They certainly looked suspicious enough in some cases that they should have been investigated.
Yes, I also think it’s important to investigate those things. And the US government agrees, which is why they investigated them. But they didn’t find much, because the election wasn’t stolen.
I think that many of the actions by the Democrats were done in the way they were because they didn’t know whether or not there was rampant cheating causing these anomalies and didn’t want to know, and that Republicans were far too sure about what they think happened based off weird and unclear evidence.
I don’t really agree with this framing, it’s not about Democrats vs Republicans. The ones who were claiming the election was stolen were Trump and his associates, not general Republicans. Mike Pence is a republican, and he didn’t say that the election was stolen. William Barr, the trump appointed republican attorney general, said the FBI and Justice Department investigations found no evidence of large scale voter fraud. It was investigated, but nothing was found, because the election wasn’t stolen. Just because some people lied about voter fraud, like Rudy Giuliani, doesn’t mean it’s okay to overturn the election.
But what did Trump do when the FBI and Justice Department didn’t find any evidence? He asked the DOJ to lie, say that the election was rigged, without evidence. And when they didn’t he threatened to fire them.
I think you’re getting a little lost in the weeds trying to interpret the legal schemes. If he managed to overturn the election in a way that is technically legal, would that be good? And if he attempted to overturn the election in an illegal way, would that be bad? It seems like you value the law, and that’s good to do. But Trump doesn’t value the law, and thinks it would be good if he overturned the election even if was done in an illegal way. He doesn’t care about the law. Does this not worry you?
I’m a centrist (and also agnostic in regards to religion religion) in part because I believe there are a lot of things I/we don’t/can’t know and shouldn’t be overconfident in, ideologically, factually, and interpretationally. I don’t know what Trump actually thinks, and neither do you, but we seem to disagree strongly on it anyway. I don’t want to try to read your mind, but that part is at least very obvious. (I do have some very confident ideological, factual, and interpretational beliefs, but believe they shouldn’t be overly relied upon in these matters.)
I also tend to keep in mind that I can be wrong (I am also keeping that in mind here), which is how I ended up believing Trump was worth voting for in the first place. (As stated originally, I actually had an extreme personal distaste for him for decades that sounds much like how people accusing him of being, but I paid attention and changed my mind later. Obviously, I could have been right originally and be wrong now, that definitely happens.)
To me, you seem overconfident about what happened in the election, and your sources seem highly partisan (not that I know of any sources on this matter that I think aren’t partisan). Neither of which actually mean you are wrong. I do think it is very important that there is genuine doubt, because then you can’t simply assume those on the other side are operating in an objectionable way because they are opposing you. (Of course I would think you overconfident since I am hedging so much of what I am saying here.) I generally find it hard to know how accurate specific political reporting is, but it seems generally very low. Politics bring out the worst in a lot of people, and heightened reactions in most of us (me included, though I try to damp it down).
There is always vote fraud and cheating, but what is the definition of ‘large scale’ such that you know for sure it didn’t happen? States have in fact found cheating in small but significant amounts (as well as large scale rule changes outside the regular order), but what percentage of it would be actually discoverable without extensive investigation, and how much even with? William Barr saying that he had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” hardly means they found everything, and crucially, is very different than saying that it wasn’t large scale by at least one reasonable definition.
Hypothetical: If someone was counted to have won a state that decided the election by 100,000 votes, and Barr could have proven that 40,000 were switched (meaning current count is winning by 20k), what would that mean for your statement? What would that mean for Barr’s? I think that would prove you wrong (about no large scale cheating), but Barr’s statement would still be true (I would still consider it lying though).
Additional hypothetical: Suppose that three states too small to change the election were given to Biden due to cheating, but it could be proven that Trump had won all of them? That would be large scale cheating that changed nothing about the result, and again, Barr’s words would not technically be untrue. Suppose then that there was a fourth small state that would tip it where there was enough cheating to actually change the overall result, but this can’t be proven?
Note that neither of those hypotheticals is meant to be close to accurate, they are meant to show the uncertainty. For clarity, I believe that there is not strong enough evidence to say there was sufficient cheating to change results, and we should default to assuming there wasn’t, but that is only because our elections usually aren’t fixed, and in certain other places and times the opposite should be assumed. I believe that Biden most likely won in an election close enough to fair, just that people coming to the opposite conclusion are usually operating in good faith including the subject of this matter. (I do not assume good faith in general, it just seems that way here.)
