Insurrection open thread

Proud Boys march in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning. Soon a rightwing mob, incited by Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol. (Elvert Barnes photo).

I feel obliged to put up a forum for commenters in the wake of the unprecedented assault on the U.S. Capitol and our experiment in self-government by the extreme right, virtually under orders from President Trump.

A longer take will come next week. In the meantime, a couple of thoughts.

First, I've hardly been alone in warning that this event was coming (beginning with my first column after the 2016 election). This is what Trump is all about. As I wrote on Facebook, the surprising thing is that some people seemed genuinely surprised by the events of January 6th, 2021.

Second, it might not have been a coup. But it's not over yet.

I yield the floor to your comments.

 

 

 

Comments

[Mark Langley]

I just watched footage of disabled wheelchair-bound peaceful protesters being dragged out of the hall in front of Moscow Mitch's office, when the senate nearly repealed Obamacare. What? Were they on vacation yesterday?

[soleri]

The reverence that the Trump Party has for the Constitution was always a sick if noisy joke. Yesterday, it also revealed itself to be a profound lie. Any party dependent on the conpiracy-theorizing of Fox News will necessarily look and sound like Paul Gosar struggling to remember why states' rights is now a bad thing. Republicans' loose relationship to factual reality has now morphed into actual hostility to anything that might conflict with their anti-American instincts. Seditionists like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz might complain that America's least-informed citizens need to have their curated opinions about voter fraud honored by cynics like themselves, but they can't quite make the sale if only because its feverish fabrications demand a complete surrender to lunacy.

I was okay once with Republicans pretending to be honorable actors. But the truth was that even then they were little more than self-massaging loons who dressed up their vacuous self-conceit in togas and laurel wreaths (see: William Bennett, Dennis Prager, Victor David Hanson, et al). Now that the party has exiled itself from intellectual consistency along with its once-sacred "principles", it can only yap about socialism, antifa, Marxism, and transgendered people using restrooms.

The new question is whether Trump will be impeached yet again, which ought to solidify his martyr status among the unwashed. I say go for it. If we are doomed to be ruled by airheads who believe Donald Trump was sent by God to rid us of sin and bummers like complexity, then let's remind them their toxic cult still needs to get a majority if they want to rule. This isn't Vladimir Putin's Russia....yet.

[IA_Ed]

Sorry, GOP, You Don’t Get to Wash Your Hands of Violent Insurrection : Don't be fooled by a bunch of Lady MacBeths https://lyz.substack.com/p/sorry-gop-you-dont-get-to-wash-your

[Norm W]

The view from your northern neighbour: for the first time since 2010 my wife & I are not spending the winter months in the beautiful verdant Sonoran Desert. The main reason was the virtually unchecked spread of Covid-19 and the somewhat "typical" American attitude towards it. Our small winter zip code has a low number of cases, but if that area was an independent country it would qualify in the top 20 world wide in percapita infections. And now this... yes, we have all seen it coming, for years now. We have watched in amazement as our 2nd favourite nation on earth elected a car-crash president. We have seen folks, many of them (now former) friends abandon their moral principles in support of what can be only termed an anti-American agenda. We have heard the whining of Pollyannas who claim "that's not who we are." And we cling to faint hope that the new administration will have the fortitude to act decisively to correct the many problems in your land. We look forward to returning to our winter home some time in the future, but we're just going to have to see if the US becomes more liveable. The whole world is watching, you know...

[nobody]

There are two broader problems connected to the sacking of congress that must not be outshined by the spectacle of the sacking itself.

The medium term problem is what appears to be the complicity of law enforcement, and others in government, in the attack. Aside from the obvious undermanning of barriers, there are allegations that the capitol police removed crowd barriers to clear the way for the insurgents. An MSNBC talking head today said there are concerns that the insurgents may have had help from congressional staffers. It is also deeply concerning that federal law enforcement did not appear in adequate numbers until after it was evident the coup attempt had failed.

The only thing standing in the way of an insurrection is the loyalty of law enforcement to the institutions and/or people of government. When that loyalty waivers the danger cannot be understated.

The longer term problem is that over 70 million Americans--including many members of law enforcement--have a conception of America that does not include democracy and does not include granting rights to people who live in urban areas.

The only thing significant about the mob is that they tried to achieve through violence what the Republican party was, has, and is, attempting to achieve through legal means: the effective end of democracy and Republican ownership of the levers of power over the objections of the majority.

I don't even know where anyone would start to try to psychologically fix 70 million people who want someone like Trump as a dictator, much fix them quickly enough that they don't take over America.

