did somehow pass, I suspect that it would then be held up in courts for a very long time before being implemented, if not struck down entirely. In other words, the risk of the worst case scenario occurring there is extremely low.
So by that measure, the safer path is to go with Harris (and all republicans down ballot). It's certainly not a pleasant vote. But I'd like to think the reasoning behind it is sound.
Hooray, now we're talking about the likelihood of a small-ish set of events, instead of a nebulous variety of considerations: how likely are these?
First, considering schemas like those Trump's attorneys were pushing, what do you think of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022? Do you think that would decrease the ability to do so? Something like that was clearly the intent of its passing.
Secondly, how and why do you expect that to vary depending on whether Trump wins? I'm not seeing anything to suggest that, should Trump disappear, the opposing sides would stop seeing the other side as entirely unable to be trusted, and worth pulling out all the stops against, and I don't see a loss here as likely to help with that in any way. Could you explain your model here a little more fully?
On the other hand, I think it is fairly likely that we get a trifecta. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but Manifold has it trading at a 24% chance. This might be a little of an overestimate (summing individual elections don't match other markets), but it doesn't seem crazy, once you consider that the three should correlate with each other.
I trust this market much less, as there's less activity, but they estimate a 33% chance of a democrat trifecta trying to remove lifetime appointments for the Supreme Court. Senator Whitehouse has said that it would be virtually certain to happen, as it would be bundled with a lot of other desirable things. (Yes, I recognize that those two do not agree.) If we go with the smaller number here, for the sake of the argument, and multiply, that gives an 8% chance. That's high! (And only considering one sort of attack on the Supreme Court, not things like packing or the No Kings Act.) Do you think that that is a significant overestimate?
To me, which party is in office seems to have little long-term effect on how willing people are to break every norm and turn more and more to just what gives power (if anything, things like the R-backed bill to require proof of citizenship should help). This may be wrong! I'd love to hear why. On the other hand, which party is in office seems to have a pretty big effect on whether the judiciary is turned to the will of activists or stripped of power.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
See it seems to me that a dem victory brings us closer to autocracy. Schumer has already promised to break the filibuster for abortion and voting rights. Why not for court packing? Why not for DC statehood? Why not for PR statehood? The Dems could take a tiny lead and end the constitutional republic.
No, an autocracy requires an autocrat. The democrats are most definitely an aristocracy. They have different factions that vie for power and influence. Also, all of those things you mentioned are within the realm of legal possibility. Do I support them? No. Are they legally tenable within the US framework of government with enough votes? Yes. Gerrymandering is perhaps the best example of this. And both sides do it.
In contrast, acting to subvert faith in/circumvent the legal means of transferring power is not only breaking the rules of the system, it threatens to undermine the whole thing.
An autocrat requires loyalty of his subordinates, of which, Trump commands none. Even on the most famous day of "January Sixth" Trump preemptively offered National Guard support to the Capitol Police which both Pelosi and McConnell denied. Then the mayor of DC denied. Capitol police then asked for backup for several hours and were then ghosted by Pelosi for several hours during Trumps speech and during the march towards the Capitol and eventual riot. After several hours the request for NG was approved, but the riot was already dispersed. They showed up approximately 10 hours after the riot subsided for a photo op.
Trump would need to replace almost every person in the US government to become an autocrat. Biden got federal prosecutors to open 2 weak as hell cases against him by simply being president.
Do you have some trustworthy - and by that I mean palatable to the average democrat voter - sources to back this up? The whole January 6th debacle is a poison pill in discussions with anyone who has an opinion on it. And unfortunately, anyone with whom I end up discussing it already has an opinion on it! Trump offering National Guard assistance completely changes the dynamic of the event, so it would be nice to have some fact-check-proof evidence I can throw at people who loudly proclaim he wanted an insurrection to happen.
How about the head of Capitol Police at the time's own word?
