site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21703 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

True The Vote, the group behind the wildly popular "2000 Mules" film that purported to document extensive election fraud in Georgia, has admitted to a judge that it doesn't have evidence to back its claims.

Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials. TTV has a pattern of making explosive allegations of election fraud only to then do whatever it takes to resist providing supporting evidence. TTV has lied about working with the FBI and also refused to hand over the evidence they claimed to have to Arizona authorities. In Georgia, TTV went as far as filing formal complaints with the state, only to then try to withdraw their complaints when the state asked for evidence. The founder of TTV was also briefly jailed for contempt in 2022 because of her refusal to hand over information in a defamation lawsuit where TTV claimed an election software provider was using unsecured servers in China. Edit: @Walterodim looked into this below and I agree the circumstances are too bizarre to draw any conclusions about the founder's intentions.

I have a theory I'm eager to have challenged, and it's a theory I believe precisely explains TTV's behavior: TTV is lying. My operating assumption is that if someone uncovers extensive evidence of election fraud, they would do whatever they can to assist law enforcement and other interested parties in fixing this fraud. TTV does not do this, and the reason they engage in obstinate behavior when asked to provide evidence is because they're lying about having found evidence of election fraud. It's true that they file formal complaints with authorities, but their goal is to add a patina of legitimacy to their overall allegations. TTV's overriding motivation is grifting: there is significant demand within the conservative media ecosystem for stolen election affirmations, and anyone who supplies it stands to profit both financially as well as politically. We don't have direct financial statements but we can glean the potential profitability from how 2000 Mules initially cost $29.99 to watch online, and the millions in fundraising directed towards TTV (including a donor who sued to get his $2.5 million back). There's also a political gain because Trump remains the de facto leader of the conservative movement, and affirming his 2020 stolen election claims is a practical requirement for remaining within the sphere.

I know this topic instigates a lot of ire and downvotes, but I would be very interested to hear substantive reasons for why my theory is faulty or unreasonable! I believe I transparently outlined my premises and the connective logic in the above paragraph, so the best way to challenge my conclusion could be either to dispute a premise, or to rebut any logical deduction I relied on. You could also do this by pointing out anything that is inconsistent with my theory. So for example if we were talking about how "John murdered Jane", something inconsistent with that claim could be "John was giving a speech at the time of Jane's murder". I would also request that you first check if any of your rebuttals are an example of 'belief in belief' or otherwise replaying the 'dragon in my garage' unfalsifiability cocoon. The best way to guard against this trap would be to explain why your preferred explanation fits the facts better than mine, and also to proactively provide a threshold for when you'd agree that TTV is indeed just lying.

I'm excited for the responses!

Edit: I forgot I should've mentioned this, but it would be really helpful if responses avoided motte-and-bailey diversions. This post is about TTV and their efforts specifically, and though I believe stolen election claims are very poor quality in general, I'm not making the argument that "TTV is lying, ergo other stolen election claims are also bullshit". I think there are some related questions worth contemplating (namely why TTV got so much attention and credulity from broader conservative movement if TTV were indeed lying) but changing the subject isn't responsive to a topic about TTV. If anyone insists on wanting to talk about something else, it would be helpful if there's an acknowledgement about TTV's claims specifically. For example, it can take the format of "Yes, it does appear that TTV is indeed lying but..."

Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials.

It is because they are unified in their collective belief in sacred beliefs in opposition to facts and logic. It's like a social acid trip, people who cannot believe in the world around them clustering around sacred beliefs and the rejection of a crazy reality that they cannot accept. They want someone to tell them that no they aren't crazy, it's the other side that is truly crazy and that they are the sane ones. They go through the motions, maybe they enjoy some good 'belief theatre' whereby they can see a sick person wheeled on stage and then 'healed' to walk off it again; but when they get sick they usally don't rely on merely prayer as they take full advantage of advanced medical science instead.

Tearing into a caricature of your enemies is not productive. It’s also against a number of rules, including those about courtesy, content, and engagement. I recommend familiarizing yourself with these rules.

As I've tried to explain in some of your earlier 2020 election threads I feel like you are either misrepresenting or fundamentally misunderstanding the nature opposition's objections.

Elections are by their nature a contested environment not just between the individual candidates, but as Tom Scott touches upon in this video on electronic voting, between the candidates, their respective voters, and those administering the election. You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works. You need to understand that the purpose of an election isnot to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and thier voters) can accept as legitimate, including the ones who lost. This is why we use paper ballots with documented chains of custody, this is why we have laws requiring that the counting be witnessed by representative of each candidate/party. Defendants may be constitutionally entitled to a presumption of innocence, but there's nothing in the constitution about presuming that election officials are impartial or even competent for that matter. As such I would suggest that in the event that the above safeguards are broken/removed or other irregularities appear (and I don't think you can deny that there were irregularities) it is only fair, dare I say it rational, to ask "what gives?". Likewise the more stridently partisans of the winning candidate insist that "there's nothing to see here" while simultaneously denying access to recourse, the more reasonable it becomes for the losing candidates and their voters to suspect foul play.

The simple thing that after 4 years of this conversation you still don't seem to grasp is that you aren't going to convince anyone the election was legitimate by arguing the niggling technical details of individual cases and motions. You need to actually address the elephant in the room.

Elections are by their nature a contested environment not just between the individual candidates, but as Tom Scott touches upon in this video on electronic voting, between the candidates, their respective voters, and those administering the election. You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works. You need to understand that the purpose of an election is not to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and their voters) can accept as legitimate, including the ones who lost. [some spelling corrections]

So one side gets a Heckler's Veto until they are convinced of the legitimacy of the election? If they're upset enough, then the government needs to alter procedures until they are satisfied? No evidence is required, merely a sense of disquiet among some portion of voters? What procedural changes would produce a "legitimate" election for those people?

Basically yes.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained, and this sort of attitude strikes me as a manifestation of this tendency.

As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained

But that is precisely why losers should be required to provide proofs when they contest an election! Otherwise no peace is possible because the losers will always contest the results because it will always be in their best interest.

Again, "You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works."

My core point is that no such presumption exists.

Your core point is not clear because it is an anti-analogy. Analogies are not helpful to begin with, but anti-analogies are even worse. It needs to be clarified, but let me help.

I agree that any citizen committed to democracy should make sure that the electoral process is fair. This means, above all, that the legal procedures in place have been respected, and also that nothing has occurred which cannot be codified but which seriously calls into question the sincerity of the ballot. I think you agree, but contradict me if you don't.

However, here's where it gets complicated: questioning the results (in bad faith) is also a way of trying to cheat. So a citizen committed to democracy should also view any accusations of fraud with circumspection.

He or she should therefore demand that anyone making such accusations provides, perhaps not evidence, but factual elements that lead him or her to believe that irregularities have been committed and that they are of such a nature as to call the results into question. Tell me where I'm wrong.

Suppose I were to suggest that a goal of the 2020 election was not in fact to convince the losers that they lost fairly. It was to convince the losers that the winners could engage blatant shenanigans and get away with it. To let conservatives know that the only way they could win would be to challenge the legitimacy of the system.... which, being conservatives, they could not do. So the only real choice available to them was to sit down, shut up, and assist in the muzzling of their fringe in exchange for being thrown a bone now and then.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

Is there a responsibility, in your view, for the losers to examine if their real objection might not be principled, but literally over just losing?

I think you two might be talking past each other. Whether or not the losers should have good objections is a normative statement. Whether or not their objections are a problem is a descriptive statement. If the losers refuse to accept the result of an election no matter how fair and transparent it is, you don't have a functioning democracy.

In other words, no matter how fair an election might be that both sides had previously agreed to, the loser should be catered to with negotiations and compromises simply because they refuse to accept the outcome.

I reject that idea entirely. If Trump supporters and other election truthers need to have refuges from the rest of the American nation, I'm willing to accommodate that, but I'm not going to accept their claim that they just have a principled concern about election security.

I'm not giving a "should". Maybe Hlynka is, but there's certainly multiple options how you deal with people not recognizing the legitimacy of a government. Simply ignoring them is the default, and works just fine if there aren't too many of them or they aren't particularly interested in taking action. On the other extreme is civil war. I think the US is leaning a lot closer to the former than the latter.

I recognize you didn't give a "should", but Hlynka very much would agree with the absurd position I detailed in my previous comment. That's his position, unless he draws some line based on how many people actually disagree.

What does it mean for an election to be "fair" or "legitimate" if it doesn't mean having buy-in from both sides?

Consider an unopened box. You and I agree that whatever is inside, we will share equally between ourselves. We open it, and it happens to be your favorite candy bar. I go to split it equally, but you grab one side of it and insist that actually, you want the whole thing and I should re-negotiate over it.

Would you say you are acting in bad faith?

As much as there’s responsibility for the winners to examine if their belief in the legitimacy of their win might not be principled, by verifying the methods with the same scrutiny as if they’d lost.

I agree. But if you want to go down the route of saying the losers are refusing to be rational because that would cost them energy and momentum vs. the winners who don't, then just say that.

No because that's not how Democracy works.

You want Democracy? You need buy-in from the démos.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy. Because if the losers, as I suspect, are a bit more motivated by losing than they claim to be, then no amount of proof would work because they don't care about proof in the first place.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

Otherwise, I refer you to @DuplexFields' response above.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

No, my point is that you and anyone else who takes this viewpoint is essentially claiming that you don't care about proof over whether the election was stolen in the first place. You just want a guarantee that your policies are enacted.

Suppose the Democrats were to offer a guarantee that they'd quash any attempt at enacting laws which would shift the government's stance to be more socially progressive in exchange for Republicans (including the MAGA ones) never bringing up the 2020 election again, and that this would hold for the next 10 years. God himself comes down and says they're not lying about what they'll do. In this scenario, I would expect people complaining about the election losers to largely come down against this deal on principle. Instead, I suspect the losers would actually, seriously debate if they should accept.

More comments

Traditionally, even the losers in the US have been quite principled and put country over party, and their own specific interests.

Even Nixon stepped down.

You’re trying to justify a race to the bottom instead of calling out unjustified behavior.

No non-authoritarian system of government is going to do well with unprincipled, unreasonable behavior at scale.

You’re trying to justify a race to the bottom instead of calling out unjustified behavior.

No, those objecting to the election shenanigans are trying to call out bad behavior. Those excusing them on the grounds that it's bad to question elections are attempting to elevate the appearance of legitimacy over actual legitimacy.

You’re doing the motte n bailey between “were things perfect” and “was the election rigged/stolen.”

Instances of bad behavior can be acknowledged and we are still nowhere near what was claimed by Trump or TTV.

More comments

One way to try to do this is examine specific claims of fraud and foul play…

You’re certainly right overall, but you’re underplaying here the particulars of Trump and the ecosystem of liars and idiots who cannot be swayed by any level of evidence about the fairness of elections, even when they win!

On many issues, I blame the left for being the root of the problem. On elections, however, there’s clearly a Trump-inspired delusion on the right that is impervious to reality.

So one side gets a Heckler's Veto until they are convinced of the legitimacy of the election?

This, but unironically.

The primary goal of an election is convincing the losers they lost to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Selecting a winner is a significantly less important goal. If a large portion of the population doesn't believe the election (and therefore the government) is legitimate, that's the road to a coup or civil war. Or at least lower level societal dysfunction as more people reject government authority. It's still a problem even if their reasons appear to be nonsense.

The primary goal of an election is convincing the losers they lost to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Selecting a winner is a significantly less important goal.

Precisely.

So what’s the theory on how to get people who demonstrably don’t care about evidence to become open to being convinced by evidence?

Conspiratorial thinking is famously hard to deal with.

Let’s pretend Dems had done an admirable job of running elections to whatever standard you consider reasonable, but Trump still narrowly lost.

How different would Trump and MAGA types have behaved in your view?

Yes. that's literally how democracy works.

You have to convince the other half of the country they lost fair and square, or give up on peaceful transition of power. There is no third option.

If you find the other half to be unreasonable, that's a problem, but they still need to be placated or fought.

Too bad nobody can provide an elephant.

“There’s a huge elephant in here you aren’t addressing but don’t ask for specifics.”

Vibes -> tall claims -> shoddy evidence -> vibes -> …

It’s a self-sustaining cycle of BS until good evidence can be provided, instead of dancing around that elephant-sized gap.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/outrage-erupts-after-windows-covered-up-in-detroit-during-ballot-count-officials-release-statement-on-alleged-reason-behind-decision

There is an elephant. Conservative election observers were kicked out of the room, and the windows were covered up so Democrat's could count the ballets in secret. Whatever the just so reasons given to justify this action, they are unacceptable. It's impossible to trust anything that occurred in that room now.

Were you aware that your own link says that there were 134 republicans in the room during counting?

You'll note that even this article quotes this:

"Both political parties had surpassed the law-mandated maximum of 134 challengers with more than 200 each, and when election workers told GOP challengers the party had hit its limit, some began shouting about the unfair process and lack of transparency. An unidentified election worker shouted back the group was at its maximum size."

Poll watchers were kicked out (or not allowed to enter) because there were already in EXCESS of the legally mandated 134 challengers inside the room.

How is it impossible to trust when there were more than 200 Republican poll watchers INSIDE. How many before you would trust it? 300? 500? 1,000? There has to be some maximum that is enforced.

The elephant is that this was not enough! You can let more people in to challenge than the legal maximum and still people are not happy. Votes were not counted in secret. There were 200 Republican poll watchers inside the room. Even that article does not claim there were none. The biggest claim there is:

"“There were some pretty tense moments inside of this room. Basically some poll workers or some of challengers told us that there was not an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in this room throughout the entire process,”"

That's it. Not that there were no watchers, not that they were kicked out and the ballots were counted secretly. Just that the numbers were not equal.

Whatever the just so reasons given to justify this action, they are unacceptable.

You don't kick out election observers and board up the windows, period. I'm entirely uninterested in whatever facile justifications they give. If there is a problem, at best, you pause the counting until a satisfactory solution to all parties is agreed upon. Not kick people out, board up windows, and then plow on ahead in the chaos.

More over, I don't know what kind of weasel words these claims of the GOP having the "maximum" number even means. Did the dems have more? Then how is it a maximum? How large was the facility? Is the "maximum" some generic statute, related to the fire code, for that specific facility?

But this is exactly the back and forth that always happens. Some shit goes down that any person can plainly see is suspicious, and some just so explanation is given that we are supposed to automatically trust.

No.

You don't kick out election observers and board up the windows, period

You sure do, if the number of obsevers is in excess of the legal limit. What is your alternative? Break the law simply to meet your personal standard of credulity? Such an action would be just as likely to be highlighted as one of the "irregularities" that "proves" the steal as assuage your concerns.

I don't know what kind of weasel words these claims of the GOP having the "maximum" number even means. Did the dems have more? Then how is it a maximum? How large was the facility? Is the "maximum" some generic statute, related to the fire code, for that specific facility?

These are all great questions that have a large bearing on whether or not anything untoward happened. Unfortunately you seem ignorant of the answers to them, despite the fact that this case was brought by you as evidence of your position. That you should then try to parlay this ignorance into further "evidence" is, charitably, wild as hell.

Some shit goes down that any person can plainly see is suspicious,

We do not all "plainly see" that something suspicious is happening, hence this discussion.

Michigan law allows one challenger per party, per absentee counting board. There were 134 absentee counting boards ergo 134 of each party should have been allowed in the room. They have to take an oath, have an ID from their organization etc. You can't just walk in. Normally, they don't get close to that, so they weren't keeping count until the room got crowded and when counted they realized they had 570 observers which included at least 227 Republican observers. At this point they elected to not let anyone else in (both Democrat and Republican) until some of those had left. That is what triggered the situation.

Your claim that there was secret counting is false. Your OWN evidence showed that (because they had reports from poll watchers inside the room). So now your claim is that there weren't enough let in. That may be true (depending on how many observers you think should be allowed in) but it is not the same thing as ballots being counted secretly.

Now obviously you can doubt the numbers provided, but just as a check, if you were shown evidence that there were 227 Republican poll watchers inside the room watching the ballots being counted AND you were sure that this was accurate, would that be enough to at least walk back the claim that ballots were being counted secretly?

If there is a problem, at best, you pause the counting until a satisfactory solution to all parties is agreed upon. Not kick people out, board up windows, and then plow on ahead in the chaos.

In a similar case in Philadelphia, Trump's campaign filed for an emergency halt to the count because they claimed it was proceeding without Republican observers present, but then their lawyer had to admit to a judge that actually there were "a non zero number" of Republican observers in the room. This is part of a common pattern around that time where they'd make explosive claims only to have to walk it back significantly once they were in court where lying carried penalties.

Based on the number of blatantly frivolous claims that were credulously trotted out, I believe the concerns over electoral safeguards were generally not earnest. Instead, the overwhelming motivation was upset that Trump was losing and so they used election integrity as a pretextual facade. That's why there has been such a flood of low-quality claims (remember Sharpiegate? Italian satellites? Bamboo ballots? Dominion algorithm?) that would get dropped as soon as they fell apart, only to move on to the next thing.

IIRC this was the one where the observers were 'in the room' but kept behind barriers quite far from the actual counters, so that they couldn't actually monitor or object to anything the counters were doing -- there were photos at the time that made this quite clear. Observers who tried to approach more closely were kicked out because covid.

I'm fairly sure I've brought this up with you more than once before, and have a vague memory of you acknowledging that it was bad on one occasion -- now you are triumphantly bringing it up again as an example of Repulicans being unreasonable, and writing blog posts about it. It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.

