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> "If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy." This is true on both

by donw 6y ago

> "If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy." This is true on both sides of the political divide. The narrative from the Right is something like, "The Democrats are trying to steal the election with voter fraud, rioting to intimidate conservative voters, and last-minute changes to voting laws. We need to fight this by pushing Voter ID, for keeping the voting system as-is (either in-person or absentee, but no mail-in voting[1]), and seating our supreme court justice. They can only win by cheating." The narrative from the Left is something like, "The Republicans are trying to win by suppressing the popular vote. We need to fight this by expanding voting to as many people as possible, abolishing the Electoral College, and preventing the Republicans from seating their supreme court pick. They can only win by cheating." Both of those viewpoints have large elements of truth to them. This is not politics as usual -- this is a dirty fight to the death, between two mutually incompatible visions for the future of the United States. Neither side is going to "play fair". > "Reformed conservative thinker" Reversing polarity, would you call a former Democrat that now supports Trump a "reformed liberal"? Something tells me the answer is "no". People learn and change their views. Or the Overton Window shifts, and they find that their views puts them in a different camp. [1] Absentee and Mail-In Voting are different. Absentee voting assumes you have registered to vote for an upcoming election, and receive your ballot by mail. With mail-in voting, ballots are sent to all potential voters.

bleepblorp 6y ago
There is no element of truth whatsoever to the Republican view that Democrats engage in voter fraud. This has been a baseless Republican shibboleth for decades and it has been repeatedly investigated. Even those investigations tied closely enough to Republican politics to be vulnerable to motivated reasoning have found no evidence of systematic voter fraud[0]. And yet, the voter fraud narrative continues, in very large part because it justifies very well documented Republican electoral fraud schemes designed to restrict the democratic rights of demographics that do not vote Republican. Indeed, the GOP was under legal supervision for 35 years, until 2018, for systemic, organized, voter suppression strategies intended to tilt elections in its favor.[1] Freed of any supervision by the Supreme Court, the GOP is happily working to manipulate the vote in its favor in 2020[2][3][4][5]. Also: "Russia, if you're listening,"[6][7] is a clear case of violating democratic rules for partisan advantage. There is no equivalent history among modern Democrats after the post-civil rights realignment of the parties. As far as the legitimacy of the electoral college (and, for that matter, the Senate and the Supreme Court) is concerned, the United States was founded on the principles of no taxation without representation and that all men (in the language of the time) are created equal[8]. While it is within the GOP's constitutional right to fill the supreme court with conservative extremists, the practice disenfranchises the majority and subjects them to the rule (=taxation, among other things) of a minority that is hostile to both their interests, and, indeed, to their way of life. It is naive to expect that the creeping disenfranchisement of the majority of the population--in a country founded by launching a rebellion to end its own disenfranchisement--will pass quietly. This is not a both-sides bad issue. This is a contest between two mutually incompatible views of the United States: between a broad coalition that wants democratically-representative government and a narrow, but highly motivated, bloc that sees no value in democracy and is actively working to undermine it. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of-widespread-voter-fraud-director-wray-tells-senators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop... [2] https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020/ https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-vot... [3] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-campaign-2020-voter-suppression-consent-decree-1028988/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum... [4] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/grieder/article/Grieder-Gov-Abbott-s-latest-ham-fisted-voter-15614946.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/grieder/art... [5] https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/jacob-wohl-jack-burkman-voter-suppression-operation/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/jacob-wohl-jack-burk... [6] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report [8] Is civics education so bad that I really need to cite this?
- donw 6y ago
  My statements, above, capture the prevailing narratives from both sides. It is important to note that, at this point, it doesn't matter what is true. Which is stupidly hard to determine right now -- institutional credibility is at an all-time low, across the board. What matters right now, in the churn, is what people believe to be true. Human beings are not logical. We construct our beliefs, and search for evidence to support those beliefs, not the other way around. Right now, the set of things-believed-to-be-true between Democrats and Republicans is mutually disjoint. Wholly different realities. I don't see those converging in any peaceful way. Look, I get it. You want your team to win, because the other team is a bunch of People So Horrible That We Can Not Even Speak To Them (Did You See What They Did?!?). If somebody doesn't see what you see, they either need to be educated -- as you are attempting to do with me -- or they are evil, and must be attacked. I do not live in the United States, and I have not for a decade. I am having very complicated thoughts as to whether or not I want to move back, because I am not in any way interested in playing this game. This sucks for non-Americans working outside the US for US companies, by the way. I've seen people absolutely pilloried for failing to conform to social norms that (a) they don't understand; and, (b) do not apply in their countries. From my standpoint, the entire country has gone catastrophically insane, and I do not see this as ending well for anybody.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - howLongHowLong 6y ago
    I'm new to HN, and find myself coming here more and more often to luxuriate in open-ended discussions between people with divergent, qualified opinions. I'm realizing the lighter-gray text is donwnvted posts. Is it a large number to cause it? I see nothing inflammatory here, it's a well-reasoned response, where both posters essentially agree - we are at an impasse do to the fundamental incompatability of the modern versions of teams Red and Blue. Am I to infer that the it's being downvoted simply because it suggests that both sides are responsible for the state of affairs? I am used to encountering this in the world from both sides, but it's sort of extra disappointing to see such behavior here. Forgive me if I'm missing something.

