The likelihood of individual cases of voter fraud in the presidential election is already staggeringly low, as every study of such fraud has borne out. The likelihood of hundreds to thousands of people across multiple states secretly working in concert with one another to rig a presidential election in favor of a single candidate (but somehow not rig the down-ballot elections in favor of that candidate’s party…) is so low that it may as well not exist—especially when considering the multiple checks in the election system in every state, the amount of work that would need to go into rigging an election across numerous states with numerous different ballot designs, and the unthinkable number of people that would be involved in such a plan needing to keep it secret for the rest of their lives.
The most watched over, most audited, and most double-checked presidential election in modern American history (if not all of American history) saw no significant amount of voter fraud, never mind an amount that would have decided the election one way or the other. To insist that there is even a slight chance of that level of fraud existing is to prop up Trump’s election lies. Do you really want to go on record as saying you support the Big Lie? Because so far, that’s what you seem to be doing: supporting even the slightest possibility that the Big Lie isn’t a lie because you want your favorite orange autocrat back in the White House.
It is highly unlikely that there was enough voter fraud to change the outcome.
Because of course you can’t flat-out admit that Dear Leader is lying when he says the election was rigged. You really are a piece of work, you brainwashed Trumpist.
Do you even realize the amount of work that would have to go into a conspiracy to commit mass-scale election fraud in at least four different states and have it go unnoticed? For fuck’s sake, some dude sent in a vote for his dead wife and got caught; you think millions of votes could be changed nationwide and be hidden by the same people who, as you put it, “can’t secure their own servers”? I mean, the amount of people who would need to be in on the conspiracy alone would nullify any chance of the plan ever being hidden forever. When more than one person knows a secret, the chance of that secret being revealed to other people rises in proportion to the number of people who know the secret. Two people might be able to hide a secret for a good long while, maybe even the rest of their lives—but two hundred, two thousand, or two hundred thousand? Yeah, good fucking luck with that.
No one—not state election officials, not handpicked Cyber Ninjas, not the (possibly high on) crack Trump legal team, and not even Donald daughterfucking Trump himself—has uncovered any evidence that even remotely hints at the kind of conspiracy you still believe has a chance of existing. No one has found any proof that the election results were the result of widescale voter fraud in any one state, let alone four different states. No one who believes the election was rigged (including Trump!) has offered any explanation as to why the presidential race was rigged in favor of the Democrats but every down-ballot election wasn’t.
The fact of the matter is that there is no chance—no chance in hell—that the most watched over, most audited, and most double-checked presidential election in modern American history (if not all of American history) saw any significant amount of voter fraud, let alone an amount that would have decided the election one way or the other. To insist that there is even a chance of such fraud existing is to prop up the Big Lie for Old 45.
You cannot believe the 2020 presidential election was free and fair while also believing there is a chance, however small you think it is, that hundreds or even thousands of people secretly worked in concert with one another across the country to defraud the voters of America by rigging said election in favor of Joe Biden. You can only have one or the other—so pick one and stick with it.
The volume of districts that went 51/49 is far larger than the national numbers suggest.
None of those numbers matter because the Electoral College numbers aren’t decided on a district-by-district basis (Maine and Nebraska notwithstanding). They’re decided by a winner-takes-all vote, and Biden won more states than Trump (and had a larger popular vote victory than Hillary Clinton did against Trump). All the key “battleground” states ran recounts and audits where necessary; all of those recounts and audits found no widescale voter fraud—and that includes the ridiculous Cyber Ninjas audit.
It happened. And it could have and should have been reviewed.
And it is being reviewed…when evidence of such cases arise. But as I said: All the recounts and audits in the states what ran them found no evidence of widescale voter fraud. In every presidential election, there is always some miniscule amount of voter fraud—sometimes intentional, sometimes not. But no modern American presidential election has ever seen the kind of voter/electoral fraud that would sway the entire election. You haven’t proven it exists, your Trumpian brethren haven’t proven it exists, and even Trump himself hasn’t proven it exists.
nobody actually looked for it
There were multiple recounts in some states. There was the ridiculous Cyber Ninjas audit, which went in looking for a specific result and came out with the one they didn’t want. There have been enough investigations into any alleged acts of voter fraud—individual cases or mass amounts—that if there is any massive voter fraud waiting to be uncovered, it would’ve been found by now. Or do you actually believe there was a national conspiracy to commit such mass-scale voter fraud in at least four states that Biden would be declared the winner of the election? Because you can maybe argue that numerous such conspiracies could have happened independently of each other in a handful of cities around the country. But arguing that it happened nationally, and was coördinated nationally? That will require an extraordinary argument—one you can’t put forward without sounding like the elderly game show host you simp for on a daily basis.