I can find places claiming that there is literally nothing, and others claiming to have found dozens of issues that could possibly count as ‘large scale’ cheating depending on the definition (not all involving the Democrats, and many not involving directly changing the votes). Neither side actually seems especially credible to me, but instead obvious partisanship is deciding things.
I probably should have clarified the split as establishment vs populist. I think that I can speak of Democrats without implying that it is an exact midline Republican / Democrat split when referencing something known to be a minority viewpoint, but I really should have been more clear that I was speaking of a portion of the Republicans rather than all of them (I do think it is a very large portion of the Republicans, but more so the base and more populist/Trump camp politicians rather than the established politicians). I was saying that I think the politicians among the Democrats (enough of them to control Dem policy, far from all of them) had specific motives (their being unsure whether or not their local members cheated) for their actions in and reactions to the issue that consisted largely of vehement denial of the possibility regardless of the evidence (and wanting to prosecute people for talking about it or taking legal steps that are required for disputing the election!), and that many Republicans overindex on very questionable evidence to say with equal certainty that it did happen.
People often would like to cover up things when they don’t know exactly what happened but it looks bad (or even if it just might cause a scandal, even if it could be proven to be fine), and I can’t possibly agree with anyone who thinks that Democrats in general didn’t at least consider that when deciding on how they would react to the evidence.
The split between establishment and populist Republicans is very large in recent years, starting noticeably before 2016 and largely leading to Trump’s faction even existing, which then movef the party further toward populist. The establishment and populists do not share the same reaction to the evidence in 2020, among other things, and I should have been more careful.
You assume that the US government didn’t find much, but a number of people would just as confidently state that much of the government just chose not to look, and others that things were in fact found. Many of the investigations would have been state and local governments if they’d happened, and in many of the places the local leaders were Democrats who had every incentive not to look (which is part of why people were suspicious of how things turned out there, and this is true even if the local Democrat leaders were perfectly upright and moral people who would never act badly as long as we don’t know that). Trump and company brought many court cases after the election but before inauguration that were thrown out due to things that had nothing to do with the merits of the evidence (things like standing, or timeliness); there may have been some decided on actual evidence, but I am unaware of them.
Many populists have seen the DOJ and FBI as enemies due to past discrimination against populist causes, and that is generalizing too much, but they also don’t seem very competent when performing duties they don’t care for (which is normal enough). It is hard for many people to know whether or not the FBI and DOJ can be relied on for such things. (See also the recent failures of previously considered competent federal agencies like the Secret Service).
You are interpreting things the way that most benefits your point, but without regard to other reasonable interpretations. The meaning of pretty much everything Trump camp did is debatable, and simply believing one side’s talking points is hardly fair. I genuinely think that both sides believe they were on the side of righteousness and standing up against the dastardly deeds of the other side.
Also, the cnbc article is largely bare assertions, by a known hyper partisan outfit (according to me, which is the only authority I have to go on). Why should I believe them? (Yes, this can make it difficult to know what happened, which was my claim.) The other side has just as many bare assertions in the opposite direction.
Hypothetical where no one thinks they are doing anything even the slightest bit questionable (which I think is reasonably likely): Trump camp viewpoint: This bastard repeatedly refuses to do his job* and protect the election from rampant cheating. I should force him to do his job. (This is a reasonable viewpoint.) People keep telling me to remove them for refusing to do their jobs. I don’t think I should (because this is not the only important thing). How about I ask them more about what’s going on and trying to get through to them?
Other viewpoint: Here I am doing my job, and someone keeps telling me to say <specific thing>. They’re obviously wrong, and I have said so many times*, so they must be telling me to lie. (And their statement that he was asking them to lie would not seem false to them, but in this scenario is completely false.)
*This is the same event.
In fact, the video testimony included with the article itself sounds exactly like my innocent hypotheticals rather than other parts, while the cnbc commentary in the video is obviously making up and extremely overconfident partisan interpretations (which makes their article’s bare assertions even less believable since they really are hyper partisan).
I don’t really care about Giuliani, but the Giuliani article is extremely bad form since the bbc’s summary of his ‘concession’ is not a good summary. It says only that he will not fight specific points in court ‘nolo contendre’, it is not an admission to lying.
You mention that I value Law and Order, which is true. It isn’t actually natural to me, but over the years I have come to believe it is very important to the proper functioning of society, and as bad as some parts of society look, our society actually works quite well overall so we do need to support our current law. This includes parts that aren’t used often, but I have much less confidence in them. The parts Trump wanted to use do seem irregular, but he did seem to be trying to use actual laws (sometimes incorrectly).
