But rationally I have no way to be 100% certain, because, as a thought experiment, if it really was rigged, what would look different to how it does look?
The fact that "everyone knew" and was expecting the losing side to cry foul means that when they do, everyone says "you see? Told you so." But if it really was, how would we know? What would look different?
The fact that those who are meant to look out for such things (primarily, the media) are not trusted by one side to do so impartially means that if there really was foul play, their reporting would not necessarily be different. So again, how would you know?
To reiterate, I am not saying I think it was rigged. I'm not American, nor have I ever lived there. I'm just saying that _if it was_, things would look pretty much as they do now. _If t wasn't_, things would also look pretty much as they do now. So how can we know?
It seems more plausible that:
- there was a really high turnout aided by widespread absentee voting
- a large single-digit percentage of voters went Republican in the congressional races but didn't vote for Trump
I can't think of a fraud based scenario with any factual support that is as compelling.
The GOP candidate refuses to concede in face of the recount results not supporting his case. But the media is adding flame to this by giving people half-truths and not being honest in their position either.
Is it the case that Trump still lost, even after the recounts? Yep, it is the case. Is it true that there were no missing votes? Media claims so, but the GA recount seems to prove them wrong. The media publications don't want to retract their earlier statements about there being no missing votes, despite the fact that recounts proved them wrong. Just because there weren't enough of missing votes to change the outcome doesn't mean that they didn't exist.
P.S. Biden won, recounts affirmed that he won legitimately, I am happy. The process of the recount seems to have worked as it was supposed to. But the loud media statements about "no missing votes" aren't helping their case, and it doesn't seem truthful to say there were "no missing votes" just because there weren't enough of them to change the election outcome.
They think the people are too stupid to understand, so they lie to them "for their own good", which ends up backfiring and causing people to believe the opposite, because people have good bullshit detectors even when they aren't very well educated.
It seems like you really can’t win, if you’re the one doing the messaging, trading results now against trust later.
Like, is it true that consuming cannabis can lead to being complacent in life and prevent you from achieving your full potential? Yes, but it isn't universally the case at all. Is it true that it is best to avoid cannabis usage in your teen years? Arguably yes. Is it more harmful than alcohol? Doubtful.
So this argument comes again, do we tell them the truth or do we try to get short-term results by telling half truths (and outright lies) to convince teens not to use cannabis? Well, we know the approach the US took back then, and it didn't end up working out well at all. Because once teens tried it and found out that 90% of the things about cannabis that were told to them were a lie, the trust was gone. By that point, they were less likely to believe even full truths about harder drugs, which could have way more destructive potential.
I agree though, it is a delicate balance to manage, and in some cases this gets really tricky. But imo, I think long-term-focused approaches are what builds up trust over time and leads to the best possible outcomes in most cases.
P.S. To make it clear, in case my post was too convoluted. I do think that War on Drugs was a failure, I believe that cannabis should be legal, but I also believe that we should have an honest conversation about it, without resorting to either "this will ruin your life after one puff and make you an addict" or "it is a miracle drug that will make your life amazing and cure your cancer".
P.P.S. Ironically enough, I think that the South Park episode on medical cannabis handled it super well, that whole talk Randy gave to his son Stan. TLDR of it was that Randy said that cannabis won't ruin your life, neither will it turn you into a drug addict. But cannabis makes you feel satisfied and fine with being bored, and being bored is when you should be learning new skills or improving yourself. So it is a delicate balance, and if you consume, you should be mindful of that. As long as you aren't using cannabis as a substitute for doing things you should be doing (aka consume responsibly and in moderation), you will be fine.
Far from claiming "no missing votes", the real media is doing hard work to document this election in extensive detail.
To your point, they're both absurd. Trump should've been an adult, and conceded.
Responding to his legal dragnet by banning discussion of any descrepency it might uncover is just as toxic, and only validates the paranoia of his base.
Neither action is commensurate to any form of reconciliation. At this point, I don't think there can be any, honestly.
Here is hillary clinton saying that biden should not concede if he lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwc0cJ409VQ
Neither side was going to concede this election. If Trump had won, Biden and the DNC would have taken it to the supreme court.
The truth of the matter is neither side trusts the election. The democrats accused Trump of cheating in 2016. Now the republicans accuse Biden. Frankly I don't see the solution to this. But censorship certainly is not the answer.
> I think that [Republicans] have a couple of scenarios that they are looking toward. One is messing up absentee balloting. They believe that helps them so that they then get maybe a narrow advantage in the Electoral College on Election Day... Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out.