by donw 6y ago

bleepblorp 6y ago

There is no element of truth whatsoever to the Republican view that Democrats engage in voter fraud. This has been a baseless Republican shibboleth for decades and it has been repeatedly investigated. Even those investigations tied closely enough to Republican politics to be vulnerable to motivated reasoning have found no evidence of systematic voter fraud[0]. And yet, the voter fraud narrative continues, in very large part because it justifies very well documented Republican electoral fraud schemes designed to restrict the democratic rights of demographics that do not vote Republican. Indeed, the GOP was under legal supervision for 35 years, until 2018, for systemic, organized, voter suppression strategies intended to tilt elections in its favor.[1] Freed of any supervision by the Supreme Court, the GOP is happily working to manipulate the vote in its favor in 2020[2][3][4][5]. Also: "Russia, if you're listening,"[6][7] is a clear case of violating democratic rules for partisan advantage. There is no equivalent history among modern Democrats after the post-civil rights realignment of the parties. As far as the legitimacy of the electoral college (and, for that matter, the Senate and the Supreme Court) is concerned, the United States was founded on the principles of no taxation without representation and that all men (in the language of the time) are created equal[8]. While it is within the GOP's constitutional right to fill the supreme court with conservative extremists, the practice disenfranchises the majority and subjects them to the rule (=taxation, among other things) of a minority that is hostile to both their interests, and, indeed, to their way of life. It is naive to expect that the creeping disenfranchisement of the majority of the population--in a country founded by launching a rebellion to end its own disenfranchisement--will pass quietly. This is not a both-sides bad issue. This is a contest between two mutually incompatible views of the United States: between a broad coalition that wants democratically-representative government and a narrow, but highly motivated, bloc that sees no value in democracy and is actively working to undermine it. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of-widespread-voter-fraud-director-wray-tells-senators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop... [2] https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020/ https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-vot... [3] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-campaign-2020-voter-suppression-consent-decree-1028988/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum... [4] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/grieder/article/Grieder-Gov-Abbott-s-latest-ham-fisted-voter-15614946.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/grieder/art... [5] https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/jacob-wohl-jack-burkman-voter-suppression-operation/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/jacob-wohl-jack-burk... [6] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report [8] Is civics education so bad that I really need to cite this?

donw 6y ago
My statements, above, capture the prevailing narratives from both sides. It is important to note that, at this point, it doesn't matter what is true. Which is stupidly hard to determine right now -- institutional credibility is at an all-time low, across the board. What matters right now, in the churn, is what people believe to be true. Human beings are not logical. We construct our beliefs, and search for evidence to support those beliefs, not the other way around. Right now, the set of things-believed-to-be-true between Democrats and Republicans is mutually disjoint. Wholly different realities. I don't see those converging in any peaceful way. Look, I get it. You want your team to win, because the other team is a bunch of People So Horrible That We Can Not Even Speak To Them (Did You See What They Did?!?). If somebody doesn't see what you see, they either need to be educated -- as you are attempting to do with me -- or they are evil, and must be attacked. I do not live in the United States, and I have not for a decade. I am having very complicated thoughts as to whether or not I want to move back, because I am not in any way interested in playing this game. This sucks for non-Americans working outside the US for US companies, by the way. I've seen people absolutely pilloried for failing to conform to social norms that (a) they don't understand; and, (b) do not apply in their countries. From my standpoint, the entire country has gone catastrophically insane, and I do not see this as ending well for anybody.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- howLongHowLong 6y ago
  I'm new to HN, and find myself coming here more and more often to luxuriate in open-ended discussions between people with divergent, qualified opinions. I'm realizing the lighter-gray text is donwnvted posts. Is it a large number to cause it? I see nothing inflammatory here, it's a well-reasoned response, where both posters essentially agree - we are at an impasse do to the fundamental incompatability of the modern versions of teams Red and Blue. Am I to infer that the it's being downvoted simply because it suggests that both sides are responsible for the state of affairs? I am used to encountering this in the world from both sides, but it's sort of extra disappointing to see such behavior here. Forgive me if I'm missing something.