I don’t.
Every time you cast even a sliver of doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, you’re defending the idea that Trump won—because you’re defending his belief that he won save for all the cheating that hundreds of election officials around the country and his own “expert” legal team couldn’t find after months of searching for it.
Say “there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election” without any other qualifications—and actually mean it. Until you can do that, all you’re doing is defending a rather Big Lie.
My biggest concern was just how unable to watch the watchers were.
Do you really believe they should’ve been able to see every mark, every name, every bit of private information on every single ballot as they were counted? The point of poll watchers is to ensure that ballots are counted fairly and help election officials resolve any issues that arise with either the counters themselves or the legitimacy of a ballot (to which the counters themselves would likely alert a poll watcher). Their job is to be a check in the system, not to be the only check.
My opinion is it was a generally accurate result.
No, it’s a fact backed up by the evidence—none of which says “mass-scale voter fraud tipped the election in favor of a given candidate”. Do you have the evidence that says such a level of fraud did take place? If so, now is the time to produce it. If not, fuck off with trying to act like it exists.
Not with how big of a margin republicans won down ballot.
Here’s a fun question people who claim the vote was “rigged” or “fraudulent” (or simply defend such accusations…) somehow never get around to answering with any semblance of rationality: For what reason were all those ballots allegedly “rigged” in favor of Biden to give him the win in the presidential election, but weren’t rigged in favor of down-ballot Democrats to give them a wider margin in the House and the Senate?
I doubt you’ll have a rational answer to that, too. But that’s just my opinion~.
Seriously, I hope Trump’s lackeys (because you know he has nothing to do with this beyond somehow licensing his name and image to this project) don’t do shit in re: this warning. I want to see those grifting fucks get what’s coming to them.
Maybe the police should be taken down if they can’t do their jobs without violating someone’s civil rights or employing brutal violence for even the smallest offense. Qualified immunity is a shield from consequences—and any defense of QI is a defense of letting cops trample on people…and their civil rights.
I remember a time when a Republican one and the Dems went running to every court to recount and hanging chads and all that.
That situation was laser-focused on a single state at a point in the election where the electoral vote count was so close that the winner of that state would win the election. (The American people didn’t elect George W. Bush to the first term of presidency; the Supreme Court did.)
One with multiple cases of fraud and tampering well documented.
You mean like the case of fraud in Texas that was found to have been committed by a Trump voter—a case that led to an actual $25,000 bounty payout for the person who documented and reported it? Or do you mean one of the other cases where Trump supporters were found to have committed fraud and tampering? Because by and large, it was Trump supporters doing that shit in 2020.
No claim of widescale voter fraud/vote tampering—of a literally election-changing amount of fraud—has yet been proven. No one who has claimed such an amount of fraud took place has been able to back up their bullshit with credible evidence. Even the bullshit Cyber Ninjas audit found that the results went in favor of Biden, just as the actual election results said. (That they fucked up and found more votes for Biden is less proof of fraud and more an indictment of their sloppy-ass auditing methods.)
Keep defending that “but Trump actually won, it’s the Dems who cheated him” bullshit, though. Doing so keeps proving you’re the exact kind of person you keep claiming you’re not.
Maybe he hoped thousands of people chanting outside would be a moment of personal consideration in congress? The thought to pause the process and review the results?
Several states had already done recounts and audits—in some states, multiple recounts took place. By the time January 6th rolled around, the results were all but locked in and any objections were rooted in bullshit beliefs about widescale electoral fraud—beliefs that, when put to the test in courts of law, were found to be wholly displaced from reality. Even with the few objections from Congressional Republicans slated to happen, the results were eventually going to be confirmed.
Donald Trump didn’t want to give up his power. He had already talked—“joked”, if you believe him—about serving more than the two terms he was legally limited to serving. He had been claiming for months that any result not in his favor would be a fraudulent election result, regardless of his lack of evidence that such a thing would—or could—even happen. He literally begged Georgia’s election officials to “find” votes for him that didn’t exist so he could win that state.
