Rational Debate Challenge Accepted
https://twitter.com/HermesHiccups/status/1333484940822933504https://twitter.com/HermesHiccups/status/1333529844752125953
Twenty Smell Test Things
I was asked to respond to 20 Alleged Election “Facts” That Don’t Pass The Smell Test by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker as presented on ZeroHedge.
1. Biden allegedly got 80 million votes, which is more than Obama received at his peak, in 2008 – and Biden did this despite losing minority voters to Donald Trump and trailing Trump in voter enthusiasm.
2. Biden broke 60 years of precedent by winning nationally despite losing prodigiously in bellwether states and counties. The last time this happened was when the mafia got out the vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960.
3. Trump had extraordinary coattails, so much so that even the New York Times admitted that the “Democrats Suffered Crushing Down-Ballot Losses Across America.” Think about that: Biden had no coattails and no enthusiasm, yet he allegedly won a record number of votes. Smells fetid to me.
4. Biden barely made it through the primaries, while Trump soared, with Trump’s performance being a historically sure sign of voter enthusiasm and probable victory – yet Biden, again, allegedly scored an equally historically strong victory.
5. Trump exceeded his original vote count by the largest margin for any incumbent in American history. He got 10 million more votes than before; by contrast, Obama, in 2012, got 3.5 million fewer votes than in 2008.
6. Trump’s support among blacks grew by 50%, while Biden’s fell below the important 90%-mark that Democrat candidates need to secure victory.
7. In the Rust Belt, Biden lost black support everywhere except in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. In those cities, every single black person apparently voted for Biden.
8. While pollsters can and do manipulate polling outcomes, non-polling metrics (historical norms such as the economy, enthusiasm, etc.) have never been wrong – only we’re being told that this year was the exception.
All of the above claims are mostly one and the same charge. Biden could not have gotten the votes.
Record Turnout
The fact is, a record number of votes – about 65 million – were cast via mail ballot in the 2020 general election.
These numbers were known in advance and we also knew in advance the numbers were overwhelming from Democrats. Trump said vote in person, so Republicans did.
Trump polarized the nation. Trump got the second most votes in history.
Yes, Virginia, it is as simple as that.
Some of the claims are totally nonsensical. For example, take claim number 7 where allegedly every single black person in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee apparently voted for Biden.
When you toss around idiocy like that, you know where the rest of the claims are.
Point number 6 may be accurate. So what? Trump lost suburban women.
Does anyone remember Trump begging suburban women to love him?
Negative Coattails
Trump did not have coattails. In fact it was the reverse.
Trump turned the election into a referendum on himself. He lost.
A huge number of people did not vote for Biden, but rather against Trump. I stated that would happen in advance.
Voters on average were sick of Trump, but were rightfully fearful of what AOC and Warren policies might occur if Democrats won the whole shebang.
This should be crystal clear.
9. The fact that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia simultaneously pretended to halt ballot counting while continuing to count is evidence of election fraud collusion.
10. Optical scanners were set to accept unverified, un-validated ballots.
11. The scanners were almost certainly programmed to fail to keep audit records.
12. In the contested states, the voting machines were alleged to have processed hundreds of thousands of ballots within a short time, which is a physical impossibility.
Points 9-12
emphasis mine
Points 9, 10, 11, and 12 have no evidence. It’s easy to make claims like “almost certainly programmed to fail to keep audit records,” without stating what that even means.
Note the word “alleged” in point 12.
If there were delays in one county and not another, then guess what? A huge dump of votes get reported, not counted, all at once.
Point 9 is absurd. If there was any evidence of fraud collusion between for states, someone would have it.
So we have more charges with zero evidence.
As explained as nauseum by the Georgia Secretary of State, signatures are verified, then the ballots are separated from the envelopes.
There is no way to match signatures to ballots nor should there be, or the state would know how people voted.
How can people not be aware of the construct of a secret ballot. In light of the above what does “programmed to fail to keep an audit” even mean?
The rejection rate was nearly the same in 2020 as 2018.
The icing on the cake is the recount. If the machines were programmed to cheat, then it would have shown up in the manual recount, done by hand.
Since the recount turned up no evidence of tampering, such claims are nonsense.
13. In Pennsylvania, statistically impossible numbers of late-arriving mail-in votes went to Biden.
14. Dominion and ES&S voting machines were created to have back doors and specific functions to manipulate votes either at the machine or over the internet.