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/19/congress/jan-6-capitol-police-security-hearing-intelligence-00116870
Thats the story reporting that FBI and DHS did not share intelligence with Capitol Police in the days up to 1/6.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/23/congress-answers-jan-6-insurrection-471000
There's the one talking about the denied response to requests for NG before 1/6 and the delayed response on the day of.
1/6 is actually a pretty simple story. Capitol Police were both understaffed and incompetent. They lost a fort to a relatively small number of unarmed rioters because their external barricades with haphazardly arranged, and because they failed to shut and lock a big door.
More options
Context Copy link
Trump wanted troops to protect his supporters at Jan. 6 rally - Rueters
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think it was their intention to be that destructive. It's still extremely destructive anyway. If we were in a better political climate, I absolutely would be considering not voting Trump because of it, but there's so much that's unconscionable within the Democratic party that it's still worth voting for him anyway.
In any case, the Democrats are threatening to undermine the whole thing. The No Kings Act is quite radical, and, if implemented and upheld (It has over 30 cosponsors!), would be retaliated against and copycatted with regard to every topic imaginable, destroying the independence of the federal judiciary. They're also proposing term limits plans, which, once passed, after the retirement part is struck down as unconstitutional, are just court packing. These are not good, and are absolutely examples of your final sentence.
This is especially bad, because the federal judiciary is the only branch that cares to any significant extent about constitutional limits, and I like having the bill of rights mean something, and protect against a tyranny-inclined majority (this is the whole principle of your argument, right?).
More options
Context Copy link
I mean, fucking around with courts is 100% the stepping stone to autocracy. I’ll agree that Kamala doesn’t look like an autocrat, but places that rig elections/change the results(there’s not actually much difference from 10,000 ft) get away with it because the courts are partisan.
Court packing is legitimately a bigger threat to paving the way for autocracy than trump. He’s berlusconi, not Mussolini.
More options
Context Copy link
I could easily say “acting to divert faith in/circumvent the legal means of deciding court cases / elections is not only breaking the rules of the system, it threatens to undermine the whole thing”
Court packing is a core attack on separation of powers — the key bedrock of our constitutional republic. Similarly importing voters (either via DC statehood or immigrants) is fundamentally at odds with the democratic part of our system and historically raised issues (eg between slave and free states).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Once he's gone, the Democrats will invent a new threat that requires you vote blue no matter who to save democracy. You have no leverage.
I've heard that argument from the right a lot. And quite frankly, I think it's an attempt to rationalize away the fact that Trump is an exceptionally bad candidate. Will the Democrats come up with reasons why people should vote for them and not the Republicans? Of course, that's what they do. The Republicans do the same thing. Will everyone buy it? No.
This is certainly anecdotal, but the last time i voted for a Democrat at the top of the ticket was Obama. And frankly, were I to have the choice again, I would go with Romney. Not everyone is consistent.
You still voted for Obama at the time though. Why?
And why do you think you are immune from the same influences when you are making the same arguments today?
More options
Context Copy link
But I can name a dozen reasons I want to vote for Trump. And by this point the idea that Trump is a bad candidate is growing stale: he significantly outpolls the modal generic Republican.
He isnt bad because republicans don’t like him sufficiently. He is bad because he is uniquely reviled by his opposition. The Democrats coalition is one of not-Trump.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Literally the current president and de-facto head of the Democrats told a primarily-Black audience that now-considered-milquetoast Mitt Romney would "put you all back in chains." The idea that whomever the Republicans field will get demonized as fascist and slavery-adjacent is not wrong, but you've also got a point that in many ways Trump is an exceptionally bad, although IMO not a guaranteed loss, candidate in 2024. I sometimes think that if the Republicans found a good candidate, someone Reagan-esque in all the right ways, that the DNC would be completely unprepared. But at this point it's not obvious who that would be in the next cycle.
Pray tell who this magical candidate is? We must contextualize this inquiry in light that the dumbest, most radical, possibly drunkest candidate of this century has been portrayed as normal and safe and not part of the administration she is literally the VP for successfully.
How would some governor of Nebraska change this?