And you still think he wanted his followers to be peaceful—even while telling them to march on the Capitol, to “show strength”, to “stop the steal”?
Jesus, I thought tp was delusional…
I’m fairly convinced the election was legitimate.
What doubts could you have left when none of the Trump team’s five dozen lawsuits—including the infamous “Kraken”—ever amounted to anything? What doubts could you have left after multiple states ran audits and recounts that confirmed their election results were, in fact, correct? What doubts could you have left after seeing how no one—not Trump, not Giuliani, and certainly not any Trump supporter in a seat of government power—has ever presented so much as an iota of credible evidence that an election-changing amount of widescale voter fraud took place during the 2020 presidential election?
I don’t doubt that there were instances of voter fraud in the election—some intentional, some not. But enough to change the results of an election where Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—and neither you, Trump, or your fellow Trumpists have produced such evidence. Your doubts are bullshit; your weirdly devoted fandom of Trump is what drives them.
But we don’t know for sure and never will.
Anyone who isn’t a Trump devotee can be reasonably sure—99.9%, I’d say—that there was no widescale, election-changing, democracy-annihilating amount of voter fraud in the most closely watched election in American history.
Did it dawn on you that maybe it was the false sense of subtext that pushed the incompetent idiots to do something other that what was said?
No, it did. But it wasn’t a “false sense of subtext” unless you think Trump is a bumbling buffoon—and everything you’ve ever said to defend him tells me you don’t, won’t, and can’t believe that for even a second.
I found no such call for violence from the president.
Again: That’s what Trump does. He doesn’t need to explicitly call for violence; he needs only make his wishes known, then wait for his followers to do the rest. I mean, why the hell else do you think so many Trumpists still reject COVID safety measures? It’s because Trump rejected and denounced them. That his followers eventually committed violence against others in the name of “freedom” isn’t Trump’s fault…but only because he didn’t directly say “go shoot people who make you wear a mask indoors”.
Trump spent a good chunk of his speech riling up a crowd already furious about the election results. He kept making sure they believed that they were the only line of defense between America and Joe Biden becoming POTUS—that they were the people fighting for the soul of America and democracy—by saying shit like (and this is a direct quote from his January 6th speech), “You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.” He knew that crowd was at a fever pitch of anger and resentment and grievance against Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and any lawmaker who wasn’t willing to prevent “an illegitimate president” from being confirmed as the winner of the 2020 election.
He had all the gunpowder in a barrel. All he needed to do was light the match and watch what happened. Again (and emphasis mine): “You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.” After Mike Pence confirmed to the world that he would do his job and confirm Biden as the election winner on January 6th, what do you think Trump meant when he told his followers that they couldn’t “let that happen”? What do you really think he meant when he said “we will stop the steal”? What the actual fuck do you think he wanted to happen when he told that angry crowd of hundreds-to-thousands of his loyal followers “we're going to have to fight much harder” and “you have to show strength and you have to be strong” and “we have come to demand that Congress do the right thing” and “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules”? Because he sure as shit didn’t want people to go home and write angry letters to their Congressional representatives. And given the accounts of that day, he didn’t seem too upset about all the violence in and around the Capitol.
That you think he wanted peace when all he wanted was power—legitimately obtained or otherwise—says a lot about how willing you are to kiss his ass. Do you have Trump-branded kneepads, by any chance?
some people find things other than what is said. It’s a mental fallacy. A mental failure.
Your inability to understand context, subtext, and the concept of “dogwhistles” in speech is a mental failure. Those things exist; that you can’t grasp how they work is your problem, you undereducated conservative whackjob.
Keep telling yourself that; maybe one day, it might even be true.
I’m a libertarian. With strong liberal leanings and a few conservative beliefs.
…says the guy who fetishizes property rights, thinks a flat tax is a good idea, openly wishes for the deaths of others, and voted for Donald Trump. You’ve far more in common with conservatives than you do with liberals—you’re just too afraid to admit it.
The following are quotes from Donald Trump himself; they come from his speech on the 6th of January, just before the insurrection:
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal.
We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.
We're gathered together in the heart of our nation's capital for one very, very basic and simple reason: To save our democracy.
You're stronger, you're smarter, you've got more going than anybody. And they try and demean everybody having to do with us. And you're the real people, you're the people that built this nation. You're not the people that tore down our nation.
Republicans are, Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It's like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we're going to have to fight much harder.