To bring up something I think you mentioned earlier, I would be pretty unhappy about an election decided by ‘contingent election’ for instance, but still think it appropriate to use one under the right circumstances (which I don’t think these are even under the Trumpian interpretation of cheating in the elections). I would also be unhappy about an election where the state legislatures changed who the electors are in a meaningful way, even though I believe they clearly have the right to. There would have to be vastly more evidence for me to think that the legislatures should act in such a manner, but I don’t think it is necessarily disqualifying as a candidate for Trump to think they should.
Would it be good if he stole the election legally? Obviously not. Would it be good if he protected the election legally? Obviously yes. Would it be good if he protected the election illegally? Eh, I don’t know? It depends?
Does Trump value law and order? I think he values law (with moderate confidence). Whenever I hear the words of people directly involved, it sounds to me like he told them to do everything in the legal way, and that the process he advocated was something he believed legal. He doesn’t seem interested in breaking laws, but in using them for his purposes. Does he believe in order? I’m not convinced either way. He certainly doesn’t believe in many parts of how things tend to be done (to an extent that it is odd he is the leader of the conservative party), but is his plan for the world following some sort of consistent internal logic worthy of being considered orderly? I don’t know.
Obviously if I had similar interpretations as you do about all of these things I would be much more concerned. I just don’t. Of course, I very much want you to be wrong, so that there is little to worry about.
I don’t know if it is confirmation bias or legitimate, but the more carefully I go through things, the more it seems like Team Trump really was just trying to do what they were supposed to do (and his opponents believe the same of themselves). Even the words of people that are very much against him usually seem to indicate Trump’s genuine belief in everything he said about the election being true.
I don’t know what Trump actually thinks, and neither do you, but we seem to disagree strongly on it anyway. I don’t want to try to read your mind, but that part is at least very obvious.
I don’t care that much about what’s in his mind. I care what he has done, what he has said and what he will do. The precise motivations don’t matter that much to me.
What if Trump said “God showed himself to me and he said the vote was rigged”? As an agnostic who trusts Trump, maybe you would think it was true. But should that matter? No, because godly revelations is not how we run our country. And neither is revelations from Trump. It doesn’t matter if the election was stolen if it can’t be shown to be true through our justice system (courts, FBI, DOJ, etc.). And it couldn’t be shown through the justice system, so unless we want to ignore all laws, rules and the constitution, then Trump just has to take the loss.
Trump and company brought many court cases after the election but before inauguration that were thrown out due to things that had nothing to do with the merits of the evidence (things like standing, or timeliness)
Yes, and they were able to say “Look, we have a bunch of active cases, there’s something fishy here” and then “They are throwing out our cases for no reason, look how rigged the system is”. If they bring a bunch of cases which gets thrown out, then you should trust them less.
I don’t really care about Giuliani, but the Giuliani article is extremely bad form since the bbc’s summary of his ‘concession’ is not a good summary. It says only that he will not fight specific points in court ‘nolo contendre’, it is not an admission to lying.
I don’t care what the BBC said. Giuliani said false statements. For the court he agreed they were false. If he had evidence that they were true, he would not have conceded in court that they were false. That he didn’t have evidence for his claims means that you should trust his allegations of voter fraud less. It should also make you trust Trump’s allegations of voter fraud less, as they were the same allegations.
Also, the cnbc article is largely bare assertions, by a known hyper partisan outfit (according to me, which is the only authority I have to go on). Why should I believe them? (Yes, this can make it difficult to know what happened, which was my claim.) The other side has just as many bare assertions in the opposite direction.
I linked cnbc to support the statement “Trump asked the DOJ to lie, say that the election was rigged, without evidence. And when they didn’t he threatened to fire them.”, and the article contains statements from “Jeffrey Rosen”, “Richard Donoghue” and “Steven Engel” to support that. I don’t care what cnbc said, I care what the DOJ said.
I think [Trump] values law (with moderate confidence).
But not when he believes there’s been fraud right? Remember, he said:
A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution
So he doesn’t care that much about rules, regulations or the constitution. He thinks the government should be allowed to terminate “all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution”. This is not consistent with someone who values law. Maybe someone dislikes some laws, but all laws? All regulations? The whole constitution? That’s pretty extreme.
“It doesn’t matter if the election was stolen if it can’t be shown to be true through our justice system”. That is an absurd standard for whether or not someone should ‘try’ to use the legal system (which is what Trump did). You are trying to disqualify someone regardless of the truth of the matter based on what the legal system decided to do later. And Trump DID just take the loss (after exhausting the legal avenues), and is now going through the election system as normal in an attempt to win a new election.