15. Fox News’s behavior on election night (refusing to call pro-Trump outcomes while prematurely calling Arizona for Biden) was so abnormal that Vegas oddsmakers instantly assumed that the fix was in.
16. The allegedly late-arriving mailed-in ballots increased Biden’s equally alleged lead with statistically impossible perfection and stability.
17. There were anomalies in Virginia that suggested that computers were subtracting votes from Trump and, sometimes, giving them to Biden.
18. One analysis shows that voting machines in Michigan systematically removed votes from Trump and handed them to Biden. I saw a rebuttal (which I cannot locate now) that purported to debunk this but did so by using a different scale on the X-axis, which I found inherently suspicious.
19. Over 100,000 Pennsylvania absentee ballots were returned either a day after they were mailed out, on the day they were mailed out, or on the day before they were mailed out.
20. In all the contested areas, and at Dominion’s website, Democrats have been systematically failing to create or have destroyed all data that could be used to demonstrate fraud. This creates the legal presumption that the data do, in fact, show fraud.
Statistical Nonsense and Dominion Silliness
I don’t always like salty Nate, but this one is a winner https://t.co/8T7gFMcIDe
— Mixed Signals (@mentalplex) December 1, 2020
1. Cities general lean Democrat
2. Mail-in ballots lean Democrat even normally
3. Democrats have been more cautious about COVID
4. Republicans were flat-out told not to use mail-in ballotsFucking wild that they think a huge D/R ratio in those circumstances is somehow wrong.
— The D-Pad 🍉 @ricdesi.bsky.social (@downrightdpad) December 1, 2020
there has also been a (deliberate or inept) attempt to reconstruct individual batch totals from summary data in the New York Times, an impossible task because it’s rounded to the nearest 0.1%. This creates supposed “anomalies” which are not real: https://t.co/U9k62tVzND
— Leigh Caldwell (@leighblue) December 1, 2020
Once again, the fact is, a record number of votes – about 65 million – were cast via mail ballot (also called absentee voting) in the 2020 general election.
Moreover, and as discussed in advance, absentee votes were counted last explaining the big dump. It was Democrats who voted by mail,. and anyone with an ounce of common sense knew those voted would be overwhelmingly for Biden.
Point 14 is a rehash of a prior point. Once again, if there was was trap door, it would have been caught in the Georgia manual recount.
The claims are so bizarre that even Fox News was supposedly in on it.
All of the links point to clickbait conspiracy sites and other sites that make ridiculous charges over and over.
Smell Test
Something is smelly alright, and it’s claims of fraud with only allegations and no evidence.
Court Fact
Trump’s lawyers when asked point blank by judges if they were making a case for fraud, backed down every time.
Every time.
Court of Public Opinion
If Trump had any real evidence of fraud, he would have presented it in court long ago.
It’s easy to make statistically nonsensical claims and have a set of people believe them.
It’s easy to make claims the machines were rigged.
But where the hell is the proof?
Quite frankly, I expected more out of these 20 claims than a rehash of unproven charges most if not all of which have been thoroughly debunked before.
This bit about Fox News and Las Vegas oddsmakers is truly bizarre. It just goes to show that one idiot making a bizarre claim can attract followers.
Occam’s Razor
Rather than accept the obvious, Trump supporters are willing to believe any combination of stories, no matter how ridiculous.
Fans of Occam’s Razor here is your choice.
- Biden Won
- Trump was robbed by a combination of Dominion theft, a collusion between Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Fox News, vote subtraction in Virginia, statistical impossibilities, late ballots, and a Republican Secretary of State in Georgia gone mad, all of the above without a shred of evidence, and Trump unwilling to tell the court there was any fraud!
Trump Cult Syndrome (TCS)
Let’s conclude with a simple idea.
- If Trump had any real evidence of fraud, he would have presented it in a court of law long ago.
- Because Trump has no shred of evidence, he presents the case in the court of public opinion rather than a court of law.
The claims are so damn bizarre even Fox News and the Wall Street Journal won’t touch them.
This is all very easy to see unless one is blinded by TCS.
Mish
Vociferous claims of a compromised election in 2016 return in 2020, except now the seesaw tilts the other way, politically. Maybe too many people recall the age of Diebold and election ‘issues’ of a generation ago and when one is on the losing side it seems the only way that can happen is by underhanded ways.