[Y]ou'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we've been forced to believe.
You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.
The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless and it's time that somebody did something about it.
The Republicans have to get tougher. You're not going to have a Republican Party if you don't get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so, sir, yes, the United States. The Constitution doesn't allow me to send them back to the States. Well, I say, yes it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can't vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.
We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again.
The Democrats are hopeless—they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
Now, I’m sure you want to mention all the times he brought up marching peacefully and whatnot. Don’t bother; I’ve skimmed enough of the transcript to know those parts exist. Instead, I want you to read each of those quotes, and notice some of the verbs/verbal phrases he uses: “stop”, “save”, “fight”, “take back”, “get tougher”, “show strength”, “protect”. Then look at the overall gist of those quotes: “we’re fighting to stop the steal”, “we have to get tougher on the fraudsters”, “we’re here to save democracy”, “we need to do something about this”.
He isn’t explicitly calling for violence, no. But between his planting the idea that his “patriots” must stop the steal by showing strength and doing “something” about the Democrats/“weak Republicans” to save the country, his talking for months about how the election would be fraudulent (but only if he lost), and his continual(ly rebuked) efforts to overturn an election he lost both electorally and popularly, those quotes—his words—become a form of his mob boss–esque stochastic terrorism. He didn’t need to directly call for violence; all he needed to do is make his wishes known and let his followers do the rest.
And he wasn’t the only one doing it that day, too. To wit (and emphasis is mine):
Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. Let’s have trial by combat. [Rudy Giuliani]
This has been a year in which they have invaded our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion, our freedom to move, our freedom to live. I’ll be darned if they’re going to take away our free and fair vote. And we’re going to fight to the very end to make sure that doesn’t happen. [Rudy Giuliani]
These guys better fight for Trump. Because if they’re not, guess what? I’m going to be in your backyard in a couple of months! [Donald Trump Jr.]
But let’s be clear, regardless of today’s outcome, the 2022 and 2024 elections are right around the corner, and America does not need and cannot stand, cannot tolerate any more weakling, cowering, wimpy Republican congressmen and senators who covet the power and the prestige the swamp has to offer, while groveling at the feet and the knees of the special interest group masters. As such, today is important in another way, today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. [Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)]
Americans will stand up for themselves and protect their rights, and they will demand that the politicians that we elect will uphold those rights, or we will go after them. [Katrina Pierson]
He has more fight in him than every other one combined, and they need to stand up and we need to march on the Capitol today. And we need to stand up for this country and stand up for what’s right. [Eric Trump]
There is a significant portion of our party that says we should just sit idly by and sit on our hands. They have no backbone. [Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC)]
Subtext and dogwhistles are about understanding language—both how it’s used and how it can be coded to mean more than it says. Let’s look at one of those quotes from Donald Trump on the 6th of January to see what I mean:
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal.
“Our country”: Not “the country”, but “our country”—a country in which he and his supporters are the rightful ruling class, the people that “own” the right to govern. To American conservatives, Republican rule is the default under which we should all live and Democratic governance is the outlier, the exception, the fuck-up.
“We will not take it anymore”: “It” can mean whatever he wants that pronoun to mean, but in this case, he is referring to, essentially, “Democrat fuckery”; in that context, he is saying that conservatives will no longer accept Democrat fuckery (i.e., Democrats winning free and fair elections).
“We will stop the steal”: Well, what the hell else could he and his followers do to “stop the steal” when the election results were already in the process of being certified?
Rhetoric like Trump’s doesn’t need to explicitly call for violence when subtext and dogwhistles can do the job for him. He doesn’t need to say “kill Mike Pence”; he needs only to say “if Pence doesn’t do the right thing, we’re all that’s left to stop the steal” and let his followers come to a conclusion that was suggested by his own rhetoric. Again: It’s a mob boss tactic that keeps him away from direct liability for the actions of those he (knows he and his fellow speakers) incited. After all, a mob boss doesn’t need to say “whack this guy” for his goons to know what he wants and whack that guy anyway.
Take a bunch of people who have been manipulated for months by right-wing media and Donald Trump into believing the election would be/was stolen. Tell them that the literal last line of defense against the stolen election is a Vice President who has already confirmed he will carry out the duty of his office (i.e., confirm Joe Biden as the President-elect). Rile up that crowd even more by referring to them as true patriots, telling them to toughen up and “show strength”, accusing those who refuse to “fight” for Trump of cowardice and weakness, and implying that those who do want to fight for Trump are now the only people can save American democracy itself. What do you get when you metaphorically put all that gunpowder into a keg and light a match—when you get a crowd that angry and point them in the “right” direction?
