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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21702 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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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.

The real trick is knowing which counties in which states will do the swinging in advance, and setting it all up to just lightly tweak the results.

You can’t just look with the benefit of hindsight and think it’s easy to set up a coordinated plan to just barely win.

In countries with rigged elections, it’s not exactly subtle because it’s harder to set up a close victory than a big one.

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?

You keep trying to change the subject back to Giuliani. Nothing I have said about the election is dependent on Giuliani doing anything or not doing anything, having evidence or not having evidence. You're just pounding on the table.

You are ALSO trying to beg the question with "Giuliani sandbagged his trial"; I claim he did not and was railroaded. But this is a separate issue.

I only brought up Giuliani because he was the one who broke the story, and who made the most confident pronouncements about the election workers involved, and who claimed to have a bunch of evidence to prove his allegations. I posit if the claims about "pulling out suitcases of Biden ballots and scanning them multiple times" were true, he was the best positioned to prove them.

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That's equivalent to saying "the cops planted evidence on him, but how do you know he wasn't guilty anyway?" If the procedure is so messed up that someone can't prove his innocence, you should default to assuming that he's innocent, not to assuming that he's guilty.

That metaphor doesn't make sense because I don't know what innocent/guilty is supposed to map to for Giuliani. I'm saying that Giuliani is lying when he claims to have evidence, and whether or not his court procedure was messed up (citation needed) doesn't affect his ability to release his purported evidence outside of court. There's no reason for me to default to assuming he's telling the truth.

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