America as a democratic project is finished if these people aren't disenfranchised, exiled, forcibly reeducated, or, in the absolute worst case, killed. No one in power has the appetite for any of those choices. There is no way out of this; America is in such a deep hole that there's no plausible way it's going to climb out.

[Ramjet]

We can only wait and wonder what will occur next. I predicted martial law for October some time ago. It is still a possibility and certainly would not be surprising, given that it is about the only thing left to him.
Impeachment is, in my opinion, very unlikely due to timing issues.
The "Jolly Donald" is not only sinking it is becoming much lighter as the syncophants (rats) are jumping overboard.
12 days left - let us hope they are not 12 days of hell.

[100 Octane]

Here's trump sounding scared...

https://t.co/csX07ZVWGe

Tomorrow may bring something else, but I think the people that really run things (Wall Street) will lean on the right levers to get trump out of office and some level of "normality" restored.

In two years Cruz and Hawley will be re-elected by the same morons.

[Rock]

Hitler used a beer hall, Trump used Parler.

Same rank of man, amoral and dangerous.

Same result, failure.

[Cal Lash]

Good post Nobody
but is anybody listening
Passports ready!

[Cal Lash]

Octane,
Missouri's Hawley will stay safe
in white protestant religious rurality.
Cruz is done in Texas.
Maybe he can get into the family
"Born Again" evangelistic scam.

[Liz Quinn]

There must be immediate consequences for Trump, and hopefully leaders will lead.

However, the route of invoking 25th
Amendment is problematic, given the number of "acting" officials. Both Secy. Chao and Secy. Devos have resigned.

Impeachment proceedings will unfortunately take too much time, as Congress has adjourned until mid-January.

We can only hope for unrelenting pressure for immediate resignation.

He is capable of much more damage to this country as long as he holds office, even with only 13 days left.

[Cal Lash]

How did this happen?
How was it possible for a mob to just waltz into Congress despite the billions spent on “security” since 9/11?

Any politician or law enforcement official that said,
they "were surprised" are liars.

Trump sent invitations to come to DC on the 6th for a wild time
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=trump+said+come+to+DC+on+the+6th+of+January&qpvt=trump+said+come+to+DC+on+the+6th+of+January&view=detail&mid=629B5F91E3692F66588D629B5F91E3692F66588D&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dtrump%2Bsaid%2Bcome%2Bto%2BDC%2Bon%2Bthe%2B6th%2Bof%2BJanuary%26qpvt%3Dtrump%2Bsaid%2Bcome%2Bto%2BDC%2Bon%2Bthe%2B6th%2Bof%2BJanuary%26FORM%3DVDRE

[Cal Lash]

Dress Rehearsal?
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/01/07/capitol-incident-a-dress-rehearsal/

[Cal Lash]

70 Million folks are still insane
See the Hill article in Talton's
The Front Page.

[Cal Lash]

1898, America’s first and only successful coup d’etat.
“What happened in Wilmington became an affirmation of white supremacy not just in that one city, but in the South and in the nation as a whole,” author Laura Edwards wrote in “Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot In 1898 And Its Legacy.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-terror-capitol-riots-america_n_5ff7802ac5b6644fa210a0a7

[toughterri]

How did this happen? An inside job. We're done as a nation. Bye.

[Noel Turnbull]

Looking from over the Pacific from a country with and independent body setting voting rules and electorate sizes the US hardly looks like a democracy at all - let alone one immune from people trying to achieve their ends through violence. We complain a lot about our country but re-assure ourselves that while some of our politicians would love to emulate Trump they wouldn't get far.

[Cal Lash]

The rise of Trumpism is a reasonably easy traceable history line, at least for those that take the time and make the effort to look.
Not from the early northern migrations from the Far East nor from the Japanese that settled in a canyon in New Mexico, but look to the European invasions of rampant murderous events starting around 1400 (such as some I posted on the previous blog.)
Religious justifications for murder, white superiority, and Manifest Destiny have been with the Americas for over 600 years. You can see where Nixon got his stuff going in the “South,” followed up by Reagan.
“Do you know, my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore,” Trump told the South Dakota Republican Governor.
“Mount Rushmore came to South Dakota by way of a Southern, white supremacist ideology that blended easily with the west sense of Manifest Destiny.”* Fundamentally it would assert white possession, not just over the Black Hills, but also over the entire continent. Gutzon Borglum, who carved the “Lost Cause” on Stone Mountain in Georgia, accepted the job of carving white men’s faces into Mount Rushmore, which was a mountain that had belonged to the Oglala Lakota for generations.
“Borglum was a product of Nordic Polygamous Mormon family that made a name for himself as an artist in the service of the Ku Klux Klan.”* Racial superiority was dominant.
The current photos of the invasion of the Capitol seem to be of many white faces. Some carrying confederate flags of the “Lost Cause.”
The USA palefaces fear turning brown.
*https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.1/indigenous-affairs-social-justice-the-battle-for-the-black-hills

[IA_Ed]

Folks, let's not forget that the GOP won a bunch of statehouses across the country. They will control re-districting and, I suspect, will gerrymander to a lively tune. As Rogue says above, it's not over yet.