If the claim in court, where you do need to be very specific, was that people weren't allowed in, but they were and just kept far away, then the claim should reflect that, right?

The blog post is dated Nov 5, 2020 and it was just a copy of one of my motte reddit post. I don't recall the issue with the Philadelphia observers being kept behind barriers, but either way that's not the claim the Trump lawyers went with in court. I also don't recall what exchange you're referring to, I was able to dig up this conversation where I tried to ascertain the worst-case scenario from the Georgia water main incident, but that doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.

It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.

I take allegations of dishonesty very seriously! That's why I keep offering my full motte archives for others to scrutinize. If I'm ever being dishonest or whatever (as Dean constantly insists I am) then it should be effortless to demonstrate this. You're citing an exchange that you claim to be a good example of my dishonesty, but it's based off your memory. If you're remembering correctly, then I will acknowledge error and issue a public apology. But if you're misremembering, I would appreciate an apology from you.

I bet pauses in counting wouldn’t arouse any suspicions…

The mistake you’re making is conflating “suspicious” with “malicious” and “impactful.”

Here, there was intense scrutiny over the counting and too many observers causing issues such that an election official took action to resolve things. The intense scrutiny led to an irregularity that you are treating as conclusive evidence that shenanigans were afoot.

It’s a bit of circular reasoning that you can’t be pulled out of unless you acknowledge that the strangeness did not stop observation and that there is no evidence showing actual misdeeds with the ballot counting.

Is there any actual evidence the count was done wrong or ballots tampered with? Were any follow up investigations done?

Is this one instance of suspicious behavior enough to justify claiming an election was rigged or stolen?

My daughter has been in a sneaky mood lately. She likes to take things she's not supposed to, hide them behind her back, and then yell that there is nothing behind her back. I do not plan on allowing election workers to behave in a similar manner. "Actual evidence" is just goalpost moving when they are violating the norms (and in many cases the law) in a direction of preventing "actual evidence" from being collection. That's why those norms and laws exist.

There is suggestive evidence and then there’s definitive evidence.

Was there a recount of those ballots? An investigation into anything being done behind the curtain?

It’s not moving the goalpost to point out you’ve identified smoke and not a fire, because the position of any reasonable person is not that nothing strange, improper, or illegal happened in 2020. It’s that such irregularities were not of sufficient scale or coordinated to rig or steal the election from an incumbent president.

There was a bit of cheating and wonkiness, but trust us - no more than usual.

It's not that I can't believe Trump lost fair and square. It's that I have no reason to trust that claim from people who regularly lied (or insinuated falsehoods) to me repeatedly in the run-up to his ousting. I can't expect then be honest about praising Nazis, I can't expect them to be honest about Russian collusion, I can't even expect them to be honest about feedish fish in Japan. But I'm supposed to buy the narrative that everything wasn't just above-board for the 2020 election, but even so much better than historical standards, no ifs or buts. That is until these conversations play out, and that S-ranked election integrity gets downgraded - but don't worry, not downgraded enough to suggest anything was questionable.

FWIW I think you're being super reasonable in your demands for evidence. And it's highly probable that that the general Right's refusal to concede this matter is a product of their pattern recognitions producing an error. Just because they were lied to about 10 other things doesn't mean media and political organs aren't telling the truth about lack of evidence for fraud and shenanigans. Unfortunately, when they all decided to sacrifice their integrity and honesty, they took my charity with it. I don't think this is a reactionary position, but an informed one.

Who cares any more, any way. As if anybody at this stage is going to change their mind based on the verdict of some tribunal or investigative body. The ship of legitimacy sunk well before all of this, and I can't believe anybody thinks it can be restored with some official paperwork. What awful stewards our leaders are, for putting us in this position

It’s not “trust us”

It’s “where’s the evidence to confirm the suspicions”

There was intense scrutiny of this election. Plots leave evidence. Extraordinary claims were made.

You can ignore the narrative and simply examine the cases.

Pattern recognition is great until it becomes immune to counter evidence or ceases to even require supporting evidence.

I get the same feeling and employ nearly the same responses when I deal with the right on elections or the left on systemic racism. So much smoke, so little fire.

With Russiagate, there was a lot of smoke and some actual fires, just not any fire that matched the level of rhetoric about Trump himself. So the left was wrong to overhype it as a bonfire, but the right is wrong to pretend that the level of coziness Trump officials and associates had with certain Russians was unprecedented, inappropriate, and in some cases illegal. Republicans used to recognize the threat from Russia and I miss those days.

More comments

You need to understand that the purpose of an election isnot to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and thier voters) can accept as legitimate, including the ones who lost. This is why we use paper ballots with documented chains of custody, this is why we have laws requiring that the counting be witnessed by representative of each candidate/party.

This is an incoherent pair of sentences. What function does having a paper trail or bipartisan autiding have except for helping to establish that the reported vote count is true and accurate (or it's degree thereof)? A paper trail will not make someone accept an election as legitimate, if they are not interested in obtaining (or respecting, as a process for determining who wins) the factual truth of the vote count.

The simple thing that after 4 years of this conversation you still don't seem to grasp is that you aren't going to convince anyone the election was legitimate by arguing the niggling technical details of individual cases and motions. You need to actually address the elephant in the room

"You aren't going to convince anyone the election was legitimate by arguing and evaluating specific factual claims". Quite right! It was clear in 2020 and even more clear now, that most who believe the election was stolen did not come to that belief through a sober consideration of the facts.

This is an incoherent pair of sentences.

It's not incoherent at all it is the core of what I mean when I bring up "the contested environment". The purpose of having documented chains of custody and witnesses from both parties involved in the process is so that when irregularities do occur, Side A can tell Side B "Ok, but your guy signed off on it. If you have a problem with the count, you should take it up with them". "Truth" and "Accuracy" are secondary concerns.

The point I'm trying to make here and the point that yourself the OP, @2rafa, @SwordOfOccam don't seem to be grasping is that onus of proof is not on the losers to provide evidence of illegitimacy, the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square. See my above reply to @FiveHourMarathon.

No, it's incoherent. There is literally no point in having audits or paper trails if there is not an objective measure of who wins an election. In our actual reality, the organizing principal we use is, " the guy with the most votes wins" (to first order). Even the steal crowd universally couches their arguments in terms of stolen votes, vote counts, counting processes etc. factually, the number of counts matters, because that is the agreed upon standard.

Someone can always in principle defect from the process, but that is not particularly interesting since anyone can always defect from any process. In that case, the losing party should be honest and say, "I don't like this outcome, so fuck you I won't respect it" rather than endlessly engaging in claims of irregularities in the administrivia.

the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.

This doesn't logically follow from what you wrote above. Granting we have a mutually agreed upon process (as you say), even if it has no contact with any objective truth or measure, if party A has a concern, they should be able to point to some irregularity in the paper trail. That is it's whole reason for existing, by your own argument. If they think the process itself is unfair, they can always point to a specific attribute of the process. If party A just sits back and says, you know what, this seems fishy, why don't you bring me another rock and maybe that will assuage concerns, there's no reason why that should shift the burden of proof at all.

There is no onus on anyone. Nobody has to do anything, or prove anything. You do not have to convince anyone, and nobody has to convince you. I'm sure the United States will survive in some form without the people who have decided (not without justification )that they don't like the society that has slowly developed and evolved over 250 years. But then I have to wonder what exactly you think you're doing.

There is no onus on anyone

But there is. Just because you've chosen not to believe in it does not mean it is not there. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I go on about "contested environments", "the Leviathan-shaped hole", and liberals treating the relative peace and prosperity of societies like the US and EU as an inevitability rather than something that has to be actively maintained.

It is easy for someone who's only ever known peace to forget just how much ruin there is in a nation.

the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.

I don't think that is the job of election officials. Especially having been one such election official. That is way too high level a thing for random local government workers to be worrying about. Their job is to organize the election in line with whatever budget, rules and laws apply in their location. They don't have the time or expertise to be trying to decide what will look legitimate or not. That is done by the politicians setting what rules and laws they need to follow.

If Michigan wants 134 observers of each party and passes a law, then when the election officials deny more people getting in and that looks like they are hiding something, that is not on the election officials. When people are filming through the windows and the city attorney tells them to cover the windows in case some of the ballot information is visible, that isn't on the poor schlubs getting paper cuts inside.

Legitimacy is built way before that point. The fact several hundred people were trying to get in prior to that situation shows that the legitimacy was in question BEFORE the election actually happened. Election officials can't do anything about that.

I don't think that is the job of election officials.

Then, as @Walterodim and others have observed below, we have a serious problem.

I think there are people that have such responsibility, but if the PA legislature passes a mail in voting for all law, or Michigan passes a no more than one observer per party per board law, then it isn't up to the election officials to not carry out the wishes of the duly elected representatives of the people. Even if they think it will look really bad from a legitimacy point of view. it simply isn't their remit to override laws like that.

The point I'm trying to make here and the point that yourself the OP, @2rafa, @SwordOfOccam don't seem to be grasping is that onus of proof is not on the losers to provide evidence of illegitimacy, the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.

And my point is that Donald Trump is a sore loser who was never going to accept that he lost “fair and square”. What do you think it would take to convince Trump he lost fair and square? This is the pivotal question in this debate, since most of Trump’s supporters will take his opinion on the matter.

And my point is that Donald Trump is a sore loser who was never going to accept that he lost “fair and square”.

Irrelevant because it is not Donald Trump the individual you ultimately need to convince but a plurality of the people who voted for him.

Those people’s views are in substantial part dependent upon Trump. If he had accepted defeat in 2020 we wouldn’t be having this conversation because his supporters would almost all have fallen in line with his views.

onus of proof is not on the losers to provide evidence of illegitimacy, the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.

I agree that election officials have a responsibility to affirmatively defend the integrity of the elections they manage. The problem is that some election skeptics are implacable and immune to evidence. They believe the only legitimate outcome is when their preferred candidate wins, and so they see a loss as presumptive evidence of fraud and they'll work backwards and credulously repeat whatever theory happens to be convenient to their narrative. It's a big problem but I don't know how you're supposed to reason with delusional people.

I grasp your point.

What you don’t grasp is that you’re calling for a near-impossible standard when dealing with bad faith or illogical actors.

No one can convince Trump about the true size of a crowd, let alone the outcome of an election. Even when he wins.

For any level of effort to show it was fair and square, the conspiracy theory can go a level deeper. Our elections are not perfect and improvements should be made, but don’t pretend that can meaningfully shift present vibes on the right.

Examining specific allegations is the only reasonable response, but people uninterested in reason won’t be persuaded that the lack of evidence means they should downgrade their conspiratorial confidence.

It's disingenuous to claim that lack of evidence proves something when one of the complaints is that ervidence collecting was made very difficult.

It’s disingenuous to claim evidence collecting was made very difficult when that’s not the case, when the TTV case involved refusing to show claimed evidence, and where every case of presented evidence I’m aware of, like the cyber ninjas, was a laughable attempt.

The continued lack of evidence proves that the claims made remain unjustified. It doesn’t prove nothing happened, but it does strongly suggest a pattern of BS artists making stuff up and credulous people believing whatever feels right to them.

As such I would suggest that in the event that the above safeguards are broken/removed or other irregularities appear (and I don't think you can deny that there were irregularities) it is only fair, dare I say it rational, to ask "what gives?".

What gave, of course, was COVID-19. It was responsible for the unusually high proportion of mail-in voting, which is certainly less secure due to chain-of-custody issues. Elections being a contested environment, this gave rise to a slew of legal challenges both before and after election day about exactly under which circumstances mail-in ballots are counted, implicating election statutes and the vagaries of interpreting them that had previously been uninteresting. Many jurisdictions also had inefficient processes for counting mail-in ballots; this was not a problem in prior years, but in 2020 it sometimes incurred multi-day delays in the tabulation process.

This all made the election less crisp and well-executed than before, which does decrease confidence in its legitimacy. However, none of these events themselves are suggestive of votes being systematically over- or under-counted in favor of a particular candidate. If irregularities only contributed noise and not signal, and they're unlikely to happen again now that the pandemic has passed, then it's only fair and rational to ask "who cares?" We could have run a tighter, more confidence-inspiring election, but what we got was serviceable given the unique circumstances of 2020,

Only in pattern matching the irregularities to a specific conspiratorial frame do they gain enough significance to be talking about them in 2024. The electorate is due basic assurances that elections are fair and accurate, but conspiracies theorists are not due overwhelming evidence before their claims can be dismissed on ordinary epistemic grounds.

So everywhere has rolled back the mail in votes? Because I was told they were the way of the future. If 2016 had been run like 2020 there would have been at least the same amount of drama. The only reason there wasn't is because it was considered too ridiculous. Mail in voting tipped the scales (along with, obviously, the candidate who campaigned on being ridiculous losing) from "voting is probably a useless scam" to "voting is definitely a ridiculous scam" for a significant chunk of the population.

Also the idea that irregularities won't happen again is lunacy. Irregularities happen every single election. The only difference is that now everyone on both sides is certain the other side will do it.

No-excuse mail-in voting has been available in many states for a long time, it just wasn't as broadly adopted before the pandemic. About a quarter of all ballots cast in the 2016 election were mail-in, compared to about half in 2020. This dropped down to about 30% in 2022. Eight states have made mail-in the default going forward, but generally not swing states. Overall, the voting landscape has changed somewhat, but 2020 remains an outlier in terms of poorly-prepared swing states dealing with a flood of mail ballots under duress.

Obviously all elections have irregularities, we just won't be experiencing the ones that made the 2020 election messier than usual. It's true that increasing political polarization and paranoia means that future elections might get picked apart even if they're run to ordinary standards, but this is an indictment of our political culture and not our ability to accurately count ballots.

Do you remember the 2016 election? Were you politically active for it? My gut says no, since you mention the mid terms like they tell us anything, but I also get the impression you were just trying to be patronising so I thought I'd ask. How do you think the fact that democrats need more voters and republicans need less voters plays into the situation?

Do you remember the 2016 election? Were you politically active for it?

Yes, I was.

My gut says no, since you mention the mid terms like they tell us anything

Midterm voting behavior is different over all, but the percentage of mail voting has been roughly similar to major election years (e.g. ~25% in 2018).

How do you think the fact that democrats need more voters and republicans need less voters plays into the situation?

If more people participating in democracy is bad for Republicans, so much the worse for Republicans. They can and will adjust.

Yes, I was.

So you remember that the election came very close to being declared fraudulent by Hillary Clinton, the most qualified presidential candidate in the history of the universe.

Midterm voting behavior is different over all, but the percentage of mail voting has been roughly similar to major election years (e.g. ~25% in 2018).

Still no source, and no explanation of why the percentage of mail in votes means anything over different demographics (which the midterms and pe have always had).

Let me guess, you don't care because go blue team! Blue team good! Red team bad! Democracy good! Don't think about it, democracy good! Full stop! Conversations bad! Talking points good!

Hey turnabout is fair play right? Alternatively you could stop the partisan shit and engage with the actual arguments. You don't have any reason to believe that future elections will be any more secure, you just have faith they will be. But the entire fucking problem hlynka brought up is that a third of the country doesn't. You just don't give a shit.

No-excuse mail-in voting has been available in many states for a long time...

Sure, but it was typically limited to legal residents living out-of-state/overseas and was something that had to be requested with a reason provided, thus guaranteeing at least some correlation between mailed ballots and active voters. Changing the rules at the last second to allow mass mailings as was done in Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Et Al was perhaps justified in the context of ongoing Covid lockdowns but has no place today. The whole thing just reeks of Rham Emmanuel/Janet Reno-esque opportunism.

Sure, but it was typically limited to legal residents living out-of-state/overseas and was something that had to be requested with a reason provided

A slight majority of states allowed absentee ballots without any reason (thus "no-excuse"), it just had to be requested. Source here. More states are no-excuse or all-mail after the pandemic, but it wasn't exactly unusual before.

Since the pandemic, eight states now have all-mail voting (sending out mail ballots to everyone by default), but none are generally considered swing states at the moment. Obviously this could still impact state and by-district federal elections, but it probably won't shift electoral college votes much. The 2022 midterms had around 30% mail ballots compared to around 25% in 2018, so the durable shift in voting behavior is much less than the outlier that was 2020 at around half. Republican-led states such as Georgia passed legislation making voting more regimented and less accessible, and Georgia is actually becoming a swing state. The charge of opportunism can be leveled at nearly everyone.

Pennsylvania

Just to reiterate the PA changes were made in 2019 PRIOR to Covid by Republicans. They believed it would help turn out in rural areas where polling locations might require a lot of travel.

As such I would suggest that in the event that the above safeguards are broken/removed or other irregularities appear (and I don't think you can deny that there were irregularities) it is only fair, dare I say it rational, to ask "what gives?"

Sure, I don't disagree with this. It's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of claims of legitimacy, but if the skepticism is primarily/only deployed in one direction, or if it is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, then it's also reasonable to conclude the skepticism is either the source of delusion or some other form of motivated reasoning. If someone is a perennial believer that the election was stolen, I have no ideations that I would be able to convince them otherwise with evidence, because it's unlikely that evidence got them where they are in the first place. I'm not equipped to make vibes-based arguments, and I don't know any other topic (except maybe trans gender identity?) where this is seen as an acceptable basis to hold a belief.

I prefer actual evidence. All I know how to do is to dig into specific claims with specifics, and I picked one that's fairly unambiguous. TTV showed up in court and said they didn't have evidence they claimed they have — there's no way to spin this any other way. I understand that if someone is particularly attached to believing in the belief that the 2020 election was stolen, then claims about TTV present an uncomfortable and inconvenient threat to their preferred narrative but that's not on me.

