This whole debate seems extremely disingenuous to me. What does it matter if people say Biden didn’t win? It changes nothing. People say all kinds of nonsense, a lot of it way more harmful than arguing over who won an election.
I can’t believe the left are advocating censorship and the right are advocating letting people decide for themselves.
there's not much that is more harmful than questioning the legitimate outcome of a democratic election. It can, and is very likely to be a precursor for violence and destabilisation of fundamental institutions.
This is not a matter of left and right, it's a matter of truthfulness and peaceful transition of power, which is the most fundamental mechanism in any functioning state.
Truth be told, in the current US panorama it also doesn't seem to be a "left vs right" issue. Even in the Republican party there are elements who distanced themselves away from this dumpster fire.
Libertarians, who in the US political landscape pretty much fall on the right side of the spectrum, were never in the bandwagon to begin with. They might not be numerous, but they are large enough to have been attacked for not supporting the losing candidate, thus for some reason being held responsible for his loss.
What the world is witnessing is a political movement headed by a demagogue that's fuelled by populist propaganda, and just because he used right-wing tropes to snare up a following that doesn't mean he represents "the right".
(This claim is disputed. Learn more about how DNC upholds integrity)
Questing processes when there is legitimate doubt supports democracy, "Questioning" the system when there is no evidence of wrong-doing undermines trust in a functioning system and improves democracy about as much as creationism or Flat-Eartherism improves science.
It’s also demonstrably false that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Wrongdoing of various kinds has already been confirmed. It also doesn’t require wrongdoing to have doubt, which had also already been proven. That’s not even an open question. The open question is whether or not there may have been enough of it to affect the result. And there is room for reasonable doubt there.
What happened to make democrats turn into this authoritarian behaviour that condemns questioning of any kind? Let people insist the earth is flat, that the sun is revolving around the earth etc. You see the people believing in that stuff beneath you, so you should be able to convince them of the truth using experiments and whatnot if you're so great.
I find it scary that sites like twitter dare to put a sticker on what they believe is fake or misleading, especially when we are talking hundreds of unique video clips and pictures showing obvious dubious actions by election officials, have a particular video been "debunked" ? Fine put on a note saying its false, but I find it dystopic that americans are fine with mega corps defining what truth is...
You have to be pretty blind not to at least think that there was some odd stuff going on in the US elections. The states have become a banana republic where the democrats have become dependent on ballot harvesting of the uneducated masses.
Two party system, every 4 years you must choose between the giant douché or the turd sandwich. The whole world is laughing at Americans and their interpretation of democracy.
There is no legitimate outcome yet. We have a process. Parties are entitled to have their case heard. There’s not much more harmful than denying due process. This obviously isn’t a precursor for violence, just like it wasn’t in the 2000 presidential election. Just like it wasn’t with Abrams in Georgia. Keep those in mind when you say it’s not about left and right.
I don’t know what you’re referring to with respect to truthfulness, and there has been no failure to peacefully transition power, so maybe reserve that complaint for when January 20th if Biden is certified the winner and Trump goes into the Whitehouse bathroom and locks the door. I’m quite confident that you will find that the concern was unfounded, but I might be wrong.
You're asking if rejecting the result of free and democratic elections and pushing for the subversion of a democratic regime by arguing in favour of installing an illegitimate ruler at the highest position in government matters.
Well, it does matter if you intend in continue living in a democracy.
In the past it didn't matter to those who pushed to overthrow democracies in favor of a dictatorship.
Source that the past US election was free and democratic?
You don't need to answer. I admit, it is a bit of a troll question. I, and most Americans, believe that the reason that Biden appears to have won is because he won the most delegates who where selected based on a majority of the legal votes in their corresponding states. One of the reason that I trust the result of the election is because throughout history people have questioned the results, passed laws allowing many observers from all sides, kept a paper trail, and preformed recounts when the result was close and questioned. If, however, we are no longer allowed to question if the election is free and democratic, then I will no longer trust the results.
I'm not sure you're being serious.
In case you are, can you provide me with any example which supports the assertion that US voters haven't freely expressed their will in their vote, and that the winners of these elections don't reflect the will of the american people?
> I, and most Americans, believe that Biden appears to win is because he won the most delegates who where selected based on a majority of the legal votes in their corresponding states.
