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You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. The reason that the insanity subs

by learc83 10y ago

You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. The reason that the insanity subsides after the election is over, is because the majority of people accept the results. The losing candidate concedes that he was defeated fairly, and most of us move on with our lives. If 40% of the country doesn't accept the results because their candidate is telling them not too, things can quickly get out of hand.

ajross 10y ago
> You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. This is true, of course. But you have seen that stuff all over the right wing media, reliably, in every election of the past few decades. Trump is merely terrible at message discipline (which is to say: unlike his more mature peers, he actually believes this stuff and will repeat what he reads on Drudge); the specter of brown democrats rigging elections has been a subtext of republican electioneering forever.
- learc83 10y ago
  Definitely. The constant repetition of this stuff over the last few decades is what enabled Trump. The difference is mostly one of scale not kind. Except for the major difference that the candidate himself has never said something like this directly, and that candidates have always graciously conceded defeat. If Donald Trump comes out on November 9th and says "I told you it was rigged. They stole the election from us.", I really don't know what will happen. I think it's fairly likely there will be at least some small-scale rioting. I think the best case long term scenario, if this happens, is the creation of a new much more openly racist and xenophobic political party that is too small to gain any real power. The worst case scenario is obviously civil war, but I think that is still extremely unlikely. Especially because Trump isn't the incumbent, so he lacks any actual power. If he were the losing incumbent, and Hillary was the challenger, I think most die hard Trump supporters would back a power grab. And the most likely scenario is that a slightly smaller Republican party gets pulled even further right.
  - mistersquid 10y ago
    Historically in the US, disenfranchised whites do not riot in the way that disenfranchised/disempowered urban dwellers do. Typically they conduct what is today recognized as domestic terrorism: lynch mobs, church bombings, bombing the Oklahoma City Federal building, shooting congregants at mosques, killing worshippers at synagogue, etc. More recently, we even saw one example of disenfranchised whites occupying a Federal Bureau of Land Management building in Bend, OR. One notable exception is the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot where whites destroyed a prosperous black section of Tulsa. [0] Anyway, this is to say that the rioting for non-whites is very different than the resistance exhibited by whites. The socioeconomic reasons for such differences are too various to list, but as a very general statement, poor disenfranchised urban dwellers of color do not have access, mobility, motivation, or organization to attack the forces that undergird their civic misery. In this sense, riot is cathartic, reactionary, and self-defeating. The targeted violence that characterizes acts of US domestic terrorism may also come from similar feelings of disenfranchisement, but rarely, if ever, do they result in the wholesale destruction of the local environments of the aggrieved. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot
    - learc83 10y ago
      That's a good point. Low population density makes rioting impractical. I think it would be more accurate to say replace riot with violence in my preceding comment. When I wrote small scale rioting I was thinking more along the lines of small groups of people hunting specific targets. Vandalizing or setting fire to minority houses/churches/businesses.
- TheGirondin 10y ago
  >the specter of brown democrats rigging elections has been a subtext of republican electioneering forever. These kinds of accusations are very hypocritical. I have yet to see Democrats accept a loss without claiming stolen or rigged elections. They refuse to accept the 2000 election, said that Republicans stole the state of OH in 2004, and even now claim that the current Republican majorities in both the House and Senate are the result of "gerrymandering."
  - p10_user 10y ago
    There's a strong difference between gerrymandering and outright election rigging / vote fraud, the latter of which is what Donald seems to be suggesting.
saynsedit 10y ago
Nothing is going to get out of hand. That whole idea just seems like media sensationalism. There may be a minority of people who won't accept the results, but the vast majority of people are going to feel bad or good for a week or two and then go back to worrying about their jobs.
- learc83 10y ago
  I think it's very unlikely, but people act like we're immune to violent transfers of power because it's never happened to us. Historically peaceful transition of power is the exception. Based on his current rhetoric, it's seems pretty likely that Trump will come out on November 9th and say the election was stolen. Sure most people will ignore it, but I live in the South, in the middle of Trump country. The majority of people that I know, over 40, think that Obama and Hillary are evil. They don't disagree with them, they think they are evil. They thought that the Federal government was going to invade Texas during Jade Helm. A fair amount of them think that Hillary is literally possessed by the devil. Breitbart is the most mainstream news source that they'll listen too, and they get most of their news from conspiracy sites spreading clickbait lies on Facebook (I know because many of them are family members and I see it). They don't believe the polls, and they really think that the only way Trump can lose is if the election is rigged. Oh and they're all heavily armed because they've been buying up ammunition since Obama was elected, in anticipation of a gun ban. (I have guns myself, but I don't have dozens of cases of ammunition in preparation for "the shit hitting the fan" like many people I know do.) I've never seen anything this bad, even when Obama was elected. I think the major difference is the polarizing effect of most Trump supporters getting the majority of their news from Facebook. Combined with the realization by some that demographics are changing, so this may be the last election they can win. Again, I think that actual civil war is extremely unlikely because luckily Trump won't be a losing incumbent. But I think that if Trump refuses to concede, a few acts of domestic terrorism are likely. The FBI just stopped a group of white nationalists who were trying to kick off a religious war by detonating a truck bomb in a mostly Somali apartment complex.
  - saynsedit 10y ago
    Never said violent revolt couldn't happen. It just seems very improbable. I'd bet that the vast majority of those people who believe Obama/Clinton are evil wouldn't be willing to risk their current living situation on that belief when it actually came down to it.
TheGirondin 10y ago
>You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. I agree that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions that Russia is trying to rig the election is dangerous to democracy.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  ...along with evidence of Russian hacking of elections databases?
  - TheGirondin 10y ago
    And? Chinese and Russian state hackers are constantly breaking into US systems. I'm sure American state hackers are constantly breaking into theirs. This is nothing extraordinary. Thank you for validating that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions are dangerous to democracy. It seems like you will doesn't accept the results you don't like, just Democrats have always done when they lose.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      So now evidence is not evidence. Only vague accusations are evidence. Got it.
      - TheGirondin 10y ago
        No, no evidence is no evidence.
- learc83 10y ago
  So which is it? Claims of vote rigging are dangerous to democracy or they aren't? If they're dangerous, then I can play you audio of Trump making them. Now that we've got that out of the way. Hillary isn't making claims of vote rigging, she's making claims that Russians hacked emails and released them to influence the election. Her claims are backed up by the United State's intelligence agencies.