Are you able define "evidence" in this context.

Does the existence of both opportunity and motive, constitute "evidence"? or are those just "vibes"?

There are obvious actionable steps that could be taken to increase trust. For example, Gallup reports that 8 in 10 Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote. Likewise keeping the polls open for multiple days and/or making election day a national holiday. Even if no-one can prove one way another that a specific irregularity swayed the result one way or another the stubborn refusal to acknowledge these irregularities presents a problem in itself as it undermines trust. Likewise, it could be just a coincidence that those who are most vocally opposed to such measures are simultaneously lobbying for the weakening or removal of remaining safeguards and are almost uniformly Biden supporters, but I don't see how anyone could deny that it is "suspicious as all get out" given the circumstances.

As for the accusation that skepticism is only being deployed in one direction, I think you ought to look in the mirror and ask yourself what it is about Trump voters in particular that has you so wrapped around the axle. Why did this become your hobby horse? When leading Democrats were going on TV each week to claim that the 2000, 2004, 2016 elections had been stolen. did you feel the need to step in and defend the legitimacy of the system then? Why or Why not?

Evidence is any fact that is consistent with the stated claim, and inconsistent with the opposite. Establishing motive and opportunity is not sufficient if it doesn't help you rule out possibilities, otherwise motive would count as evidence to support that every election was stolen by each side every time. I'm in favor of any and all safeguards that target and actually reduce the risk of actual election fraud rather than the ones that are either security theater or deployed for a pretextual purpose. This is my consistent standard for all security concerns (airport security screening, gun control measures, etc).

I think you ought to look in the mirror and ask yourself what it is about Trump voters in particular that has you so wrapped around the axle. Why did this become your hobby horse?

Because nothing comes close to the level of abject delusional theories that Trump and his followers repeated. I don't care which political party someone is part of, if they're claiming that Italian satellites changed the Dominion algorithm and created 3-5 million fraudulent votes because Hugo Chavez had planned this all along and they're receiving institutional affirmation instead of disavowed as loons, yeah, that's a serious problem.

I think Clinton was wrong to say what she said in 2016 about illegitimacy, though at least the plot she alleged by Russia was actually real, even if we can’t know how much impact it had.

2000 and the hanging chads was actually a pretty crazy situation overall. Gore took it pretty gracefully even if Dems made a lot of commentary about it.

I can’t properly evaluate the ratio of “claim to evidence” about the other stuff, but it’s pretty easy to endorse a consistent policy of “people shouldn’t make claims they can’t back with evidence.”

Trump was also making claims about election issues in 2016 and before. I’m sure one could go find some Republicans complaining about election integrity over the years too.

I mean, the whole bit where Obama was illegitimate based on his alleged birth situation rushes to mind.

Overall, it’s pretty easy to say “Democrats have been pretty bad and imprecise with election integrity claims” and also believe Trump and MAGA are on an entirely new level.

It’s nice being an Enlightened Centrist who can be disgusted by both sides and maintain the poor behavior by one side does not justify it by the other.

I'm not equipped to make vibes-based arguments, and I don't know any other topic (except maybe trans gender identity?) where this is seen as an acceptable basis to hold a belief.

I prefer actual evidence. All I know how to do is to dig into specific claims with specifics

To build on @HlynkaCG's perspective flip and attempt to provide actual evidence and specific claims with specifics to what is fundamentally, we can agree, a "vibes-based argument" (because I take @HylnkaCG's perspective flip to be that the vibes of legitimacy are, in fact, fundamental), I would point to a couple comments I've made here about the importance of secrecy in voting, including specifics of how it has been minimized or cast aside entirely in the "new normal", as well as specific claims from a plethora of international pro-democracy, pro-election-legitimacy-methods organizations.

I will again freely admit that the conclusion of such specifics are cashed out in vibes. One of the international organizations that I quoted concluded:

Ballot delivery, marking, and counting systems used in postal voting present considerable and unique challenges to the integrity of elections. There are several commonly used procedural safeguards for voting by mail, such as ballot secrecy envelopes, witness requirements and signature verification. However, these technical solutions may not be enough to instill confidence in postal voting if there is diminished public trust in electoral processes and administration.

That is, the end result of what you do, of any specifics that you discuss, must be measured in the extent to which it "instill[s] confidence" or "diminishe[s] public trust".

Would you be interested in a further debate concerning specifics of how voting secrecy works, why we have it, what methods are commonly used to ensure it, specific things that have been done which violate the specific demands of voting secrecy, etc., even though the end conclusion of that discussion necessarily cashes out in terms of vibes/confidence/trust?

if the skepticism is primarily/only deployed in one direction, or if it is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, then it's also reasonable to conclude the skepticism is either the source of delusion

Whereas this, I'm not sure if @Amadan would say it violates the rules this week or not. It might be interpreted as implying that your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters.

Would you be interested in a further debate concerning specifics of how voting secrecy works, why we have it, what methods are commonly used to ensure it, specific things that have been done which violate the specific demands of voting secrecy, etc., even though the end conclusion of that discussion necessarily cashes out in terms of vibes/confidence/trust?

Sure, that's an interesting topic with lots of areas of discussion. I think I made it clear that there's nothing wrong with discussing how to instill confidence in a voting system even in response to suspicions that end up being unfounded. The problem is when the suspicion is a pretextual excuse for "my candidate didn't win ergo this was a fraud"

It might be interpreted as implying that your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters.

There's nothing forbidden about presenting evidence and drawing conclusions from it. If someone's skepticism is indeed immune to evidence, what other explanations are there?

Sure, that's an interesting topic with lots of areas of discussion. I think I made it clear that there's nothing wrong with discussing how to instill confidence in a voting system even in response to suspicions that end up being unfounded.

So, uh, would you like to discuss it? Maybe make a contribution to the discussion?

There's nothing forbidden about presenting evidence and drawing conclusions from it. If someone's skepticism is indeed immune to evidence, what other explanations are there?

I'm trying to understand this very thing right now, so we'll see if the mods agree that this is a thing that you can do.

My apologies, I thought you meant discussing voting secrecy on the podcast. I read your post about the Arizona secrecy litigation and largely agree with your position that the original purpose of using secrecy to safeguard against coercion appear to have been completely forgotten. That and a broader discussion on how to maintain confidence and public trust in elections would be interesting, I just don't have much to add to the subject on my own at the moment because I haven't looked into it. I'd be happy to bounce off against other people's proposals/concerns.

Whereas this, I'm not sure if @Amadan would say it violates the rules this week or not. It might be interpreted as implying that your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters.

You are not doing yourself any favors by claiming we make up the rules weekly and then tagging me to make sure the dig is seen.

So the first thing I notice is that you cut off the end of the quote you are claiming "might be" interpreted in a certain way.

The full quote is:

It's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of claims of legitimacy, but if the skepticism is primarily/only deployed in one direction, or if it is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, then it's also reasonable to conclude the skepticism is either the source of delusion or some other form of motivated reasoning.

That seems like a reasonable statement to me. It would require a disingenuous, bad faith reading to interpret it as "You're saying your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters." No, he's saying people who only deploy skepticism in one direction and are resistant to evidence are either deluded or using motivated reasoning.

There are a lot of caveats and qualifiers in that statement. You can disagree with how he framed it or his wording, you can assert that that does not describe people who are taking the specific position he is arguing against, you can take issue with his argument, but in my judgment (which does not change "weekly"), it is not like just calling someone a victim of "TDS" because he criticizes Trump.

If you want to engage the mods in a reasonable discussion about whether the rules are being applied fairly, snide jabs like this aren't your best strategy. I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged. Once again I conclude that taking the time to write long paragraphs explaining my reasoning and trying to be fair to people who are only here to take cheap shots is a waste of my time and charity. I will not make this mistake with you again.

Thank you for explaining your reasoning. I just wish I could understand it better.

So the first thing I notice is that you cut off the end of the quote you are claiming "might be" interpreted in a certain way.

Combined with

No, he's saying people who only deploy skepticism in one direction and are resistant to evidence are either deluded or using motivated reasoning.

I think my first hypothesis for this explanation would be termed "Disjunctive Relief", and I don't think it would fly elsewhere. I don't think if someone said, "...and the conclusion of my argument (which assumes that my opponents are using motivated reasoning) is that my opponents are Nazis or using motivated reasoning," one would be so generous as to say, "But they did say 'or using motivated reasoning', so maybe they're just saying that they're using motivated reasoning." Nah. It would be interpreted as a way to simply call your opponents Nazis. Of course, if you would like to correct this hypothesis, I will update my understanding of the rules accordingly.

I think my second hypothesis would be that you simply view "TDS" as a slur, which is then subject to the unwritten slurs policy, which "has always" taken into account tone or "vibes". Paired with that, you think that "delusional" is not a slur. Instead, it's just the proper word to describe the conclusion that some people have literal delusions, things that their minds just made up. This is perhaps reasonable, and it would also jive with this comment not being modded, as it uses the slur, but gives enough negative vibes to both sides so as to have the appropriate ethereal balance.

My third hypothesis is that you take specific umbrage with appearing to say that a particular person has TDS. As you put it:

it is not like just calling someone a victim of "TDS" because he criticizes Trump.

In this case, my sub-hypothesis is that this is a version of, "Why use few word when many word do?" My comment was vastly too short on explicitly stating that Ashlael deploys his skepticism in only one direction, is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, and evinces a disgust reaction to Trump that does not correlate to any pre-Trump political commitments. Rather than bulk accusing anyone in the thread who doesn't meet his specific demands for how to respond, I assumed some knowledge of the vast history of a particular poster, without recounting it, to make my conclusion. Therefore, if I had simply explicitly stated the implicit qualifications that went into the conclusion, it would have been considered acceptable.

Finally, as for

I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged.

and its precursor

I am not impressed by citations from Psychology Today. You may recall that back in the late 90s and oughts there was something of a cottage industry of articles from psychologists and linguists and others arguing very soberly that, essentially, conservatives are all mentally ill and/or fascists whose mommies didn't love them enough. I'm sure you would not be receptive to someone "shorthanding" this concept in such a way as to simply label conservatives crazy.

I think you misunderstand the point of citing PT. PT is almost certainly not pro-Trump. They are almost certainly maximally skeptical of the concept of TDS and maximally likely to portray it in the least charitable light possible. Citing them is the opposite of support for my interpretation. It is saying that even if you start from the most skeptical position possible, my interpretation still captures a phenomenon that is coherent. This is a completely different attempt than, say, citing some random psychologist in a left-wing publication who criticizes a right-wing politician or vice-versa.

Finally, if I can fully combine them here now, I would like to respond to:

"Anti-Trump partisan" will do.

I think this completely fails to engage with the entire paragraph I wrote on the topic:

I think one could be an anti-Trump partisan without having TDS. Primarily, if they don't experience a higher-than-typical (for his or her self) level of political disgust about Trump. I don't get that sense from AshLael. I don't see him posting about, say, anything in Aussie politics in a way that oozes disgust for the spectacle.

In your follow-on, you say:

If you want to make the much longer argument you made above - that "TDS" is actually a thing and represents more than simply hating Trump - then you will have to do so, by making that argument (and explaining why it applies to the OP).

I think I best interpret this as hypothesis two, that you currently think that TDS is just a slur and that every usage of it either must therefore balance the ethereal vibes or come with a full explanation of the complete meaning, every time. That's fair enough, but it doesn't address what I had actually asked for - a shorthand way of saying that concept without having to copy/paste an entire explanation every time. Perhaps none exists, and I will simply end up having to copy/paste every time, but that none exists does not actually mean that "anti-Trump partisan" will do.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to make a note on your comment:

I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged. Once again I conclude that taking the time to write long paragraphs explaining my reasoning and trying to be fair to people who are only here to take cheap shots is a waste of my time and charity. I will not make this mistake with you again.

I would like to submit the timestamp of my comment here at 9:30AM EST, while your nice explanation is timestamped at 9:08AM EST. I was on a rush out of the house yesterday morning. I don't have the clearest memory, because I mostly remember trying to get out of the house, but I don't believe I had seen your 9:08AM comment at the time that I started writing or posted my 9:30AM comment. I believe I did click refresh and saw it before I left the house, but definitely didn't have time to respond to it yesterday. I think you worrying about "making this mistake with [me] again" would, itself, be a mistake of fact.

one would be so generous as to say, "But they did say 'or using motivated reasoning', so maybe they're just saying that they're using motivated reasoning." Nah. It would be interpreted as a way to simply call your opponents Nazis. Of course, if you would like to correct this hypothesis, I will update my understanding of the rules accordingly.

It's possible for facts to be congruent with more than one hypothesis.

I don’t know why people discount the fact that Trump isn’t coming to “they stole the election from me” from some kind of neutral position. Trump is a historically, notoriously thin skinned man who lashes out at a lot of criticism and almost compulsively responds to it (eg tweeting @ minor columnists, celebrities or TV hosts who criticized him). The default assumption should be that he’s never going to accept that he lost fair and square, and will claim fraud. A lot of Trump supporters who believe the election was stolen believe it because he said so. Expecting this to be some kind of intellectual debate is ridiculous. Biden stole the election because Trump lost, and because Trump can’t lose and can’t believe he could lose. The evidence must then be obtained, as a secondary process.

This is why ‘stolen’ can mean many things, from hacking electronic voting machines and stuffing ballot boxes to planning protests (ie the ‘fortify the election’ meme) and engaging in the same dirty tactics that have been the norm in American politics for almost 250 years.

People who believe the election was probably stolen based on intuition: will you rescind your claim if Trump wins this year?

I don’t know why people discount the fact that Trump isn’t coming to “they stole the election from me” from some kind of neutral position.

Are you suggesting that liberal partisans/Biden-supporters are not just as biased if not more so in the opposite direction? To quote the Russian Ambassador in Dr. Strangelove "Our source was the New York Times" or rather Time Magazine.

Both sides are biased here.

But it’s one side they severely lacks evidence for their position.

This is actually a very useful way to analyze any given controversial political issue. Did you know for example that claims of “systemic racism” in policing don’t hold up when the evidence is examined? Or workplace sexism?

Like the OP I feel like you're approaching this from the position that "the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law" when the whole point of my reply is that no such obligation exists.

In America, we’ve long had national elections with low amounts of fraud. Our federal system makes it hard to rig national elections in any coordinated fashion.

So when there are allegations of rigged/stolen elections and no strong evidence is produced, it’s a safe bet people are lying.

You’re trying to make up some special standard of evidence for elections and I’m merely proposing we use the normal one of backing up claims with evidence.

A great deal of observation, documentation, recounting, investigation, and court cases shows the 2020 election almost certainly was not rigged or stolen.

The obligation that exists is simply basic epistemic rigor.

Trump, and many of his major promoters, don’t give a shit about epistemic rigor or good faith.

At least when the left lies to me they try to be subtle about it.

In America, we’ve long had national elections with low amounts of fraud.

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

I don't think anyone can deny that 2020 was a bit of a special case. And maybe it's all just "vibes" but personally I find it telling that those most vocally in favor of "the new normal" and opposed to implementing more agressive election integrity measures are also those who ostensibly benefited from said "special case". What do you think Occam's Razor would have to say about that?.

I agree with you that 2020 was a special case due to Covid and that we should have higher voter registration checks and other such measures, which are consistently opposed by the left.

But Occam’s Razor applied here seems more likely to lead to the theory that in an election with incredibly high scrutiny, Trump was as full of BS about 2020 as he was about 2016 with unfounded claims of major fraud. Trump’s well-documented antics in Georgia support such a theory of Trump’s true concern not being “integrity” per se.

Taking in the entirety of the circumstances, the stark lack of hard evidence for claims made by Trump and others and their demonstrated track record of buffoonery easily overpowers any bias or shenanigans by the left for which there is actual evidence.

Your link up there applies more to Trump than anyone else by far, in other words.

Another way of looking at it is that you and others have presented theories and suggestive evidence that 2020 was rigged in some meaningful way against Trump, but I have definitive evidence Trump has lied in the past about election fraud, that he personally has sought to meddle in a state’s election, and that the particular cases advanced by his MAGA associates fell apart upon examination.

In Bayesian terms, this is not a hard case. Not until someone can really meet @ymeskhout’s challenge and provide a solid case for meaningful fraud, not just suggestive/circumstantial evidence and possibilities.

Amazing. It's as if four years of arguing about the 2020 election have left no impression on you, and you've made yourself totally impervious to what the other side actually believes. Vote counting stopped in several swing states simultaneously in the dead of night? Mail-in irregularities? Pandemic rules? Ballot "curing"? You must not have heard. I suppose, then, the only rational hypothesis is that everything other people believe is silly.

Covid-19 was a Chinese plot to screw with the US election or am I misunderstanding you?

Believing any of the things you mentioned amounts to sufficient evidence that the 2020 election was rigged as claimed by Trump and others, is silly yeah.

(Particularly in light of actions taken by Trump and co to actually screw with the election outcome.)

Various anti-Trump coalitions deliberately used the pandemic to push through new election procedures they believed would particularly disadvantage Trump. This is well-documented!

Did it meaningfully alter the outcome? Was it foul play?

For example, I can’t take seriously the whining over mailed ballots because I live in a red state that has long had them. I know there are other cases where “hey that’s not fair” was only brought up about some uncontroversial procedural change when it was judged to have perhaps disadvantaged Trump.