More options
Context Copy link
I would vote for someone like that in a heartbeat. So would a lot of people I know. I really hoped that it would go more in that direction after the 2020 election. And I somehow still hope that it will go in that direction after this election. That may be unwarranted optimism. But I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibilities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
So you did vote against binders-full-of-women and you swear you won't get fooled again.
Has it occurred to you that, given the world didn't end under Trump, you might be getting fooled again right now? That any possible candidate with a R next to his name will always be so bad that you wish you could get the last one you also didn't want?
I think about that a lot, for what it’s worth. Asking Pence not to certify the election seems like a bright line though.
If not for the 2020 election shenanigans I’d probably agree that he’s just like the prior republican candidates and we’ll see him as tame in ten years compared to the New Threat.
So you voted Trump 2016? If not, this is clearly not the reason.
I did not, and I accept that nearly none of the “he’s the end of civilization” rhetoric was right. In 2016 I was all in on Bernie. I honestly don’t recall if I was alarmed about Trump. I think I wasn’t, more just very put off and pretty committed at that point to lefty policies.
But This Time Might Be Different.
I only started paying attention in 2012 or so, so I’ve had two occurrences now of seeing the anti-Christ turn out to not be that bad.
As I said, I struggle with it. Maybe I’m deluding myself but absent the election stuff I probably wouldn’t care at all about this election. As it stands I feel some unease about Trump.
I can’t see myself voting for him this time largely because 2016-2020 was so anti-climactic. There’s a real chance I will just make a protest vote.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I struggle with this, too. I am anti-Trump for many reasons -- mainly that he's civically corrosive and ignorant of how to operate as president -- and I certainly think that he handled the aftermath of the 2020 election poorly. And I'm glad Pence stood up for order over chaos. However, I don't think that Trump (and the circle of hucksters that he attracts) being typically dumb in his reaction to a very fishy election negates that there was a lot of very fishy stuff going on with that election. IMO everything Trump did made it worse and not better, but the legitimacy of the gripe is still mostly unexamined and very concerning.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm still debating to myself whether or not he'll get the Dubya treatment. Leaning towards not, but it's not that clear cut.
How can he not? The dynamic seems less driven by re-evaluation and calming down and more due to needing to paint the current opponent as the end of the world. Whoever the 2028 republican candidate is will need to be portrayed as the worst yet, which necessitates “Trump wasn’t actually so bad.” It’s inevitable I think.
Name your odds, I'd put $200 up right now. Trump really comes off a uniquely bad for many reasons.
More options
Context Copy link
I think that he's enough of an outsider that they may want to hold onto making him an example. The temptation to paint the next person as even worse than Trump will be strong, but Trump has a unique disgust factor for these people. Again, I'm not sure where it lands.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's not exactly a good faith interpretation, but I'll answer it anyway. 12 years ago I didn't have sufficient experience with the world to realize that human nature makes utopias impossible. I think that's the fundamental fallacy of the left. And I think that as people get older (assuming they are willing to consider new viewpoints), they tend to accept that. Hence the old adage about people becoming more conservative as they age.
So no. I didn't care about "binders-full-of-women". I believed at the time what I had been taught that leftist policies could make the world better. I no longer believe that. That being said, I would like to hold on to some of what we currently have in terms of a society. And subverting faith in democracy is one of the fastest ways to lose that.
Fair play. I'm not trying to sneer or anything, just to genuinely ask tough questions.
I don't see anything that's worth saving personally. Or rather, what few things are worth saving are what the system as it exists is precisely trying to destroy.
That said I no longer have any attachement to democracy at all, since it's revealed itself as mere justification to take my life and property away from me over the past decade. All the evil and none of the good that has been done to me was in the name of democracy.
I no longer believe Westerners have any significant level of control over their governments. If we are in agreement there (are we?) then I don't see what positive effect this faith may have that would be worth prolonging fiction that provides the maintenance of tyranny.
