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Incumbents losing elections is what is supposed to happen. It's a sign of normal times, not of a crisis. One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient

Incumbents losing elections is what is supposed to happen. It's a sign of normal times, not of a crisis. One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly.

simion314 2y ago
>One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly. In Romania not only we change them regularly but we also have PMs and ministers in jail for crimes they commuted, we are not like other countries where same president or prime Minister was in power for 30 years.
close04 2y ago
Incumbents losing elections can be fair. But only if the winner played by the rules at least loosely and the win wasn’t orchestrated by a foreign party, especially an adversary. Unless you are Russian or Chinese you shouldn’t have a president ‘chosen’ by them. So props to the Romanian authorities for taking action and not allowing a president beholden to Russian interests.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Nobody is claiming the candidate didn't play by the rules. Rather, some agency has asserted there was "a mass influence operation" in his favor - apparently they're not even asserting an organized conspiracy. There's a big problem with that claim. Intelligence agencies have a long history of making this claim of Russian control over elections all over the world, and it's always been lies and nonsense. What even is a "mass influence" operation? Sounds like the same thing as a political campaign to me? If it's really on a mass scale it should be pretty easy to prove and work out how to stop it next time, shouldn't it? Such claims are never proven because they aren't true. Back in 2016 when Trump and Brexit were still fresh, the sort of people who didn't like those things were trying to explain their loss. The Clinton campaign came up with the Steele dossier and the American press ran with it. This was the origin of the "Russian influence" claim and back then it was usually described as being done through social media bots. Academics flooded the literature with papers that claimed to prove the existence of such Russian bots. I used to work in bot detection so was interested to read some of these papers, and found they were all based on academic fraud: https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-not-c66129e5e3f5 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n... Given the long history of this type of claim, a rational person will have to assume that it's a plot by Romanian intelligence to overturn an election and treat it accordingly.
  - close04 2y ago
    I’ll bite although this really feels as unlikely as trying to change the mind of a Russian troll. A few things really sunk your boat there. First, you started on a wrong foot. He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets. This is trivially proven by the fact that… he didn’t declare his assets. In my reasonable person circle that’s called “not playing by the rules”. Very Russian. Second, at best you can say only “claims can’t be proven true” but you still went one step further to make multiple strong claims you yourself cannot prove (e.g. “because they aren’t true” or “intelligence plot”). “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, or “teapot calling the kettle black”, also good topics for your blog spam. Third, you denounce people claiming conspiracies to get their way by claiming a conspiracy to get your way, like any “reasonable” person would. Romanian intelligence and constitutional court got together to overturn the people’s will to vote pro-Russia. Perhaps, to use your own words, your claims cannot be proven because they’re not true. Lastly, going back to the Romanian elections and using very reasonable logic like the very reasonable people we are. Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country that was historically and consistently pro-West for a long time? All without any outside interference?
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      My claims are all correct to the best of my knowledge. If you disagree with any, state which ones and why. You've engaged in a lot of handwaving and assertions that I must be wrong, but no refutations. > Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country ... without any outside interference Yes. This has been happening across the world, and in every case it results in the same kinds of attempts to void democracy by the incumbents. Other countries where this has happened: Germany (AfD), France (RN), the UK (Reform), the USA (Trump), and so on. All accused of being popular only due to shadowy, unspecified manipulation by Russia, all with zero evidence. In most cases the claims don't even make logical sense to begin with. So there's nothing unique about Romania in this regard. Incumbents collaborate with journalists to force through unpopular policies without allowing any coordination against them, social media takes up the slack. It's just a really good way to spread messages outside the control of local governments. Of course politicians use it. > He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets We're talking about the BBC story which covers annulment, and it says: "The court's decision comes after intelligence documents were declassified, suggesting Georgescu benefitted from a mass influence operation – conducted from abroad – to interfere with the result of the vote." Nothing here about tax or assets. Maybe he has broken the law, maybe he hasn't. Given the rate at which bogus show trials are deployed against political outsiders these days, I'd reserve judgement on that.