[Cal Lash]

"They knew who they were enabling. In 2016, Ted Cruz called Trump “utterly amoral” and a “pathological liar.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described him as a “race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot.” And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in comments that proved prescient, describes him as someone who was inciting violence among his supporters:"

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22217696/republicans-trump-capitol-hill-storming-mob-responsible

[Cal Lash]

"Yesterday’s white riot "
https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-when-the-president-of-mediocrity-incites-an-insurrection/

[Jon7190]

Nobody wrote: "I don't even know where anyone would start to try to psychologically fix 70 million people who want someone like Trump as a dictator, much fix them quickly enough that they don't take over America.

America as a democratic project is finished if these people aren't disenfranchised, exiled, forcibly reeducated, or, in the absolute worst case, killed. No one in power has the appetite for any of those choices."

Really? This is where you want to go?

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the fallout from this election is a toxin in our national bloodstream. What happened in the Capitol Wednesday is an early manifestation of the disease that toxin is causing. Right now that disease is civic dysfunction, but if many of those "in power had the appetite for any of those choices", as Nobody says, that dysfunction could quickly turn into a hot civil war. I'm disappointed nobody else here has pushed back on his comment. The totalitarian instinct is once power is secured, consolidate it by eliminating one's opponents, but Trump is the dictator...

As I stated last month, like it or not, a large swath of the public doesn't trust the election results coming out of key states and counties, based on evidence that nobody in our institutions (or on this forum) is interested in actually evaluating. It's this failure of institutions (election officials, state and federal law enforcement, state legislators, the judiciary, congress) to adequately investigate that is driving the anger and frustration of the hundreds of thousands who showed up at the capitol and the hundreds of judgement-impaired who broke into the building.

If anybody has the ability to watch 5 minutes of Ted Cruz talking, his objection speech was quite good and sounded reasonable to me. The proposal he and a dozen other senators put forward to have an expedited 10-day bipartisan multi-branch commission evaluate the election was probably the last best hope we have of cooler heads prevailing and legitimizing the election to the satisfaction of the vast majority of the public. It should happen on the state level, too. Of course, none of that will happen, at least not before Jan 20. God help us if any investigations later prove that there was in fact enough chicanery to have swung the result. Biden will be President Asterisk to everyone, rather than just the right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6b9Vcu-PYI

A few other thoughts:
-I would diagnose the disease as the same one that led to months of nationwide protests, violence and arson after one horrifying Minneapolis police incident (some of which are still ongoing, right Solari?). The Capitol incursion was terrible, especially as it led to the fatal shooting of a protestor and possibly the death of an officer. Everyone involved should be prosecuted (83 arrested so far, I heard). Political violence is societal sickness and should never be normalized no matter what side it comes from. For the sake of consistency, I would urge people to use the same standards in judging those protestors as they used with the protestors over the summer.

-Rogue and others intimated above that President Trump might not willingly leave come Jan 20. Anyone who thinks that doesn't understand Trump or the Trump phenomenon.

-I agree with some of the commenters that it's surprising that the police couldn't control a relatively small number of protestors who were actively agitating and trying to break in. Personally, I'm leaning toward incompetence but if you're thinking conspiracy, the question is who would do that and in whose interest was is to have rioters in the capitol?

[Redhead]

If Trump were to resign, Pence could pardon him.

[nobody]

@Jon7190:

The presidential vote tallies have been repeatedly recounted and audited in every state that could influence the outcome. No evidence of large-scale fraud has been found. The Republican party has failed or refused to present any credible evidence of fraud (no, affidavits alleging fraud on the grounds that all Asian people look alike do not count) in sixty lawsuits.

The only voter fraud identified stems from a handful of pathetic Trump supporters voting twice. This is irrelevant.

The 56% of Americans who believe that there was enough fraud to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election have been lied to by their leaders. Any attempt at a 'bipartisan' inquiry will serve only to allow Republican leaders to repeat the same lies they have fed their followers since before the election was held. Placating the delusions of the masses or giving a platform for the Republican leadership to further incite a civil war is neither necessary or desirable.