On the post: Trump's Broken Social Media Venture Is Valued At Billions Of Dollars And Its Breaking Experts' Brains
Sorry, brother, but that shit was said in jest, dude. It don’t mean jack, Jack.
On the post: Chicago Court Gets Its Prior Restraint On, Tells Police Union Head To STFU About City's Vaccine Mandate
Yes, you can. You simply refuse to do so.
The likelihood of individual cases of voter fraud in the presidential election is already staggeringly low, as every study of such fraud has borne out. The likelihood of hundreds to thousands of people across multiple states secretly working in concert with one another to rig a presidential election in favor of a single candidate (but somehow not rig the down-ballot elections in favor of that candidate’s party…) is so low that it may as well not exist—especially when considering the multiple checks in the election system in every state, the amount of work that would need to go into rigging an election across numerous states with numerous different ballot designs, and the unthinkable number of people that would be involved in such a plan needing to keep it secret for the rest of their lives.
The most watched over, most audited, and most double-checked presidential election in modern American history (if not all of American history) saw no significant amount of voter fraud, never mind an amount that would have decided the election one way or the other. To insist that there is even a slight chance of that level of fraud existing is to prop up Trump’s election lies. Do you really want to go on record as saying you support the Big Lie? Because so far, that’s what you seem to be doing: supporting even the slightest possibility that the Big Lie isn’t a lie because you want your favorite orange autocrat back in the White House.
On the post: Trump's Broken Social Media Venture Is Valued At Billions Of Dollars And Its Breaking Experts' Brains
But that’s putting that cash in the hands of more powerful idiots who still have the ability to do lots of damage.
Not really a good tradeoff there.
On the post: Chicago Court Gets Its Prior Restraint On, Tells Police Union Head To STFU About City's Vaccine Mandate
Because of course you can’t flat-out admit that Dear Leader is lying when he says the election was rigged. You really are a piece of work, you brainwashed Trumpist.
Do you even realize the amount of work that would have to go into a conspiracy to commit mass-scale election fraud in at least four different states and have it go unnoticed? For fuck’s sake, some dude sent in a vote for his dead wife and got caught; you think millions of votes could be changed nationwide and be hidden by the same people who, as you put it, “can’t secure their own servers”? I mean, the amount of people who would need to be in on the conspiracy alone would nullify any chance of the plan ever being hidden forever. When more than one person knows a secret, the chance of that secret being revealed to other people rises in proportion to the number of people who know the secret. Two people might be able to hide a secret for a good long while, maybe even the rest of their lives—but two hundred, two thousand, or two hundred thousand? Yeah, good fucking luck with that.
No one—not state election officials, not handpicked Cyber Ninjas, not the (possibly high on) crack Trump legal team, and not even Donald daughterfucking Trump himself—has uncovered any evidence that even remotely hints at the kind of conspiracy you still believe has a chance of existing. No one has found any proof that the election results were the result of widescale voter fraud in any one state, let alone four different states. No one who believes the election was rigged (including Trump!) has offered any explanation as to why the presidential race was rigged in favor of the Democrats but every down-ballot election wasn’t.
The fact of the matter is that there is no chance—no chance in hell—that the most watched over, most audited, and most double-checked presidential election in modern American history (if not all of American history) saw any significant amount of voter fraud, let alone an amount that would have decided the election one way or the other. To insist that there is even a chance of such fraud existing is to prop up the Big Lie for Old 45.
You cannot believe the 2020 presidential election was free and fair while also believing there is a chance, however small you think it is, that hundreds or even thousands of people secretly worked in concert with one another across the country to defraud the voters of America by rigging said election in favor of Joe Biden. You can only have one or the other—so pick one and stick with it.
On the post: Trump's Broken Social Media Venture Is Valued At Billions Of Dollars And Its Breaking Experts' Brains
Well, then, someone has to take a stand against the evil Democrats—it won’t help to hide when things are this far gone.
On the post: Trump's Broken Social Media Venture Is Valued At Billions Of Dollars And Its Breaking Experts' Brains
And when it does, a lot of people are certainly going to be hurting inside.