I also find your claim that it somehow doesn’t matter why someone has done something is terrible claim when we are supposed to be deciding based on what will happen in the future, where motives matter a lot.
I read the legal reasons the cases were thrown out and there was literally nothing about merits in them, which means they simply didn’t want to decide. The courts refusing to do things on the merits of the claim is bad for the credibility of the courts.
I told you I don’t care about Giuliani, and that the article is very bad. Those are separate things. Whether or not he is guilty of lying (which was not what the stipulations actually mean), I already didn’t take his word for anything. The BBC on the other hand, has shown that it won’t report in a fair manner on these things and people shouldn’t trust them on it.
You linked to a cnbc article of bare assertions (not quotes) that were not supported by the statements of the witnesses in the video also included! I talked at length about the video and how the meaning of the testimonies appears to contradict the article.
We already discussed your claim about the meaning of Trump’s words. And you once again left out:
“Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
He was saying the election did not actually get held properly and that changes things.
He was saying the election did not actually get held properly and that changes things.
No, it does not. Laws, regulations and the constitution exists in a society in order to coordinate behavior among it’s citizens. Laws, regulations and the constitution does not assume that everyone follows the law. In fact, it does the opposite, it assumes that people will break laws, that people will break regulations and that people will go against the constitution. That’s why there are mechanisms to punish people who go against them. You cannot terminate the constitution just because you think people broke the law.
Edit: Also, if there is some court case you think shouldn’t have been thrown out, then you are free to link it.
Edit2: I don’t understand why this comment got so downvoted
Your interpretation of Trump’s words and actions imply he is in favor of circumventing the system of laws and constitution while another interpretation (that I and many others hold) is that his words and actions mean that he thinks the system was not followed, which should be/have been followed.
Separately a significant fraction of the American populace also believes it really was not properly followed. (I believe this, though not to the extent that I think it changed the outcome.) Many who believe that are Trump supporters of course, but it is not such a strange interpretation that someone must be a Trump supporter to believe the interpretation reasonable.
Many who interpret it this way, including myself, are in fact huge fans of the American Constitution (despite the fact that it does have many flaws), and if we actually believed the same interpretation as you would we condemn him just as much. The people on my side in this believe that he just doesn’t mean that.
The way I would put it at first thought to summarize how I interpret his words: “The election must be, but was not held properly. Our laws and constitution don’t really tell us what to do about a failed election, but the normal order already can’t be followed so we have to try to make things work. We could either try to fix the ways in which it is improper which would get me elected, or we can rehold the election so that everything is done properly.”
I think Trump was saying that in a very emotive and nonanalytical way meant to fire up his base and not as a plan to do anything against the constitution.
I obviously don’t know why you were downvoted (since I didn’t do it) but if you mouse over the symbols on your post, you only got two votes on overall Karma and one on agreement (I’d presume all three were negative). The system doesn’t actually go by ones, but it depends on how much Karma the people voting on you have I think (and how strongly they downvoted)? I would suspect that people that the comment not quite responsive to what they believed my points to be for the overall karma one?
My memory could be (is often) faulty, but I remember thinking the dismissals were highly questionable. Unfortunately, at this point I have forgotten what cases seemed to be adjudicated incorrectly in that manner, so I can’t really say one you should look at. Honestly, I tire of reading about the whole thing so I stopped doing so quite a while ago. (I have of course read your links to the best of my ability when you provide them.)
I don’t usually comment about politics (or much of anything else) here so I don’t really know how what I should write in these comments, but I think this is more about people wanting to know what Trump supporters are thinking than about determining what they are and aren’t right about. If I was trying to prove whether or not my interpretation is correct I supposed I would do this differently.
I don’t usually comment about politics (or much of anything else) here so I don’t really know how what I should write in these comments, but I think this is more about people wanting to know what Trump supporters are thinking than about determining what they are and aren’t right about. If I was trying to prove whether or not my interpretation is correct I supposed I would do this differently.
Sorry for badgering you so much, I’ve appreciated the discussion. Some of the other Trump supporters here seemed to have very weird beliefs and values, but your values don’t seem that far away from mine. I think I got a better understanding of why you think what you do (though of course I disagree on things). Thanks for answering a bunch of questions :)
I get it. I like to poke at things too. I think it did help me figure out a few things about why I think what I do about the subject, I just lose energy for this kind of thing easily. And I have, I honestly wasn’t going to answer more questions. I think understanding in politics is good, even though people rarely chang positions due to the arguments, so I’m glad it was helpful.