Does any of it remotely compare to the blatant, documented attempts by Trump and co to alter or evade the election outcome?

whining over mailed ballots

Expansion of mail-in ballots made it possible to generate mass quantities of votes with no verifiable chain of custody. This makes it trivial for political machines to generate votes. This is a very simple argument. It sounds like you don't understand the position you are trying to mock.

Anyways, many of these rules were changed last-minute exactly in anticipation of marshalling results against Trump. Instead of denying things that happened, try denying that they mattered.

Does any of it remotely compare to the blatant, documented attempts by Trump and co to alter or evade the election outcome?

If the election was stolen, everything Trump did was restoring the right outcome. Your frame presupposes that the election had a neutral "outcome" beyond dispute, when that's exactly what's under dispute.

I do understand the position I am mocking and I live in a red state that has long had mass mailing.

Doing fraud at scale leaves evidence. Where’s your evidence, not just the potential for fraud?

Actually, even if the election was stolen Trump’s actions were still blatantly illegal. Going through the courts is the proper approach, not calling up election officials to pressure them, or creating extralegal electors, or pressing your VP to use made up powers to simply deny the election result.

Doing fraud at scale leaves evidence. Where’s your evidence, not just the potential for fraud?

Show me the chains of custody for the ballots. Prove to me that these ballots were all cast by real live American voters, and not gathered up by a machine city postal worker spinning up a box of votes. This can be done in other countries. So why are so many of the chains of custody destroyed here?

or creating extralegal electors, or pressing your VP to use made up powers to simply deny the election result.

The entire federal government runs on made-up powers. What do you think the Necessary and Proper Clause does.

More comments

Did it meaningfully alter the outcome? Was it foul play?

Can you provide evidence that it did not?

Can you prove there isn’t a teacup orbiting the other side of the moon?

I mean, if it were orbiting the moon, it couldn't constantly stay on "the other side", because orbits are around a body's centre. And while the L2 point is a thing, L2 orbits are unstable (the Earth-Moon especially so, IIRC) so after a while it'd become visible.

Again, this is where the nature of the contested environment comes up.

As I said above "purpose of an election is not to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and their voters) can accept as legitimate."

More comments

All that stuff is well within the bounds of the entirely regular corrupt shenanigans that have occurred in every US election since the 18th century. Do you really think 1992 or 2012 were “more fair”? They weren’t.

Yes, exactly! The kinds of crooked shenanigans that potentially stole the 2020 election are not unprecedented conspiracies, but historically normal and well-documented. Thank you!

My point, then, is that the specific conservative hysteria over 2020 was because Donald Trump specifically couldn’t accept that he lost (whatever the ‘rules of the game’), not because historically unprecedented corruption occurred. This is the country of Tammany Hall, of Chicago machine politics, of comical gerrymandering, in that context 2020 just doesn’t feel special.

We accept that election-rigging happens, now we're just debating the specifics.

It is more difficult to change an election at a national level than at a local level, and not every election is "rigged". But it's not unprecedented to speculate about rigged presidential resulrs: 1960, 2000. It's a well-documented historical fact that LBJ manufactured tens of thousands of votes in his 1948 Senate election. Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine, as you suggest, are known. So it is possible!

A brief: election rules were changed in many states for the pandemic in 2020 which made it easier to generate mass quantities of mail-in ballots. On election night, when Trump was ahead across several swing states, and had already won presumed-bellweathers Ohio and Florida, vote counting stopped. Suddenly, when counting resumed, Trump was irrevocably behind. Mail-in ballots comprised the difference. Attempts to segregate or eliminate these ballots were regarded as an unjustified conspiracy theory, even though to this day chain of custody basically does not exist for any of them. If you had all the ballots in front of you and wanted to attempt a recount, you could not prove that every ballot actually came from a legitimate registered voter.

At this point, it's fine if you just don't want to believe anything, I can't make you believe in my priors. But making everything about how you think Donald Trump has a thin ego isn't really much of an argument. (It's not as though the other politicians of DC are known for their thick skins.)

We accept that election-rigging happens, now we're just debating the specifics.

We accept that dirty behavior (which may be described as ‘rigging’ if you prefer, although I would limit the use of that term to Anschluss-referendum-type ballot stuffing / just making up numbers) is a perennial feature of US elections and that there was nothing special or unique about 2020, then?

That is the key claim. No democracy is free of corruption or dirty electoral behavior of the type we’re discussing. So ‘2020 was rigged’ proponents face a simple choice - either they accept and argue that every US election ever has been ‘rigged’ by their standards and America is not and has never been a democracy OR they admit that what happens to Trump in 2020 was nothing out of the ordinary and he should accept that he got played and stop whining about what happened to everyone else happening to him.

Which is it? Trump’s thin skin is relevant because it stops him doing what almost every other victim of dirty behavior in US electoral history ultimately did, which is take the L.

which may be described as ‘rigging’ if you prefer, although I would limit the use of that term to Anschluss-referendum-type ballot stuffing / just making up numbers

Sure, that sounds reasonable.

That is the key claim. No democracy is free of corruption or dirty electoral behavior of the type we’re discussing.

This is silly catastrophizing. That crooked behavior exists in every election doesn't mean I need treat all elections as equally crooked. There are clear and obvious theories for what made 2020 especially dirty: the mass expansion of unverifiable mail-in ballots! The simultaneous count stop in several swing states! These are elements unique to the 2020 election. Being suspicious of them does not require me to declare that every election must have been stolen, or to commit to some silly prediction about crooked behavior in the future.

Trump’s thin skin is relevant because it stops him doing what almost every other victim of dirty behavior in US electoral history ultimately did, which is take the L.

If you imagine that Trump could have had it rigged against it and should have conceded anyways, I find this silly again.

That is the key claim. No democracy is free of corruption or dirty electoral behavior of the type we’re discussing. So ‘2020 was rigged’ proponents face a simple choice - either they accept and argue that every US election ever has been ‘rigged’ by their standards and America is not and has never been a democracy OR they admit that what happens to Trump in 2020 was nothing out of the ordinary and he should accept that he got played and stop whining about what happened to everyone else happening to him.

This is a false binary. One can accept that attempts to attack electoral integrity are common and also think that 2020 was an unusually compromised election that was compromised by a series of deliberate policy choices. It wasn't the first severely compromised election and wasn't the worst (see Illinois in 1982 for a truly absurd display of how bad a sufficiently corrupt set of officials can encourage), but it was actually very bad anyway.

Looks like only one side of that bet has any epistemic skin in it.

Edit: I forgot I should've mentioned this, but it would be really helpful if responses avoided motte-and-bailey diversions. This post is about TTV and their efforts specifically, and though I believe stolen election claims are very poor quality in general, I'm not making the argument that "TTV is lying, ergo other stolen election claims are also bullshit". I think there are some related questions worth contemplating (namely why TTV got so much attention and credulity from broader conservative movement if TTV were indeed lying) but changing the subject isn't responsive to a topic about TTV. If anyone insists on wanting to talk about something else, it would be helpful if there's an acknowledgement about TTV's claims specifically. For example, it can take the format of "Yes, it does appear that TTV is indeed lying but..."

Boring night before the long weekend? Fair enough, I suppose

In that case, I decline to defer your attempted gerrymander on grounds of being a motte and bailey diversion by a repeated-iteration commentator.

To say this is not the first time you have posted on the subject of the 2020 election would be an understatement, and in those times you have regularly sought to use specific cases as a broader disproof to concerns or condemnations or malbehavior of the 2020 elections as unfounded/unjustified/'very poor quality in general', while not ignoring and or acknowledging (unless when forced, to the bare minimum as forced) said issues. You likewise have a pattern of then later referring to those selectively narrow motte-arguments in serve of more expansive baileys, such as claiming no substantive or well-founded issues were raised in previous iterations, or otherwise minimizing the existence or legitimacy of counter-positions, generally expressed by claimed befuddlement on how people could believe a broader topic despite numerous presentations to you.

Then there's the point that someone claiming they are not making an argument is not the same as not making the argument. Arguments do not have to be explicitly made to be made- this is the purpose of metaphor, as well as allusion, or comparison, and especially insinuation, which are techniques you have used in previous iterations of your reoccurring hobby horse pasting and examples can be found here. It's also the defining characteristic of a motte and bailey argument- a denial that the argument is the expansive claim, but really only the narrower one.

As your utilization of narrative techniques is retained, and your practice of referring to previous arguments is appropriate meta-knowledge for how you present arguments, your previous positions are a legitimate basis for understanding and interpreting your raising of a familiar topic. Said topic, the hobby horse you yourself acknowledge indulging in, is not TTP specifically, but 2020 election doubt more broadly. While asking people to refrain from acknowledging the bailey is indeed a form of motte defense, it still remains a motte and bailey argument of familiar form and purpose.

As such, it remains appropriately helpful for anyone wishing to contest the background argument to ignore the bailey, which is raised to defend the motte.

you have regularly sought to use specific cases as a broader disproof to concerns or condemnations or malbehavior of the 2020 elections as unfounded/unjustified/'very poor quality in general'

I think if there's a bunch of specific cases that turn out to be unfounded, then it's justified to presumptively downgrade the broader claim only as a heuristic. I don't believe I've ever used a specific election fraud case to disprove the broader election fraud claim, but if I did then I disavow it now because that's not a valid argument. This would be akin to saying "Michael Richards never killed someone" as a way to establish that no Seinfeld cast member has ever killed someone.

You likewise have a pattern of then later referring to those selectively narrow motte-arguments in serve of more expansive baileys, such as claiming no substantive or well-founded issues were raised in previous iterations, or otherwise minimizing the existence or legitimacy of counter-positions, generally expressed by claimed befuddlement on how people could believe a broader topic despite numerous presentations to you.

Can you cite a specific example of my evasion/obstinance? To assist you, I have every single one of my reddit motte posts archived in this google spreadsheet.

Then there's the point that someone claiming they are not making an argument is not the same as not making the argument. Arguments do not have to be explicitly made to be made- this is the purpose of metaphor, as well as allusion, or comparison, and especially insinuation, which are techniques you have used in previous iterations of your reoccurring hobby horse pasting and examples can be found here.

Can you cite a specific example of an allusion or insinuation that you believe I've made in a surreptitious manner? If explicitly disavowing an argument is insufficient for you, is there anything I can say that could possibly militate against the mind-reading? I'm often accused of holding positions I either never made or explicitly disavowed, and at some point I have to conclude that the reason people fabricate and refute arguments I've never made is borne out of frustration at apparently being unable to respond what I actually said. This post from @HlynkaCG remains the best example of this bizarre trend, where he's either lying about or hallucinating something I've never come close to saying.

As such, it remains appropriately helpful for anyone wishing to contest the background argument to ignore the bailey, which is raised to defend the motte.

Sure, I have an admitted interest in the overall 2020 election claims. If I made a post that aimed to claim that all of those were bullshit, then obviously pushing back on that is fair game. The reason I included that disclaimer was explicitly to avoid Gish galloping or similar distractions when discussing specifics. The scenario I have in mind is someone who believes that the 2020 election was stolen comes across the TTV claims I've made, but is frustrated because they realize they can't substantively rebut them. They're reluctant to admit that out loud, because they see arguments as soldiers and believe that conceding TTV to be liars will further erode their overall claims about the 2020 elections. Accordingly, their only viable response is evasion; doing everything possible to avoid discussing TTV directly, and instead preemptively changing to a different subject they believe to be more defensible.

Edit: I'm mindful that we've discussed many of these same issues a year ago almost to the day. I appreciate that you've tempered your accusations somewhat, and I nevertheless would be eager for specifics to support your claims.

I think if there's a bunch of specific cases that turn out to be unfounded, then it's justified to presumptively downgrade the broader claim only as a heuristic.

Fortunately this is simple hueristic to meet for the position you oppose. There are a lot of specific claims that electoral corruption does not happen in American electoral politics, and there are plenty of historical findings to the contrary.

I don't believe I've ever used a specific election fraud case to disprove the broader election fraud claim, but if I did then I disavow it now because that's not a valid argument. This would be akin to saying "Michael Richards never killed someone" as a way to establish that no Seinfeld cast member has ever killed someone.

It would be a terrible argument, and yet relying on weakmen arguments is something you have done repeatedly in the past, are charged with doing in the present, and are fully expected to do in the future. As such, your offer of refutation is not accepted, or believed.

It is a very characteristic part of your hobby horse, and is not expected to change.

Can you cite a specific example of my evasion/obstinance?

Yes.

This thread is one of them.

Can you cite a specific example of an allusion or insinuation that you believe I've made in a surreptitious manner?

Yes, assuming you are using surreptitious is the common vernacular (as a synonym of sly, as in cunning), rather than an attempt at adding a qualifier for a different definition (as in 'secretely') that can never be met by virtue of being an openly visible word, and thus not a secret, while smuggling the connotation of the other without committing to either.

If explicitly disavowing an argument is insufficient for you, is there anything I can say that could possibly militate against the mind-reading?

This would be another example an insinuation, as the argument presents the accusation as based on mind-reading, rather than observation of iterative behavior. The insinuation furthers a further implication to the audience, as opposed to the other party, that no reasonable defense could be made against such and thus the accusation is unreasonable.

The reasonable defense against reoccuring bad behavior is to not conduct the bad behavior, though by its nature this requires controlling one's conduct before, rather than after, the bad habits re-occur. However, you enjoy your snipes too much to not, as you have with your post-posting edit here.

I'm often accused of holding positions I either never made or explicitly disavowed, and at some point I have to conclude that the reason people fabricate and refute arguments I've never made is borne out of frustration at apparently being unable to respond what I actually said. This post from @HlynkaCG remains the best example of this bizarre trend, where he's either lying about or hallucinating something I've never come close to saying.

While it is certainly flattering to conclude your doubters are hallucinating liars who make up their basis for distrusting you, you are not forced into that conclusion.

Sure, I have an admitted interest in the overall 2020 election claims.

I believe the British would characterize this as a modest understatement.

Edit: I'm mindful that we've discussed many of these same issues a year ago almost to the day. I appreciate that you've tempered your accusations somewhat, and I nevertheless would be eager for specifics to support your claims.

Specifics have been provided, as they have been provided in the past, as you have denied being provided them in the past, and as you will continue to not link to as part of the denial.

And with that, have a good night.

There are a lot of specific claims that electoral corruption does not happen in American electoral politics, and there are plenty of historical findings to the contrary.

I'm not trying to wade into this particular fight, but since I have a followed it for its many years, I am confused by this statement. Are you saying that @ymeshkout claims as a general statement that electoral corruption does not happen in American electoral politics, that he has made specific claims about it not happening in particular instances, or that other people have claimed it doesn't happen? Because I am pretty sure the first is false and the last is irrelevant. Probably someone somewhere has at some point said "America never has electoral corruption," but hardly anyone (especially here on the Motte) would literally claim it's something that never, ever happens (whether or not they agree that the 2020 election was stolen).

While it is certainly flattering to conclude your doubters are hallucinating liars who make up their basis for distrusting you, you are not forced into that conclusion.

I think you're being uncharitable here too. While calling @HlynkaCG a "hallucinating liar" would be a bit harsh, he quoted something @HlynkaCG accused him of saying which he claims he did not. Either he did in fact say that (in which case @ymeskhout is either lying or suffering from faulty memory) or he didn't (in which case @HlynkaCG is either lying, misremembering, or mistaken).

If I seem like I am coming down on @ymeskhout's side here, it's because from personal experience I can't help sympathizing with someone who gets accused of saying things he didn't and then gets further attacked when he objects to this. FWIW I think both of you would do well to maybe speak a little more directly (and charitably) instead of using long circumlocutory paragraphs to say "You're a lying liar who lies" as verbosely as possible.

I'm not trying to wade into this particular fight, but since I have a followed it for its many years, I am confused by this statement. Are you saying that @ymeshkout claims as a general statement that electoral corruption does not happen in American electoral politics, that he has made specific claims about it not happening in particular instances, or that other people have claimed it doesn't happen?

The later, as part of a counter-argument by negation by demonstrating the heuristic is not a rebuttal when it can simply be reversed to press to the opposite conclusion.

I think you're being uncharitable here too. While calling @HlynkaCG a "hallucinating liar" would be a bit harsh, he quoted something @HlynkaCG accused him of saying which he claims he did not. Either he did in fact say that (in which case @ymeskhout is either lying or suffering from faulty memory) or he didn't (in which case @HlynkaCG is either lying, misremembering, or mistaken).

I would disagree, as the structural argument is broader motte and bailey. The claim is not a specific instance of Hlynka, but a broader position.

If I seem like I am coming down on @ymeskhout's side here, it's because from personal experience I can't help sympathizing with someone who gets accused of saying things he didn't and then gets further attacked when he objects to this. FWIW I think both of you would do well to maybe speak a little more directly (and charitably) instead of using long circumlocutory paragraphs to say "You're a lying liar who lies" as verbosely as possible.

Speaking more plainly is what has gotten mod action in the past, and I wasn't intending to go into it after letting it sit for a night, but since you asked I'll try to make it as direct as necessary and consider this exchange in the thread done. (I have tried to not let arguments carry on past a day and intend to ignore/not make further public posts on this topic today, but if you'd like to PM, I will respond later.)

Among ymeshkout's bad faith habits is that you can provide him effort posts with the citations or examples he requests, and then he will lie in later arguments- or even in the same discussion threads- and deny such examples were provided to him, and use the argument of absence to claim a further point. When pressed sometimes he will deflect on personal-subjective grounds, sometimes he will do so on grounds of gish-gallop refusal, and sometimes he will simply not acknowledge... and then in the next iteration, he will repeat the claims of absence, and challenge for the same points previously provided, and repeat the same cycle. In the process he will regularly mis-represent other people's positions, even when directly corrected, and will affect incomprehension.