On the post: Trump Given 30 Days To Have His Social Media Site Comply With Open Source License
…says someone who probably still has a hateboner for Hillary Clinton.
On the post: Chicago Court Gets Its Prior Restraint On, Tells Police Union Head To STFU About City's Vaccine Mandate
None of those numbers matter because the Electoral College numbers aren’t decided on a district-by-district basis (Maine and Nebraska notwithstanding). They’re decided by a winner-takes-all vote, and Biden won more states than Trump (and had a larger popular vote victory than Hillary Clinton did against Trump). All the key “battleground” states ran recounts and audits where necessary; all of those recounts and audits found no widescale voter fraud—and that includes the ridiculous Cyber Ninjas audit.
And it is being reviewed…when evidence of such cases arise. But as I said: All the recounts and audits in the states what ran them found no evidence of widescale voter fraud. In every presidential election, there is always some miniscule amount of voter fraud—sometimes intentional, sometimes not. But no modern American presidential election has ever seen the kind of voter/electoral fraud that would sway the entire election. You haven’t proven it exists, your Trumpian brethren haven’t proven it exists, and even Trump himself hasn’t proven it exists.
There were multiple recounts in some states. There was the ridiculous Cyber Ninjas audit, which went in looking for a specific result and came out with the one they didn’t want. There have been enough investigations into any alleged acts of voter fraud—individual cases or mass amounts—that if there is any massive voter fraud waiting to be uncovered, it would’ve been found by now. Or do you actually believe there was a national conspiracy to commit such mass-scale voter fraud in at least four states that Biden would be declared the winner of the election? Because you can maybe argue that numerous such conspiracies could have happened independently of each other in a handful of cities around the country. But arguing that it happened nationally, and was coördinated nationally? That will require an extraordinary argument—one you can’t put forward without sounding like the elderly game show host you simp for on a daily basis.
Every time you cast even a sliver of doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, you’re defending the idea that Trump won—because you’re defending his belief that he won save for all the cheating that hundreds of election officials around the country and his own “expert” legal team couldn’t find after months of searching for it.
Say “there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election” without any other qualifications—and actually mean it. Until you can do that, all you’re doing is defending a rather Big Lie.
Do you really believe they should’ve been able to see every mark, every name, every bit of private information on every single ballot as they were counted? The point of poll watchers is to ensure that ballots are counted fairly and help election officials resolve any issues that arise with either the counters themselves or the legitimacy of a ballot (to which the counters themselves would likely alert a poll watcher). Their job is to be a check in the system, not to be the only check.
No, it’s a fact backed up by the evidence—none of which says “mass-scale voter fraud tipped the election in favor of a given candidate”. Do you have the evidence that says such a level of fraud did take place? If so, now is the time to produce it. If not, fuck off with trying to act like it exists.
Here’s a fun question people who claim the vote was “rigged” or “fraudulent” (or simply defend such accusations…) somehow never get around to answering with any semblance of rationality: For what reason were all those ballots allegedly “rigged” in favor of Biden to give him the win in the presidential election, but weren’t rigged in favor of down-ballot Democrats to give them a wider margin in the House and the Senate?
I doubt you’ll have a rational answer to that, too. But that’s just my opinion~.
On the post: Trump Given 30 Days To Have His Social Media Site Comply With Open Source License
C’mon, consequences! Let’s go, consequences!
Seriously, I hope Trump’s lackeys (because you know he has nothing to do with this beyond somehow licensing his name and image to this project) don’t do shit in re: this warning. I want to see those grifting fucks get what’s coming to them.
On the post: After Taking A Couple Of Steps Towards Trimming Back Qualified Immunity, The Supreme Court Regresses To The Mean
Maybe the police should be taken down if they can’t do their jobs without violating someone’s civil rights or employing brutal violence for even the smallest offense. Qualified immunity is a shield from consequences—and any defense of QI is a defense of letting cops trample on people…and their civil rights.
On the post: Chicago Court Gets Its Prior Restraint On, Tells Police Union Head To STFU About City's Vaccine Mandate
Libertarians are conservatives who smoke pot.
On the post: Chicago Court Gets Its Prior Restraint On, Tells Police Union Head To STFU About City's Vaccine Mandate
That situation was laser-focused on a single state at a point in the election where the electoral vote count was so close that the winner of that state would win the election. (The American people didn’t elect George W. Bush to the first term of presidency; the Supreme Court did.)