I do agree that many Trump supporters have weird beliefs (I think they’re endemic in politics, on all sides, which includes centrists). I don’t like what politics does to people’s thought processes (and often makes enemies of those who would otherwise get along). I’m sure I have some pretty weird beliefs too, they just don’t come up in discussion with other people all the time.
The fact that I am more of a centrist in politics is kind of strange actually since it doesn’t fit my personality in some ways and it doesn’t really feel natural, though I would feel less at home elsewhere. I think I’m not part of a party mostly to lessen (unfortunately not eliminate) the way politics twists my thoughts (I hate the feeling of my thoughts twisting, but it is good I can sometimes tell).
Yes, I also think it’s important to investigate those things. And the US government agrees, which is why they investigated them. But they didn’t find much, because the election wasn’t stolen.
I don’t really agree with this framing, it’s not about Democrats vs Republicans. The ones who were claiming the election was stolen were Trump and his associates, not general Republicans. Mike Pence is a republican, and he didn’t say that the election was stolen. William Barr, the trump appointed republican attorney general, said the FBI and Justice Department investigations found no evidence of large scale voter fraud. It was investigated, but nothing was found, because the election wasn’t stolen. Just because some people lied about voter fraud, like Rudy Giuliani, doesn’t mean it’s okay to overturn the election.
But what did Trump do when the FBI and Justice Department didn’t find any evidence? He asked the DOJ to lie, say that the election was rigged, without evidence. And when they didn’t he threatened to fire them.
I think you’re getting a little lost in the weeds trying to interpret the legal schemes. If he managed to overturn the election in a way that is technically legal, would that be good? And if he attempted to overturn the election in an illegal way, would that be bad? It seems like you value the law, and that’s good to do. But Trump doesn’t value the law, and thinks it would be good if he overturned the election even if was done in an illegal way. He doesn’t care about the law. Does this not worry you?
I’m a centrist (and also agnostic in regards to religion religion) in part because I believe there are a lot of things I/we don’t/can’t know and shouldn’t be overconfident in, ideologically, factually, and interpretationally. I don’t know what Trump actually thinks, and neither do you, but we seem to disagree strongly on it anyway. I don’t want to try to read your mind, but that part is at least very obvious. (I do have some very confident ideological, factual, and interpretational beliefs, but believe they shouldn’t be overly relied upon in these matters.)
I also tend to keep in mind that I can be wrong (I am also keeping that in mind here), which is how I ended up believing Trump was worth voting for in the first place. (As stated originally, I actually had an extreme personal distaste for him for decades that sounds much like how people accusing him of being, but I paid attention and changed my mind later. Obviously, I could have been right originally and be wrong now, that definitely happens.)
To me, you seem overconfident about what happened in the election, and your sources seem highly partisan (not that I know of any sources on this matter that I think aren’t partisan). Neither of which actually mean you are wrong. I do think it is very important that there is genuine doubt, because then you can’t simply assume those on the other side are operating in an objectionable way because they are opposing you. (Of course I would think you overconfident since I am hedging so much of what I am saying here.) I generally find it hard to know how accurate specific political reporting is, but it seems generally very low. Politics bring out the worst in a lot of people, and heightened reactions in most of us (me included, though I try to damp it down).
There is always vote fraud and cheating, but what is the definition of ‘large scale’ such that you know for sure it didn’t happen? States have in fact found cheating in small but significant amounts (as well as large scale rule changes outside the regular order), but what percentage of it would be actually discoverable without extensive investigation, and how much even with? William Barr saying that he had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” hardly means they found everything, and crucially, is very different than saying that it wasn’t large scale by at least one reasonable definition.
Hypothetical: If someone was counted to have won a state that decided the election by 100,000 votes, and Barr could have proven that 40,000 were switched (meaning current count is winning by 20k), what would that mean for your statement? What would that mean for Barr’s? I think that would prove you wrong (about no large scale cheating), but Barr’s statement would still be true (I would still consider it lying though).
Additional hypothetical: Suppose that three states too small to change the election were given to Biden due to cheating, but it could be proven that Trump had won all of them? That would be large scale cheating that changed nothing about the result, and again, Barr’s words would not technically be untrue. Suppose then that there was a fourth small state that would tip it where there was enough cheating to actually change the overall result, but this can’t be proven?
