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But this is exactly it. I think the difference between Trumpist election deniers and more impartial observers of American political history is that the latter acknowledge that
It’s entirely likely that both blue and red counties engage in low level vote count manipulation when results are close, to the tune of that 1-2% figure
None of this is (as your quote indicates) remotely unusual in American political history. This was no special or unique project to stop Trump but rather the same shenanigans that have gone on in every election since 1776. 2020 wasn’t even the most corrupt election in the last fifty years, let alone in American history.
Biden had a ‘plausible’ case for winning and Trump’s defeat wasn’t a case of an implausibly unpopular candidate beating a popular incumbent. The vote was close and could have gone either way, Trump really was historically unpopular for an incumbent at the time, Biden won the popular vote by some margin (this obviously doesn’t make for an EC victory but is illustrative of an at least not-extremely-unpopular-relative-to-their-opponent) and had broad appeal to the Dem base.
Based on the above, nothing that happened in 2020 was unusual in American politics and Trump was not the victim of an ‘unprecedented’ level of election interference to ensure his defeat.
As the 1960 quote reveals, even the most corrupt states can’t make a hugely unpopular candidate popular or vice versa. Thus Trump’s claims that he actually won bigly are false. He got played to a minor extent but he was probably not screwed more than the average presidential loser electorally.
Granting #1 as written is not justified.
Manipulating the vote count 1-2% at the county level takes a political machine to pull off and protect. Doing so consistently without detection is a tall order, and even if you think you have the local/county/state politics figured out, the Feds can get you.
Furthermore, the place where the incentives are strong (swing states) tend to (by definition) have a mix of partisan power, making it harder to coordinate and conceal such activity. Being in a blue county in a red state would make it a very risky proposition to piss off the majority party’s state prosecutor. And there’s no incentive to run up the vote where it is single-party rule so why risk it?
You can’t look at Tammany Hall and extrapolate to the present.
Plots to manipulate the vote at any scale are very hard and rare, but mistakes and small cases of fraud do happen. 2020, Covid, and mail in ballots were a particularly ripe situation for strange things and mistakes, and for people to be hyper-concerned about it.
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What was Russiagate if not a special project to stop Trump ? What was the election fortification nonsense ?
The rhetoric around Trump was unprecedented. Why'd you expect election interference to be constant if hysteria is being whipped up and the talk is apocalyptic on mainstream media? I remember the elections before that - it was all far milder. Apocalyptic talk about Bush was pretty much a fringe left thing.
And why wouldn't stealing 1-2% of the vote matter? In a close state can handily ensure victory.
I'd say given the levels of fraud by blacks vs whites, it's far more likely electoral fraud happens in very corrupt places rather than suburban ones where someone who is not onboard with the existential fight might to object to it.
Just like with mail-in voting mobilization (going around bugging non-voters to vote and helping them fill out ballots)being easier to do in urban districts, so is fraud.
E.g.: see picture.
/images/17086436476571107.webp
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