but as the first election with widespread mail in voting, it’s certainly reasonable that it wasn’t
This seems to me like it depends on how mail in voting actually works (never mind that this wasn’t the result of any particular plan, it just happened randomly due to COVID, which also explains perfectly well the difference in use of mail vote between Democrats and Republicans).
What I’m interested is where people get these really high priors that elections are sound and fair. Everyone is assuming a base rate of rigging that is so low so as to ignore everything that transpired.
Personally, my priors come from the fact that both sides have an interest in not letting the other rig it, and that there is enough mix of powers and interests throughout the system that I don’t think any actual serious, systematic rigging would go through. Look at actual well known examples of rigged elections and you’ll usually find systems in which the rigging was blatant but still the side doing it got away with it because they could resort to physical violence and held all the relevant keys to power. If one or another jackass in a specific place had someone throw away some voting cards odds are something similar that benefitted the opposite side happened elsewhere. It’s mostly noise. The question is if there was an organised effort to rig it in one specific direction, and if there is evidence of it, and I just don’t see it. Absent which my prior is, as I said, merely “as fair as any other election”, which doesn’t imply perfectly fair, but reasonably enough not to warrant that sort of extreme behaviour, which is far more threatening of democracy if employed lightly.
Bush and Obama governed almost identically, despite the “heated” election between Obama and Romney/McCain. It seems like what we have is essentially a uniparty with two WWE faces for the public, and they execute mostly Kayfabe performances that all lead to the same outcome in the end.
It appeared, from the media reaction to Trump, that the uniparty was actually threatened by him. This is why I think it’s more likely in this election, rather than previous elections, that there was more of an effort to rig on one side than there was on the other.
I do find myself confused: Trump himself seems relatively incompetent, and his first term didn’t seem all that threatening to the establishment (despite the rhetoric). Even with this confusion, though, I still think the difference between Trump and “Republican candidate X” is significant.
Also, I intentionally didn’t refute your point about “as fair as any other election.” I completely understand that idea; no one here is claiming nothing nefarious ever happens, it’s just a matter of degree and impact.
This seems to me like it depends on how mail in voting actually works (never mind that this wasn’t the result of any particular plan, it just happened randomly due to COVID, which also explains perfectly well the difference in use of mail vote between Democrats and Republicans).
Personally, my priors come from the fact that both sides have an interest in not letting the other rig it, and that there is enough mix of powers and interests throughout the system that I don’t think any actual serious, systematic rigging would go through. Look at actual well known examples of rigged elections and you’ll usually find systems in which the rigging was blatant but still the side doing it got away with it because they could resort to physical violence and held all the relevant keys to power. If one or another jackass in a specific place had someone throw away some voting cards odds are something similar that benefitted the opposite side happened elsewhere. It’s mostly noise. The question is if there was an organised effort to rig it in one specific direction, and if there is evidence of it, and I just don’t see it. Absent which my prior is, as I said, merely “as fair as any other election”, which doesn’t imply perfectly fair, but reasonably enough not to warrant that sort of extreme behaviour, which is far more threatening of democracy if employed lightly.
Alright I see one crux here.
Bush and Obama governed almost identically, despite the “heated” election between Obama and Romney/McCain. It seems like what we have is essentially a uniparty with two WWE faces for the public, and they execute mostly Kayfabe performances that all lead to the same outcome in the end.
It appeared, from the media reaction to Trump, that the uniparty was actually threatened by him. This is why I think it’s more likely in this election, rather than previous elections, that there was more of an effort to rig on one side than there was on the other.
I do find myself confused: Trump himself seems relatively incompetent, and his first term didn’t seem all that threatening to the establishment (despite the rhetoric). Even with this confusion, though, I still think the difference between Trump and “Republican candidate X” is significant.
Also, I intentionally didn’t refute your point about “as fair as any other election.” I completely understand that idea; no one here is claiming nothing nefarious ever happens, it’s just a matter of degree and impact.