Note that neither of those hypotheticals is meant to be close to accurate, they are meant to show the uncertainty. For clarity, I believe that there is not strong enough evidence to say there was sufficient cheating to change results, and we should default to assuming there wasn’t, but that is only because our elections usually aren’t fixed, and in certain other places and times the opposite should be assumed. I believe that Biden most likely won in an election close enough to fair, just that people coming to the opposite conclusion are usually operating in good faith including the subject of this matter. (I do not assume good faith in general, it just seems that way here.)
I can find places claiming that there is literally nothing, and others claiming to have found dozens of issues that could possibly count as ‘large scale’ cheating depending on the definition (not all involving the Democrats, and many not involving directly changing the votes). Neither side actually seems especially credible to me, but instead obvious partisanship is deciding things.
I probably should have clarified the split as establishment vs populist. I think that I can speak of Democrats without implying that it is an exact midline Republican / Democrat split when referencing something known to be a minority viewpoint, but I really should have been more clear that I was speaking of a portion of the Republicans rather than all of them (I do think it is a very large portion of the Republicans, but more so the base and more populist/Trump camp politicians rather than the established politicians). I was saying that I think the politicians among the Democrats (enough of them to control Dem policy, far from all of them) had specific motives (their being unsure whether or not their local members cheated) for their actions in and reactions to the issue that consisted largely of vehement denial of the possibility regardless of the evidence (and wanting to prosecute people for talking about it or taking legal steps that are required for disputing the election!), and that many Republicans overindex on very questionable evidence to say with equal certainty that it did happen.
People often would like to cover up things when they don’t know exactly what happened but it looks bad (or even if it just might cause a scandal, even if it could be proven to be fine), and I can’t possibly agree with anyone who thinks that Democrats in general didn’t at least consider that when deciding on how they would react to the evidence.
The split between establishment and populist Republicans is very large in recent years, starting noticeably before 2016 and largely leading to Trump’s faction even existing, which then movef the party further toward populist. The establishment and populists do not share the same reaction to the evidence in 2020, among other things, and I should have been more careful.
You assume that the US government didn’t find much, but a number of people would just as confidently state that much of the government just chose not to look, and others that things were in fact found. Many of the investigations would have been state and local governments if they’d happened, and in many of the places the local leaders were Democrats who had every incentive not to look (which is part of why people were suspicious of how things turned out there, and this is true even if the local Democrat leaders were perfectly upright and moral people who would never act badly as long as we don’t know that). Trump and company brought many court cases after the election but before inauguration that were thrown out due to things that had nothing to do with the merits of the evidence (things like standing, or timeliness); there may have been some decided on actual evidence, but I am unaware of them.
Many populists have seen the DOJ and FBI as enemies due to past discrimination against populist causes, and that is generalizing too much, but they also don’t seem very competent when performing duties they don’t care for (which is normal enough). It is hard for many people to know whether or not the FBI and DOJ can be relied on for such things. (See also the recent failures of previously considered competent federal agencies like the Secret Service).
You are interpreting things the way that most benefits your point, but without regard to other reasonable interpretations. The meaning of pretty much everything Trump camp did is debatable, and simply believing one side’s talking points is hardly fair. I genuinely think that both sides believe they were on the side of righteousness and standing up against the dastardly deeds of the other side.
Also, the cnbc article is largely bare assertions, by a known hyper partisan outfit (according to me, which is the only authority I have to go on). Why should I believe them? (Yes, this can make it difficult to know what happened, which was my claim.) The other side has just as many bare assertions in the opposite direction.
Hypothetical where no one thinks they are doing anything even the slightest bit questionable (which I think is reasonably likely):
Trump camp viewpoint: This bastard repeatedly refuses to do his job* and protect the election from rampant cheating. I should force him to do his job. (This is a reasonable viewpoint.) People keep telling me to remove them for refusing to do their jobs. I don’t think I should (because this is not the only important thing). How about I ask them more about what’s going on and trying to get through to them?
Other viewpoint: Here I am doing my job, and someone keeps telling me to say <specific thing>. They’re obviously wrong, and I have said so many times*, so they must be telling me to lie. (And their statement that he was asking them to lie would not seem false to them, but in this scenario is completely false.)
*This is the same event.
In fact, the video testimony included with the article itself sounds exactly like my innocent hypotheticals rather than other parts, while the cnbc commentary in the video is obviously making up and extremely overconfident partisan interpretations (which makes their article’s bare assertions even less believable since they really are hyper partisan).
I don’t really care about Giuliani, but the Giuliani article is extremely bad form since the bbc’s summary of his ‘concession’ is not a good summary. It says only that he will not fight specific points in court ‘nolo contendre’, it is not an admission to lying.
