Trump himself consents to transition
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@jolly said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@xenon said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@xenon said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@xenon said in Trump himself consents to transition:
Trump is different. He wants to change the results based on bullshit and 10’s of millions of people agree with him and believe the bullshit.
10s of millions of people would have rejoiced had the faithless electors succeeded. I figure they had as much of a chance as Trump does with his hopes of overturning the results. It’s not different.
If that happened, and 10’s of millions of people were on board - then we’d be in the same situation as right now.
I get it. Fucking around with faithfulness of electors is fine and dandy as long as it’s legal. Now name something Trump has done in his crusade that’s illegal.
I don’t think anything. He’s acting like a person with the intelligence of a teenager. He declared victory on election night while the votes were still being counted.
People trust voting less now than they would have before this. That’s bad. That’s a real effect.
Not everything that’s bad is illegal.
I said a long time ago that Trump would go down fighting and use every legal means available to fight.
You may not agree with it, but it is not illegal, immoral or any danger to the Republic or rule of law.
I suspect the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media , is a trifle overblown, donchyathink?
I guess declaring victory on election night and saying the election was stolen without evidence is not illegal.
But as I said, not everything that’s bad is illegal.
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@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
I would suggest we go back to 2016/17 on the old board to see how much attention we gave it. That is a reasonable proxy for how big a threat to democratic order this really was.
Why would that be a reasonable proxy? I bring it up to contrast with the reaction to Trump’s campaign about fraud. Even if I equate the two in terms of severity, I would be embarrassed to get histrionic about either one.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
This was my concern expressed 5.5 months ago.
What saved us is the answer to my last question was 'yes'. Other institutions saved us from Trumps attempt to subvert our democracy. Specifically, state courts and the conscience of Michigan's GOP leaders. In absence of the latter it's highly likely that Michigan's state courts would have protected us. This time.
But yes, I agree with your point, @Horace. We need to make sure some other Trump-like figure couldn't do this again.
Right, it's just a Trump-like figure. Not the electors that tried to steal the election from him in 2016.
Wherein I remind jon of the electors with TDS in 2016 trying to build a cross-aisle coalition of faithlessness in a last ditch effort to subvert the will of the people and keep Trump from the White House. See above for the rest of the conversation. Then google for the true motivations of the Democrat electors who pulled the stunt. The worms admitted it on NPR. Probably bragged about it, thinking it would come off as righteous.
Number of fucks given by the left at this enormous destruction of political norms: zero.
The will of the people was for Hillary Clinton by over 3 million votes. The archaic electoral college is the saving grace that allows a Republican to sit in the White House. We haven't had a decent one since Eisenhower.
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@nobodyssock said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
This was my concern expressed 5.5 months ago.
What saved us is the answer to my last question was 'yes'. Other institutions saved us from Trumps attempt to subvert our democracy. Specifically, state courts and the conscience of Michigan's GOP leaders. In absence of the latter it's highly likely that Michigan's state courts would have protected us. This time.
But yes, I agree with your point, @Horace. We need to make sure some other Trump-like figure couldn't do this again.
Right, it's just a Trump-like figure. Not the electors that tried to steal the election from him in 2016.
Wherein I remind jon of the electors with TDS in 2016 trying to build a cross-aisle coalition of faithlessness in a last ditch effort to subvert the will of the people and keep Trump from the White House. See above for the rest of the conversation. Then google for the true motivations of the Democrat electors who pulled the stunt. The worms admitted it on NPR. Probably bragged about it, thinking it would come off as righteous.
Number of fucks given by the left at this enormous destruction of political norms: zero.
The will of the people was for Hillary Clinton by over 3 million votes. The archaic electoral college is the saving grace that allows a Republican to sit in the White House. We haven't had a decent one since Eisenhower.
NS, sometimes you don’t write very clearly. If I may ask, can you say clearly once and for all whether you like Republicans and Donald Trump, or dislike them?
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I think anybody who acts as a faithless elector is flat out disgusting, whichever party they belong to.
$1000 isn't a big enough fine. They should be put in jail and lose the ability to take part in politics ever again, although actually the solution is to remove the quirk in the electoral process that allows them to act in this way.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
Why would that be a reasonable proxy?
Well, to the perceived threat anyway.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@nobodyssock said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
This was my concern expressed 5.5 months ago.
What saved us is the answer to my last question was 'yes'. Other institutions saved us from Trumps attempt to subvert our democracy. Specifically, state courts and the conscience of Michigan's GOP leaders. In absence of the latter it's highly likely that Michigan's state courts would have protected us. This time.
But yes, I agree with your point, @Horace. We need to make sure some other Trump-like figure couldn't do this again.
Right, it's just a Trump-like figure. Not the electors that tried to steal the election from him in 2016.
Wherein I remind jon of the electors with TDS in 2016 trying to build a cross-aisle coalition of faithlessness in a last ditch effort to subvert the will of the people and keep Trump from the White House. See above for the rest of the conversation. Then google for the true motivations of the Democrat electors who pulled the stunt. The worms admitted it on NPR. Probably bragged about it, thinking it would come off as righteous.
Number of fucks given by the left at this enormous destruction of political norms: zero.