My position- which he used to directly link downthread of in the old-reddit- is that this is lying. That mis-representing other people's stated and elaborated positions despite direct clarification is lying. That claiming that no explanation or sources were offered is lying. That making broad insinuations that the only conclusion he can come to about his opponents no longer engage him to the detail he insists is because they are irrational and capricious is lying. And that, having disregarded the posts and positions offered to him only to claim that none were offered to him, that he is owed no such effort or citations in the future. Because, per the position, he would simply ignore the points made anyway and later claim weren't provided, while continuing to make claims and profer links which misrepresent the person's engagements. (Which he continues to do.)

For anyone reading who is passively curious, I've asked Dean many many many times to precisely identify any false statements I've made or other instances of dishonesty and the most substantive explanation I was able to wrestle out of him in recent memory was this post from more than a year ago where he links to threads containing my purported dishonesty, but refuses to specify any further. I've looked through all the threads he linked and couldn't identify any false statements or anything else to substantiate his allegations. I understand that Dean is perennially averse to supplying details, but if ANYBODY reading this can provide ANY insight into what he's claiming, I would be extremely grateful!

Like Dean, I have also followed this topic over the years and had intense disagreement with you and felt extremely frustrated with your response patterns.

Unlike him I'm not convinced you are lying exactly, but with respect to this specific topic (and maybe also the "unequal treatment of BLM protesters vs. Jan 6 people) you behave in a way that is out of sync with the rest of your presentation and temperament, and is not unlike Darwin (as a point of comparison).

Darwin may or may not realize what is doing or how what he is doing is perceived by others.

You may not recognize what you are doing and how it is perceived by others.

But I believe a reasonable person's (here: Dean) subjective experience of your argumentation style with respect to this topic could be labeled "lying," by virtue of the way you present it.

As others elsewhere is chain have noted, it seems like you are approaching this in a specific way (?legal rhetoric style?) that you have much practice in, and value, but does nothing for the people you are disagreeing with in this context.

You I suspect are a good lawyer, and your proficiency with this style disincentivizes people from replying with specifics because you frequently circle back to that style and use it well, which is not the conversation and discussion they want to have and feels like arguing about apples when they want to be talking about trains.

I appreciate that you took the time to answer but I've read what you said multiple times and I can't identify anything actionable. What exactly is my argumentation style and how exactly would it give someone the subjective experience that I'm lying? What is the specific way I'm approaching this topic and how does it stymie people who disagree with me? It would help if you illustrated your concerns with specific examples of things I've said, and ideally offered suggestions on alternative ways I could convey myself.

More comments

The later, as part of a counter-argument by negation by demonstrating the heuristic is not a rebuttal when it can simply be reversed to press to the opposite conclusion.

I've read this sentence several times and I admit I am still not sure what you're trying to say here. My best stab at it is: people generally claim American electoral politics is (relatively) free of corruption and therefore we should assume any given election was free of corruption unless provided with extraordinary evidence of said corruption, and @ymeshkout is leaning on that as the "heuristic" that we should dismiss claims of the 2020 election being fraudulent. Is that... close? I swear I am not trying to be flippant or cute here, you're just constructing such an abstruse argument here that I literally cannot parse it.

I would disagree, as the structural argument is broader motte and bailey. The claim is not a specific instance of Hlynka, but a broader position.

Well, maybe you think that @ymeskhout generally claims his opponents are "hallucinating liars" (I do not actually recall him saying this, though as I noted above, you do both tend to throw accusations of dishonesty rather freely), but this was a specific instance of @HlynkaCG claiming he said something which he claims he did not.

Speaking more plainly is what has gotten mod action in the past

I am not trying to trick you into saying something I will mod you for. Directly calling someone a liar usually does result in mod action, yes, but I'd rather you directly say "I think this claim is false and here's why" and even "And I think you know it's false" (which is pretty close to calling someone a liar, but at least leaves room for the possibility that you're mistaken) than write long paragraphs which read a lot like "You're a big fat liar and I'm trying to use enough words to avoid being modded for calling you a liar."

FWIW, how you put it in the subsequent paragraphs (listing all the ways that you think @ymeskhout is arguing in bad faith and being dishonest) are acceptable IMO. Not saying I agree with you, and he is certainly entitled to rebut it, but I consider saying concretely "This is what I accuse you of saying/doing in the past and I think that constitutes lying" is within bounds.

I'd rather you directly say "I think this claim is false and here's why" and even "And I think you know it's false"

I would love it if this happened! Specifics are so much better than riddles

You’re abusing the concept of a weak man argument to shelter an unjustified position.

All there are here are weak arguments and so addressing any one of them is not a weak man approach.

You’re smart enough to recognize this instance is BS, and then failing to be consistent and extrapolate, and instead trying to claim this is a flawed approach because it’s picking on a dumb case.

It’s all dumb cases because every one falls apart upon close examination.

@Dean and I have gone round and round on this issue for literally years where he continues to insist that I am ignoring blockbuster evidence, but then simultaneously he'll write very long posts articulating why he's justified in refusing to mention this blockbuster evidence I'm ignoring. A sample of responses to my (many many many) requests:

Dean is intelligent, knowledgeable, and articulate on a wide array of topics (particularly in the realm of geopolitics). The only topic I'm aware where he has maintained this years-long stonewalling vow is on the 2020 election, and the only explanation that makes sense to me is that he's concerned that I'd eviscerate his supposed blockbuster evidence. I admit the weakness in this explanation is that I don't understand how someone who is otherwise intelligent could compartmentalize to this degree without self-awareness.

I admit the weakness in this explanation is that I don't understand how someone who is otherwise intelligent could compartmentalize to this degree without self-awareness.

Oh I do. I know many brilliant, otherwise sane, people who believe Joseph Smith saw an angel and translated golden plates telling the story of Hebrews who lived in the New World—in direct contradiction of all available evidence and the entire fields of archeology, genetics, linguistics, and probably several more.

Once you have a trapped prior or anchor/sacred belief, the human mind warps around it so well, and polite society has to allow this.

Yes, you're right. We used to have a sort of peace treaty around discussing religious beliefs where we generally left people alone and didn't badger them about it, even if you think the beliefs are completely delusional. The problem is we don't have a similar convention for folks who want their non-religious beliefs to be similarly immune from evidentiary scrutiny, perhaps because admitting the desire for immunity is a bridge too far. The culture war topics for me that fit this bill the most are 2020 stolen election claims on the right, and the incoherent and vague concept of gender identity on the left.

It’s all dumb cases because every one falls apart upon close examination.

I want to focus on Wisconsin for a moment, because it's the state I'm most familiar with and I have never received a rebuttal from someone that disagrees with me about the quality of the election. This is a state with about 3 million votes, decided by about 20,000 votes, for reference. I think this report is a good summary of some of the known irregularities and mistakes.

This widespread adoption of absentee ballot drop boxes, not provided for under Wisconsin law, was correlated with an increase of about 20,000 votes for Joe Biden, while having no significant effect on the vote for Trump. WILL does not claim that the voters who used drop boxes were ineligible voters or should have had their votes rejected. But the ad hoc adoption of absentee ballot drop boxes without established rules, parameters, or security presents an election vulnerability and a challenge to state law.

More than 265,000 Wisconsin voters adopted the ‘indefinitely confined’ status, meaning they received an absentee ballot and were exempt from the statewide photo ID requirements. The number of indefinitely confined voters increased from 66,611 in 2016 to 265,979 in 2020. Given the substantial increase in the number of such voters, it is almost certain that many voters improperly claimed “indefinitely confined status".

Many of these votes were cast unlawfully. Additionally, clerks in Dane and Milwaukee counties used the presence of the pandemic to encourage voters to adopt an uncommon status called “indefinitely confined.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously rebuked the Dane County clerk for encouraging voters to adopt this status in March 2020. In November, it confirmed that a person who did not wish to leave home due to the pandemic was not “indefinitely confined.”

The votes cast by ‘indefinitely confined’ voters raise a number of red flags. While we cannot infer any malignant intent on the part of these voters, this means that many votes were cast without the requirement of photo identification. 54,259 ballots were cast by individuals who have never shown a voter ID in any election. 3,718 were cast from addresses that were on the 2019 Mover’s List. 7,747 failed their DMV check when they registered.[/quote]

Another story I bumped into later was this one:

Wake is one of 95 people in Dane County who altogether cast more than 300 ballots in past elections despite being on the state’s list of people deemed incompetent to vote, according to a county clerk’s office review of more than 1,000 records from the state’s list. The state elections agency is reviewing all 22,733 entries to ensure the list is accurate, spokesperson Joel DeSpain said.[/quote]

“The system for identifying those voters and getting them out of the voter rolls is not working,” said Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, whose office conducted the review of that county’s ineligible voter list at Wisconsin Watch’s request. McDonell said he has informed local election clerks of any discrepancies.

Presumably the first 1,000 were selected basically at random and showed a 9.5% voting rate among people that had been deemed mentally incompetent and weren't allowed to vote. If that rate held, that would be over 2,000 votes from ineligible, mentally incompetent voters, just in Dane County. I don't know if other counties are suffering from similar errors; if they aren't, that would suggest something about the direction of bias, if they are, that would tell us something about the total number of illegally cast votes.

In any case, I don't think it's plausible to arrive at illegal ballot counts that are lower than these. Throw in various other irregularities, such as reported behaviors at nursing homes where standard election policies weren't followed due to Covid, illegal ballot-curing procedures by clerks filling in witness information, and other shenanigans, and we're going to keep going up. I would personally feel comfortable saying that hundreds of thousands of votes were plainly illegal, as these people were obviously not actually indefinitely confined, but I understand someone objecting and saying that's a weird one-shot deal that won't happen again. That over 50,000 of those ballots were cast by people who have never shown an ID in an election makes that my absolute lower-bound for illegal votes though, which would put us around ~2%.

I haven't thoroughly explored other states, but I would be surprised to find that they actually did a lot better in 2020. In some of them, it wouldn't make a material difference for national elections, but I would expect that to only result in even sloppier procedures because there isn't going to be anyone taking all that close of a look at whether California's vote count is garbage when they eventually get around to delivering sometime in December.

The incredible thing here is that the report you cite from WILL concluded there was no widespread fraud, despite the documented issues being real problems.

Multiple cases and investigations did not find sufficient evidence to overturn the result.

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-wisconsin-lawsuits-presidential-16d90c311d35d28b9b5a4024e6fb880c

So my priors are entirely reinforced here by evidence you presented: that while certain states were shitshows, there was no “rigged” or “stolen” election.

My claim isn't that it was rigged or stolen (and I think this reply goes for @drmanhattan16 as well), it's that hundreds of thousands (or at least tens of thousands) of votes were cast illegally in a fashion that subverts election security. The result is not an obviously rigged election, but an election where there are votes of questionable legality that make up more than the margin of error. Additionally, as covered in this post the issues were substantially concentrated in deep blue counties and likely made it systemically easier to vote in an illegal fashion.

I want to be very clear - I am not trying to skirt the core point or handwave my way from this to mass fraud. I don't believe that happened. My model isn't that there are groups concocting totally fake ballots. What I do believe is true:

  • Dane and Milwaukee counties encouraged voting illegally in a way that would increase the vote counts in those counties relative to legal procedures.

  • This is not a result of a conspiracy, it's a result of their actual preferences with regard to maximizing ballot access and being the kind of people that wanted to take Covid very seriously.

  • Election security measures are poor enough that people vote illegally on a regular basis (see the mentally adjudicated portion above), which plausibly enables ballot theft by family members. I have no hypothesis on the directionality of this outcome, but it creates doubt about electoral legitimacy, which is very bad for obvious reasons.

  • The poor electoral security that was the hallmark of 2020 likely did enable at least some bad actors to cast fraudulent or knowingly illegal ballots. I expect that this is a small number, I have no good way of putting a good number on it, but it is (again) very bad that poor electoral security even makes this a possibility.

Taken as a whole, I cannot overstate how damaging to institutional trust it is to have counties and states just making up new rules on the fly that violate black letter law. When leadership elects to behave this way, they're shredding goodwill and trust in an unsustainable fashion. I can (and do!) have a poor opinion of groups like TTV, I don't agree with the people that call the election rigged or stolen, but I find brushing past just how bad 2020 was with nothing further, "well, you can't prove those votes were fraudulent" to be really frustrating. I'm not going off the conspiracy deep-end about Soros county clerks or something, I am entirely sincere that I actually want to improve the quality of elections because I think it will help prevent the dangerous destabilization of my country.

I will also chime in to say, as someone who has felt frustrated by many the election fraud claims, these are all reasonable and important concerns and I absolutely agree with the overall need to have high quality election processes.

I can acknowledge every point you made and it doesn’t excuse the motivated reasoning, grifting, and conspiratorial thinking whatsoever.

We can and should do better.

We also can and should directly rebut unjustified claims trying to overstate and concoct problems.

We should not carry water for those who want to delegitimize any election where they don’t like the result.

  • -14
More comments

You’re falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Who cares what the conclusion says? What does the actual evidence imply? @gattsuru had a post just last month that discussed an academic’s open, unpunished admission that he lied in the conclusion of one of his papers in order to hide an inconvenient result. This report is just more of the same. The authors put all of the inconvenient evidence in the body, said whatever they wanted in the conclusion, and trusted that most people would simply take the conclusion at face value, as you’re doing here.

You’re conflating academic impropriety with election issues that were investigated by multiple parties and the legal system.

You’re falling for the old trick where you can’t accept suggestive evidence didn’t lead to a well-established conclusion you favor.

Before I go looking at the murky details, I want to commend you for simply having presented a case that could actually matter.

The issue right off the bat though is if it’s an identified issue then why has no investigation not resolved whether there was, in fact, a plot?

Smoke, sure, was there a fire though?

Because the deep state/cathedral/whatever is preventing an investigation to get to the bottom of it.

Bold claim when several of the swing states are GOP-controlled and Trump was the incumbent.

The scale and amount of effort it would take to execute such a plot could not be concealed in a situation where all sides were on high alert for foul play.

Elections are besides the point if you believe dark forces can simply dictate outcomes without being caught. I wonder what they were up to in 2016.

From your report's summary:

There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump. We found little direct evidence of fraud, and for the most part, an analysis of the results and voting patterns does not give rise to an inference of fraud.

Seems like this is the key takeaway for anyone.

Is your ultimate point that elections have security issues, or that the 2020 election was actually stolen from Trump? People who want to argue the first are free to do so, I'm open to the idea that we can tighten election security, especially for state and local elections (where more serious claims appear to be made).

Ok, I was hoping for something new and I'll keep my mind open towards that. We're repeating the cycle from a year ago where I ask for specifics and you scoff at having to provide proof for something so patently obvious. I've outlined before the reasons I believe your reluctance to substantively engage by providing specifics:

I can't prove this conclusively because I can't read your mind, but I strongly suspect that your refusal to provide arguments because I'm purportedly acting in bad faith is just a pretextual excuse (a lie) used by you as a dodge to avoid defending your beliefs or having them scrutinized. I suspect that anti-Trump arguments in particular make you upset, but because you are unable to construct a legitimate counter-argument, you resort to a dogged and persistent response campaign which compensates for the lack of substance with a heavy dose of vitriol.

I'm again open to having my mind changed but you're still responding with riddles and disdain even after a lengthy sabbatical.

Do you want to do a Bailey episode about this? You can quiz me all you want about whatever you want! You'd keep both our raw recordings and can do whatever with it! Let me know my man, otherwise sleep tight my friend.

If only someone could provide compelling evidence so that this lawyer guy would stop trying to beat this dead horse.

Too bad it won’t be TTP, apparently.

Actually though, with complex and nebulous issues it’s often the case that rigorously examining a particular issue/example where some evidence is available is the only way to make any progress and not have the discussion spiral out of control.

There’s an asymmetry here where all we skeptics of election fraud theories can do is address claims that are made and evaluate evidence that is provided. We can’t prove the negative, so identifying say dishonesty from a prominent promoter of election fraud theories is about the best approach possible.

Lawyerly systematic approaches can get in the way of having fun though.

The desire to remain control of the conversation is a substantial part of why the lawyer guy's broader position continues to lack the consensus he regularly tries to build. By denying previously provided compelling evidence of misconduct warrinting doubt as compelling, and then insisting later that only uncompelling arguments were ever offered, not only does the presenter lose credibility regarding the root argument, but lose credibility as an interlocuter in subsequent repetititions. It's not that a negative needs to be proved, it's that repeat iterations have demonstrated that there's no point in further engaging with positives that will be inevitably denied/diminished/claimed in the future were never provided.

This is without the acknowledgement that the lawlerly systemic approach isn't an approached to uncover truth, but to win a legal argument in a court of law- but coming in the context where only around 1-in-5 people trust lawyers. Unlike more respectable professions, which rely on public trust for deference, lawyers are owed no such deference due to the lack of trust.

It is his form of fun, however, so he'll enjoy his otherwise quiet night none the less.

By denying previously provided compelling evidence of misconduct warrinting doubt as compelling, and then insisting later that only uncompelling arguments were ever offered

Can you cite a specific example of compelling evidence that I have denied? Once again to assist you, here are every single one of my reddit motte posts archived in this google spreadsheet.