One of my favorite Mencken quotes….along with this one:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Also good to keep Ambrose Bierce’s definition of politics in mind…..
“POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
idiots have always been with mankind. nothing new here. just amplified when they have such loud megaphones and one of their own who won the presidency after being a game show host.
Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said the Department of Justice has not uncovered any evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the presidential election—despite unfounded claims from President Donald Trump that the results were rigged. In an interview with the Associated Press, Barr said federal prosecutors and the FBI have been investigating several complaints of mass voter fraud, but have not yet found any evidence to back up those claims. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said. Trump has refused to concede his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, filing several failed lawsuits in multiple battleground states and sending baseless tweets that the election was riddled with fraud.
Last month, Barr issued a directive allowing federal prosecutors to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities. “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Barr said. The attorney general also noted that the DOJ cannot investigate without cause. “Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. They are not systemic allegations. And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”
This doesn’t surprise me. Many people like to portray Barr as Trump’s lackey. He happens to be a man of strong opinions. So far those opinions has aligned with Trump’s opinions, but there is no reason to believe they always will. This seem like a good place for him to part ways, and to stand up for the truth.
There will never be any tangible evidence that any lawyer can get there arms around. But change the fact that so many media outlests pushed the idea that Trump was a -10 point long shot for months, and change the fact that Social Media outlets illegally engaged in censorship that whitewashed the Biden family, and Trump wins, no question. So even IF the “nuts and bolts” election itself is found to be legitimate (no way to ever know for sure), the election PROCESS itself was wildly unfair to Trump and that’s why us TDSers will forever consider this election stolen. Had he lost by 10% margins in all the swing states on election day, we would’t fell this way. The half of the country that feels this way is going to make life very difficult (for everybody) for the next four years because this was complete BS. And before anyone complains about, this is exactly what anti-Trump people did for the last four years – make things extremely difficult and never accept the result.
It fits exactly the propaganda technique known as the firehose of falsehoods
If this is idiocy (and it might be) then clearly it hasn’t been easy to debunk has it, Mish? At least NOT in the eyes of many as shown in the following article. That is my whole thesis. Doesn’t matter what you think, or what I think, or indeed many of the brainless parrots in this echo chamber think. Half of Republicans saying Biden won because of a rigged election is the problem. How is that going to be tackled? Hint, talking down to them, questioning the size of their brain, and taking a higher moral stance won’t cut it. Anyways, not my problem. I’m out of here until after the new presidential term has started. Good luck and happy Christmas. link to uk.reuters.com
50% of the population is dumber than the other half. You’re looking at the bottom 50% in this story.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a new virus that worked based on IQ?
No, it’s easy enough to debunk, but that’s not the problem. Through 4 years of relentless attacks on the media, Trump has driven people to “alternative” news, a gray area where propaganda has as high of standing as fact. So, the the facts may be clear as day, but if half of Republicans have their heads buried in “alternative” news where facts don’t matter, they can remain unaware of the facts, and continue to believe their conspiracy theories
The disinformation age is not a problem that is going to go away. It will take the country many years to recover from the damage Trump has done, if it ever can. In four short years, Trump pushed the country closer to a civil war than it have been in 150 years.
Actually, I’m pleasantly surprised that Reuters thinks it’s only half.
But you’re right, treating 74M like they’re all morons isn’t a good idea. Sure, a disconcertingly large % in any group in the US will just believe whatever makes them feel good. If I’m Biden, there must be some segment of say the hypothetical more open-minded 37M on the other side that is somewhat reasonable and somewhat closer to my value set. I’d focus on what core issues are common to mine and see how I can make progress from there. Start with the commonality.
But the dumbest thing that Biden could do is believe that there’s some mandate for strong progressive issues when he barely won (not electoral votes, the % diff of the swing states) against such a flawed incumbent. Even as a referendum on Trump, the results aren’t particularly strong. Best figure out what to do about it.
.. and the smartest thing that Biden can do is to govern as a Centrist, and try to unite the country. Trump was the great divider. If Biden can be a uniter, he will leave a positive legacy, regardless of whatever else he accomplishes.
Yes, starting with commonalities by nature leads to a more centrist approach. Biden doesn’t have another 4 years in him. Sacrifice for the public good and pick people from both sides who outside of strong core competence might have differing values but are still of decent, not perfect, character who can reason with others.