Compare the results of the 2000 election with the results of the 2020 election, then tell me the 2020 election was closer. You’ll be a liar, but at least you’ll be consistent in that regard.
You mean like the case of fraud in Texas that was found to have been committed by a Trump voter—a case that led to an actual $25,000 bounty payout for the person who documented and reported it? Or do you mean one of the other cases where Trump supporters were found to have committed fraud and tampering? Because by and large, it was Trump supporters doing that shit in 2020.
No claim of widescale voter fraud/vote tampering—of a literally election-changing amount of fraud—has yet been proven. No one who has claimed such an amount of fraud took place has been able to back up their bullshit with credible evidence. Even the bullshit Cyber Ninjas audit found that the results went in favor of Biden, just as the actual election results said. (That they fucked up and found more votes for Biden is less proof of fraud and more an indictment of their sloppy-ass auditing methods.)
Keep defending that “but Trump actually won, it’s the Dems who cheated him” bullshit, though. Doing so keeps proving you’re the exact kind of person you keep claiming you’re not.
Several states had already done recounts and audits—in some states, multiple recounts took place. By the time January 6th rolled around, the results were all but locked in and any objections were rooted in bullshit beliefs about widescale electoral fraud—beliefs that, when put to the test in courts of law, were found to be wholly displaced from reality. Even with the few objections from Congressional Republicans slated to happen, the results were eventually going to be confirmed.
Donald Trump didn’t want to give up his power. He had already talked—“joked”, if you believe him—about serving more than the two terms he was legally limited to serving. He had been claiming for months that any result not in his favor would be a fraudulent election result, regardless of his lack of evidence that such a thing would—or could—even happen. He literally begged Georgia’s election officials to “find” votes for him that didn’t exist so he could win that state.
And you still think he wanted his followers to be peaceful—even while telling them to march on the Capitol, to “show strength”, to “stop the steal”?
Jesus, I thought tp was delusional…
What doubts could you have left when none of the Trump team’s five dozen lawsuits—including the infamous “Kraken”—ever amounted to anything? What doubts could you have left after multiple states ran audits and recounts that confirmed their election results were, in fact, correct? What doubts could you have left after seeing how no one—not Trump, not Giuliani, and certainly not any Trump supporter in a seat of government power—has ever presented so much as an iota of credible evidence that an election-changing amount of widescale voter fraud took place during the 2020 presidential election?
I don’t doubt that there were instances of voter fraud in the election—some intentional, some not. But enough to change the results of an election where Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—and neither you, Trump, or your fellow Trumpists have produced such evidence. Your doubts are bullshit; your weirdly devoted fandom of Trump is what drives them.
Anyone who isn’t a Trump devotee can be reasonably sure—99.9%, I’d say—that there was no widescale, election-changing, democracy-annihilating amount of voter fraud in the most closely watched election in American history.
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No, it did. But it wasn’t a “false sense of subtext” unless you think Trump is a bumbling buffoon—and everything you’ve ever said to defend him tells me you don’t, won’t, and can’t believe that for even a second.
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Space-X sends actual people to actual space.
Please seek help for your early onset dementia.
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Oh, and one more thing:
Again: That’s what Trump does. He doesn’t need to explicitly call for violence; he needs only make his wishes known, then wait for his followers to do the rest. I mean, why the hell else do you think so many Trumpists still reject COVID safety measures? It’s because Trump rejected and denounced them. That his followers eventually committed violence against others in the name of “freedom” isn’t Trump’s fault…but only because he didn’t directly say “go shoot people who make you wear a mask indoors”.
Trump spent a good chunk of his speech riling up a crowd already furious about the election results. He kept making sure they believed that they were the only line of defense between America and Joe Biden becoming POTUS—that they were the people fighting for the soul of America and democracy—by saying shit like (and this is a direct quote from his January 6th speech), “You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.” He knew that crowd was at a fever pitch of anger and resentment and grievance against Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and any lawmaker who wasn’t willing to prevent “an illegitimate president” from being confirmed as the winner of the 2020 election.