The 2020 election was conducted as fairly as the typical American election (i.e. under the specter of Republican voter suppression) and it is over. Those who refuse to accept this are a threat to the continued functioning of the United States and they must be dealt with if the American experiment is to survive.

If these people are not dealt with, it is only a matter of time until they go on an Rwandan-style genocide against everyone they see as non-American.

[Joe Schallan]

They are heavily armed, and some of them are filled with hatred and bloodlust.

[Cal Lash]

“THE PRESIDENT IS BOTH UNFIT AND A CONSTITUTIONAL CRIMINAL”: CONGRESSMAN JAMIE RASKIN ON TRUMP’S 25TH AMENDMENT CRISIS—AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF IMPEACHMENT
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/jamie-raskin-donald-trump-25th-amendment-impeachment?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_CH_010820&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67d4224c17c104802a222&cndid=48614199&hasha=0523227b7149c0b82cb49b2af58cfdec&hashb=b4d894932a65b44ae2bcace91ea577e9c3a69cdc&hashc=27b2e1888dfb7e258ae5036789675e58bea59212aedaefc767cca4308ce0a752&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_COCKTAIL_HOUR_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_CH_010820&utm_term=VYF_Cocktail_Hour

[soleri]

Jon 7190, probably nothing angers me more than the anarchists vandalizing my city. They use as an excuse BLM, but they're mostly just thrill-seeking nihilists using "race equity" to justify themselves. Since they don't believe in any kind of authority, they have no way of implementng their opinions. They're just kids reality-testing their own authoritarian instincts with Molotov cocktails, spray paint, and bricks.

The thugs who attacked America on Wednesday are also kids even if most are middle-aged and overweight. Like the vast majority of Trump supporters, they don't read seriously or widely. They tend to confuse tribalism with patriotism and like many on the right, they're consumed by cultural panic. Somehow, it made them think that defiling the primary symbol of American democracy will redress their grievances. They live in a dream world mediated by false memories of a better era.

Unlike those two sets of fantasists, you do read. You are not a bomb-thrower and your manner is unfailingly civil. But because you believe Trump's nonsense of election fraud, you make a risible assertion that any allegation of it merits a serious investigation. Er, no. You seriously investigate only when there is factual evidence of wrongdoing. Trump, an habitual and pathological liar, has not done that. He merely repeats the kind of garbage political extremists invent in order to rally themselves with a set of brazen lies pretending to be an exposé. That's your team and you've done quite well damaging our republic with this dubious skill set.

Ted Cruz, the oleaginous cynic, impressed you with his casuistry. He did so not by pointing at specific wrongdoing or indisputable facts. Rather, he just suggested that because untrustworthy actors like Trump, himself, and the right's media ecosystem alleged wrongdoing, that it's unfair to gullible True Believers that these baseless allegations are not investigated. Neat trick, but no sale.

If you are actually interested in supporting conservatism as a political philosophy, you might want to stop supporting anti-American demagogues like Trump, Cruz, and Hawley. The good news is that you still have a few living examples of what principled conservatism looks like. They may be dinosaurs but people like Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake, Pat Toomey, Ben Sasse, et al, have more integrity and decency in their fingernails than the entire alt-right in their conspiracy-obsessed noggins. I want there to be a sane conservative party because America's survival depends on it. You're not nourishing your own fragile honesty by supporting the very actors destroying the Republican Party and, by extension, America itself.

[Cal Lash]

QAnon is convinced Trumps speech about the election and the mob was secret code for him still being president and Mike Flynn VP.

[Jon7190]

Nobody, I don't recall seeing your handle before, so you may have missed the long discussion we had here where I went on (at unfortunate length!) about reasons to be concerned about the election. It was the Color Arizona article on 12/7, my first comment is the thirteenth made on 12/8 with multiple follow up comments from back and forth with other commenters. No need to rehash it all here, please refer to that.

I provided a few links to aggregation sites for evidence then. If one is actually trying to evaluate the evidence, one quickly finds that the problem isn't lack of evidence, but sorting the damning from the merely troubling from the meh. Yet it is all ultimately unsatisfying because the ultimate evidence, that is ballots, envelopes, voting machines, etc, has not been made available to independent observers or in court.