For instance, I know it won’t happen, but I thought it would be good for Biden to bring back Mattis as Sec. of Defense. There has to be some middle ground besides the US being like a pendulum of stereotypical left / right tribes with just a brief rest at the apex of one extreme before swinging back to the other.
Some posters here love to talk about how the Fed, MIC, corporatism, etc will ruin the US. And I understand the concerns there. But the last 4 years, especially the last 2, make me believe that the biggest existential threat to the US is of the “We have met the enemy, and he is us” kind.
A very large number of people of all types live in a reality of their own creation. Prisoners in their own internal utopia where they’re the hero of some Marvel movie. They seemingly can’t or won’t find common ground and instead want to focus on converting heretics into believers and there’s no amount of evidence or science that can sway them. So, long as they get what they want, it doesn’t matter what happens or how. End justifies the means.
I’m a lot more concerned with the consequences of that environment than anything else.
I grew up in the south and wife is from the midwest. It’s easy to find the idiots everywhere. Even her nurses in California believe Trump won. These are the same people that dont wear masks unless forced to or understand how to spell virus.
Half of Americans are dumb.
Thought you might a little musical number link to youtu.be
Another very good article, Mish. My answers:
I don’t find either of these surprising. I consider Trump a very evil man, and one who needed to go, but I do now support liberal progressive Democrat ideas at all. I was very pleased with the outcome of the election.
Federal rule of civil procedure 9b when you plead fraud it has to be with particularity. That means who, what, when, where, and how.
Thank you for that!
Vegas Odds Makers Are Never Wrong – link to armstrongeconomics.com
Lie will spead half way around the world beore the truth gets its pants on
Are these people even adults? I mean threating people is a crime and this guy is a lawyer. He should be disbarred. I guess you can say “I did not mean it”.
“An attorney for President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts said on Monday that Chris Krebs, the former head of U.S. cybersecurity, should be “shot” for going against the president’s conspiracy theories and declaring the 2020 elections as secure.
“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity,” said Trump campaign lawyer Joe DiGenova, “that guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”
Don’t tell the Tyler Durdens, but Joe DiGenova is really Andy Kaufman playing Tony Clifton playing a lawyer.
This is standard Trumpian strategy, to say something so outrageous that you can claim that it’s not meant literally, but it inspires the crazies in his base.
Krebs was a brave man who told the truth. Truth is not always good for one’s career, but is still important.
Maybe not good for career but good for the soul!
Krebs will have zero problems getting paid a lot of money to do his job. If anything, his actions have made him more credible to the companies that can afford him.
Given the importance to many of the election, I am surprised not to find a detailed description of vote processing sequences anywhere…you know, the ones where you think “but how do I know that…”.
So to invent a scenario, broaden the perception of lack of knowledge… how does anyone know if a few boxes of a thousand or more votes were not simply added to a store-room and the machines programmed as them having been read ? I mean… it’s a lot more Occamish than trying to find ways to sneak them through signature verification or voter presence. That is what audit means, because the recount will match the fraud otherwise , for example.
It’s funny to watch people who have no idea try to prove their point to themselves online, or maybe to each other ? Is that a form of insecurity… it’s not surprising because those who are really going to steal an election are those that are not transparent and deny proper accountability – the very idea that the party one opted for having cheated being “too much to consider” I suppose. How do you say that nowadays in the US … “Sad!” no ?
Obviously it will always be the vaunted winner who is challenged, and the only credible reply to accusation of fraud is to show that the voting system is transparent and fully accountable. To simply say “prove it” falls well short, instead you have to prove that your own presentation is credible. Hint , it isn’t.
This is silly, Anda. The onus should never be on someone to prove a negative. If I accuse you of a crime, the burden is on me to prove my allegation, NOT on you to prove that it’s false. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
There are many philosophical arguments that fall under this umbrella , religion is a good example. It’s always up to the person making the positive claim to convince others. If I tell people that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the only true god and all others are false, it’s up to me to say why, not force everyone else to explain why they shun His noodly appendage!
BS. That’s not how banks deal with additions and subtractions to your account. A lot of systems are set up to positively prove integrity rather than to leave it to chance and evidence. Have you ever had to present a password or MFA to get access? Do you use a key to get into your front door? Many systems require multiple levels of authentication and have real time analysis of audit information. Why not election systems? Why should the US have to make do with an electoral system so inferior to every other country?
