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Notes -
This is likewise what I've tried to encourage in people around me. I frankly think 2020 was a complete mess, but also think that it would be best to let bygones be bygones and give my opponents an easy intellectual out that doesn't rely on them needing to admit to any sort of malfeasance. They may not want to reform elections to improve security (although some might), but the above framing is much, much harder to push back vigorously against than the whackadoodle stuff.
On the whackadoodle note, the guy that really summed it up for me the most was a helpful guy at my gun club. Nice guy, good dude, set aside some time to help me figure out what the hell was wrong with the sighting on my rifle (turns out the scope rings were genuinely awful, needed to be lapped). This was back in mid-November of 2020, and we naturally got to talking about the election, and he was absolutely convinced that not only did Trump legitimately win, but that he was definitely going to figure out a way to prove that he'd been cheated and would remain in office. When I asked how he figured that was going to work out, his eyes narrowed, he got a very knowing look, and simply replied, "He hasn't been wrong about anything yet". I'm basically on this guy's side, but I really have no idea how to reply to that. Trump? The guy that we've all been watching? That guy hasn't been wrong about anything? Well, fuck me, I guess we're about to be in for a wild ride was my thought pattern, and you know what? I haven't been wrong yet.
My West-Wing type fantasy scenario would be the GOP leadership of 2020, including Trump and Mitch McConnell, getting up and doing a collective press conference where they said something like what an NBA team says after a playoff series where their best player tore his ACL. "Hey, we lost under the rules, but those rules were weird, the whole thing was weird. Maybe some portion of our base refused to leave the house? We'll accept the result, but we will win it next time when the rules/situation aren't weird."
I forgot to note in my first comment, the local GOP is also very heavily trying to get people to vote by mail. So part of the reason they aren't turning against Mail-Ins is because doing so causes their own people to refuse to vote by mail, which loses you some votes relative to the Democrats who encourage Mail-Ins. Even people who really do plan to vote in person forget, or get there and the line is too long, or get sick, or whatever. Where that same person might have remembered to vote by mail. So unless you can change the rules with your current elected officials, opposing mail in voting will cost you votes on election day right now.
I couldn't have phrased that any better.
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