by learc83 10y ago

ajross 10y ago

> You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. This is true, of course. But you have seen that stuff all over the right wing media, reliably, in every election of the past few decades. Trump is merely terrible at message discipline (which is to say: unlike his more mature peers, he actually believes this stuff and will repeat what he reads on Drudge); the specter of brown democrats rigging elections has been a subtext of republican electioneering forever.

learc83 10y ago
Definitely. The constant repetition of this stuff over the last few decades is what enabled Trump. The difference is mostly one of scale not kind. Except for the major difference that the candidate himself has never said something like this directly, and that candidates have always graciously conceded defeat. If Donald Trump comes out on November 9th and says "I told you it was rigged. They stole the election from us.", I really don't know what will happen. I think it's fairly likely there will be at least some small-scale rioting. I think the best case long term scenario, if this happens, is the creation of a new much more openly racist and xenophobic political party that is too small to gain any real power. The worst case scenario is obviously civil war, but I think that is still extremely unlikely. Especially because Trump isn't the incumbent, so he lacks any actual power. If he were the losing incumbent, and Hillary was the challenger, I think most die hard Trump supporters would back a power grab. And the most likely scenario is that a slightly smaller Republican party gets pulled even further right.
- mistersquid 10y ago
  Historically in the US, disenfranchised whites do not riot in the way that disenfranchised/disempowered urban dwellers do. Typically they conduct what is today recognized as domestic terrorism: lynch mobs, church bombings, bombing the Oklahoma City Federal building, shooting congregants at mosques, killing worshippers at synagogue, etc. More recently, we even saw one example of disenfranchised whites occupying a Federal Bureau of Land Management building in Bend, OR. One notable exception is the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot where whites destroyed a prosperous black section of Tulsa. [0] Anyway, this is to say that the rioting for non-whites is very different than the resistance exhibited by whites. The socioeconomic reasons for such differences are too various to list, but as a very general statement, poor disenfranchised urban dwellers of color do not have access, mobility, motivation, or organization to attack the forces that undergird their civic misery. In this sense, riot is cathartic, reactionary, and self-defeating. The targeted violence that characterizes acts of US domestic terrorism may also come from similar feelings of disenfranchisement, but rarely, if ever, do they result in the wholesale destruction of the local environments of the aggrieved. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot
  - learc83 10y ago
    That's a good point. Low population density makes rioting impractical. I think it would be more accurate to say replace riot with violence in my preceding comment. When I wrote small scale rioting I was thinking more along the lines of small groups of people hunting specific targets. Vandalizing or setting fire to minority houses/churches/businesses.
TheGirondin 10y ago
>the specter of brown democrats rigging elections has been a subtext of republican electioneering forever. These kinds of accusations are very hypocritical. I have yet to see Democrats accept a loss without claiming stolen or rigged elections. They refuse to accept the 2000 election, said that Republicans stole the state of OH in 2004, and even now claim that the current Republican majorities in both the House and Senate are the result of "gerrymandering."
- p10_user 10y ago
  There's a strong difference between gerrymandering and outright election rigging / vote fraud, the latter of which is what Donald seems to be suggesting.

