Seriously: everyone here does this when we get to crazy time in the election. You're just seeing it on HN more because the Wikileaks kerfuffle happens to overlap the digital liberty stuff we talk about when the election isn't looming.
If 40% of the country doesn't accept the results because their candidate is telling them not too, things can quickly get out of hand.
This is true, of course. But you have seen that stuff all over the right wing media, reliably, in every election of the past few decades. Trump is merely terrible at message discipline (which is to say: unlike his more mature peers, he actually believes this stuff and will repeat what he reads on Drudge); the specter of brown democrats rigging elections has been a subtext of republican electioneering forever.
The difference is mostly one of scale not kind. Except for the major difference that the candidate himself has never said something like this directly, and that candidates have always graciously conceded defeat.
If Donald Trump comes out on November 9th and says "I told you it was rigged. They stole the election from us.", I really don't know what will happen.
I think it's fairly likely there will be at least some small-scale rioting.
I think the best case long term scenario, if this happens, is the creation of a new much more openly racist and xenophobic political party that is too small to gain any real power.
The worst case scenario is obviously civil war, but I think that is still extremely unlikely. Especially because Trump isn't the incumbent, so he lacks any actual power. If he were the losing incumbent, and Hillary was the challenger, I think most die hard Trump supporters would back a power grab.
And the most likely scenario is that a slightly smaller Republican party gets pulled even further right.
Typically they conduct what is today recognized as domestic terrorism: lynch mobs, church bombings, bombing the Oklahoma City Federal building, shooting congregants at mosques, killing worshippers at synagogue, etc. More recently, we even saw one example of disenfranchised whites occupying a Federal Bureau of Land Management building in Bend, OR. One notable exception is the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot where whites destroyed a prosperous black section of Tulsa. [0]
Anyway, this is to say that the rioting for non-whites is very different than the resistance exhibited by whites. The socioeconomic reasons for such differences are too various to list, but as a very general statement, poor disenfranchised urban dwellers of color do not have access, mobility, motivation, or organization to attack the forces that undergird their civic misery. In this sense, riot is cathartic, reactionary, and self-defeating.
The targeted violence that characterizes acts of US domestic terrorism may also come from similar feelings of disenfranchisement, but rarely, if ever, do they result in the wholesale destruction of the local environments of the aggrieved.
When I wrote small scale rioting I was thinking more along the lines of small groups of people hunting specific targets. Vandalizing or setting fire to minority houses/churches/businesses.
These kinds of accusations are very hypocritical. I have yet to see Democrats accept a loss without claiming stolen or rigged elections. They refuse to accept the 2000 election, said that Republicans stole the state of OH in 2004, and even now claim that the current Republican majorities in both the House and Senate are the result of "gerrymandering."
Based on his current rhetoric, it's seems pretty likely that Trump will come out on November 9th and say the election was stolen.
Sure most people will ignore it, but I live in the South, in the middle of Trump country. The majority of people that I know, over 40, think that Obama and Hillary are evil. They don't disagree with them, they think they are evil.
They thought that the Federal government was going to invade Texas during Jade Helm. A fair amount of them think that Hillary is literally possessed by the devil. Breitbart is the most mainstream news source that they'll listen too, and they get most of their news from conspiracy sites spreading clickbait lies on Facebook (I know because many of them are family members and I see it). They don't believe the polls, and they really think that the only way Trump can lose is if the election is rigged. Oh and they're all heavily armed because they've been buying up ammunition since Obama was elected, in anticipation of a gun ban. (I have guns myself, but I don't have dozens of cases of ammunition in preparation for "the shit hitting the fan" like many people I know do.)
I've never seen anything this bad, even when Obama was elected. I think the major difference is the polarizing effect of most Trump supporters getting the majority of their news from Facebook. Combined with the realization by some that demographics are changing, so this may be the last election they can win.
Again, I think that actual civil war is extremely unlikely because luckily Trump won't be a losing incumbent. But I think that if Trump refuses to concede, a few acts of domestic terrorism are likely.
The FBI just stopped a group of white nationalists who were trying to kick off a religious war by detonating a truck bomb in a mostly Somali apartment complex.
I agree that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions that Russia is trying to rig the election is dangerous to democracy.
Chinese and Russian state hackers are constantly breaking into US systems. I'm sure American state hackers are constantly breaking into theirs. This is nothing extraordinary.
Thank you for validating that Clinton's repeated conspiratorial assertions are dangerous to democracy. It seems like you will doesn't accept the results you don't like, just Democrats have always done when they lose.
Now that we've got that out of the way. Hillary isn't making claims of vote rigging, she's making claims that Russians hacked emails and released them to influence the election.
Her claims are backed up by the United State's intelligence agencies.
Her claims the Russians are trying to rig the election for Trump are absolutely not backed up by the United State's intelligence agencies.
Answer the question. Do you think claims that the election is rigged is dangerous or not? You can simultaneously believe both candidates are acting dangerously.
There is however, a very big difference between the 2 claims. Clinton claims that Russia is trying to influence the election. Trump claims that the election is rigged at the polling booths.
>Her claims the Russians are trying to rig the election for Trump are absolutely not backed up by the United State's intelligence agencies.
The United State's intelligence agencies issued public statements that they believe DNC emails were hacked by Russia. The emails were then leaked during an election. That's pretty good evidence that they are trying to influence that election.
Russia also has a history of propping up right wing parties throughout Europe. Add that in, and she has very strong evidence to suggest the Russians are trying to influence the election.
Notice she hasn't said that they've successfully rigged the election. She said they are attempting to influence it.
I don't have a problem with Donald Trump saying the media is trying to influence the election in Hillary's favor. I have a problem with him saying the vote is rigged and that the election was stolen. Especially before the ballots have been cast.