I'll add a few more links from the last month since that article:
-U.S. Senate "Examining Irregularities in the 2020 Election" hearing 12/16/20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHtobbugTJU
-Georgia Senate subcommittee hearing 12/30/20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjbAFuoQOvo
-I also recommend as I did before a search for other hearings by state legislatures in AZ, MI, PA, GA
-Here is another good aggregation with simple list of links in chronological order, judge each yourself https://wethepeopleconvention.org/articles/Voter-Fraud-Compilation-Page

-The crux of the distrust is that we massively expanded the form of voting bipartisanly acknowledged (in the past) as being most susceptible to fraud, while simultaneously removing most all the safeguards to absentee/mail-in vote fraud in most of the disputed states. The way the votes came in seemed obviously strange and fishy in key counties by Nov 4, but since then numerous experts have analyzed various aspects of the numbers and found many anamolies. Not conclusive proof, but in light of them I'd sure like to see those ballots, signatures and machines! I included a few of those studies in December. Here's a few more you can evaluate for yourself:
https://votepatternanalysis.substack.com/p/voting-anomalies-2020

https://votepatternanalysis.substack.com/p/anomalies-in-vote-counts-follow-up

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3756988

https://www.sott.net/article/446760-Statistical-model-indicates-Trump-actually-won-majorities-in-five-disputed-states-and-49-68-percent-of-the-vote-in-a-sixth

More than you care to read, I'm sure, but dang it you got me started on this subject again. I can't help myself when people make simple claims of baselessness.

"If these people are not dealt with, it is only a matter of time until they go on an Rwandan-style genocide against everyone they see as non-American." So, according to your first comment, in the absolute worst case they may need to be killed preemptively? Or only if the forcible reeducation doesn't work? I'm guessing you're a big fan of Stalin and Mao.

[Jon7190]

Solari, thanks for the generous words. It doesn't sound like we are far apart on the detestableness of the Capitol building incursion.

What warrants a "serious investigation" is subjective. I and others haven't primarily been asking for the last two months for a huge all-encompassing investigation, just that observers from both sides could have access to the only voting evidence that really matters: ballots, signatures, machines, etc. Very simple. Why can't that happen? Even if you think government transparency is totally unwarranted and unnecessary, why not have it just to prevent these theories from festering and causing more problems amongst the vast simpleton masses? Wouldn't it be great to undercut Trump and prove he's peddling self-serving propaganda? Why hasn't Biden called for it to bolster his legitimacy in the eyes of the public? He has repeatedly said he wants to unify the country (usually right before saying something very not-unifying). Offering that olive branch would be the most unifying thing I can think of.

[soleri]

Jon7190,
There are several problems here. States run the machinery of our elections. They do so because it's their Constitutional mandate. If you lose an election (say, like a certain notorious sore loser/liar), you can't simply allege fraud absent any evidence for that fraud and expect the results to be somehow counted and recounted ad infinitum until you somehow get the result you like. Your allegations are not proof. Ergo, courts rule if there is any legal issue that is actionable. In 60 separate rulings, courts ruled that there was no evidence of any issue that required judicial remediation. Those judges included Trump appointees along with his three Supreme Court appointments. Question: since the paranoid right considers everything a conspiracy of evil Democrats, how is it that Trump's own judges were out to get him? Or those states like Georgia and Arizona with Trump-supporting governors that upheld the validity of their results (Georgia recounted its votes three times!)? Of course, how did this conspiracy somehow forget to elect Democrats to the House where they actually lost seats? And why did Biden do significantly worse than pollsters predicted? Moreover, why did the DHS official in charge of cyber security Christopher Krebs declare on November 12 that there was no issue with election security and was fired by Trump for his impertinence?

Recall those halcyon days of 2000 when a certain Democratic candidate lost the election by a mere 537 votes in the state of Florida. What did Republicans do? Remember the Brooks Brothers riot where they actual stormed the election office in Dade County to shut the recount down? Remember how they took their case that runaway democracy was threatening their candidate's 14th Amendment rights? Remember how the high court's five Republican judges all ruled in favor of their team's guy? Remember how the Democrat graciously accepted their verdict, in contrast to the lowlife con artist you venerate? You know, the same guy who on Monday demanded the Georgia Secretary of State "find" him 11,780 votes?

Question: what moral authority do Republicans have that allows them to burlesque our national right to vote if they don't like the results while at the same time suppressing the vote among certain lower-income voters of a certain dusky hue? Do you even care? Or is democracy just a way station on your trip to Fantasyland?

[Joe Schallan]

Good for you, Soleri.

[Jon7190]

Soleri, you know I'm glad to get into the weeds with you. This is a long one.

Recounts are done in contested elections with very close margins because that is always what's done, but I don't think anyone expected much to come of them. Apart from the voting machine suspicions (which were unwisely focused on, IMO), there wasn't a question of how many ballots for each candidate there were. It wasn't about quantity but quality. Was each ballot cast by a single real voter, who was eligible to vote? Were they cast properly, e.g. submitted in time, properly filled out, not harvested, etc? Those questions aren't effected by a recount but by audits, re-canvases and signature checks, none of which were done in a satisfactorily transparent way. What was clear was that all the disputed states had absentee/mail-in rejection rates at a fraction of historical rates, despite having huge numbers of voters who had never voted that way before. If several disputed states had rates at their historical norms, it would have exceeded the margin of victory. I think that fact was under emphasized, focusing on that could have gotten more traction without glamorous distractions like Dominion.