I guess I missed the weeks when the compelling evidence was provided, and so did TTP. But see broadening the discussion to any old theory put forth gets very messy very fast and makes it easier for shoddy claims and poor evidence to survive scrutiny.

Broadening the discussion to avoid being pinned down is a classic approach, and so being unable to wriggle due to preestablishef constraints is unpleasant.

The lawyerly approach is about the best one possible in an area of competing sides and contested evidence, and our local lawyer’s approach is even better in that he’s not going to win here on some technicality or strange legal theory.

“Who cares about these guys they’re not the real case” seems a bit convenient when they’ve been so prominent in their field.

I guess I missed the weeks when the compelling evidence was provided, and so did TTP.

There were literally years ago, so it's easily forgiven (and forgotten). They're not of much interest to anyone anymore.

But see broadening the discussion to any old theory put forth gets very messy very fast and makes it easier for shoddy claims and poor evidence to survive scrutiny.

Time and censoring effects also make it harder for true claims and relevant evidence to be re-resurrected well after the fact, especially when contrary to significant media interests and the effects of the already-difficult nature of web indexing. Multiple deliberate efforts have taken course over the last several years to suppress information declared as disinformation by authorities who regularly had incentives, and occasionally were even caught, pursuing said incentives for information shaping.

The lawyerly approach is about the best one possible in an area of competing sides and contested evidence, and our local lawyer’s approach is even better in that he’s not going to win here on some technicality or strange legal theory.

Frank disagreement. The lawyerly approach is not the best possible approach to revealing truth in an area of competing sides and contesting evidence, as the lawyerly approach is to declare certain forms and sources of evidence as off-limits for consideration regardless of veracity, and then to declare the absence of evidence a victory for lack of contestation rather than address reasons why evidence might not have been presented (or accepted). The lawyerly approach also often favors demands for selectively applied processes, violations of which are invitation for censure, to the degree that even the defense against which can widely be recognized as arbitrary harassment, i.e. the process is the punishment.

The lawyerly approach is generally a preferable approach to settling disputes, but settling disputes is tangential to addressing the truth of a matter, and the truth may or may not be of active hinderence to the lawyerly process.

“Who cares about these guys they’re not the real case” seems a bit convenient when they’ve been so prominent in their field.

Truths are often convenient. Such as the truth that the TTT is not particularly prominent, because the constellation of reasons for skeptics has been far too diverse for any singular party, but specific parties have been signal boosted by those who like to utilize them.

You’re conflating an informal “lawyerly approach” with the formal court system and assigning the known epistemic and other shortfalls of the latter to the former. Here, we can choose the advantages and avoid at least most of the disadvantages.

We obviously have a dispute here, and trying the case of a specific part of it is potentially useful in getting closer to the truth.

I cannot fully express how funny it is to imagine that there was compelling evidence for significant fraud, that was available then and not now, and that this is not of interest to anyone.

There was extreme scrutiny of the 2020 election, many claims of fraud, and some evidence provided.

The evidence fell short of the claims then and continues to.

As I have explained elsewhere, the state that I'm most familiar with definitely had quite a few illegal votes cast. With the fact pattern present, I don't think it's possible to determine how many of these votes were fraudulent in reality rather than just cast illegally, and I think it's a Very Bad Thing that an election was conducted where that is impossible to know with any degree of confidence.

That said, I think it is also true that a lot of right-wing content is produced by liars and grifters. I have no idea if TTV is lying and I tend to not think that's the simplest explanation. Instead, I would favor a model of them being largely disinterested in factual evidence, probably genuinely believing that Georgia was stolen, but having a lackadaisical enough relationship with truth and facts that when the rubber meets the road, they're forced to retreat. Since they lack strong evidence but have made strong claims to profit from people that agree with them, they're put in an awkward position - I bet they still think that the election was stolen, but they got far out over their skis with claims that they can't back. They certainly could be lying, but I have to say, I feel like I increasingly hear commentators claiming that people are "lying" for false statements that the speaker may or may not have actually had the relevant information and intent to deceive. I don't care about this group enough to defend them much at all, but I am not confident they're lying, even if I do think they're pandering and grifting without doing the work to prove their claims.

The standard of evidence I would accept for stating that they're lying would be a clear statement from one of their leads saying that they don't believe there is much fraud or that they know Georgia was above the board. I would absolutely grant the claim if they were saying things privately that directly contradict their public statements.

false statements that the speaker may or may not have actually had the relevant information and intent to deceive.

I draw intent to deceive through their strident refusals to cooperate with authorities once they're required to show their evidence, including their willingness to go to jail over it. The alternative theories are 1) they're telling the truth or 2) they're mistaken but don't know it. If they're telling the truth, I've seen no explanation for why they've refused to cooperate with election authorities. Presumably if you have extensive evidence of serious election fraud, you'd want to do something about the fraud itself besides just making a documentary. If they're mistaken but don't know it, I would still expect them to fully cooperate with election authorities who then would be in a position to further investigate their claims and thereafter inform them that they were mistaken. Instead, TTV's consistent refusals to share their evidence showcases they must be aware that their evidence is bullshit and that sharing it would expose that it's bullshit.

If they're telling the truth, I've seen no explanation for why they've refused to cooperate with election authorities.

Because in that case, they think those are the guilty parties? Imagine a case where it's "You accused Peter of stealing from your bank account. Please hand all your evidence over to Peter, who is going to investigate these charges". Mm-hmmm, and when the evidence is all mysteriously shredded or lost in a fire? Pure coincidence?

I don't know anything about the merits of this bunch and their accusations, but a lot of the problem around credibility is the insistence that nope, this was the bestest, most rigorous, most securest, honestest election evah! when the measures introduced to accommodate voting during the Covid epidemic were not secure or rigorous. Honest error and the small amount of dubious votes or counts which happen in every election were surely going on here, and the whole "we'll take as legal any ballots without even a postmark so you have no idea if they arrived in time for the election" decisions don't fill me with confidence about "nope, every single vote was legit". As the linked article says, a vote could be legal in one state but be thrown out in another under the same circumstances. Of course that is going to give space to accusations of deliberate fraud, and the more denial about the chance of any honest mistake, on the part of those defending the result as "most secure ever", just makes the accusations of conspiracy worse.

Because in that case, they think those are the guilty parties?

If they think the election authorities are in on it, why would they bother filing a complaint with them only to retract it when the authorities asked for evidence? And if they had evidence, why would they ask their lawyer to lie in court and say they didn't have evidence? I posit it's because they're lying.

As the linked article says, a vote could be legal in one state but be thrown out in another under the same circumstances.

Welcome to Federalism.

I draw intent to deceive through their strident refusals to cooperate with authorities once they're required to show their evidence, including their willingness to go to jail over it.

I was unfamiliar with this incident, but it looks just plain weird. They were jailed at the end of October and conducted themselves in a way that I would say moves me in the direction of agreeing with you:

At the end of the hearing, which lasted less than 20 minutes, Hoyt ordered two marshals to take Engelbrecht and Phillips into custody. The men, who’d been sitting in the gallery joking familiarly with the court’s bailiffs, stepped through the swinging doors and escorted the pair to a holding cell.

Two hours into their stay in jail, True the Vote posted a call for donations on Truth Social.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32,” the organization posted. “To join us in cause, please donate here.”

On the other hand, they were released a week later and the story is weird:

It’s the newest surprise in an unusual case. Konnech, a small election software company based in Michigan, filed a federal lawsuit in September alleging that True the Vote, and Engelbrecht and Phillips, led a social media campaign of allegations involving a Chinese election-meddling conspiracy that damaged its business and prompted threats to its founder, Eugene Yu.

Yu was arrested shortly afterward, and briefly confined to house arrest, after the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Yu and Konnech violated the company’s contract with Los Angeles County by illegally giving contractors in China access to data that was supposed to be stored only in the United States. That case is still pending, and Yu has filed for dismissal of the charges.

I don't know. I again decline to defend the competence of TTV or their honesty, but I don't find it particularly implausible that they thought they were working with a confidential informant, that they should not have to disclose that informants identity, and that they were either surprised to be jailed over it or willing to go to jail briefly as a publicity stunt. I don't think this incident provides strong evidence with regard to whether they're lying or not.

Oh wow, yeah that's my bad. I did not know details about this incident and just repeated what Newsmax/AP said in their article. I looked up the court of appeals decision that reversed the contempt finding and it describes an absurdly vindictive district court judge. The judge granted a preliminary injunction which is based on emergency arguments, but the judge included a requirement to disclose the identity of individuals involved and then almost immediately spun up contempt proceedings before anyone could get their bearings. Contempt findings are fairly rare, contempt jailings are extremely rare, and this is one of the most bonkers contempt jailings I've ever heard of.

I agree with you completely that this incident is too weird to tells us much of anything about TTV and their honesty. I edited my post above to reflect that.

This sort of thing is a good part of why it's difficult to seriously prove matters, and why I push so hard about fair and quick access to neutral and open courts.

Konnech eventually sued LA County, which settled for 5 mill. It's not like this stuff would make TTV's claims credible even if they were true -- their claim was just that Konnech had run a poll worker software server in some way that stored data in China, which would have been a PII boo-boo (that a lot of places struggle with) but said nothing about the actual 2020 vote -- and Konnech had a fair defense that the LA criminal lawsuit was based on claims that, even if true, were more contract breach than criminal violation.

But I can't find much out about whether they were true. Given the LA County DA's office makeup at the time charges were filed, it seems weird to have gotten fooled by TTV shitpost-grade claims, but it'd I'm not sure if it's weirder than five million dollars.

If I had to bet, I'd say that TTV are lying (or being so extremely credulous or indifferent to the truth that the difference doesn't matter), but I don't think this is the best evidence for it, simply because whether or not they believe what they're saying, there's quite a lot of reasons to be willing to go to jail rather than reveal sources (or 'sources') or leave a lot of paperwork anywhere that would.

Remember the Biden Journal thing? Plea bargains aren't proof of anything, but the subsequent rulings make it extremely likely that the journal was real. Annnnnd Veritas founders were had their homes and offices stripped in morning raids that left them standing in their skivvies, the feds someone who must have stumbled on random paperwork somewhere leaked privileged information to the New York Times who was in the middle of suing these guys, the informants/thieves singled out for felony prosecution (with a plea), and the whole mess was at least a small part of why decreasing trust from donors and potential sources drove Project Veritas bankrupt.

EDIT: and that wasn't exactly a theoretical example for TTV specifically; they'd been slapped with a Voting Rights Act lawsuit pre-J6 that went to (bench) trial and is in the appeals process today.

If they're telling the truth, I've seen no explanation for why they've refused to cooperate with election authorities.

One possible explanation is that they don't believe the election authorities wish to cooperate with them in good faith. For example, look at what cooperation with the FBI got John Paul Mac Isaac: they sandbagged the case, seized his property and refused to give it back, tried to deny claims that he was cooperating with them, and tried to intimidate him into silence.

He wrote a whole book so it doesn't seem like the silence intimidation worked very well. What property was seized, are you talking about the laptop?

What reasons would TTV have to believe that election authorities in Arizona and Georgia would not cooperate with them in good faith? Why would TTV lie in court and tell a judge that they don't have evidence if they actually did have evidence?

He wrote a whole book so it doesn't seem like the silence intimidation worked very well. What property was seized, are you talking about the laptop?

So, no harm, no foul? Government abuse is fine so long as the person persevered in any case?

What reasons would TTV have to believe that election authorities in Arizona and Georgia would not cooperate with them in good faith?

Are you asking, theoretically, or are you asking me if I know personally of specific reasons they believe this? I don't have first-hand knowledge, no. But I have personal first-hand experience with this sort of thing. I personally witnessed election malfeasance as an independent observer. Ultimately, I did nothing with that information for several reasons: A) I had no physical evidence. I knew what I observed but that's all that I had. I had no ability to corroborate my observations. B) The police and elections commission were involved. The same people that I could complain to. Did I expect they would seriously undertake efforts to investigate themselves of wrongdoing? No, I did not. C) Without physical evidence, I would actually be vulnerable to a defamation claim for taking my observations public. I would at a minimum be subject to the smears of people far more powerful than I am and who would be motivated to deny any wrong doing.

So, I know something was done improperly. I know nobody cares. I know that most people can't fight city hall.

So, no harm, no foul? Government abuse is fine so long as the person persevered in any case?

No. You made a claim that the FBI tried to intimidate him into silence but provided no citations for this assertion. I googled his name to see if I could find this evidence of intimidation on my own and instead the first thing that popped up was the Amazon link to his book with hundreds of favorable reviews. Both the high SEO listing and the number of reviews are contrary to the claim that he was intimidated into silence, and since I haven't seen evidence to the contrary, I'm forced to conclude that whatever attempts that may have been made (which again, hasn't been established) were inconsequential. If they did try to intimidate him into silence, that's very bad even if it was unsuccessful, but the intimidation would be far worse if it was successful.

I would at a minimum be subject to the smears of people far more powerful than I am and who would be motivated to deny any wrong doing.

I appreciate you outlining the reasons why you were averse to reporting what you saw. Do you have any reasons to believe that TTV would have felt similarly stymied? Their work received extensive media coverage and widespread endorsements from powerful figures with deep pockets. If TTV is inadequately equipped to do something about the fraud they claim to have uncovered, is there anyone who is?

  • -10

Do you have any reasons to believe that TTV would have felt similarly stymied?

Not directly, I'm simply reasoning by analogy.

If TTV is inadequately equipped to do something about the fraud they claim to have uncovered, is there anyone who is?

No, I've thought since the beginning it was a futile effort because much of what is alleged would require the cooperation of the accused to prove. If it's rigged, there's basically nothing that can be done from the outside. It's hopeless, as an outsider, to force accountability.

and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials.

Yeah, it's a mix of things. I think the main way people end up believing it is due to deep amounts of distrust in mainstream sources and in the political system, combined with a lack of skepticism and maybe some motivated reasoning towards appealing propaganda. When you have Trump promoting this, it gets followers. Combine that with some purported evidence (I think there was some graph of a bunch of new votes added at once in some state), and people think that they're right.

At least, that's the way it comes across to me, when talking about ordinary voters. I'd assume there's some of that for politicians, etc., but that there's more of that for the sake of the political benefit. I remember that being a thing in the lead-up to the 2022 election, of people being more likely to consider/endorse the theory in the hope of gathering support from Trump and so winning the primary.

I think part of it is the way the mail-in ballots swung the vote; you went to bed while the count was going on and Trump was leading, you got up in the morning and suddenly Biden had won the state. That seems odd, if you are disposed to think that all the hysteria over Orange Man Bad, and the main plank of support for Biden's campaign being "we can't let Trump win because he is the AntiChrist!", meant that the opposition would do anything and everything to make sure he lost.

Yeah. This was pretty expected because many states counted mail ballots last, which would be leaning Democrat because Republicans were discouraging mail in voting, but it might not feel that way to many voters.

Two additional things to consider:

  1. "They" did in fact "interfere" with the election, and publicly admitted to it (see: "fortifying" type claims). This may not count legally as election tampering or whatever but may feel that way to the right and disgruntled moderates.

  2. Many voters know someone who hates Trump enough to do this and feel justified doing so. I have several family members and friends involved in government, some of whom I straight up asked "if you had the ability to stop Trump from being elected would you do it?" to which the answer is "yes absolutely, he's literally Hitler." It doesn't take much to believe that some people in the position to do something had the same thoughts.

I earnestly believe that anyone who doesn't get why people have concerns is being obtuse.

see: "fortifying" type claims

"I fortify, you gerrymander, he tampers" with elections, then?

As to point 2: personal belief, any presidential candidates would be a fool not to include federal laws requiring higher pay for nursing home aids in his platform. If you think the people who work in nursing homes aren't going to alter the delivery of ballots significantly based on political party, or just fill them out themselves...

Edit: I forgot I should've mentioned this, but it would be really helpful if responses avoided motte-and-bailey diversions. This post is about TTV and their efforts specifically, and though I believe stolen election claims are very poor quality in general, I'm not making the argument that "TTV is lying, ergo other stolen election claims are also bullshit". I think there are some related questions worth contemplating (namely why TTV got so much attention and credulity from broader conservative movement if TTV were indeed lying) but changing the subject isn't responsive to a topic about TTV. If anyone insists on wanting to talk about something else, it would be helpful if there's an acknowledgement about TTV's claims specifically. For example, it can take the format of "Yes, it does appear that TTV is indeed lying but..."

Narrowing the topic to the point of irrelevance seems like a rhetorical trick, and not a nice one.

If I'm making an argument about TTV, it would be nice if the responses are about TTV so I don't see what's irrelevant about that. I can't control what people say but my interest here is wanting to avoid time-wasting Gish gallops and motte-and-bailey diversions, because an unfortunately common rhetorical trick used by some when they encounter arguments inconvenient to their position is to try and change the subject.

You're welcome to suggest an alternative disclaimer wording, and you're also welcome to challenge my premise for why I even included a disclaimer.

you're also welcome to challenge my premise for why I even included a disclaimer.

Thanks -- that's what I'm doing. AFAIK nobody needs your permission to talk about whatever they want on here -- if you only want to respond to points about this particular organization I suppose you are welcome to do so? Still a semi-free country and all that.

Yeah that's true, I agree no one needs my permission! Do you have any opinions about whether TTV is lying or not?

Not really -- like I said it's an irrelevancy. Clearly they are a bit of a weakman though, which is why I'm not super-interested in going through their claims to assess plausibility. Are they the ones who did a bunch of locational data analysis showing (?) suggestive behaviour around ballot drops? They probably aren't lying about that, but of course it doesn't mean their analysis is correct. As I recall the debunkings of it that I saw were pretty misinformed/naive as well though.