You mention that I value Law and Order, which is true. It isn’t actually natural to me, but over the years I have come to believe it is very important to the proper functioning of society, and as bad as some parts of society look, our society actually works quite well overall so we do need to support our current law. This includes parts that aren’t used often, but I have much less confidence in them. The parts Trump wanted to use do seem irregular, but he did seem to be trying to use actual laws (sometimes incorrectly).
To bring up something I think you mentioned earlier, I would be pretty unhappy about an election decided by ‘contingent election’ for instance, but still think it appropriate to use one under the right circumstances (which I don’t think these are even under the Trumpian interpretation of cheating in the elections). I would also be unhappy about an election where the state legislatures changed who the electors are in a meaningful way, even though I believe they clearly have the right to. There would have to be vastly more evidence for me to think that the legislatures should act in such a manner, but I don’t think it is necessarily disqualifying as a candidate for Trump to think they should.
Would it be good if he stole the election legally? Obviously not. Would it be good if he protected the election legally? Obviously yes. Would it be good if he protected the election illegally? Eh, I don’t know? It depends?
Does Trump value law and order? I think he values law (with moderate confidence). Whenever I hear the words of people directly involved, it sounds to me like he told them to do everything in the legal way, and that the process he advocated was something he believed legal. He doesn’t seem interested in breaking laws, but in using them for his purposes. Does he believe in order? I’m not convinced either way. He certainly doesn’t believe in many parts of how things tend to be done (to an extent that it is odd he is the leader of the conservative party), but is his plan for the world following some sort of consistent internal logic worthy of being considered orderly? I don’t know.
Obviously if I had similar interpretations as you do about all of these things I would be much more concerned. I just don’t. Of course, I very much want you to be wrong, so that there is little to worry about.
I don’t know if it is confirmation bias or legitimate, but the more carefully I go through things, the more it seems like Team Trump really was just trying to do what they were supposed to do (and his opponents believe the same of themselves). Even the words of people that are very much against him usually seem to indicate Trump’s genuine belief in everything he said about the election being true.
I don’t care that much about what’s in his mind. I care what he has done, what he has said and what he will do. The precise motivations don’t matter that much to me.
What if Trump said “God showed himself to me and he said the vote was rigged”? As an agnostic who trusts Trump, maybe you would think it was true. But should that matter? No, because godly revelations is not how we run our country. And neither is revelations from Trump. It doesn’t matter if the election was stolen if it can’t be shown to be true through our justice system (courts, FBI, DOJ, etc.). And it couldn’t be shown through the justice system, so unless we want to ignore all laws, rules and the constitution, then Trump just has to take the loss.
Yes, and they were able to say “Look, we have a bunch of active cases, there’s something fishy here” and then “They are throwing out our cases for no reason, look how rigged the system is”. If they bring a bunch of cases which gets thrown out, then you should trust them less.
I don’t care what the BBC said. Giuliani said false statements. For the court he agreed they were false. If he had evidence that they were true, he would not have conceded in court that they were false. That he didn’t have evidence for his claims means that you should trust his allegations of voter fraud less. It should also make you trust Trump’s allegations of voter fraud less, as they were the same allegations.
I linked cnbc to support the statement “Trump asked the DOJ to lie, say that the election was rigged, without evidence. And when they didn’t he threatened to fire them.”, and the article contains statements from “Jeffrey Rosen”, “Richard Donoghue” and “Steven Engel” to support that. I don’t care what cnbc said, I care what the DOJ said.
But not when he believes there’s been fraud right? Remember, he said:
So he doesn’t care that much about rules, regulations or the constitution. He thinks the government should be allowed to terminate “all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution”. This is not consistent with someone who values law. Maybe someone dislikes some laws, but all laws? All regulations? The whole constitution? That’s pretty extreme.
We seem to be retreading ground.
“It doesn’t matter if the election was stolen if it can’t be shown to be true through our justice system”. That is an absurd standard for whether or not someone should ‘try’ to use the legal system (which is what Trump did). You are trying to disqualify someone regardless of the truth of the matter based on what the legal system decided to do later. And Trump DID just take the loss (after exhausting the legal avenues), and is now going through the election system as normal in an attempt to win a new election.
I also find your claim that it somehow doesn’t matter why someone has done something is terrible claim when we are supposed to be deciding based on what will happen in the future, where motives matter a lot.
I read the legal reasons the cases were thrown out and there was literally nothing about merits in them, which means they simply didn’t want to decide. The courts refusing to do things on the merits of the claim is bad for the credibility of the courts.