With absentee/mail in voting, there are myriad ways to game the system that are much easier than traditional in-person voting, especially where prefilled out applications or even actual ballots were sent out to everyone on the voter rolls, which in these places were also known to be very outdated and heavy with people who have moved or died.

If there were significant numbers of fraudulently cast ballots, was it a diffuse effort where many independent, opportunistic bad actors sent in a couple, or a handful or maybe dozens of extra ballots? Or was it a centrally coordinated effort, with a few inside actors in certain counties who have access to lists of infrequent voters and ahead of time manufactured 1,000's or 10,000's of ballots that could be moved into counting centers if needed? This might be suggested by some large counties with strange counting stops (to wait for returns to come in from else where in the state to see how many votes were needed, because you don't want to risk fraud if either side is extremely far ahead or increase the risk of detection by having a wildly larger number of ballots than are needed), unusually high numbers of Biden-only ballots (easier to manufacture in a hurry and the more candidates that are beneficiaries of fraud, the more candidates there are to have legal standing to bring court cases that could expose the fraud) and testimony by credible witnesses in affidavits of large numbers of ballots coming in where they weren't expected, batches of pristine unfolded mail-in ballots, batches of ballots with perfectly filled in marks, very large batches of ballots with not a single Trump voter, and on and on.

Ah judges, they are a vexing lot. Not all the cases were brought by the Trump campaign, but whether Trump or not, most of them were dismissed for lack of standing, not over the merits of the case. Not one case got to the point of an evidentiary hearing. Why did judges, regardless of who appointed them, not want to deal with these cases?

The courts are generally known to be unenthusiastic about election cases, especially in the immediate post election period when they could change the outcome. They are judicial branch and don't like being put in the position of deciding political races. In this case, though, it goes further. The president mostly outsourced the appointment process to the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell. They got a bunch of judges appointed, but the judges don't see themselves as "Trump's". Conservative judges aren't by nature MAGA people. They are institutionalists, while Trump is fundamentally anti-institution. He sees his political raison d'etre as reforming or even destroying creaky institutions that he sees as existing today to serve themselves and select elites while not serving the American people well. That mindset goes against the grain of most conservative judges. In the case of Bush/Gore, while initially resistant to being involved, they were ultimately willing to intervene because Bush was an establishment guy and institutionalist, not an anti-establishment bull in the china shop like Trump.

There is also the fact that it was 2020, year of the endless riots. What judge want's to be the one that pisses off the Left and sets off the next huge riot by possibly overturning a race the media already called?

There's a few problems with Republican officials. One is that like judges, they are often institutionalists who can be rather never-trumpy. Privately, they wouldn't mind seeing Trump go and take a chance with Biden, the ultimate establishment guy. Also, regardless of their political feelings, they are responsible for conducting honest, clean elections. How is it going to reflect on them if it is shown that the election in their state was so dishonest and unclean that it changed the outcome? Recounts are perfect for them because they look like they're doing something without really doing anything that could effect the result.

As for polls, most all the big-media and university polls were wildly wrong in the swing states, as they have been in other recent cycles. A few less mainstream polls were quite accurate in the swing states, as they have been in other recent cycles. Biden did within their margin of error. Remember the margins. If fraud was determinate, it only had to swing the states by 10-80k (under 1%), or 150k (under 2%) if you include MI.

OK, that's enough. I suppose the moral authority comes from the fact that the right to vote comes with a corollary right not to have one's vote negated by an illegitimate vote. Allowing illegal votes into the system is just as bad as denying someone's right to vote. The result is the same. And I agree that voter suppression is bad, which we could discuss but not today.

[Helen Highwater]

Jon7190

Current AZ fraud count

Trump , 1, person in Yuma voted twice for Trump.

Biden , 0

You want a recount, ok.

Trump 1 fraud

Biden 0

You want a recount, ok.

Trump 1

Biden 0

You want a recount, ok.

Trump 1

Biden 0

More? We can do this forever, but hey, aren’t there more important “real” issues to deal with?

[soleri]

Shorter Jon7190: what if reality was nothing more than a hologram controlled by extraterrestrial beings who lived underground and changed election results according to the dictates of the Deep State and the DNC? Why hasn't this been investigated?