Look at it this way -- BLM-associated groups lie all the time about the dangers of being black in America. This doesn't mean that race relations in America are not an interesting thing to discuss, but if I make a post saying "I only want to talk about these assholes who are lying, what a buncha maroons, amirite" I am not making a quality contribution to the discussion.

Clearly they are a bit of a weakman though, which is why I'm not super-interested in going through their claims to assess plausibility. Are they the ones who did a bunch of locational data analysis showing (?) suggestive behaviour around ballot drops? They probably aren't lying about that, but of course it doesn't mean their analysis is correct.

Yes that's them. They were willing to share their data with D'Souza, but not law enforcement. I'm curious though, what exactly establishes them as a 'weakman'? What standards do you rely on to make that determination on any given topic? If a BLM group made a wildly popular documentary full of lies about the dangers of being black in America and it received favorable media coverage, do you believe that discussing the lies would not be relevant?

I'm curious though, what exactly establishes them as a 'weakman'?

They don't seem very transparent nor particularly rigorous -- do you disagree? Your whole thesis here seems to be that they are a weakman.

If a BLM group made a wildly popular documentary full of lies about the dangers of being black in America and it received favorable media coverage, do you believe that discussing the lies would not be relevant?

Not in a vacuum -- if some black poster just got pulled over and arrested by a bunch of racist hicks I want to hear about it, and would consider it a valid (and valuable) contribution to the discussion.

I admit I don't understand your meaning of weakman. I tried to sketch out how to define the term a while ago and Julian Sanchez's description seems the most fitting:

With a “weak man,” you don’t actually fabricate a position, but rather pick the weakest of the arguments actually offered up by people on the other side and treat it as the best or only one they have.

I don't see how weakman would fit for TTV unless I'm using them to somehow make a claim about all stolen election allegations. I'm not doing that and I already said that would be an invalid argument.

More comments

It’s not a weak man when it’s a major and representative example of its reference class.

Tearing apart BLM for misrepresenting any given issue is also totally justified in a world where it is influential and representative.

Ibram X. Kendi, for example, is literally a weak man in the sense of being bad at thinking, but he’s the voice of his generation on the issue of race and so engaging his material is both wholly justified and necessary.

Similarly, all there are are weak men when it comes to election fraud issues because none of them can actually demonstrate a case.

When all you have is weak men, well, “you go to war with the army they have”; to slightly modify that quote.

I have personally seen "2000 mules" brought up here by people who believe the election was stolen, as at least potential evidence to back their claim that the election was stolen. If one side uses it as evidence, why should that evidence not be interrogated?

This doesn't mean that race relations in America are not an interesting thing to discuss, but if I make a post saying "I only want to talk about these assholes who are lying, what a buncha maroons, amirite" I am not making a quality contribution to the discussion.

I am currently planning a post specifically about whether the BLM movement is the worst thing to happen to black people since the end of Jim Crow, and a good portion of it is going to be specifically about the lying. If and when I get around to posting it, I think it will in fact be a quality contribution to the discussion, and you had better believe that if people try to avoid the substantive claims by deflecting to nebulous appeals to systemic racism, I'm going to do my damndest to make it clear that's exactly what they're doing.

If one side uses it as evidence, why should that evidence not be interrogated?

It should! But framing the discussion as "I want to talk about this and only this" is literally using the weakman as a superweapon.

I am currently planning a post specifically about whether the BLM movement is the worst thing to happen to black people since the end of Jim Crow

I look forward to it -- but if you make your post only about BLM(inc) or whatever the org is called that went around buying themselves mansions, and get tetchy if anyone wants to bring anything else into the discussion, you would be engaging in unsavoury (I daresay lawyerly) tactics to shape the discussion.

if people try to avoid the substantive claims by deflecting to nebulous appeals to systemic racism, I'm going to do my damndest to make it clear that's exactly what they're doing.

Sure -- please don't do it by saying 'don't say that bro, I told you this post is not about systemic racisim, it's only about BLM(inc)'.

It should! But framing the discussion as "I want to talk about this and only this" is literally using the weakman as a superweapon.

I don't think BLM or its proponents are fairly described as "weakmen". They were enormously, absurdly, disastrously influential on the shape of our society. The damage they did, and the fact that such damage was so easily predictable in advance, is an extremely important issue for any holistic assessment of American culture.

I can easily imagine a similar view from the other side toward Trump and his movement, and sincerely believe that argument is a valid thing to make.

Sure -- please don't do it by saying 'don't say that bro, I told you this post is not about systemic racisim, it's only about BLM(inc)'.

This comes down to a disagreement on norms, I think. I've repeatedly made top-level posts explicitly asking for specific forms of response, and even explicitly listing other forms of response I'm not interested in replying to. I've seen a lot of other posters, including very high quality ones, do the same. I think it's a legitimate thing to do, provided one does it with the understanding that it's not rulebreaking but merely gauche for other commenters to ignore such requests.

More comments

Narrowing it to a particular instance is near “the point of irrelevance”?

It “seems like a rhetorical trick” to get concrete and remained focused?

That seems telling.

Just agree it seems they are lying and then perhaps the OP can move to a case where the evidence is more robust.

He wrote an effort-post about a specific thing. Asking for replies to confine themselves to that specific thing is not a rhetorical trick, and certainly not objectionable. If you think he's intentionally picking specific things to exclude other specific things where the evidence is against him, you are free to write your own effort-post about those specific things instead. I do not think it is unreasonable to defer from addressing "all claims of election interference that have ever been made", and confine yourself to prominent, specific instances.

Suppose I write an effortpost about the specifics of the Michael Brown shooting, focusing on the claims made by the public and press versus the evidence accumulated through the subsequent investigations. would it be unfair for me to say that I'm looking for replies to these specific incidents, not to address all other claims of illegitimate police shootings? Would it be reasonable for people to complain that I'm not addressing a shooting that has just become culture-war fodder yesterday, when my entire point is the disconnect between the initial reports and the actual evidence painstakingly accumulated well after the fact? Especially if other posters had made it a point to specifically cite Michael Brown as an example of an illegitimate police shooting?

If you think he's intentionally picking specific things to exclude other specific things where the evidence is against him, you are free to write your own effort-post about those specific things instead.

And in fact it seems like writing that effort post in the comments is a significantly better contribution than arguing incessantly about thread ownership.

I don't think announcing the release of a covid vaccine days after the election was in any way illegal. It was probably enough to sway the election.

I don't think implying to major social media networks that the Hunter Biden laptop story was fake was illegal. It was probably enough to sway the election.

I don't think investigating Trump for nearly 3 years for collusion with Russia that ultimately turned out to be nothing was illegal. It was probably enough to sway the election.

I don't think freaking out over covid and insisting that the country completely shutdown and tank the economy was illegal. It was probably enough to sway the election.

None of these things were illegal, but they were all very very dirty and despicable. If they had just done one of them I might chalk it up to coincidence. But all of them happened, and other people can probably list their own examples. With so many events I strongly doubt they were all coincidences. I also say this as someone who never has and never would vote for Trump. I usually get sick of election politics about a year before the election. But I fully get why people have the unwavering sense that the election was stolen, while not having a single shred of "evidence" that applies to a court case.

I don't think investigating Trump for nearly 3 years for collusion with Russia that ultimately turned out to be nothing was illegal. It was probably enough to sway the election.

Some of it was recognized as illegal. Not that it changed anything.

It doesn't really matter if the 'fortifying' of the elections was legal or not. It didn't matter for the Covid lockdowns either. It doesn't really matter if the 'vaccines' work. What matters is that ~nobody would do anything about it, and if they do, they will get J6'd. Or they will be summarily Babbitt'd.

It doesn't matter how many pieces of evidence you will bring to the courts, the courts will deny your claims and the media won't report on it unless to tar you as a nutjob.

If you want to have free speech, buy your own Twitter and if you want to have justice, build your own nuke-armed country.

What do your examples have to do with whether or not TTV is lying? Your post is ambiguous so as best as I can tell (please correct me), you're not disputing that TTV was lying or that they've hoodwinked millions of people, but offering an explanation for why certain demographics would be susceptible to gullibility. Dissecting the reasons behind the gullibility is an interesting topic for sure, but it seems downstream to my argument about whether or not TTV was lying/grifting.

This is the first time I've heard of TTV that I can remember, so I mostly don't care about them. Grifters and liars exist out there. There are whole industries around "essential oils" and "crystal healing" that you could have written about and exposed. Why did you choose to write about TTV specifically? My guess would be because they touch on a wider and more important topic which is the sense of "fairness" people have about the 2020 election.

Since I neither know or care about TTV, I chose to instead just write about the topic that I think makes TTV important.

If I thought the topic was quite literally only about TTV I would have just yawned, minimized the thread, and moved on without commenting.

Truth the Vote is the group that provided the data and the allegations outlined in the Dinesh D'Souza 2000 Mules documentary, which is by virtually any measure the most popular and talked about expose into stolen election claims. The film was watched by millions of people and received widespread media coverage and promotion within conservative media, and also was extensively endorsed by Trump (for what it's worth) and continued to be regularly cited by politicians and other stolen election believers. This wasn't just some obscure fringe group.

The target audience for that group is downstream of TheMotte. I wouldn’t be surprised no one here has an opinion on them.

It’s like comparing a WW2 propaganda film to boost morale to kill some Japs and Germans versus the arguments the upper class has on an election. The goal of making those films is too boost the lower class to do what you need them to do.

This is a refreshingly honest response that is coherent. Assuming it's true, I would wonder what exactly were the lower classes supposed to do. And how effective would creating false-but-exciting documentaries be in the long run if it ends up poisoning the well when it's exposed as a fraud?

No punishment if you get the vibes right. As CJ noted there’s a ton of other stuff going on that looks like a conspiracy to keep Trump out of the White House. Once the average guy sees a lot of things that let’s call it “system fraud” they will just go with it. If the left boosted their credibility then they could perhaps undermine the grifters.

The issue is the grifter feel directional correct even if their specific stuff is false.

It’s really just a motte-and-bailey.

These guys seem to exaggerate fudge provable fraud.

This survey caught my eye. It’s probably not perfect but it showed 20% of mail-in-voters admitted to some kind of voting fraud.

https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-one-in-five-mail-in-voters-admit-to-committing-at-least-one-kind-of-voter-fraud-during-2020-election/

It’s by no means a perfect survey. But I think real world awareness is going to tell you the secret ballot was violated and people voted in groups. That’s fraud.

My guess is this kind of fraud likely did tip the election but would be nearly impossible to detect for a court.

I’ve also been looking into Douglas Murray’s Real Education and he makes good points that half the population is below average and a large percentage can only do rudimentary reading comprehension and arithmetic. Truthfully in politics if you want to win you still need a lot of votes from these people. Whatever you want to call it grifting, causing outrage to get people mad enough to vote, etc you need to do it. The left will do it too. As they do with race relations. Flood the zone with accusations and get your people voting. Both sides have dumb people.

Also I’d note there does seem to be some evidence the illegal who shot up the Houston Church had voted but I haven’t dug in enough to verify.

Illegals also count for population which changes government funding, house seats, and electoral college votes. Which feels like another form of voting fraud to me.

These guys seem to exaggerate fudge provable fraud.

Why do you think TTV has been so resistant with offering evidence? I think it's because they were lying about having any and that their primary interest was grifting rather than actually uncovering fraud. Is there any part that you disagree with?

Sorry meant they didn’t have proof.

That Rasmussen survey is crap. Basically all of the described conduct can be legal depending on jurisdiction. Maybe you think it's all colloquially fraud, but that does not make it illegal. Just using my own state as an example:

17% of mail-in voters admit that in 2020 they voted in a state where they are “no longer a permanent resident”

That's totally legal in my state. If you are a US citizen living abroad and maintain a residence in Washington state you're allowed to continue voting at that residence. Or even if you live more permanently in another state but have not registered to vote in that state, you can continue voting at your Washington residence.

21% of mail-in voters admitted that they filled out a ballot for a friend or family member

This is legal in many jurisdictions, including mine, when the voter in question has a disability. From the AARP guide for Washington state:

Voting with a disability

When voting by mail, voters with disabilities can request assistance filling in their ballot from a person of their choice or by contacting their county elections office. Voters are required to sign the ballot envelope, but if the voter can’t sign the envelope, they may make a mark, such as an “X,” and have two witnesses sign the envelope.

When voting in person, those who need assistance filling in their ballot can receive help from either two election officials or a person of their choice. Each polling place is equipped with an accessible voting system. Get more information at the secretary of state’s website.

This also goes to the next Rasmussen question about signing a ballot for a friend or family member. Rasmussen makes it sound nefarious by combining "with or without" their permission but that distinction is pretty important! With permission it can be totally legal.

8% of likely voters say they were offered “pay” or a “reward” for voting in 2020

Again the equivocation between "pay" and a "reward." If someone offers you a sticker for voting, is that a "reward?" Would it be "fraud?" Note also that it is being offered for voting, not for any particular candidate.

I think there’s an issue with having assistance in any form that isn’t witnessed by a judge, or in signing with an X in front of two witnesses when we’re talking about mail in ballots. The issue being that no one outside of the assistant is able to observe the process and make sure that the disabled person is competent enough to understand the things they’re voting on, isn’t being coerced or tricked into voting the way they’re voting, or even that they were involved in the process at all.

All of those things would be obvious if the person has to show up and sign in and follow the simple directions of the verification process. You can also potentially overhear things that would make you question whether the person is 3x oriented (knows where they are, knows the time and the date). If granny rocks up and you hear her say this is a nice bingo hall, you can question it. If she thinks it’s 1955, again, you can question it. If the “helpers” are very obviously saying things like “you want to vote for Biden,” or similarly suggesting voting for or against issues, again, the judges would absolutely be able to notice and question it.

Mail in voting makes all of those things much more difficult to detect. I could absolutely vote in some dementia patient’s name and mark an X then have myself and my partner sign it as witnesses. I could go to the home and find the patient who thinks it’s 1955 and the nursing home is a cruise ship and have them vote.

I can go and tell my gran to vote in the way I want her to either for a reward or to avoid a punishment or even just suggesting something bad happening if she doesn’t. I saw something similar when I used to work at a nursing home ten years ago. The social worker who was evaluating whether patients were fit to return home had a way of sneaking in her politics into her evaluations. She’d add “whether you like him or not” to the question of who’s the president when republicans were in charge and not democrats. It left a very obvious impression that being fit to return home might well depend on supporting the democrats. If these patients were filling out ballots while waiting to see if they were going home would be pressured to vote for democrats. Especially if she’s helping them fill out the ballot. Family members could imply that they won’t see their grandchildren if Trump wins. Or promise them ice cream if they vote Biden.

Mail in ballots make all of that impossible to detect because the only thing you have is a document signed after the fact. If it’s signed with an X and witnesses, there’s no way to know whether or not the person is even aware that they voted or anything else.

I’ll agree I have a concern with the survey. But since you used crap. I’d say the same about your explanations.

You very well know 17% of voters do not have Washington St residence and live in Europe. Even during COVID that isn’t true. My critique would be the number is obviously too high to be believable and indicates trolling. Even peak work from anywhere COVID wasn’t going to close to that.

Yes. Disabilities exists. But 15-20% of voters do not have those disabilities.

I’m not entirely sure what to think of this polls issues. Some of the data seems implausible. But the explanations you are using is what I would call misinformation by giving a true exception. But those reasons don’t seem to be numerically close to same values.

I do think there was a lot of fraud with regards to people sharing answers and helping with a ballot. It’s illegal to campaign at the poll booth in person so I assume that is also illegal when voting at home. And if it’s not illegal I would still call that fraud.

I intended my explanations to be illustrative, not comprehensive. I agree the numbers seem intuitively implausible but my uncertainty is high given the lack of information about the people surveyed.

I do think there was a lot of fraud with regards to people sharing answers and helping with a ballot.

What do you mean by "sharing answers" here? Is it voter fraud for person A to tell person B how they voted?

It’s illegal to campaign at the poll booth in person so I assume that is also illegal when voting at home. And if it’s not illegal I would still call that fraud.

It's illegal for a campaign representative to stand around a poling place and try and influence voters to vote for their candidate. It is obviously not illegal (and not fraud) for person A to try to convince person B to vote for some candidate in the privacy of their home.

It would seem to be fraudulent and perhaps illegal to tell them who to vote for/pressure them who to vote for while they are preparing/in the act of voting. That is an identical act as campaigning at the election site but sort of worse because many times it also removed their ability to vote independently with a secret ballot. With the sex skews in voting now that can add up.

The strongest claim of election fraud is the violation of the secret ballot and people interfering with peoples ability to vote their conscience. This survey supports it was widespread.

It would seem to be fraudulent and perhaps illegal to tell them who to vote for/pressure them who to vote for while they are preparing/in the act of voting. That is an identical act as campaigning at the election site but sort of worse because many times it also removed their ability to vote independently with a secret ballot. With the sex skews in voting now that can add up.

Pressure, sure. But none of the Rasmussen questions asked anyone if they had pressured or been pressured by anyone. My wife and I often fill out our ballots together. Sometimes debating about ballot propositions or candidates and things. Sometimes I've read the guide and she hasn't and doesn't want to so she just asks me for my opinion, which I give. Do I do something fraudulent and perhaps illegal in such a circumstance?