saynsedit 10y ago

Nothing is going to get out of hand. That whole idea just seems like media sensationalism. There may be a minority of people who won't accept the results, but the vast majority of people are going to feel bad or good for a week or two and then go back to worrying about their jobs.

learc83 10y ago
I think it's very unlikely, but people act like we're immune to violent transfers of power because it's never happened to us. Historically peaceful transition of power is the exception. Based on his current rhetoric, it's seems pretty likely that Trump will come out on November 9th and say the election was stolen. Sure most people will ignore it, but I live in the South, in the middle of Trump country. The majority of people that I know, over 40, think that Obama and Hillary are evil. They don't disagree with them, they think they are evil. They thought that the Federal government was going to invade Texas during Jade Helm. A fair amount of them think that Hillary is literally possessed by the devil. Breitbart is the most mainstream news source that they'll listen too, and they get most of their news from conspiracy sites spreading clickbait lies on Facebook (I know because many of them are family members and I see it). They don't believe the polls, and they really think that the only way Trump can lose is if the election is rigged. Oh and they're all heavily armed because they've been buying up ammunition since Obama was elected, in anticipation of a gun ban. (I have guns myself, but I don't have dozens of cases of ammunition in preparation for "the shit hitting the fan" like many people I know do.) I've never seen anything this bad, even when Obama was elected. I think the major difference is the polarizing effect of most Trump supporters getting the majority of their news from Facebook. Combined with the realization by some that demographics are changing, so this may be the last election they can win. Again, I think that actual civil war is extremely unlikely because luckily Trump won't be a losing incumbent. But I think that if Trump refuses to concede, a few acts of domestic terrorism are likely. The FBI just stopped a group of white nationalists who were trying to kick off a religious war by detonating a truck bomb in a mostly Somali apartment complex.
- saynsedit 10y ago
  Never said violent revolt couldn't happen. It just seems very improbable. I'd bet that the vast majority of those people who believe Obama/Clinton are evil wouldn't be willing to risk their current living situation on that belief when it actually came down to it.

TheGirondin 10y ago

>You don't normally have candidates insisting that the election is rigged despite having no evidence to support that assertion. I agree that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions that Russia is trying to rig the election is dangerous to democracy.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
...along with evidence of Russian hacking of elections databases?
- TheGirondin 10y ago
  And? Chinese and Russian state hackers are constantly breaking into US systems. I'm sure American state hackers are constantly breaking into theirs. This is nothing extraordinary. Thank you for validating that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions are dangerous to democracy. It seems like you will doesn't accept the results you don't like, just Democrats have always done when they lose.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    So now evidence is not evidence. Only vague accusations are evidence. Got it.
    - TheGirondin 10y ago
      No, no evidence is no evidence.
learc83 10y ago
So which is it? Claims of vote rigging are dangerous to democracy or they aren't? If they're dangerous, then I can play you audio of Trump making them. Now that we've got that out of the way. Hillary isn't making claims of vote rigging, she's making claims that Russians hacked emails and released them to influence the election. Her claims are backed up by the United State's intelligence agencies.