Given the difference between our current living situation in the US and that of a failed state like Somalia, I'd say we have a lot left to lose. Are the policies of the current administration chipping away at the foundations of society? Yes. Are they likely to cause its collapse in the next 4 years? Probably not.
As I said in the original post, I don't have any particular attachment to democracy. It's just the means that we chose to uphold the power of an aristocracy. What I do have an attachment to is the current system and everything that's been built on top of it. Is it long term stable? No. But nothing is long term stable. I'd like it to last as long as possible, since change to something new is likely to be violent and chaotic.
On a slightly more optimistic note, I don't agree that we have no control. The aristocracy is willing to grant the population a decent amount of say over cultural things in return for their economic hegemony. A lot of the idpol stuff on the left was selected for precisely because it doesn't interfere with the aristocracy owning things. So there's no reason to think they wouldn't be amenable to the culture moving in a different direction as long as they can still own everything.
I guess I'm either more of a pessimist about the ability of the ruling elite to manage current affairs or view collapse as a significantly larger category than a stuck civil war between marxists, nationalists and theocrats.
Things could get really bad for the common man in the next 4 years if there's no economic boom to bail the US out of their debt obligations. And likely much worse in most of Europe.
I really don't think our society can take 10 more years of neolib status quo without exploding in some way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I feel I should point out that Trump won't go away unless he's term-limited or dead.
I hear a lot of people say that. It seems like a pretty big assumption. There are a lot of things that can happen over the next 4 years.
I mean, I guess I missed "there is no free US presidential election in 2028" (whether because civil war, because nuclear war, because an AI mind-controlled/paperclipped everyone, or because the establishment bans Trump somehow). I'm not seeing any other ways that Trump is alive (and not comatose/lobotomised/otherwise dead for all intents and purposes), not term-limited, and doesn't contest 2028; his base is too loyal and he's too stubborn.
("Trump is dead" is a real possibility, though, given his age and his propensity to attract assassins plus the aforementioned nuclear war risk.)
People don't like a loser, Trump's whole brand is winning and it's why he can't give up the last election. Two losses in a row and becoming even older is going to be enough to have people jump ship, even if his health doesn't decline biden style.
More options
Context Copy link
Or maybe a sufficient number of the people backing him are peeled away by some other movement. Just because the competition this cycle was weak doesn't mean it always will be.
Or maybe Trump has a stroke. Or maybe age takes its toll and he starts having that same vacant look Biden does. Assuming that an individual low likelihood event wont happen may be safe. But assuming no low likelihood events will happen is not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Granted, I don't understand economics very well, but I don't understand the argument that the dollar is the world's reserve currency because the US can militarily dominate huge regions of the world. I can potentially see some indirect and relatively weak mechanisms that would connect the two, but I don't see any clear direct mechanism by which the military power would have a dominant impact on the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. Isn't the dollar the world's reserve currency because the US economy is huge, fairly dynamic, and - most importantly - stable?
If the US became isolationist but retained a very strong and stable economy, why would other countries switch to using some other currency other than the dollar as the reserve currency?
I'd also like to briefly address your point about Trump as a destabilizing factor. In my opinion, while he is destabilizing, the impact of this is effectively contained by our political system. The chances of him becoming a dictator, as you at least somewhat agree, is extremely small. Meanwhile, the Democrats are also a destabilizing factor. For example, I personally think that the combination of weak law enforcement in Democrat-run cities and frequent leftist street riots is significantly more destabilizing than everything that Trump has ever done put together, since it contributes to a sense of physical insecurity and a sense that one is living in anarchotyranny. The destabilizing effects on people are both directly physical - in the sense of street crime - and mental, in that living in such an atmosphere can make one rather grim, pessimistic about the country's future, and bitter at one's political opponents.
Trump might inspire a future Caesar, but the way I see it Democrats are already, right now, working on ripping apart our social order in a deleterious way. That's not what the vast majority of them think they are doing - they think that they are working to make the world a better place, but I believe that is what the actual consequences of some of their policies are.