If you’re saying that there is no way to verify anything about our voting, that should have been taken care of long ago. It’s spilled milk now. As for the process we have, that’s what these recounts and investigations are for.
Want to know why our system is worse than those in many other countries, why it’s so inefficient? Because we have two horribly corrupt parties that like it this way. We’ve all been willing participants and it sounds more than a tad disingenuous to suddenly cry foul over an unfavorable result.
No. I’m saying a lot can be done without sacrificing the secret ballot. Many other systems show how, especially with modern technology, and many other countries do as well. There are decades of literature on statistical anomalies, fraud convictions, shortcomings, etc., and still it has not been fixed. I thought after the 2000 elections they would fix the system and perhaps even reform the EC system in the constitution or put constitutional guard rails in at the federal level. Nothing happened. In America they always defer to the sanctity of the founding fathers’ wisdom.
No attempt is made to update the constitution, which does happen in other countries from time to time, and judicial verdicts have taken up the slack of failures by Congress to just legislate changes that have occurred since 1776.
In addition, the political culture with the two party duopoly is so stale and lacks any shifts in ongoing dynamics! It’s all deader than dead.
Just pointing out that are two separate issues. Alleging fraud in the 2020 election is different than saying the existing system needs to be overhauled. I agree that US elections seem antiquated compared to some other countries.
“Full transparency” and “secret ballot” are incompatible.
The only way for anyone to truly have a knowledge of a voter’s completed intention is to publicize each voter’s name and ballot.
Ahhh. . . and we have a winner!
Nonsense. A lot more check and controls can be done with one way hashes, counting and comparison of anonymized or pseudonymized information. IT systems do this routinely. The secret ballot is only protected to within practicable limits (you could sample DNA from the ballots, for instance, or have spies with cameras secretly observe/record behavior), and many audit systems could fall within similar practicable limits.
Not true since the invention of blockchain.
It is possible to live in an entirely alternative unverse today via your media choices.
And endless cycle of firing up your synapses in a way you like.
Brain structure…
…liberals have a larger ACC, and conservatives have a larger amygdala…
…The ACC has a variety of functions in the brain, including error detection, conflict monitoring1, and evaluating or weighing different competing choices. It’s also very important for both emotion regulation and cognitive control (often referred to as ‘executive functioning’) — controlling the level of emotional arousal or response to an emotional event (keeping it in check), as to allow your cognitive processes to work most effectively….
…The amygdala is part of the limbic system, the area of the brain associated with emotions. The amygdala is important for formation of emotional memories and learning, such as fear conditioning, as well as memory consolidation. Emotions significantly impact how we process events; when we encounter something and have a strong emotional reaction — either positive or negative — that memory is strengthened…
…In order for a person to embrace a cause or idea, it needs to be meaningful for them. Each type of person has a different way that they assign meaning and relevance to ideas. Let’s take liberals and conservatives, since we are theorizing that they are two distinct thinking styles: liberals would be more flexible and reliant on data, proof, and analytic reasoning, and conservatives are more inflexible (prefer stability), emotion-driven, and connect themselves intimately with their ideas, making those beliefs a crucial part of their identity (we see this in more high-empathy-expressing individuals). This fits in with the whole “family values” platform of the conservative party, and also why we see more religious folks that identify as conservatives, and more skeptics, agnostics, and atheists that are liberal. Religious people are more unshakable in their belief of a higher power, and non-religious people are more open to alternate explanations, i.e., don’t rely on faith alone.
So — for liberals to make a case for an idea or cause, they come armed with data, research studies, and experts. They are convinced of an idea if all the data checks out–basically they assign meaning and value to ideas that fit within the scientific method, because that’s their primary thinking style. Emotion doesn’t play as big of a role in validation. Not to say that liberals are unfeeling, but just more likely to set emotion aside when judging an idea initially, and factor it in later. Checks out scientifically = valuable. Liberals can get just as emotionally attached to an idea, but it’s usually not the primary trigger for acceptance of an idea.
Conservatives would be less likely to assign value primarily using the scientific method. Remember, their thinking style leads primarily with emotion. In order for them to find an idea valuable, it has to be meaningful for them personally. It needs to trigger empathy. Meaning, they need some kind of emotional attachment to it, such as family, or a group of individuals they are close to in some way….