She clearly meant on Election Day, not even if all the votes are counted.
Another flaw in the argument is that the 2016 election was objectively undemocratic and indisputably subject to foreign interference designed to tilt the scales towards Trump. Whether that means 2016 was “stolen” is maybe a matter of perspective (in my view it was illegitimate). But only one of the parties is actually willing to steal a presidential election they clearly lost.
His administration doesn't particularly care for or about Democracy, and they (or their political allies, depending) are grasping at every straw they can find that might be provable in court, and are filing suits.
Any actual, deliberate voter fraud would likely be difficult to prove in a court, and committed by individuals at lower levels of the government, largely by unrelated individuals and small groups particularly concerned with the results.
An example likely impossible to prove in courts:
Richard Hopkins, a USPS mailcarrier came to James O'Keefe (conservative gotcha journalist), and anonymously asserted his belief that his supervisors had been backdating late ballots so that they could be counted in the Erie PA tally. https://youtu.be/AR_XpJ287Iw
After it became clear that the USPS knew he was behind the claims, he did an interview with O'Keefe, admitting his identity to his identity, and claiming retaliation. https://youtu.be/J-D-2GOswwA
The FBI opened an investigation to his claims, and did an interview with him that they hadn't been aware he was recording. https://youtu.be/QkNkQ2nDQfc
Shortly thereafter, the Washington post ran an article citing three anonymous officials familiar with the investigation that he had wholly recanted his claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/postal-worker-...
Over the next couple of days, O'Keefe published the FBI recording, as well as a video of Hopkins denying that he had recanted his claims. https://youtu.be/ibU5KVFCg4Y
By my estimate, none of this can be corroborated. It's an individual claim, concerning an activity likely only perpetrated by a small number of people in a manner unlikely to generate a paper trail fit for forensic investigation. In fact, it was included in one of Trump's PA lawsuits.
As a legal case, this is incredibly flimsy. A snippet of a conversation overheard from the sidelines could never be enough to convict anybody of anything on its own merit. There's a reason it wasn't successfully brought to court.
Nevertheless, the story itself is exceedingly plausible, and doesn't depend on a high level conspiracy in order to work.
I lean towards believing Hopkins' integrity, but have no ability to validate whether or not he had enough information to assert things happening as he claims they did with the confidence he has. I find the swiftness of WaPo's debunking to be much more interesting.
But stories like his are enough to turn the election into a political Rorschach test.
These doubts cannot be relieved. They'll be as interminable as the 'Obamas a Kenyan' rumors, the 'Trump's a Manchurian Candidate' narrative, and the 'Hanging Chad'.
Considering how dirty electoral primary processes have become (i.e. treatment of Tulsi, Yang, etc, McConnel's primary being marked by the unexptected closure of polling places…), the massive shift to mail-in voting due to covid… this whole bruhaha was inescapable.
I am willing to be "exposed to the idea" as you say. I have to ask which is more likely, a massive undetected fraud across multiple states, or the guy with 40% approval rate losing the election?
I personally hold that Biden won. Our election system is far too decentralized to allowed for large-scale, coordinated election interference to be viable while also being covert.
I also believe that there was likely an uptick in rule-bending across the board. This was in no way a 'normal election', given the mass-adoption of mail-in voting, and heightened polarization of our political environment.
Unfortunately, the US has shown a remarkable lack of historical introspection with respect to election integrity, so it's impossible to tell with any certainty whether this is truly the case since it's I believe it's safe to assume a low level of fraud in an election at the scale of the American federal election, with so heavily federated a system.
The doubts people have aren't entirely unfounded, and YouTube making an executive decision to perish the thought on their platform only adds fuel to the fire.
I think youtube is doing a "good thing" in terms of getting us past this silliness faster, but I don't think it'll necessarily be a "good thing" next time so I'd rather it happen never.
All youtube did was fan the flames of political division. Imagine after 2016, youtube decided to ban everyone accusing Trump of cheating. Do you think that would make the democrats "see the light"? Or do you think it would galvanize the democrats?
This election is ultimately going to be decided in the supreme court. Not on youtube. Youtube should have just kept out of this issue.
Trump is celebrating this right now because not only does it rile up his base, it makes independents and even some democrats take notice and sympathize with Trump.
Even if youtube had good intentions ( and I'm not sold on that ), they ultimately are damaging the country. But I guess that's why they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I don't have to imagine the democrats did anything like the republicans are doing now, because it didn't happen.
Edit: here's a link to show you how small the margins were in swing states in 2016:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...