The dollar is backed by the navy keeping shipping lanes open, as the pound was before it, and the Spanish dollar before that.
Of course, Spain and Britain are wealthy countries today. They happen to be much less so in world standings than they were at the height of their power(Britain in particular). But the average Brit didn’t start seeing real declines in standard of living until very recently.
The real question is ‘who becomes hegemon if the US collapses?’ Don’t make me laugh by saying China.
Leaving aside the very historically likely "something completely out of left field due to totally unforseen factors", the question is really just to ask ourselves who today can muster the most competent complex organization and is willing to swing power to get their way.
I think there's a real possibility for a corporation to be a contender this time. The power of nation states has been waning for quite a bit and they're all so exhausted that the idea the next Great Man and his retinue would be in the public sector almost seems silly.
On one hand, military power is a very jealously guarded privilege. On the other hand, large parts of the tech industry are aligning themselves to weapons manufacturing, automation and infrastructure in a way that could make something like this happen. Maybe the non-extractive parts of the MIC decide they're tired of subsidizing morons, cut out the middle man and rule the world directly.
My base case is that there won't be a great hegemon for a while though, that we're due for a long period of decentralization and diminishing power until someone kicks off the imperialism again from a direction that may be impossible to even imagine right now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Economics and military strength are not directly linked per say, but there is a lot of overlap. There are certainly incentives for allied countries to hold large amounts of US assents, as well as to allow US companies access to their markets. We take for granted the fact that McDonald's is even allowed to exist in a lot of other countries. Without the implicit threat of force, we could see our access to foreign markets (both as a producer and as a consumer) diminish in the long term. And this would certainly make us poorer overall.
As to your other point, I agree that a lot of democratic policies are having an adverse effect on living conditions. If there were simply a vote on whether or not to continue with those policies, I would certainly vote no. But as it is, there are more factors to consider.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
On the fake electors, I initially found this compelling, but not anymore. As far as I can tell the electors met, pledged their votes to Trump, and recorded this on paper on the appointed date. This was in anticipation that election results in their states could change, and if so there could be a problem if there were no elector votes recorded by the date specified in the Constitution.
There wasn’t a scheme to substitute these electors in place of the ones representing the state’s certified winner. On Jan 6th Trump’s ask of Pence was that he not certify the election, not that he count votes from the electors for Trump.
An alternate slate of electors also met and recorded their votes in Hawaii in 1968. Nixon was certified the winner, Kennedy’s electors met and recorded their votes anyway, and then later a recount went in Kennedy’s favor. Nixon, in his capacity as Vice President, counted the Kennedy electors from Hawaii.
I was referring more to the entire legal process that was attempted. As for the Jan 6th riot, to me that's a non-issue. More of a media circus than anything.
My primary concern is simply that democracy is a lot like the banking system in the sense that it requires everyone to have faith in the system working. Once a sufficient number of people stop having faith in it, it ceases to function. Because of that, I think claims of cheating should be taken quite seriously, but false claims should be treated very harshly.
This seems pretty reasonable.
Do you feel similarly about all the slander against Justice Thomas?
More options
Context Copy link
But there obviously was cheating. When the intelligence agencies are running an op against one candidate then there was cheating. You already crossed the rubicon!
When you can choose which stream is the Rubicon after the fact, you can always make it so the other side is the one to cross the line.
More options
Context Copy link
Cheating in what sense of the word? Influence campaigns? Those have been run by everyone. Intelligence agencies, state actors, private companies, etc. Anyone who has something to gain by one administration winning can try and convince people. That's how the system runs.
But if by cheating you mean what Trump keeps claiming, which is that large numbers of fake ballots are being added to the count, then no, I do not believe it. I would need to see pretty strong evidence to substantiate this claim.
The reason I'm skeptical is because cheating in such a way would require a huge number of people keeping silent. Given that any one of them would stand to gain a lot by defecting, it really seems unlikely that all would keep silent. Contrast this with something like Epstein being killed. Do I think that was a conspiracy? Quite possibly. The number of people involved was small. That would have been much easier to keep under wraps.
