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Congratulations, you have won the debate without even having to debate. Now that your opposition seems to have retreated back to their bailey, so you can go and do your victory lap around it.
Seeing as others have pointed out that you're considered to be in the stronger position, as a defense lawyer and podcaster -- could you defend the election stolen viewpoint? That is possibly the only way a debate on this issue is ever going to move forward seeing as so far nobody is game to take up the losing side, but this is the kind of fight you're probably used to undertaking.
What do you believe are my motte and bailey positions on this topic?
It all depends on what viewpoint we're talking about, which is why I keep asking for specifics. I already believe that some fraud happens in every election but not enough to make a difference, so I can defend that viewpoint against whoever out there happens to believe that electoral fraud does not exist. The overall problem with this topic is the inverse correlation between how defensible vs how consequential an allegation is, which is why there's a see-saw oscillation between "millions of fake ballots were cast for Biden" and "one guy in Nevada filled out his dead wife's ballot".
The election fraud issue is vapid because taking a deep dive into what amounts to propaganda is an exercise in frustration. The claims serve the purpose of riling up his base support, and to shore up his power; given the vast number of them they act as a shotgun approach for his supporters to find one particular claim compelling.
Your motte: All claims are at best specious and at worst groundless. Your bailey: Insufficient evidence exists that has survived testing by the court system and all attempts have failed, there is simply insufficient evidence to make the claim that the election was stolen -- I'm not so sure on your fall back position to be honest as the motte here is so strong that it would be hard to imagine ever having to fall back to the bailey.
I thought about this issue while I was at the gym, and the most plausible take that fits the evidence or lack-thereof would be internal government agencies such as the CIA. I'm looking at this issue through the lens of The Dictator's Handbook, which you can get 90% understanding through watching this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGrey
If the Democratic party had a concrete means to steal elections, or an 'auto win' button, then I cannot see them not pressing it every single time as they have already worked themselves up into a rhetorical fervor that their opposition is evil and cannot be allowed control of the government. On the other hand, the only institution with the knowledge, wherewithal and motivation to steal an election would be the CIA as they already have considerable experience in doing this exact thing in overseas countries, the list of governments overthrown or rumoured to have been overthrown by the CIA is quite frankly staggering. The CIA has literally had one main job over the past 75 years that it has been around, dunk on the Russians, and it would be hard for them to let that go -- especially given the alleged ties between Trump and Russia. The sheer amount of useless chatter can be explained away by one of two possible scenarios: either propaganda, as I suspect, or a successful intelligence operation flooding the information space with useless junk.
Joe Biden has had considerable ties to the CIA through his long career in office, and during this term he has increased the funding and elevated the status of the agency within the United States government by for instance elevating the director of the CIA to his cabinet. See: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/21/politics/bill-burns-cia-director-cabinet-level/index.html . Biden would have the necessary ties to coordinate the effort with the CIA and I believe the CIA could have been motivated to help him, especially given accusations publicly for instance that Trump compromised several agents with his intelligence leaks, along with a number of other OPSec issues as well. One the other hand, Biden has given greater 'treasure' and power to the agency over the past few years; whereas the Republican party has developed a spottier relationship with the agency ever since the second gulf war; finally, the 'drain the swamp' rhetoric is a direct challenge to the institutional members of the government.
Unfortunately, there is no real evidence and at best it is 'evidence of absence'. I am picking on the CIA as a potential conspirator simply because they are the only agency that could pull this kind of mission off and then get away clean. They have a potential motive to act due to their seemingly poor relationship with Trump; the means to act because of their close relationship with Biden as well as their institutional know-how in the spheres of dis/misinformation and election tampering, and finally they have recieved rewards from the Biden administration with considerable additional funding going their way. This is heading down the road of 'conspiracy theory', but the agency deemed responsible to prevent foreign interference in the election is likely the best placed agency to tamper with the election themselves. The necessary number of potential guilty parties is quite small and well contained given only a few top level people need to know the full extent of a 'possible conspiracy', and the rest of the agency has little motivation to offer help to Trump who has shown disdain for them and has actively hurt their operations.
I apologize, I misread your prior comment as claiming I was retreating a bailey position.
Your CIA exercise is a good attempt at trying to steelman a strong-version of the stolen election claims. Another possibility I wondered about is some sort of a decentralized conspiracy of sneaking in as many operatives (most likely an election activist) into positions of election authority. After that, I don't know how that would be accomplished or what they'd be able to do without getting caught.
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