The will of the people was for Hillary Clinton by over 3 million votes. The archaic electoral college is the saving grace that allows a Republican to sit in the White House. We haven't had a decent one since Eisenhower.
NS, sometimes you don’t write very clearly. If I may ask, can you say clearly once and for all whether you like Republicans and Donald Trump, or dislike them?
I like plenty of republicans. Im surrounded by them. My best friends are all right minded. I just dont agree with many of their political ideas. Now Trump on the other hand, i would despise him just as much if he was a democrat. He’s amoral and believes the world revilves around him. The worst kind of person you want to run a country. No empathy or compassion or intellect whatsoever.
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@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
Why would that be a reasonable proxy?
Well, to the perceived threat anyway.
TDS causes its sufferers to perceive great threat in everything he does. There is no analogue to TDS among his supporters at the time this took place. And no media support to amplify the hysteria. I didn’t even know about the intentions of these faithless Dem electors till I learned about it on a podcast. But one of them did in fact admit to the hope to build a coalition of faithlessness across the aisle to elect someone other than Trump.
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Yeah, but for TDS none of this would have even made the news.
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It’s not like this has only animated his detractors.
I mean, millions actually believe this shit. And believed (and hoped) it would would be successful.
Even some here.
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You’re almost there. If Trump electors had attempted a similar stunt in his loss, it would have made the news. The Dem stunt would have been news but for TDS. The president mounting a campaign of fraud accusations will of course make the news one way or another. The elector scam was low key enough to be buried, especially considering it was tried and failed on the same day.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
You’re almost there. If Trump electors had attempted a similar stunt in his loss, it would have made the news. The Dem stunt would have been news but for TDS. The president mounting a campaign of fraud accusations will of course make the news one way or another. The elector scam was low key enough to be buried, especially considering it was tried and failed on the same day.
Another difference here is that these electors are one-off people with limited agency.
It’s not like it was the position of the Democratic Party or its leadership to push for faithless electors.
If there were faithless electors throwing in their hat for Trump (in the scenario that he lost) AND Trump were egging them on - that’d be a different story.
Hillary wasn’t pushing for electors to turn faithless, AFAIK.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
You’re almost there.
Ok, let’s get me the rest of the way.
Am I correct that you don’t see any material difference between the two efforts (2016 and 2020), just a difference in reaction? And that difference in reaction is due to TDS?
How does TDS explains the millions of Trump supporters who have jumped on the bandwagon too?
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@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
You’re almost there.
Ok, let’s get me the rest of the way.
Am I correct that you don’t see any material difference between the two efforts (2016 and 2020), just a difference in reaction? And that difference in reaction is due to TDS?
How does TDS explains the millions of Trump supporters who have jumped on the bandwagon too?
There is a material difference. No one played the threat to democracy card. Just constant escalation of words as each prior one fails. It’s Godwin’s law at its finest. The only good news is that there is no dry powder left.
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@jon-nyc said in Trump himself consents to transition:
@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
You’re almost there.
Ok, let’s get me the rest of the way.
Am I correct that you don’t see any material difference between the two efforts (2016 and 2020), just a difference in reaction? And that difference in reaction is due to TDS?
Of course there’s a difference. I struggle to find an obvious way to determine which was the more dangerous precedent - righteous political hatred of a pop culture mob which allowed for the unprecedented elector shenanigans in 2016, or Trump predictably being Trump and Ineffectually crying fraud in 2020.
How does TDS explains the millions of Trump supporters who have jumped on the bandwagon too?
Why would I need TDS to explain that? I’m sure there are wishfully thinking Trump supporters convinced tthat he election was stolen. Trump will leave office at the scheduled time and they’ll get over it. You can hand wave long term consequences of the dangerous precedent as you will. Meanwhile, you’re enjoying the heck out of watching Trump spin foolish fraud conspiracy claims daily.
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@horace said in Trump himself consents to transition:
I struggle to find an obvious way to determine which was the more dangerous precedent
I can think of one - how about extent of involvement by those with hands on levers of power? Let's just look at 2016.
Surely 2016 would look different had it been a full-on establishment push (say) involving the Obamas, Bushes, Clintons, McCain and Romney? What if hundreds of congressmen had signed on? What if the there were open discussions of jailing the non-cooperative?
How different would that have been than an effort by two guys no one has heard of and a cheerleader at Huffpo?
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@jon-nyc it’s reasonable to conclude that in isolation Trump’s unprovable allegations of election fraud are a worse precedent than electors abusing faithlessness to express their affiliation with a pop culture mob of hatred against the winner of the election. I did not bring the example up in the hopes of drawing an equivalence between the two, but rather to present an example of something ignored and memory holed - to the extent few people even knew of the scheme - in service of the widespread mindlessly destructive social idea know as TDS. All that said, I do not anticipate claims of election fraud to be as big a thing going forward as they are with Trump. This is an unfortunate bump in the road, a predictable one upon his defeat. You give him more credit than I do if you think the example he is setting, which will fail and which would cost a more normative person reputation, will lead future politicians to follow suit. You can feel free to say I told you so in 4 years as we see how the next loser handles their loss.