Chain of custody was destroyed for tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots across swing states. Conveniently after counting stopped simultaneously across several swing states, and started finding massive returns for Biden. The evidencr you would use to prove that these votes were all legitimate doesn't exist, because it was destroyed.
More options
Context Copy link
This isn't quite what you're asking for, but I believe there was some recent news that the immigrant communities in Michigan (in, for example, Hamtramck) have been shown to have substantial amounts of vote-buying going on, wherein empty absentee ballots are collected. Claims of this go back well before voter fraud was made a partisan issue with the 2020 election, in, for example, this story. Sure, I get that those are biased sources, but are they wrong? (Of course, it is unsurprising that a D-leaning political machine would be more likely to be investigated by R-leaning people.)
I don't know that that was enough to sway the election, but if he was aware that stuff like this was going on, suddenly his actions seem a bit less crazy.
You ask how a conspiracy would be kept under wraps. Well, in this case, first, it wasn't as if it wasn't talked about beforehand, as I pointed to. But second, the fact that it's an immigrant community would substantially help, as they'd be more isolated, and not as likely to speak English. I'm also not seeing what gains from defecting you are pointing to.
Sure, there are some dirty tactics used with absentee ballots. I'm actually all for election security reform. I have no problem with voter ID requirements.
My problem is that the more grandiose claims of election interference are a lot harder to believe. Claims that the election was stolen by fake ballots being added to the count. Claims that dead people were voting in sufficient numbers to swing the election. I've never seen anything that supports these claims with sufficient evidence to be convincing.
As for the "gains", well, if you had evidence of a conspiracy to overturn a US Presidential election, that evidence could be used to get you almost anything you could want. Huge amounts of money, either from the right or from foreign powers. National fame. Or maybe just assuaging your own guilt. If you had thousands of people involved in something like this, you don't think a single one of them would defect?
I think I agree on both points, at least for something at scale large enough to have overturned the 2020 election.
More options
Context Copy link
You don't need thousands of people, and even if you did all that's necessary for none of them to speak out is for them all to think that owning the White House is more important than any of those other things. If you have that you don't even need them to explicitly collaborate, a distributed prospiracy would accomplish the goal perfectly well.
If you controlled the media, you could maybe start a campaign to convince your audience that the opposing candidate is a Threat to Democracy and his supporters are very likely to infect you with a Deadly Pandemic or something?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Can you give a single example where our intelligence agencies knew there was a damaging story coming to hit one candidate in a domestic election and sprung into existence to ensure the media would believe the true story was false? This to my understanding is unprecedented (albeit it is possible it happens and we don’t find out)
More options
Context Copy link
This is absurd. If soldiers can have their First Amendment rights suspended for the duration of their service, then clandestine, not-democratically-accountable state agencies can (or rather should, because apparently they cannot) be told to keep their hands off elections. The idea that public service should remain politically neutral is not particularly novel.
"Should" in what sense of the word? In an ideal world? Sure. In actuality, organizations act in their own interest. This is true for state agencies, private organizations, sovereign states, etc.
If the police decided strategically blocked streets to hinder access to majority polling stations with majority-Democratic populations, would you be saying the same thing?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
For those not familiar, the theory of how to accomplish this came from John Eastman:
This is, of course, quite norm breaking. I think it's reasonable to argue that it's not even a good-faith legal theory, that it's just plain illegal and Eastman knew it was illegal, and he was just doing wishcasting to try to give power to his guy. But really, it's not any more of a "coup" then the Compromise of 1877.
"Coup" is the closest word I can think to describe it. To my reasoning, one party is unilaterally inventing a conspiracy (note that "election fraud" only seems to be a concern when a Democrat wins) then using said conspiracy to attempt to stay on power when legitimately he was the losing candidate and must transition power.
Let me put it this way. Let us pretend that my accusations were true of a hypothetical person that is not Trump, and that they had succeeded. What term would be better to describe it?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link