That's how your system has been working for a couple centuries, yes.
> One of the reason that I trust the result of the election is because throughout history people have questioned the results, passed laws allowing many observers from all sides, kept a paper trail, and preformed recounts when the result was close and questioned.
But that's not what's happening, isn't it?
I mean, the world is witnessing a candidate who lost the election insisting that he should continue in power, insisting in overriding the results of free and democratic elections to preserve himself in power, and meanwhile appealing to his supporters to use violence to push his goals.
Does it feel normal to you, let alone the hallmark of free and democratic elections, to have top military brass feeling the need to address the public to make it clear that they aren't tasked to obey the president, but the constitution?
Has you read the following line you would see that I was not. However, I can point a link to Montgomery county election workers filling in the circles on absentee ballots [0]. I unfortunately can't prove it to you, but I saw a confirmation that my friends grandmother's absentee ballot arrived. The only problem is that see has passed away a few years ago.
> But that's not what's happening, isn't it?
I'm not sure I'm understanding your double negative. I see that the election appears to be for the most part fair and that the questioning of the results are permitted within the legal framework.
> who lost the election
That is the question.
> hallmark of free and democratic elections, to have top military brass feeling the need to address the public to make it clear that they aren't tasked to obey the president, but the constitution?
It is it is. The fact the the top military leaders (not sure exactly who you are referring to) are able to freely exclaim that the follow the constitution, not a former president, is the Hallmark of democracy. Can you imagine what would happen if the Soviet milliary leaders demanded that Stalin hold a free election and that if Stalin lost and didn't step down, that he would be removed by force? Those leaders would either be executed or there would be a coup. I don't see any execution or coups goin on in America.
[0] The original has been censored from Google, but here is the county's response. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/ballot-frau...
Filling out someone's ballot, for whatever reason, doesn't spark integrity.
Is that your smoking gun?
I mean, you're pointing to an article about an incident involving one person working on a single county election suspected of being involved in a single incident where he is suspected of violating a single vote?
If I'm not mistaken, in Montgomery county, Maryland, the election results show a difference in votes for both candidates that was over a couple of hundred thousand votes. Are we supposed to believe that guy had any impact in the outcome of the county or even state elections?
And is Maryland even a contested state?
https://elections.maryland.gov/elections/2020/results/Genera...
I mean, is that enough in your eyes to throw out all election results from all states and just install an unelected ruler then perhaps democracy wasn't that important to you to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, please do investigate the case and push for all the legal consequences. That's what was done to the Trump supported in the viral video who admitted to have been caught committing voter fraud in 2016 in favour of Trump by trying to cast multiple votes. But in spite of the verified case of voter fraud, no one is disputing the 2016 elections and trying to install the losing candidate, right?
It is enough to show that _something_ not right happened. Of course it happened I'm a state that always votes one way, so that one video is not enough to change the results. But it is enough to make me wonder where else it happened. I wonder enough so that if there are more incidents then I would have no problem with an investigation. It's not like the budget of whoever is in charge of that is too high. If we have to build one less tank so that elections can be investigated and bring more integrity, then so be it.
> no one is disputing the 2016 elections and trying to install the losing candidate, right?
There are no lack of claims on the left that Stacey Abrams lost the election due to something not democratic.
That's kind of the problem really. Each side believes that the other is "arguing in favour of installing an illegitimate ruler".
I mean, we're talking about a group of people who, for some reason, make grandiose public statements about how they are going to sue to throw out hundreds of thousands of votes because reasons, and that they don't disclose any supporting evidence to the public because it's a surprise, but once they get in front of a judge they can't even justify their presence there?
Come on.
Can you point out a single court case that isn't a complete clown show and actually presents a properly substantiated case in a relevant jurisdiction?
No, I’m not, and neither is anybody else. If you want a response, you’ll have to try to summarize my argument in terms that I agree with, because you are just making shit up and arguing with yourself here.
For example, Washington Post falsely claimed Russia hacked into critical US energy infrastructure. The story was fabricated.
The New York Times falsely claimed, repeatedly, that there were WMDs in Iraq. The story was fabricated, thousands died.
Hence why not a single media organisation in the US is trusted by more than 50% of Americans, including "neutral" (self proclaimed but false) organisations like the Associated Press.