Alternative universe?
You forget that the ground has been prepared by four years of contesting the 2016 election, blaming the Russians for interference, and have all the institutions of the State involved in a massive evidence free hoax. Trump has been called illegitimate for 4 years now.
Surprised that people have gotten the message and changed their expectations and perspective?
I think it’s pretty obvious that most people, whether liberal or conservative, have their false narratives to flog and their flavor of Koolaid to drink. At this moment the conservative Koolaid is spiked with the jet fuel of racism and class hate…..strong medicine, known to induce madness in crowds.
It’s amazing how much things change yet remain the same…the conclusions that people want to make based on this type of research seems to me little better than Phrenology. What I see in liberals is more about putting on the affectation of reason, logic and science rather than really understanding or applying it. It is a secular faith more than anything – conservatives tend to be more involved in organized religion and so look to that for an authority whereas liberals generally tend to reject organized religion and have injected ‘Science’ as a substitute with it’s own priesthood of PhDs. The mantra of ‘believe the science’ is really just a submission to a perceived authority rather than evaluation of the evidence or research.
I agree that this is nothing more than phrenology. Both liberals and conservatives run the spectrum when it comes to emotional v. logical. On the liberal side, you have all the supporters of “free everything” because it sounds appealing. Meanwhile the conservatives who oppose those ideas come armed with data regarding prior times those ideas have failed, and logic.
The bottom line is that some people who you identify as “conservative” aren’t deep thinkers, but there are also people who are very thoughtful and logical who are conservative. Similarly there are thoughtful and logical people who are liberals, as well as people who are liberal who are driven primarily by emotion.
In my opinion, the reason why people are almost all liberal when young, but grow increasingly conservative as they age is precisely the opposite of your argument. The young are driven more by emotion, and thus are liberal. As they age, that emotion becomes tempered with knowledge and experience, so they become more conservative.
Thank you very much for your comment and the link. I read your comment and the article. As a result I am more comfortable with my opposite-sex partner than I was.
I’d say this is completely backwards. It’s the emotional side that gets liberals in trouble (for example spend NOW, don’t worry about the future), and the reason why women find it much harder to be conservative. Now, whether conservatives actually follow through on conservative ideals in office, that’s a whole different story.
Mail in ballots are not absentee ballots. Absentee ballots are specifically for those voters who will not be in state for an election. Semantics maybe but there is a distinction.
Fixed. I was commenting on two ideas but never formed the second one.
The black box of American success strikes again in its most unorthodox manner.
Another Pulitzer prize winning piece.
I can’t believe how many people, brands and organizations willingly destroy years, to a lifetime, of accomplishment and goodwill over the shambolic Trump spectacle. Burning their own houses down to win an unwinnavle argument.
It’s almost like they can’t help themselves.
Trump’s last 4 years fired up voters–for and against.
But Trump’s negatives outweighed Biden’s negatives. Trumps negatives had gained all during his administration.
And Trump’s negatives outweighed GOP legislature candidates negatives.
Biden won, Trump lost.
No Trump or Biden coat-tails.
End of story.
I used to debunk lies in local social media like “Nextdoor” however these lies are like a Hydra, you debunk one lie and three more sprout up to take its place. It is much easier to lie than to take the time to research the facts to debunk the lie. I found that I couldn’t keep up.
I don’t have much confidence in the future of the United States when essentially half the country cannot tell the truth from a lie and Trump lied constantly throughout his entire term. Societies and countries that are built on lies do not last, no matter what the political policy is. One day there will be a fatal dose of reality.
Trump “lied constantly” througout his entire life. Those of us in the NY/NJ area no what a grifter he is for decades now.
He was obviously lying and making ridiculous promises (“. . . and Mexico will pay for the wall!”) constantly during his campaign. He showed everyone during the campaign who he was. People just didn’t understand that . . .
If you elect a clown, expect a circus.
I was thinking of going through the list and responding by item number, but many of these are so stupid and are offered with no support or proof – what would be the point? It’s not like any of the people that believe any of this will change their minds when you ask for proof and they go into their “Hugo Chavez and the lizard people” rant. The only hope now is that there are more people that believe in at least the idea of the democratic principles that our country is supposed to support than those that believe in their new cult leader. This election shows that the cult is strong enough to possibly topple one of the most powerful nations the world has ever seen. A scary prospect, but one that everyone should be preparing for – economically, mentally and physically.
