4 ms·

We all know that 2016 was the only stolen election.

mjevans 4y ago
No, I don't believe 'we all' know such a thing, so could you please cite some data? Offhand, my recollection of just about all the major press coverage (pick an article on it from any of them) is along these lines: In 2016, Trump won the majority of Electoral College votes In 2016, Hillary won the national popular vote The interstate voting compact does not yet have enough electors to follow the popular vote. My recollection of the timeline is: In early 2016 the DNC might have rigged their internal voting in support of Hillary, rather than Bernie. The press didn't do a good enough job covering that with transparency so I'm not sure. I know this almost alienated me (as a generally left leaning voter) from voting D. I know at least one friend who wanted change of any sort enough to vote for Trump after that. It was a close race, to alienating their base like that _may_ have rigged things in favor of the candidate that won the electoral vote.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Critics and pundits on the right like to portray the anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction on the left from the outcome of the vote as claiming trump "stole" the election. There indeed were occasional headlines screaming trump "stole" the election (IIRC) and there were screams of "not my president", and even a few weirdos here in maine that were convinced Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins had cheated in their respective elections, but by the time of the Muller report, the allegations were much gentler. None of the investigations or impeachments were about "stealing the election", but rather violations, sometimes flagrant and absurd, of campaign finance laws and other points of how you are allowed to campaign for the presidency. It turned out that a lot of the way the US has worked for 250 years is literally the honor code, and it's not illegal to be elected by being a huge ass or immoral person. Many people in Trump's campaign staff did end up in jail for campaign related crimes. There is also significant circumstantial evidence that Trump and some republicans are more friendly with putin than the average american hopes for, but turns out that is also not a crime. Meanwhile party republicans, sometimes including trump, have claimed significant, direct manipulation of voting equipment, tallies, and voter rolls. These claims have gone to court and nearly every one was thrown out as baseless, and occasionally downright absurdist. The claims include millions of immigrants being bussed into places to vote, thousands (or more) of "dead" people voting, accusing vote counting volunteers of "fixing" the count against trump, and countless other things. Compare: "The democrats managed to invent millions of fake votes" with no evidence to "Trump worked directly with the Russian government or individuals in the Russian government to manipulate the voter base, hack the democratic party's mail server, lie heavily to voters, and possibly hack into actual voting machines in a few states". For the latter, we have evidence that russia did in fact hack the DMC's emails, after Trump openly "asked" them to in a campaign speech, russia probably hacked some servers somewhat related to voting operations in some states (but not voting machines directly, probably), russian disinfo campaigns against american voters (though you can't blame trump for that I don't think), trump campaign advertisements that said shitty things to discourage black people from voting (which isn't a crime, hilary made stupid comments), and enough bad actions and connections in his friends and compatriots to get at least 10 people in prison.
- guywithahat 4y ago
  I recall a lot of pundits said "Trump stole the election", and then we entered a multi-year investigation into Russian collusion which found nothing. That was definitely a mistake in hindsight to press so far into this
calculatte 4y ago
he said, without evidence
mynameishere 4y ago
Wrong. 2000 was stolen, as was 2004.
IceMetalPunk 4y ago
Not stolen, just a terrible consequence of a poor voting system (i.e. electoral college) and a larger-than-comfortable minority of voters who were also shitty humans.
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Sorry, what does this have to do with the topic of the post? You're needlessly flaming political battles.

No, I don't believe 'we all' know such a thing, so could you please cite some data? Offhand, my recollection of just about all the major press coverage (pick an article on it from any of them) is along these lines: In 2016, Trump won the majority of Electoral College votes In 2016, Hillary won the national popular vote The interstate voting compact does not yet have enough electors to follow the popular vote. My recollection of the timeline is: In early 2016 the DNC might have rigged their internal voting in support of Hillary, rather than Bernie. The press didn't do a good enough job covering that with transparency so I'm not sure. I know this almost alienated me (as a generally left leaning voter) from voting D. I know at least one friend who wanted change of any sort enough to vote for Trump after that. It was a close race, to alienating their base like that _may_ have rigged things in favor of the candidate that won the electoral vote.

mrguyorama 4y ago
Critics and pundits on the right like to portray the anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction on the left from the outcome of the vote as claiming trump "stole" the election. There indeed were occasional headlines screaming trump "stole" the election (IIRC) and there were screams of "not my president", and even a few weirdos here in maine that were convinced Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins had cheated in their respective elections, but by the time of the Muller report, the allegations were much gentler. None of the investigations or impeachments were about "stealing the election", but rather violations, sometimes flagrant and absurd, of campaign finance laws and other points of how you are allowed to campaign for the presidency. It turned out that a lot of the way the US has worked for 250 years is literally the honor code, and it's not illegal to be elected by being a huge ass or immoral person. Many people in Trump's campaign staff did end up in jail for campaign related crimes. There is also significant circumstantial evidence that Trump and some republicans are more friendly with putin than the average american hopes for, but turns out that is also not a crime. Meanwhile party republicans, sometimes including trump, have claimed significant, direct manipulation of voting equipment, tallies, and voter rolls. These claims have gone to court and nearly every one was thrown out as baseless, and occasionally downright absurdist. The claims include millions of immigrants being bussed into places to vote, thousands (or more) of "dead" people voting, accusing vote counting volunteers of "fixing" the count against trump, and countless other things. Compare: "The democrats managed to invent millions of fake votes" with no evidence to "Trump worked directly with the Russian government or individuals in the Russian government to manipulate the voter base, hack the democratic party's mail server, lie heavily to voters, and possibly hack into actual voting machines in a few states". For the latter, we have evidence that russia did in fact hack the DMC's emails, after Trump openly "asked" them to in a campaign speech, russia probably hacked some servers somewhat related to voting operations in some states (but not voting machines directly, probably), russian disinfo campaigns against american voters (though you can't blame trump for that I don't think), trump campaign advertisements that said shitty things to discourage black people from voting (which isn't a crime, hilary made stupid comments), and enough bad actions and connections in his friends and compatriots to get at least 10 people in prison.
guywithahat 4y ago
I recall a lot of pundits said "Trump stole the election", and then we entered a multi-year investigation into Russian collusion which found nothing. That was definitely a mistake in hindsight to press so far into this

calculatte 4y ago

he said, without evidence

mynameishere 4y ago

Wrong. 2000 was stolen, as was 2004.

IceMetalPunk 4y ago

Not stolen, just a terrible consequence of a poor voting system (i.e. electoral college) and a larger-than-comfortable minority of voters who were also shitty humans.

nathanaldensr 4y ago

Sorry, what does this have to do with the topic of the post? You're needlessly flaming political battles.