He had all the gunpowder in a barrel. All he needed to do was light the match and watch what happened. Again (and emphasis mine): “You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.” After Mike Pence confirmed to the world that he would do his job and confirm Biden as the election winner on January 6th, what do you think Trump meant when he told his followers that they couldn’t “let that happen”? What do you really think he meant when he said “we will stop the steal”? What the actual fuck do you think he wanted to happen when he told that angry crowd of hundreds-to-thousands of his loyal followers “we're going to have to fight much harder” and “you have to show strength and you have to be strong” and “we have come to demand that Congress do the right thing” and “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules”? Because he sure as shit didn’t want people to go home and write angry letters to their Congressional representatives. And given the accounts of that day, he didn’t seem too upset about all the violence in and around the Capitol.
That you think he wanted peace when all he wanted was power—legitimately obtained or otherwise—says a lot about how willing you are to kiss his ass. Do you have Trump-branded kneepads, by any chance?
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Your inability to understand context, subtext, and the concept of “dogwhistles” in speech is a mental failure. Those things exist; that you can’t grasp how they work is your problem, you undereducated conservative whackjob.
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Please seek help for your early onset dementia.
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That isn’t a real rocket, nobody wants your software, and you need professional medical help.
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Keep telling yourself that; maybe one day, it might even be true.
…says the guy who fetishizes property rights, thinks a flat tax is a good idea, openly wishes for the deaths of others, and voted for Donald Trump. You’ve far more in common with conservatives than you do with liberals—you’re just too afraid to admit it.
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>"Peacefully" full stop
The following are quotes from Donald Trump himself; they come from his speech on the 6th of January, just before the insurrection:
Now, I’m sure you want to mention all the times he brought up marching peacefully and whatnot. Don’t bother; I’ve skimmed enough of the transcript to know those parts exist. Instead, I want you to read each of those quotes, and notice some of the verbs/verbal phrases he uses: “stop”, “save”, “fight”, “take back”, “get tougher”, “show strength”, “protect”. Then look at the overall gist of those quotes: “we’re fighting to stop the steal”, “we have to get tougher on the fraudsters”, “we’re here to save democracy”, “we need to do something about this”.
He isn’t explicitly calling for violence, no. But between his planting the idea that his “patriots” must stop the steal by showing strength and doing “something” about the Democrats/“weak Republicans” to save the country, his talking for months about how the election would be fraudulent (but only if he lost), and his continual(ly rebuked) efforts to overturn an election he lost both electorally and popularly, those quotes—his words—become a form of his mob boss–esque stochastic terrorism. He didn’t need to directly call for violence; all he needed to do is make his wishes known and let his followers do the rest.
And he wasn’t the only one doing it that day, too. To wit (and emphasis is mine):
Subtext and dogwhistles are about understanding language—both how it’s used and how it can be coded to mean more than it says. Let’s look at one of those quotes from Donald Trump on the 6th of January to see what I mean:
“Our country”: Not “the country”, but “our country”—a country in which he and his supporters are the rightful ruling class, the people that “own” the right to govern. To American conservatives, Republican rule is the default under which we should all live and Democratic governance is the outlier, the exception, the fuck-up.
“We will not take it anymore”: “It” can mean whatever he wants that pronoun to mean, but in this case, he is referring to, essentially, “Democrat fuckery”; in that context, he is saying that conservatives will no longer accept Democrat fuckery (i.e., Democrats winning free and fair elections).
Rhetoric like Trump’s doesn’t need to explicitly call for violence when subtext and dogwhistles can do the job for him. He doesn’t need to say “kill Mike Pence”; he needs only to say “if Pence doesn’t do the right thing, we’re all that’s left to stop the steal” and let his followers come to a conclusion that was suggested by his own rhetoric. Again: It’s a mob boss tactic that keeps him away from direct liability for the actions of those he (knows he and his fellow speakers) incited. After all, a mob boss doesn’t need to say “whack this guy” for his goons to know what he wants and whack that guy anyway.
Take a bunch of people who have been manipulated for months by right-wing media and Donald Trump into believing the election would be/was stolen. Tell them that the literal last line of defense against the stolen election is a Vice President who has already confirmed he will carry out the duty of his office (i.e., confirm Joe Biden as the President-elect). Rile up that crowd even more by referring to them as true patriots, telling them to toughen up and “show strength”, accusing those who refuse to “fight” for Trump of cowardice and weakness, and implying that those who do want to fight for Trump are now the only people can save American democracy itself. What do you get when you metaphorically put all that gunpowder into a keg and light a match—when you get a crowd that angry and point them in the “right” direction?
You get an insurrection.
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