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Comment by danaris | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely believe that, at this point, that starts to stretch the definition of the word "represents."

It's readily apparent that no president for the past decade has clearly represented a majority of the country (as opposed to a plurality) in the sense that they voted for or supported him. But Trump has gone further, and openly declared that not only does he not consider himself to represent the people politically opposed to him, he considers them to be dangerous violent extremists.

At what point do you admit that a fascist dictator no longer meaningfully "represents" the people he rules?

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When they stop voting for him, and when the people who are supposedly against him actually get off the couch and vote against him, how about that?

Please keep in mind many non-voters aren't laying around on the couch, but working multiple jobs trying to pay rent and healthcare. Our unitary president is talking about restricting mail in voting and taking other measures to ensure the desired outcome.

He's already resorted to sending fake electors, demanding votes be 'found', and inciting violence to interrupt the results of elections he doesn't like. (And pardoning those found guilty of participating in such interference on his behalf.)

Trump is trying hard to get voter id passed (common sense in Europe) and he’s obviously not doing that because he wants to cheat in elections. Your characterization is therefore misguided in the extreme.

We only need to look at states like California and their complete absence of voter id to realize where and for whom rampant election fraud takes place.

You'd get most Democrats to support voter ID if it came with a national ID card, plus an affirmative duty to some agency to ensure that everyone has access to one.

We have neither of those things. The closest we have is driver's licenses, because our culture is such that everyone eligible wants one. The only broadly available federal photo ID is the passport.

Requiring a driver's license, passport, or equivalent is unconstitutional, though. This is because even non-driver equivalents cost money in most places, making it an unconstitutional poll tax. That's why even the places with strict voter ID laws allow really strange forms of identification - they rely mostly on people not knowing this.

Voter ID in a country without universal identification is just disenfranchisement. In the US, by and large you either have a driver's license, or no form of identification. Sure, states have non-driver's IDs available, but very few people have them. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of the population have zero up-to-date photo identification.

Voter fraud (people voting twice, voting illegally, etc) is basically a non-issue, especially in California where our elections are rarely so close that the marginal amount that's estimated to happen matters. Disenfranchisizing 9% of the population is a big fucking issue.

> We only need to look at states like California and their complete absence of voter id to realize where and for whom rampant election fraud takes place.

rampant election fraud isn't taking place at all.

When republicans want voter id passed they do it because they want to suppress votes. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impa...

There are ways to make voter ID work, ways to make them free and easy to obtain, but they aren't interested in any of that because they just want to stop "the wrong people" from voting.

He tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election with the false slates of electors in various states.

We don’t have to theorize if he’s the kind of man who would cheat in an election when he has already done it before

That's a mischaracterization of what took place. The alternate slates of electors were exactly what is prescribed legally and had to exist in case the courts ruled in his favor. If the alternate electors didn't exist, and the case was successful, too bad, so sad, original electors are sent to DC. That's why the electors who were charged with crimes had the charges all dropped. You were witnessing lawfare and media distortions of actual long-standing, but little used processes.

It is not a mischaracterization. Him and his people organized false slates of electors who tried to fraudulently claim that they were the official slate of electors for their state.

You are factually mischaracterizing what happened. It wasn’t just backup slates in case their case went through.

It’s actually the more legally damning set of actions he took compared to J6

> he’s obviously not doing that because he wants to cheat in elections

No, that's exactly why he wants to do it.

Requiring voter ID makes it much harder for poor people—disproportionately likely to be minorities, vastly more likely to be city-dwellers (who don't need a driver's license)—to vote.

There is no rampant vote fraud. There have been many, many studies on this. Even the ones from Republicans prove that there are no more than a tiny, tiny handful of people who ever deliberately try to vote where they're not eligible (including multiple voting, etc).

The billions of dollars poured into post-industrial revolution, pro-capitalist propaganda in US politics mean we cannot simply blame the populace for being brainwashed or wrong. This is a concerted effort over many generations, people are born into the propaganda machine and biased media. Fixing this starts from the top.

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