So why not just throw out the voting machines, as have done other OECD countries that want to avoid any doubts, whether well-founded or hypothetical? Many other aspects of how others organize elections are applicable to the US and prevent all of these decades old problems. The US is known as a basket case among international organization that monitor election integrity (not enough controls to audit and monitor). Election integrity and consent of the governed is as much or perhaps more about appearances than actuality. Not having evidence of fraud is a much too low threshold — after all, how much crime is actually reported and solved?
The main problem is that Trump supporters are treating Biden’s election as an existential threat. They can’t admit that Trump had major flaws, just like every other POTUS in our lifetimes. Biden is no communist, he’s a banker friendly, MIC friendly, status quo guy. If you lived through Obama and Bush, you know what to expect from Biden. Trump was pretty much the same as those guys too, in policy if not rhetoric.
Couple this with unreasonable expectations going into the election and you see tens of millions of American adults stomping their feet like petulant children. It’s a collective temper tantrum and it’s not even for a good cause.
I’m OK with a Biden presidency, if that’s who America chose. What I’m not OK with is a no-ID, mail-in election where ballot box stuffing is exponentially easier to pull off, and where ballot harvesting by activist groups is absolutely possible. There will never be a way to prove how much, or how little of that actually took place, and that is problem #1. (BTW everybody over 10 knows that leftist activist groups DO engage in both types of behaviors) The other problem I have is social Media companies blatantly violating the law and acting as censors on Joe Biden’s behalf, effectively doing to the 2020 election what was alleged about the 2016 election. That is a no go in my book. And even if you support Biden 100% you should NEVER be in favor of that kind of censorship because it could happen to “your” team someday. MISH is mad that the discussion won’t move on, but the TDS group is not a small band of looney tunes, and unfortunately for those who can’t tolerate our kind, it’s going to be a very long 4, 14, 40 years, because this election will FOREVER go down as stolen in half the Country’s hearts and minds.
With Trump Occam’s razor doesn’t apply but Hanlon’s razor often does
People are lazy. They simply need to read the court opinions to see how these baseless claims have held up in a court of law. I gave up on zero hedge years ago. It’s not reputable.
Yup, years ago, like 2011 in the wake of the housing bubble, they were reporting on an ongoing apocalypse.
My cost to own at the time was $1000 lower than my cost to rent. So, I bought a house, and the market went up, way up. The ZH people were still reporting apocalypse. I stopped reading the nonsense and never went back.
I learned to say “Just say no” to ZH about 15 years ago.
ZH went off the rails very badly once they embraced the Trump candidacy in 2015-2016. Before that it had a right-wing slant and a taste for conspiracy theory BS….but they published a whole lot of good market information.
I still peruse it, because they still publish some decent content that isn’t anywhere else…..however, that amounts to a drop int he bucket these days.
As I recall, they used to tout that “when silver gets to $x, all the commercials will go broke”, back in the early part of the century. Given that the commercials are hedged, I didn’t see any reason to continue. I largely forgot they even existed until this year.
Even that “drop” most times turns out to be a dropping in the bucket. I’m amazed finvis.com still includes their articles on their Blog list. Zero Hedge started out with such promise before they veered into the neo-Nazi gutter.
I go to the site just to see whats brewing. Anything i read there i dont trust till it gets verified by other sources. I dont bother reading the comments. Like i do here.
This is why we need to send the Dumpy voters to FEMA reëducation camps.
What is the point of spending taxpayer dollars on constructing them if we don’t use them (just paraphrasing Fat Donnie from Queens here)?
Oh boy, the Biden voters better have enough guns and training if they want to go toe to toe in the “Real World”. The Trumpers might not even have to fight, they kinda control the food production. Have you looked at the election map? Blue is cities, Red is where the food comes from.
You might have forgotten about this thing called container ships.
Oh, and farm subsidies.
Occam’s Razor even. Good job, nice to see you’re up on that too
THE PRIMA FACIA EVIDENCE IS TRUMP’S HENCHMEN WILL NOT PUT UP SO MUCH AS ONE FRAUD CLAIM IN COURT. NONE. ZIP. END OF STORY.
Enough, turn off TCS life support machines – they’re wasting valuable electricity!