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Thanks for your civil reply. > I fundamentally agree with you that perception of this issue is just as important, and that the applebaum link is reasonably int

Thanks for your civil reply. > I fundamentally agree with you that perception of this issue is just as important, and that the applebaum link is reasonably interpreted as fraud occurring. I appreciate this. > Where I disagree with your argument is that this is fundamentally the cause of what has transcended in DC. Thats reasonable and in my opinion its too early (for me anyway) to understand fundamental causes at this time. > You say that Trump lawsuits have been dismissed instead of evidence being entertained, but if according to his own lawyers there is no allegation of fraud, what exactly do you expect? This is a good question and it gets into the types of election compromise and legal definition. My understanding is that (legally) fraud requires intent, and they didn't have evidence of intent. In civil election cases, (again my understanding as a layman) they are supposed to show that the number of votes that can be questioned is greater than the apparent margin of victory. So about the fraud thing, they didn't make the accusation in court because it wasn't necessary and couldn't be supported to the legal standard. But here in a normal conversation we can kind of assume that if election integrity was compromised in order to boost one candidate over another, it was intentional and call it fraud. Even though challenging the results in court might not involve alleging fraud. > Why would anyone then believe that his other lawsuits are actually trying to resolve anomalies instead of being political smoke and mirrors to point his base to? Its reasonable to suspect that these lawsuits are intended to rile the base and lack legal merit. I'm only really concerned with the sworn affidavits filed by observers that allege they were prevented from doing their jobs. A regular poll worker assumes a lot of liability for doing this, with questionable benefit. And if people are filing false affidavits to help trump with his propaganda, that needs to be investigated and the responsible parties need to be charged. Filing a false affidavit with the court is perjury. > Similarly, it is simply inconceivable that there was sufficient fraud for a "landslide" Trump victory. Its fine for you to have that as a prior but with strong words like "inconceivable" you should have some solid arguments as well. > The reason people are storming the capitol is not because there are too few investigations, or because fraud has occurred. The exact same rhetoric and lies that Trump is employing right now would have just the same effect if there had been precisely zero cases and zero entertainable evidence of fraud. I disagree, trump's rhetoric works precisely because there is enough reasonable evidence to call into question your perspective on election integrity, and people are upset that it's being ignored.

MauranKilom 6y ago
> I disagree, trump's rhetoric works precisely because there is enough reasonable evidence to call into question your perspective on election integrity, and people are upset that it's being ignored. It is clear to me that Trump and his surroundings have no qualms about fabricating "truths" in whatever quantity fitting whatever narrative to match their aims. This has been the playbook from day 1, see [0]. It appears to work regardless of any underlying facts. I fully admit that I am not privy to the perspective of and influences on Trump supporters at large and capitol stormers in particular. However, the idea that there is a meaningful bar of evidence to clear before his supporters buy into his statements appears largely unfounded to me. Otherwise our current reality would be incompatible with [0]. And let me be perfectly clear that virtually every human will believe a convenient "truth" at some point or another. But given the degree to which Trump's entire sphere of influence has supported any outlandish, nonsensical or downright contradictory thought he expresses, I do not see how election integrity measures would have moved the needle in this regard. (Which is not to dismiss the need for them, just their influence on this attack). [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > It is clear to me that Trump and his surroundings have no qualms about fabricating "truths" in whatever quantity fitting whatever narrative to match their aims. This is how politics has been for a while. Trump just adopting the winning strategy employed by Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. > I fully admit that I am not privy to the perspective of and influences on Trump supporters at large and capitol stormers in particular. However, the idea that there is a meaningful bar of evidence to clear before his supporters buy into his statements appears largely unfounded to me. Yeah, people usually presume things they like to be valid, the same way they accept news media and blog posts uncritically when they agree with them. Its definitely part of the human condition and not anything significantly different among the different partisans these days. > And let me be perfectly clear that virtually every human will believe a convenient "truth" at some point or another. But given the degree to which Trump's entire sphere of influence has supported any outlandish, nonsensical or downright contradictory thought he expresses, I do not see how election integrity measures would have moved the needle in this regard. (Which is not to dismiss the need for them, just their influence on this attack). I'll just point out that there's a lot more diversity of opinion about trump on the right than you're aware of, which is normal. I hear the same shit from people on the right about people on the left. > [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim... Yeah, he's a politician. This is no different than Pres. Obama "you can keep your insurance if you like it", "You didn't build that", "I'm going to close Guantanamo Bay", etc. You can say that t told more whoppers, I'm not interested in disputing that. Politicians lie, if you're going to hold one accountable then you need to be consistent. But holding politicians to their word doesn't really get much traction, its always seen as partisan.

MauranKilom 6y ago

> I disagree, trump's rhetoric works precisely because there is enough reasonable evidence to call into question your perspective on election integrity, and people are upset that it's being ignored. It is clear to me that Trump and his surroundings have no qualms about fabricating "truths" in whatever quantity fitting whatever narrative to match their aims. This has been the playbook from day 1, see [0]. It appears to work regardless of any underlying facts. I fully admit that I am not privy to the perspective of and influences on Trump supporters at large and capitol stormers in particular. However, the idea that there is a meaningful bar of evidence to clear before his supporters buy into his statements appears largely unfounded to me. Otherwise our current reality would be incompatible with [0]. And let me be perfectly clear that virtually every human will believe a convenient "truth" at some point or another. But given the degree to which Trump's entire sphere of influence has supported any outlandish, nonsensical or downright contradictory thought he expresses, I do not see how election integrity measures would have moved the needle in this regard. (Which is not to dismiss the need for them, just their influence on this attack). [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> It is clear to me that Trump and his surroundings have no qualms about fabricating "truths" in whatever quantity fitting whatever narrative to match their aims. This is how politics has been for a while. Trump just adopting the winning strategy employed by Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. > I fully admit that I am not privy to the perspective of and influences on Trump supporters at large and capitol stormers in particular. However, the idea that there is a meaningful bar of evidence to clear before his supporters buy into his statements appears largely unfounded to me. Yeah, people usually presume things they like to be valid, the same way they accept news media and blog posts uncritically when they agree with them. Its definitely part of the human condition and not anything significantly different among the different partisans these days. > And let me be perfectly clear that virtually every human will believe a convenient "truth" at some point or another. But given the degree to which Trump's entire sphere of influence has supported any outlandish, nonsensical or downright contradictory thought he expresses, I do not see how election integrity measures would have moved the needle in this regard. (Which is not to dismiss the need for them, just their influence on this attack). I'll just point out that there's a lot more diversity of opinion about trump on the right than you're aware of, which is normal. I hear the same shit from people on the right about people on the left. > [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim... Yeah, he's a politician. This is no different than Pres. Obama "you can keep your insurance if you like it", "You didn't build that", "I'm going to close Guantanamo Bay", etc. You can say that t told more whoppers, I'm not interested in disputing that. Politicians lie, if you're going to hold one accountable then you need to be consistent. But holding politicians to their word doesn't really get much traction, its always seen as partisan.