There will never be an end to this crap. Your tribe of excitable conspiracy theorists live in an alternative reality mediated through QAnon, Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. You are, quite literally, shortening your lives with this nonsense, which is fine with me. But when you attack our democratic republic with this childish exercise in extreme hypotheticals, you are damaging more than your own critical thinking skills. You are damaging our nation. I used to believe Republicans were sincere when they loudly and frequently protested their love of America. Now, it seems to be just one more performative exercise in delusional group-think.

If we were take seriously all the mind-bending "what ifs" that keep you awake at night, elections themselves would become impossible. It's true that democracy is messy and that a few voters occasionally break the rules. Most appear to be Republican, but I concede this does happen. The idea, however, that evil Democrats not only do this but have somehow corrupted the elections even in Republican states is insane. This is what four years of Donald Trump have done to your brain. You no can longer can tell the difference between evidence and your own wishful thinking.

[Cal Lash]

012121??
IMHO
Regardless of the veracity of all the what ifs above, the most important thing is Donald Trump and kids are someplace besides the White House.

[Cal Lash]

From Talton's Front Pages:
“police system was arranged to deal with blacks alone, and tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/01/inaction-capitol-police-was-design/617590/

[Mike Doughty]

Jon7190-what about the 80 judges in 60 cases that have not found any evidence of fraud. You couldn’t find 10 people in a bar (much less the senate ) that are bipartisan.
As far as Trump resigning,it would be an excuse for Trump to pardon him.

[Jon7190]

Mike Doughty,
I think I talked about the judges above. Most of the judges have never fully looked at the evidence offered, let alone ordered access to more evidence from the state. Rulings were based on legal reasons besides evidence.

Bipartisan doesn't mean nonpartisan, just that there would be an even mix of both sides to try to have balance.

[Jon7190]

Fair enough, Solari. I'll just offer a few thoughts and leave it there for me.

That's the thing about worldviews, they make us look at the same world and interpret it in totally different ways. We all have a worldview, it's inevitable. Unfortunately, the increased tribalism in America today is making people have diametrically opposed worldviews (or maybe vice versa).

You look at the election and think it's crazy anybody could think your guy didn't win fair and square. After all, the U.S. always has legitimate, clean elections (except those times in 1824,1876,1960, 2008[Franken] to name a few highlights). Plus who in his right mind would want to vote for Trump, the worst president ever?

I look at the election and think it's crazy anybody could not be suspicious given the huge, half-baked changes to the way we voted and that the guy who won barely campaigned and was the least inspiring candidate in living memory running against the left's most hated president ever. Plus who in his right mind would want to vote for that crony pol in cognitive decline?

And we haven't even talked about policy.

Like it or not, we are both creatures of our tribe no matter how much we may think ourselves as independently minded. None of us can claim a monopoly on objective truth. The Democratic party as it's currently composed being in charge of both branches scares the hell out of me, but I suppose that's just my tribalism.

[HMLS]

Jon7190 refers to Democratic control of "both branches' of the US government. He must have been an honor student in the Arizona school system. Such bad, bad schooling and yet the Anglos born in Arizona just keep talking and displaying their profound ignorance. Maybe soleri can give you a civics course in US government.

[soleri]

Jon7190, I understand the tribal thing quite well, which is why I occasionally make myself unpopular here by drawing a line when it comes to left-wing hysteria, such as the "woke" bullshit, or mocking the idea of certain idealists who think we're one unicorn ride away from a socialist revolution. I was an ideologue when I was young, and I look back on it and think how insane all that was. Now, I'm content if we can take baby steps to the promised land because we sure as hell won't get there any other way.

You have a moderate sensibility, which might tempt you into thinking an unhinged narcissist isn't that crazy because he's so good on TV. Trump is demonstrably insane, however. You don't lie as compulsively as he does without having some significant psychological impairment that demands you rewrite reality itself to make yourself feel better in the moment. The Republican Party has now been fully captured by his toxic personality cult. You are infected by it as well and to such an extent that you believe his delusional confabulations about "election fraud". Because Trump never lies about anything! Right?

There are a few sane Republicans left, however. Your job is to join them. Stop feeding the madness. You're not the first person to be captured by a cult and you won't be the last.

[Jon7190]

HMlS, you're right I should have said both branches of goverment that are controlled directly by political parties that can switch during election cycles, but I'm trying to cut down my word count. We should let the third branch decide if that was constructive criticism or not.

[IA_Ed]

Jon7190:

I started reading the substack link you posted above (Jan 8, 8:02PM), but soon decided the writers were hiding their grievances in probability theory. (Remember? common man: 2+2=4; engineer: 2+2=4.00000; statistician: 2+2='what do you want it to equal?'). Nor did they address why the anomalies may have occurred in this election. In particular they mention nothing about the pandemic.

