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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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why I shouldn't take Biden's anomalously high vote count in 2020 as evidence of fraud?

Well, Democrats generally were more worried about Trump this time round given all of his post-2020 election denialism, so if 'they' had the ability to rig it last time, why didn't it happen this time round? After all while it wasn't 'close' this year, the actual number of votes needed to flip the election wasn't even particularly high given that only 3(?) states would need to change hands. I've heard the figure 120,000 in a few places. If you're alleging that fraudulent votes numbered in the millions in 2020 (otherwise what's the relevance of the disparity in total vote), could really have been that hard to find 120,000 votes this time round. My prior for election fraud was already non-existant, but if anything this should lower it even further. Covid also throws in huge uncertainty - boredom driving political engagement, anger at Trump's non-existent/incompetent response (except warp speed, which he then couldn't talk about because of his deranged supporters lol), world-wide anti-incumbent feeling (which we see again here).

It just doesn't pass the smell test that there were ~15 million people who were that excited to vote for Biden

If this is your argument then it implies the number of fraudulent votes must have been at least well over 5 million (after all there wouldn't be that much difference in plausibility between 10 mil above the last two cycles and 15 mil above), which is a truly extraordinary claim that would require commensurate evidence.