I told you I don’t care about Giuliani, and that the article is very bad. Those are separate things. Whether or not he is guilty of lying (which was not what the stipulations actually mean), I already didn’t take his word for anything. The BBC on the other hand, has shown that it won’t report in a fair manner on these things and people shouldn’t trust them on it.
You linked to a cnbc article of bare assertions (not quotes) that were not supported by the statements of the witnesses in the video also included! I talked at length about the video and how the meaning of the testimonies appears to contradict the article.
We already discussed your claim about the meaning of Trump’s words. And you once again left out:
“Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
He was saying the election did not actually get held properly and that changes things.
No, it does not. Laws, regulations and the constitution exists in a society in order to coordinate behavior among it’s citizens. Laws, regulations and the constitution does not assume that everyone follows the law. In fact, it does the opposite, it assumes that people will break laws, that people will break regulations and that people will go against the constitution. That’s why there are mechanisms to punish people who go against them. You cannot terminate the constitution just because you think people broke the law.
Edit: Also, if there is some court case you think shouldn’t have been thrown out, then you are free to link it.
Edit2: I don’t understand why this comment got so downvoted
Your interpretation of Trump’s words and actions imply he is in favor of circumventing the system of laws and constitution while another interpretation (that I and many others hold) is that his words and actions mean that he thinks the system was not followed, which should be/have been followed.
Separately a significant fraction of the American populace also believes it really was not properly followed. (I believe this, though not to the extent that I think it changed the outcome.) Many who believe that are Trump supporters of course, but it is not such a strange interpretation that someone must be a Trump supporter to believe the interpretation reasonable.
Many who interpret it this way, including myself, are in fact huge fans of the American Constitution (despite the fact that it does have many flaws), and if we actually believed the same interpretation as you would we condemn him just as much. The people on my side in this believe that he just doesn’t mean that.
The way I would put it at first thought to summarize how I interpret his words: “The election must be, but was not held properly. Our laws and constitution don’t really tell us what to do about a failed election, but the normal order already can’t be followed so we have to try to make things work. We could either try to fix the ways in which it is improper which would get me elected, or we can rehold the election so that everything is done properly.”
I think Trump was saying that in a very emotive and nonanalytical way meant to fire up his base and not as a plan to do anything against the constitution.
I obviously don’t know why you were downvoted (since I didn’t do it) but if you mouse over the symbols on your post, you only got two votes on overall Karma and one on agreement (I’d presume all three were negative). The system doesn’t actually go by ones, but it depends on how much Karma the people voting on you have I think (and how strongly they downvoted)? I would suspect that people that the comment not quite responsive to what they believed my points to be for the overall karma one?
My memory could be (is often) faulty, but I remember thinking the dismissals were highly questionable. Unfortunately, at this point I have forgotten what cases seemed to be adjudicated incorrectly in that manner, so I can’t really say one you should look at. Honestly, I tire of reading about the whole thing so I stopped doing so quite a while ago. (I have of course read your links to the best of my ability when you provide them.)
I don’t usually comment about politics (or much of anything else) here so I don’t really know how what I should write in these comments, but I think this is more about people wanting to know what Trump supporters are thinking than about determining what they are and aren’t right about. If I was trying to prove whether or not my interpretation is correct I supposed I would do this differently.
Sorry for badgering you so much, I’ve appreciated the discussion. Some of the other Trump supporters here seemed to have very weird beliefs and values, but your values don’t seem that far away from mine. I think I got a better understanding of why you think what you do (though of course I disagree on things). Thanks for answering a bunch of questions :)
I get it. I like to poke at things too. I think it did help me figure out a few things about why I think what I do about the subject, I just lose energy for this kind of thing easily. And I have, I honestly wasn’t going to answer more questions. I think understanding in politics is good, even though people rarely chang positions due to the arguments, so I’m glad it was helpful.
I do agree that many Trump supporters have weird beliefs (I think they’re endemic in politics, on all sides, which includes centrists). I don’t like what politics does to people’s thought processes (and often makes enemies of those who would otherwise get along). I’m sure I have some pretty weird beliefs too, they just don’t come up in discussion with other people all the time.
The fact that I am more of a centrist in politics is kind of strange actually since it doesn’t fit my personality in some ways and it doesn’t really feel natural, though I would feel less at home elsewhere. I think I’m not part of a party mostly to lessen (unfortunately not eliminate) the way politics twists my thoughts (I hate the feeling of my thoughts twisting, but it is good I can sometimes tell).