If you were essentially at the ballot box then the same principles would apply and that would be fraud.

If you read the ballot together and discussed the issues and then half an hour later filled out the ballots in private then I would say it’s fine.

My guess is most people who helped didn’t clearly establish discussing and the process of voting.

I don't think it's something to be worried about if someone lets a family member fill out their ballot for them. Maybe it's illegal, but when you're saying that an election is fraudulent, and what you mean is "some people illegally let their spouses fill out their ballot for them," that's not what it sounds like you were saying, and it's not what people care about.

I definitely care about that. Perhaps because I think it’s sways elections.

Let’s say you work at Disney. You bs a lot of corporate BS. Everyone is voting at work and showing each other their ballots. Everyone expect you to do the same. Do you think a guy who votes Trump is getting promoted? That is more extreme but this did happen within families. We already knew that Trump outperforms his polling so there were a lot of quiet Trump voters.

For a lot of voting rules a good question is whether each side fights over them so much if they didn’t think they mattered. If their isn’t fraud why wont Dems get rid of extensive mail-in voting unless they think it’s a huge benefit to them.

This survey caught my eye. It’s probably not perfect but it showed 20% of mail-in-voters admitted to some kind of voting fraud.

https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-one-in-five-mail-in-voters-admit-to-committing-at-least-one-kind-of-voter-fraud-during-2020-election/

This writeup doesn't inspire much confidence in me. The only details they have on their methodology are the following sentence:

The poll of 1,085 likely voters was conducted from November 30 to December 6, 2023. Among those surveyed in the poll, 33% were Republicans, 36% were Democrats, and 31% were “other”; 32% were 18-39 years old, 46% were 40-64 years old, and 22% were 65 or older.

But how were these "likely voters" determined? Random phone calls? Knocking on doors? Are they all from Portland or spread out over the US? Are they rich or poor? Were they paid for the survey?

They don't even answer how many of these "likely voters" they survey actually voted or voted by mail!

Based on this incredible lack of detail, it's hard for me to take these results seriously. If there's a more detailed writeup somewhere that I missed, I'd love to see it. I didn't see any link to one though.

I would be very interested to hear substantive reasons for why my theory is faulty or unreasonable!

You're missing the forest for the trees. There was a concerted effort to illegally influence the election. This manifested in many ways, mostly to do with mail-in-voting, and the evidence, if it ever existed, has been lost by now. You are focusing on details that don't matter, and have never mattered, instead of looking at what people have admitted, and what that means for what they will never admit.

This isn't what you wanted, of course. You want to argue like this is a court of law and pretend I didn't witness an obviously stolen election in real time. However, I will continue to trust my lying eyes. I don't care about TTV, and I don't care about their evidence. I saw what happened in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, in Detroit. I've been following the absolute shitshow in Arizona, whose elections were a fraud in 2022, too. If the courts are incapable of doing anything about it, I judge that to be a failure of the courts, and not of the charges, because I know the charges are true, and I won't be argued out of them.

The reason you get ire and downvotes is because you conspicuously highlight which side of the friend-enemy distinction you've chosen.

You don’t care about TTV. I’m sure you don’t care about the Mall Ninjas, or whoever the GOP hired to investigate Arizona. It goes without saying that you don’t trust the courts or, God forbid, the mainstream media. They might have some sort of incentive.

So what’s good and trustworthy? Who brought those election irregularities to your lying eyes?

There is an obvious, huge incentive for Trump-hating media to downplay any interference. Likewise for Democrats shoring up tight margins, or election officials struggling to keep their jobs. No surprise there. But the exact same calculus holds for Trump partisans and for self-proclaimed alternative media. It’s the underdog brand. Why is that any more credible?

See, I would understand if people saw this mess and concluded “we’ll never know, fuck this, I’m going to grill in perfect Cartesian doubt.” That’s not what happens. Instead, believers assemble their fantasy team out of all the players who say the right things. It’s just good strategy.

because I know the charges are true, and I won't be argued out of them.

At least you’re self aware you’re not operating from sound epistemic principles.

In contrast, some sound evidence might sway those of us trying to update as we learn more.

The reason you get ire and downvotes is because you conspicuously highlight which side of the friend-enemy distinction you've chosen.

How have I done that and which friend-enemy distinction are we talking about? From my perspective, I'm making an argument that TTV is lying about the election evidence they claim to have. I can see how that would earn me no love from TTV but antagonism is expected when you accuse someone of lying. The relevant question here would be whether my allegation is true or not, and your response doesn't actually address my argument and instead changes the subject. If you don't care about TTV, why respond to a post about TTV?

I don't care about TTV, and I don't care about their evidence. I saw what happened in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, in Detroit.

I don't think this is coherent. If you believe or especially if you have evidence of X, you should be absolutely frothing at the mouth if a bunch of people yelling loudly about not!X are soaking up a ton of money and attention and trust for grifting to coopt your beliefs. That looks different than Meskhout's position, but it's not ambivalence, either.

I saw the 2020 elections. At the time they seemed suspicious, but as much in a badly-run way as in an obviously-stolen way. Then in 2022, mostly-Republican precincts in maricopa and harris counties ran out of ballot paper.

This has significantly changed my priors towards ‘democrats were cheating in 2020’.

Yes, Arizona 2022 significantly increased my certainty that 2020 was illegitimate.

What was problematic about the Arizona 2022 election?

My overall impression was that the Republicans just ran a slate of terrible candidates and lost. (By a very close margin, in the case of Hamadeh.)

Republican precincts in maricopa county suspiciously ran out of ballot paper(although, yes, Kari Lake and Blake Masters were not good candidates). The same thing happened in Houston and plausibly swung some county level elections(specifically the county judgeship).

I just looked it up again, I'd forgotten about that. It looks like it was problems with toner printing too light before it was fixed, and they were still able to vote, just their ballots were counted separately or something? I'd imagine that would cause some people not to vote, especially with it hitting social media, which yeah, could well have meant that Hamadeh would have won.

Why would you assume that it was interference rather than just an error, though? I'd thought that in those districts the voting was mostly administered by republicans?

Because elections just keep having irregularities that are totally secure and fine but always wind up favoring democrats, in short. I’m not totally familiar with the division of labor in Arizona elections, but in Texas(where Harris county which did the same thing and plausibly swung the county judge election is located), it’s a county level responsibility to run elections, the elections judge has a fancy title but is basically just a clerk. My assumption is that Arizona is the same way; the Maricopa county elections department being responsible for sending out all the equipment(incl ballot paper) and the poll workers just use it.

“Always wind up favoring Democrats”

And yet Republicans win plenty of elections.

Perhaps you recall way back in 2016 when the underdog presidential candidate outperformed polling and won an extremely close election?

Now that being said, the inability to do something more subtle than that leads me to conclude that 2020 cheating was fairly small, nothing like what trump is alleging.

I saw what happened in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, in Detroit.

What exactly did you see? And did you see whatever it was in person, with your own two eyes, in each of the 3 cities you mentioned?

If not, then how exactly did you see “what happened”, and have you considered that whatever you saw may have been selectively curated, edited or manipulated?

I saw the forex markets flip in the middle of the night at the same time that ballot counting centers in those cities reopened without their republican poll watchers in attendance.

My source is my own lying eyes, unfortunately, so I'm not going to be giving you any links.

I'm a complete layman at trading. Can you at least provide some context on what, exactly, was significant about that market flip and what kind of event you've surmised that would connect "market flip" and "election fraud"? Since you've mentioned that, it must've been even more convincing than "ballot counting centers reopening without Republican watchers" alone. But so far, I'm just baffled.

Also, isn't market data public? And wouldn't you need some kind of source besides your eyes to see counting centers reopen in several cities at once?

The forex markets reflected a presumed Trump win all evening, and all night, then opened down, reflecting a change to a Biden win, at the same time as those screwy counting centers were being reopened.

That's your observation. I'm asking for your explanation of it.

He would because Philadelphia did not stop counting over night. It had a livestream up the whole time and Republican poll watchers were present. They did file suit to say that they were being kept too far away due to Covid restrictions but nothing about the ballot center closing.

Atlanta is the only one where anything could be seen (with eyes lying or otherwise) as potentially a problem as there was indeed a time period where counting stopped overnight , and resumed and there was no Republican poll watcher present. Legally this wasn't strictly an issue because the independent poll watcher was still there, which is all Georgia law required at the time, but it is at the very least not best practice in a contentious election.

You are focusing on details that don't matter, and have never mattered, instead of looking at what people have admitted, and what that means for what they will never admit.

If they don't matter and never mattered, then the "mules" movie would not have been made, having been made would not have become popular, and having become popular, would not have been cited by commenters here as evidence that the election was stolen.

I also believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate. That belief does not preclude certain claims as to the specifics of its illegitimacy from being falsified.

If the courts are incapable of doing anything about it, I judge that to be a failure of the courts, and not of the charges, because I know the charges are true, and I won't be argued out of them.

Provably false claims of election interference do neither you nor I any favors, do they? Neither does a retreat to the unfalsifiable. My conclusion that the 2020 election was illegitimate does not stem from the "mules" movie or its claims, so debunkings of that film or its claims do not challenge my conclusions. Why should one think otherwise.

The reason you get ire and downvotes is because you conspicuously highlight which side of the friend-enemy distinction you've chosen.

People should not come here to read things that they agree with written by their friends. They should come here for sound arguments well-made. I think @ymeshkout's arguments have a glaring blindspot in them. But until I have the time and energy to make my case with evidence and arguments, he's under no obligation to make the case for me, and I have no right to object to him making other cases based on his own evidence and arguments.

He thinks this specific movie is lying. Why is he wrong? If he's not wrong, why would you object?

Why do you think the 2020 election was illegitimate?

Very briefly, because there is more to legitimacy than the strict letter of the law, most notably when "the letter of the law" is so obviously dependent on adversarial interpretation. A number of laws were broken in the leadup to the election, and a number of misdeeds were committed that were very real, but were not adjudicated as crimes. My assessment is that the collective result of those actions is that rule of law and the democratic process were breached, and that those victimized by such actions should adjust their expectations and commitments accordingly.

I am pretty sure that @ymeshkhout is correct that many and perhaps all the dramatic claims of ballot fraud are either spurious or intentional lies. On the other hand, the FBI really did break the law to illegally spy on an opposition candidate, and the broader set of the FBI and their close associates coordinated with journalists to lie to the public about this and many other facts, in a direct attempt to influence the outcome of the election. That seems like fundamentally illegitimate behavior to me, and the fact that it happened undermines the legitimacy of the subsequent election process. When enough such incidents accumulate, as I observe they did in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the democratic process is not only threatened, but has in fact been compromised.

I think a lot of the support for dramatic fraud theories comes from people recognizing that something is badly wrong, and defaulting to the scripts that society and the media have provided them for what "wrongness" looks like. "election was illegitimate" > "ballot stuffing makes elections illegitimate" > "ballot stuffing happened." This combines with a fair amount of grifting by people seeking to exploit this tendency, along with the general tendency of large, complex, contentious issues to generate considerable amounts of FUD as a simple consequence of mass human friction, distrust, misinterpretation and bias. It seems to me that this tendency is entirely worthy of criticism; you have to have some way of separating the wheat from the chaff, or tribalism will devour you completely. If you are going to discuss the issue with people on the other side, that requires some measure of common ground, and actual, observable facts seem as good a place to start as any.

Trump was certainly not an opposition candidate in 2020.

The amount of fraud necessary to ensure victory in a national election requires a level of coordination that is basically impossible to pull off without generating significant evidence. Doing this against an incumbent using the organs of government is not remotely realistic at any scale.

It’s particularly ironic to compare your sentiments here against documented behavior by Trump explicitly looking to manipulate election outcomes, let alone all the other ways he flouted law and convention. Caring about “legitimacy” above the letter of the law consistently would not lead to a positive view of Trump even if you were entirely correct about the misdeeds against Trump.

The fraud is alleged to have taken place in a handful of counties administered by democrats.

A national election does not turn upon a mere handful of counties.

Somewhere purple like say Maricopa County has tons of conservative voters and government workers; large plots are hard to hide and small ones aren’t enough to matter as claimed.

  • -12

Trump lost by 40k votes, which could easily be delivered in only a few counties. The 2020 election was extremely close and Georgia or Michigan having been swung by fraud in 1-3 counties is extremely plausible, but not proven.

More comments

I think a lot of the support for dramatic fraud theories comes from people recognizing that something is badly wrong, and defaulting to the scripts that society and the media have provided them for what "wrongness" looks like.

This is likely the interpretation with the highest amount of charitability I'd be willing to co-sign on. But I do have a quibble about "the FBI really did break the law to illegally spy on an opposition candidate", are you talking about Trump? Edit: I got confused and forgot you were talking about 2020 instead of 2016, so I don't know what you're referring to here.

He walked back his claims about his campaign being wiretapped, claiming he didn't mean it literally. He said "I used the word ‘wiretap,’ and I put in quotes, meaning surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want" and also that his allegation wasn't really based on any actual evidence but more on "a little bit of a hunch". His DOJ confirmed in a court filing they had no evidence of wiretapping.

But I do have a quibble about "the FBI really did break the law to illegally spy on an opposition candidate", are you talking about Trump?

Him and his campaign collectively. Does that seem like an unreasonable usage?

The distinction is valid, as I'd straightforwardly assumed that if they were wiretapping his associates and campaign staff, they'd wiretap him as well, but a quick googling of "Trump FISA" reveals that the warrants were actually for his campaign advisors, and don't list Trump himself. I'm also informed by CNN that the investigation of an opposition candidate merely involved "significant errors"; would you likewise argue that the FBI did not break the law in their surveillance of Trump's campaign staff? I certainly don't believe I can point to anyone going to jail over these events; I'm unaware of any convictions, nor even prosecutions, certainly not of anyone senior in the administration or the bureaucracy. Can it really be said that what they did was illegal, in that case?

Edit: I got confused and forgot you were talking about 2020 instead of 2016, so I don't know what you're referring to here.

I was talking about 2016. I am now quite confused. If I'm misinformed, I'm open to being corrected.

I haven't looked into this in a very long time so I don't know if and what part of the FBI's conduct was illegal. The "illegally spy on an opposition candidate" part was too ambiguous for me to parse, compared to "several members of Trump's campaign were surveilled". Everyone is entitled to editorialize, although I would caution about using verbiage that leaves a misleading impression because the involvement between Trump associates and Russia that kickstarted the surveillance is very well-documented and resulted in multiple convictions and didn't come from nowhere. You're of course still absolutely and completely free to argue it was politically-motivated persecution.

Fair enough. I do actually appreciate the precision, and working from memory is difficult.

Not “his DOJ”; the Deep State’s DOJ.

I’m being a bit snarky but I believe I am accurately representing the stance of those who won’t concede that say a lifelong Republican or Trump-appointed official can be a reliable source of anything that contradicts Trumpian vibes.

I also forgot we were talking about 2020, not 2016.

FC flipped between describing his issues with both elections and I believe he was referring specifically to 2016 on that specific issue. Your lawyerly need for precision is getting in the way of understanding the vibes.

I was actually just trying to point out that “Trump’s X” where X is any government entity or official led by / appointed by Trump is rarely convincing to those who think that Trump was done wrong.

I don't know about KMC, but the things I saw were rules being changed in ways which favor Democrats, blatantly illegally, and the courts just kinda shrugging. But what convinced me that there was more than the usual fraud (over and above election rules changes) going on was the whole Georgia water main thing. The claim by the crazy fraud-claiming Republicans was it happened a certain way. The claimants were called paranoid conspiracy theorists. It turns out it went exactly that way. The people who called them conspiracy theorists tried to split hairs and also claim it didn't matter anyway, and of course that narrative carried the day.

But what convinced me that there was more than the usual fraud (over and above election rules changes) going on was the whole Georgia water main thing.

Rudy Giuliani had the perfect opportunity to present evidence of his claims when he was sued by the Georgia election workers for defamation, but he instead sandbagged and stumbled towards a default judgment. I think he acted that way because he knew he had no defense against defaming them. Do you think my conclusion is unreasonable?

Rudy Giuliani had the perfect opportunity to present evidence of his claims when he was sued by the Georgia election workers for defamation, but he instead sandbagged and stumbled towards a default judgment.

Which is to say he was denied the chance to present evidence of his claims in court through procedural legerdemain.

I think he acted that way because he knew he had no defense against defaming them. Do you think my conclusion is unreasonable?

Yes. I think the court acted that way to prevent him from defending himself. Because maintaining the appearance of integrity of elections is more important than maintaining their actual integrity, apparently.

That's interesting, how do you know that Giuliani actually had evidence to present instead of just bluffing? Assuming he had evidence, why didn't Giuliani just release the evidence elsewhere? I think the reason he didn't release evidence is because he was lying about having had evidence. Which part of my conclusion do you think is unreasonable?

That's interesting, how do you know that Giuliani actually had evidence to present instead of just bluffing?

I don't know what Giuliani had. I do know the court engaged in dirty tricks to prevent him from being able to use it to defend himself. I also know that regardless of what Giuliani had, the sequence of events described by the crazy conspiracy theorists in Georgia did in fact actually happen (and is no longer disputed).

So to loop it back, I said my theory for why Giuliani sandbagged his trial is because he didn't have the evidence he claimed he had. You claimed this was an unreasonable position to hold, but now you're saying that you don't know what evidence Giuliani had? If he hasn't released his evidence outside of court, do you still think it's unreasonable to think the man has been lying about that? At what point would you be willing to accept that explanation?

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats