9 ms·

The fact that a single company has this much potential influence on US elections is the real issue here. The party affiliation of the owner is irrelevant to tha

The fact that a single company has this much potential influence on US elections is the real issue here. The party affiliation of the owner is irrelevant to that. If you're upset about this today - you should be, but you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so.

aredox 1y ago
[flagged]
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - atmavatar 1y ago
    Hillary Clinton refused to concede on election night. The Associated Press didn't call the election until 2:29 AM EST, publishing their primary story at 2:43 AM EST. See: https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/behind-the-news/calling-the-presidential-race-state-by-state/ https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/behind-the-news/cal... See: https://apnews.com/article/fb2e92a47f054019a2589ace78d20836 https://apnews.com/article/fb2e92a47f054019a2589ace78d20836 Based on the former link, Hillary gave her concession call to Trump at 2:50 AM EST. She gave her public concession speech several hours later. See: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-concedes-to-trump-we-owe-him-an-open-mind-231118 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-concedes-to-t... I'm rather curious what more you expected. In Gore's case, we had a razor thin electoral result that hinged on a single state with less than a 550 vote margin against 5.96 million votes cast, or 0.009%. We can argue about how many recounts there should have been, but it makes perfect sense there'd be some contention when the entire election came down to so few votes. To his credit, he conceded the day after the Supreme Court made their ruling, exhausting his final legal recourse. See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/14/uselections2000.usa12 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/14/uselections200... You may notice a distinct absence of attacks on the US capitol during the certification of either the 2000 or 2016 elections. You'll also do well to note that Bill Clinton in 2000 and Obama in 2016 dutifully aided their Republican successors getting up to speed with their office on the way in, sharply contrasting Trump's treatment of Biden's incoming administration. And, to this day, Trump still hasn't publicly conceded his 2020 loss. Quite the opposite - on multiple occasions, he's voiced the opinion that he should be allowed to run again in 2028 to make up for his "stolen" second term. There are still plenty of Republican members of Congress as well as many state-level Republicans who maintain the 2020 election was stolen. You would have a hard time finding a single elected Democrat at either the federal or state level who would claim any presidential elections were stolen from their party's candidates. There is no good faith argument to be made that both parties are the same in this regard.
  - ubiquitysc 1y ago
    Oh man I forgot when Clinton and Gore egged on a mob in an attempted coup as well
  - aredox 1y ago
    [flagged]
- cmxch 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - MiguelX413 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586134 No they're not
  - thiht 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - cmxch 1y ago
      [flagged]
twisteriffic 1y ago
> The party affiliation of the owner is irrelevant to that. Yeah that's a nice thought, but it ignores a whole lot of recent evidence to the contrary.
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  Half the country feels the way you do. The other half felt that way for the past four years. If centralized ownership is an issue, we should all work together to fix that. If the issue is the party affiliation, then it isn't an issue at all.
  - colonCapitalDee 1y ago
    Half the country is wrong. I agree that centralized ownership is a problem regardless of party, but putting on both sides blinders is not the answer.
    - gjsman-1000 1y ago
      In that case, do you agree a one-party state, run by Democrats, would be "correct"?
      - judahmeek 1y ago
        [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        The "correct" setup is a loyal opposition during time out of power. In the absence of that, a one-party state is probably better than a two-party state in which one party is actively trying to burn the system down.
        TrnsltLife 1y ago
        You're talking about the mostly peaceful protesters who tried to burn down the Federal building in Portland for over 200 nights, right? Sedition and insurrection.
aredox 1y ago
[flagged]
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  Helplessness? Not at all. I'd be very much in favor of changing the way our elections are run, in many ways. Pointing out that one person that you don't like is in a position of power isn't the same thing. I think this quote by Thomas Paine illustrates my position: > [...] so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. There's a reason the US Constitution prohibits bills of attainder. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, applied equally to all. The way to fix this is via legislation that codifies the system we want to have.
  - skinnymuch 1y ago
    Didn’t America not have laws equal at all for a long time based on the Constitution and only recently it is superficially equal to all (we all know the law doesn’t work the same for everyone)?
    - Ancapistani 1y ago
      Yes. We still do.
boringg 1y ago
>> If you're upset about this today - you should be, but you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. Thanks for the finger wagging - great motivation there. I mean if you live in a country where these things are actual serious problems, you're no longer living in a democracy. I have doubts that ownership of the voting machine company is truly a problem - though it certainly doesn't look great.
jaredklewis 1y ago
> If you're upset about this today - you should be, but you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. No? I wasn't upset about it for the past decade, not only because I didn't know about it, but because I wasn't even concerned about it. Ten years ago US democratic institutions and norms were not being challenged and neither party seemed particularly intent on transitioning the country to one-man rule. During the second term of Obama, Biden, and even the first term of Trump (until he lost) democracy was not under attack. Well those things that were true 10 years ago are no longer true now, so I can change what I get upset about. Jan 6 changed this country, unfortunately.
- Fezzik 1y ago
  I hate to be the one to point this out, but Republicans have been aggressively gerrymandering districts for multiple decades. While the goal of doing so may have not been to have a dictator, as it appears to be now, I can assure you that their intent in doing so was not to promote representative democracy.
  - jaredklewis 1y ago
    I’m already aware of that. I don’t love gerrymandering, but it’s categorically different IMHO. Gerrymandering is an abuse of the system, but it is still working within the system. That’s in stark contrast to the current, mainstream Republican ideology which dictates that if Republicans lose, then the election must have been “rigged,” which is more like burning the whole system to the ground.
    - Fezzik 1y ago
      Once you’re comfortable openly and actively disenfranchising voters, and you get away with it, it is a small step to start whining all the time about how the system is rigged against you to try to ramp up your efforts to further disenfranchise voters. Burning the system down doesn’t just happen overnight. It happens slowly and starts with ‘working within the system.’
insane_dreamer 1y ago
[flagged]
johnnyanmac 1y ago
>you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. I have been. What's next?

aredox 1y ago

[flagged]

Ancapistani 1y ago
[flagged]
- atmavatar 1y ago
  Hillary Clinton refused to concede on election night. The Associated Press didn't call the election until 2:29 AM EST, publishing their primary story at 2:43 AM EST. See: https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/behind-the-news/calling-the-presidential-race-state-by-state/ https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/behind-the-news/cal... See: https://apnews.com/article/fb2e92a47f054019a2589ace78d20836 https://apnews.com/article/fb2e92a47f054019a2589ace78d20836 Based on the former link, Hillary gave her concession call to Trump at 2:50 AM EST. She gave her public concession speech several hours later. See: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-concedes-to-trump-we-owe-him-an-open-mind-231118 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-concedes-to-t... I'm rather curious what more you expected. In Gore's case, we had a razor thin electoral result that hinged on a single state with less than a 550 vote margin against 5.96 million votes cast, or 0.009%. We can argue about how many recounts there should have been, but it makes perfect sense there'd be some contention when the entire election came down to so few votes. To his credit, he conceded the day after the Supreme Court made their ruling, exhausting his final legal recourse. See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/14/uselections2000.usa12 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/14/uselections200... You may notice a distinct absence of attacks on the US capitol during the certification of either the 2000 or 2016 elections. You'll also do well to note that Bill Clinton in 2000 and Obama in 2016 dutifully aided their Republican successors getting up to speed with their office on the way in, sharply contrasting Trump's treatment of Biden's incoming administration. And, to this day, Trump still hasn't publicly conceded his 2020 loss. Quite the opposite - on multiple occasions, he's voiced the opinion that he should be allowed to run again in 2028 to make up for his "stolen" second term. There are still plenty of Republican members of Congress as well as many state-level Republicans who maintain the 2020 election was stolen. You would have a hard time finding a single elected Democrat at either the federal or state level who would claim any presidential elections were stolen from their party's candidates. There is no good faith argument to be made that both parties are the same in this regard.
- ubiquitysc 1y ago
  Oh man I forgot when Clinton and Gore egged on a mob in an attempted coup as well
- aredox 1y ago
  [flagged]
cmxch 1y ago
[flagged]
- MiguelX413 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586134 No they're not
- thiht 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - cmxch 1y ago
    [flagged]

twisteriffic 1y ago

> The party affiliation of the owner is irrelevant to that. Yeah that's a nice thought, but it ignores a whole lot of recent evidence to the contrary.

Ancapistani 1y ago
Half the country feels the way you do. The other half felt that way for the past four years. If centralized ownership is an issue, we should all work together to fix that. If the issue is the party affiliation, then it isn't an issue at all.
- colonCapitalDee 1y ago
  Half the country is wrong. I agree that centralized ownership is a problem regardless of party, but putting on both sides blinders is not the answer.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    In that case, do you agree a one-party state, run by Democrats, would be "correct"?
    - judahmeek 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      The "correct" setup is a loyal opposition during time out of power. In the absence of that, a one-party state is probably better than a two-party state in which one party is actively trying to burn the system down.
      - TrnsltLife 1y ago
        You're talking about the mostly peaceful protesters who tried to burn down the Federal building in Portland for over 200 nights, right? Sedition and insurrection.

aredox 1y ago

[flagged]

Ancapistani 1y ago
Helplessness? Not at all. I'd be very much in favor of changing the way our elections are run, in many ways. Pointing out that one person that you don't like is in a position of power isn't the same thing. I think this quote by Thomas Paine illustrates my position: > [...] so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. There's a reason the US Constitution prohibits bills of attainder. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, applied equally to all. The way to fix this is via legislation that codifies the system we want to have.
- skinnymuch 1y ago
  Didn’t America not have laws equal at all for a long time based on the Constitution and only recently it is superficially equal to all (we all know the law doesn’t work the same for everyone)?
  - Ancapistani 1y ago
    Yes. We still do.

boringg 1y ago

>> If you're upset about this today - you should be, but you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. Thanks for the finger wagging - great motivation there. I mean if you live in a country where these things are actual serious problems, you're no longer living in a democracy. I have doubts that ownership of the voting machine company is truly a problem - though it certainly doesn't look great.

jaredklewis 1y ago

> If you're upset about this today - you should be, but you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. No? I wasn't upset about it for the past decade, not only because I didn't know about it, but because I wasn't even concerned about it. Ten years ago US democratic institutions and norms were not being challenged and neither party seemed particularly intent on transitioning the country to one-man rule. During the second term of Obama, Biden, and even the first term of Trump (until he lost) democracy was not under attack. Well those things that were true 10 years ago are no longer true now, so I can change what I get upset about. Jan 6 changed this country, unfortunately.

Fezzik 1y ago
I hate to be the one to point this out, but Republicans have been aggressively gerrymandering districts for multiple decades. While the goal of doing so may have not been to have a dictator, as it appears to be now, I can assure you that their intent in doing so was not to promote representative democracy.
- jaredklewis 1y ago
  I’m already aware of that. I don’t love gerrymandering, but it’s categorically different IMHO. Gerrymandering is an abuse of the system, but it is still working within the system. That’s in stark contrast to the current, mainstream Republican ideology which dictates that if Republicans lose, then the election must have been “rigged,” which is more like burning the whole system to the ground.
  - Fezzik 1y ago
    Once you’re comfortable openly and actively disenfranchising voters, and you get away with it, it is a small step to start whining all the time about how the system is rigged against you to try to ramp up your efforts to further disenfranchise voters. Burning the system down doesn’t just happen overnight. It happens slowly and starts with ‘working within the system.’

insane_dreamer 1y ago

[flagged]

johnnyanmac 1y ago

>you should have been upset about it last week, last year, and for the past decade or so. I have been. What's next?