Finally, the piece was written anonymously. There are no names associated with the post, only some umbrella group. (I did not try to determine who is behind the group or where it gets its funding.)

[DoggieCombover]

As humans we spend a great deal of effort in what I refer to as "making ourselves right." That is, whenever there are incongruent, conflicting scenarios, we try to rationalize our point of view. The clinical term for this is "cognitive dissonance." Substitute Trump for smoking in this example and you have Jon and the rest of the cult making themselves right:

A habitual smoker who learns that smoking is bad for health will experience dissonance because the knowledge that smoking is bad for health is dissonant with
the cognition that he continues to smoke. He can reduce the dissonance by changing his behavior, that is, he could stop smoking, which would be consonant with the cognition that smoking is bad for health. Alternatively, the smoker could reduce dissonance by changing his cognition about the effect of smoking on health and believe that smoking does not have a harmful effect on health (eliminating the dissonant cognition). He might look for positive effects of smoking and believe that smoking reduces tension and keeps him from gaining weight (adding consonant cognitions). Or he might believe that the risk to health from smoking is negligible compared with the danger of automobile accidents (reducing the importance of the dissonant cognition).

This is why no amount of evidence or facts will change minds about "fraud." But I would suggest it's time to quit smoking...

[Cal Lash]

Yeah, yeah, i know. Im trying to quit.
Becker MD

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@Jon7190, you wrote: "That's the thing about worldviews, they make us look at the same world and interpret it in totally different ways."

You're a postmodernist? Tres Foucauldian. ;)

When and why did the right wing come around to this view when ideologically organized against this view since the '60s?

[Cal Lash]

"Tres Foucaudian." Good observation.
Some comptemplate the flowing river
Some just jump in.

Out of curiosity is the handle
Bobson Dugnutt
Like bowling doughnut?

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@Cal Lash, for the origin of Bobson Dugnutt, see this April 2020 article in Slate:

https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/mlbpa-baseball-nintendo-japan-player-names.html

[Cal Lash]

Thanks. I had googled it earlier.
Just funning.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@Jon7190, you look at the election and you think your suspicions are *equally as valid* as Soleri's argument that the election played itself out just as it was reported: Biden winning the electoral college with about 8 million more popular votes than Trump.

The facts bear out Soleri's argument, and despite Trump supporters clinging to tendentious facts, tendentious legal reasoning and finally mob violence when the previous two gambits busted, the truth is on the side of objective reality.

Jon7190, you're not considering that the people counting the votes are anticipating and accounting for irregularities THEN PREVENTING THEM FROM AFFECTING THE TALLY.

An irregularity is a vote that has to be rejected for spoilage. This includes a person who submitted a blank ballot, a person who voted for more than one candidate in the office, or a person who improperly fills out a ballot (particularly with mail ballots that ask to completely fill in a bubble and not mark it with a check or an X).

Vote-counting itself involves more than the vote tally. There are also checks for the number of eligible voters as well as checking the tally of voters who cast a ballot through signatures or ID. So there are several safety factors in play.

Secretaries of state and elections officials often share information and learn from another in between elections. And secretary of state, the elections chief in most states, has an important role. The secretary of state is the official keeper of records, a very important role in society. If the elections process is suspicious, the veracity of other documents (birth certificates, death certificates, property deeds, marriage licenses, etc.) would also come under suspicion as well.

Face it, there is no plausible way there were about 4 million votes denied to Trump that were rightfully his. His campaign has racked up a 1-64 record in courts to try to bend reality to Trump's whim.

Please -- Give. It. Up.

[Gary S.]

Jon7190, you establish a dazzling array of glittering generalities and then use them to sell your point. The result is a world that somehow makes sense to you but in no way reflects reality. That makes it very difficult to refute, which in turn confirms it for you. Are you in sales? If not, you should consider it.

[eclecticdog]

We are one Jon7191 away from Qanon jacking Rogue's threads.

[Jimmy C]

Sorry I'm late. Just flew in from "thedonald.win" and boy, are my arms tired.

Y'all have been hand-wringing for no reason. We've got this. After we take care of Pelosi and those other child-trafficking cannibals, we'll turn our collective attention to anyone who thinks the Grand Emperor Trump (and yes, that is really what some of us are now calling him) did not actually win the election. So don't fret; America is safe. Or it soon will be...

In other news, you should know that we never actually landed on the moon, and Pearl Harbor was a Jewish plot. Also, 5G causes Covid.