simion314 2y ago

>One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly. In Romania not only we change them regularly but we also have PMs and ministers in jail for crimes they commuted, we are not like other countries where same president or prime Minister was in power for 30 years.

close04 2y ago

Incumbents losing elections can be fair. But only if the winner played by the rules at least loosely and the win wasn’t orchestrated by a foreign party, especially an adversary. Unless you are Russian or Chinese you shouldn’t have a president ‘chosen’ by them. So props to the Romanian authorities for taking action and not allowing a president beholden to Russian interests.

mike_hearn 2y ago
Nobody is claiming the candidate didn't play by the rules. Rather, some agency has asserted there was "a mass influence operation" in his favor - apparently they're not even asserting an organized conspiracy. There's a big problem with that claim. Intelligence agencies have a long history of making this claim of Russian control over elections all over the world, and it's always been lies and nonsense. What even is a "mass influence" operation? Sounds like the same thing as a political campaign to me? If it's really on a mass scale it should be pretty easy to prove and work out how to stop it next time, shouldn't it? Such claims are never proven because they aren't true. Back in 2016 when Trump and Brexit were still fresh, the sort of people who didn't like those things were trying to explain their loss. The Clinton campaign came up with the Steele dossier and the American press ran with it. This was the origin of the "Russian influence" claim and back then it was usually described as being done through social media bots. Academics flooded the literature with papers that claimed to prove the existence of such Russian bots. I used to work in bot detection so was interested to read some of these papers, and found they were all based on academic fraud: https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-not-c66129e5e3f5 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n... Given the long history of this type of claim, a rational person will have to assume that it's a plot by Romanian intelligence to overturn an election and treat it accordingly.
- close04 2y ago
  I’ll bite although this really feels as unlikely as trying to change the mind of a Russian troll. A few things really sunk your boat there. First, you started on a wrong foot. He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets. This is trivially proven by the fact that… he didn’t declare his assets. In my reasonable person circle that’s called “not playing by the rules”. Very Russian. Second, at best you can say only “claims can’t be proven true” but you still went one step further to make multiple strong claims you yourself cannot prove (e.g. “because they aren’t true” or “intelligence plot”). “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, or “teapot calling the kettle black”, also good topics for your blog spam. Third, you denounce people claiming conspiracies to get their way by claiming a conspiracy to get your way, like any “reasonable” person would. Romanian intelligence and constitutional court got together to overturn the people’s will to vote pro-Russia. Perhaps, to use your own words, your claims cannot be proven because they’re not true. Lastly, going back to the Romanian elections and using very reasonable logic like the very reasonable people we are. Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country that was historically and consistently pro-West for a long time? All without any outside interference?
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    My claims are all correct to the best of my knowledge. If you disagree with any, state which ones and why. You've engaged in a lot of handwaving and assertions that I must be wrong, but no refutations. > Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country ... without any outside interference Yes. This has been happening across the world, and in every case it results in the same kinds of attempts to void democracy by the incumbents. Other countries where this has happened: Germany (AfD), France (RN), the UK (Reform), the USA (Trump), and so on. All accused of being popular only due to shadowy, unspecified manipulation by Russia, all with zero evidence. In most cases the claims don't even make logical sense to begin with. So there's nothing unique about Romania in this regard. Incumbents collaborate with journalists to force through unpopular policies without allowing any coordination against them, social media takes up the slack. It's just a really good way to spread messages outside the control of local governments. Of course politicians use it. > He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets We're talking about the BBC story which covers annulment, and it says: "The court's decision comes after intelligence documents were declassified, suggesting Georgescu benefitted from a mass influence operation – conducted from abroad – to interfere with the result of the vote." Nothing here about tax or assets. Maybe he has broken the law, maybe he hasn't. Given the rate at which bogus show trials are deployed against political outsiders these days, I'd reserve judgement on that.