Random Politics Stuff Thread...

[Cowboysrock55]

Let's be honest, they don't care if you have faith in elections or not. It's all about power and nothing else.

They don't want you to have faith in an election unless they win the election.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

They don't want you to have faith in an election unless they win the election.

That's right. Lack of faith in elections actually helps their side. So it's a win-win for them.

 

[Simpleton]

They don't want you to have faith in an election unless they win the election.

This "fraudulent election" talk didn't start on a macro level until Trump, and don't even mention Russia or whatever else in 2016, that was completely different.

Clinton conceded pretty much immediately and there was no talk of fraud in the voting process itself, the Russia stuff could be argued to be peripherally related but is obviously completely different and was months/years down the line. It didn't cast doubt on the mechanics of the election process itself.

Even in 2000 Gore stepped aside after everything made its way through the courts, the vociferous "fake election/fraud" stuff is really only coming from a subset of one party as far as I can tell, and obviously only when it looks like they're going to lose.

Let me know when Democrats start railing against fraud in some of these tight races like the Ohio/NC senate race or this Boebert house race.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Um, Hillary and scores of Dems said Trump was illegitimate and put in by Russia.

Stacey Abrams said she was cheated out of the Governorship.

Gore and Co fought tooth and nail until there was nothing else to do and bashed Florida endlessly.

Hell, everyone knows Kennedy had people steal the election for him in the 60s. So this goes way back before Trump.

(Also, the Ohio senate race wasn't close.)

 

[Cotton]

This "fraudulent election" talk didn't start on a macro level until Trump, and don't even mention Russia or whatever else in 2016, that was completely different.

Clinton conceded pretty much immediately and there was no talk of fraud in the voting process itself, the Russia stuff could be argued to be peripherally related but is obviously completely different and was months/years down the line. It didn't cast doubt on the mechanics of the election process itself.

Even in 2000 Gore stepped aside after everything made its way through the courts, the vociferous "fake election/fraud" stuff is really only coming from a subset of one party as far as I can tell, and obviously only when it looks like they're going to lose.

Let me know when Democrats start railing against fraud in some of these tight races like the Ohio/NC senate race or this Boebert house race.

This started well before Trump, as CL said.

 

[Simpleton]

Um, Hillary and scores of Dems said Trump was illegitimate and put in by Russia.

Stacey Abrams said she was cheated out of the Governorship.

Gore and Co fought tooth and nail until there was nothing else to do and bashed Florida endlessly.

Hell, everyone knows Kennedy had people steal the election for him in the 60s. So this goes way back before Trump.

(Also, the Ohio senate race wasn't close.)

There's a huge difference between saying Russia conducted a campaign to help Trump get elected, potentially with the Trump campaign knowing/encouraging it, and saying that states/counties across the country (but primarily in swing states of course) are straight up faking votes, throwing out votes, etc.

One is a compartmentalized claim, the other is basically claiming that the foundation of our entire democracy is tainted.

 

[Cotton]

 

[Sheik]

The left has a game they play and they play it well. The media is complicit and they do just as good a job of playing along.

2016: Trump wins. Clinton claims Russia is responsible for her loss. Says the election was stolen from her. The media and countless democrats spend 3+ years running with the narrative that Donald Trump is an illegitimate President and he collided with Russia to win the election. 3 fucking years half the country and now probably a 3rd actually believe that because it was front page news and back page retraction.

Summer 2020: Democrats were silent as BLM and ANTIFA extremist groups set cities on fire for 100+ days and nights. Prominent democrats said things like “people will do what they do.”, the media parroted the nonsensical talking point that these were “mostly peaceful protests”. Ill never forget that live news report where the background is on fire and he’s talking about everything is mostly peaceful.

The game starts January 6th and hasn’t stopped yet. Thousands of protestors go to the capital. A very small minority of people are let in to the capital, a few idiots became violent and now we have an insurrection? The left spent the whole summer with the media romanticizing the riots because it was politically expedient. Anyone who doesn’t see the game has an agenda.

January 6th and beyond: A segment of the GOP and their supporters are labeled as “election deniers”. Have you ever heard Hillary Clinton described as an election denier? How about the countless senate members who skipped the inauguration of Trump because he was illegitimate as they described? How about morons who filed lawsuits to contest the electoral votes of red states? But because we had questions about an election where the rules were changed and cluster fucking was abundant for weeks, we can’t ask questions and are now a threat to democracy?

The left and the media create and push the narrative. The frustrating part is you have a significantly ignorant percentage of Americans that don’t pay attention and take it all as gospel.

Both sides are playing a game, but the referees have picked a side and they don’t call a fair game.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

One is a compartmentalized claim, the other is basically claiming that the foundation of our entire democracy is tainted.

No one is claiming the entire system across the country is corrupt. Obviously the states conduct the elections. It's mostly just individual cities in select states. But that's enough to tip the balance.

I mean, I doubt even most Dems wouldn't admit that Philly and Detroit and Milwaukee and Chicago have had corrupt political machines for many decades. It's hardly some wild claim without evidence. Of course if that machine helps you win, 95% are fine with it.

Let me ask you, do you think we should have to wait days and weeks for some of these elections to be called? I don't care who wins in the end, this is ridiculous and should be cleaned up. Mass mailed ballots? Ballot harvesting where the "voter" doesn't even know or care who their vote goes for? Dead and out of state people voting? No ID or dates whatsoever? Third world countries literally aren't this bad.

 

[Sheik]

There's a huge difference between saying Russia conducted a campaign to help Trump get elected, potentially with the Trump campaign knowing/encouraging it, and saying that states/counties across the country (but primarily in swing states of course) are straight up faking votes, throwing out votes, etc.

One is a compartmentalized claim, the other is basically claiming that the foundation of our entire democracy is tainted.

No, there isn’t a difference. It’s literally two sides denying what the outcome of an election is. Both sides had every right to question the results. Only one side was given a complete pass.

The factors and basis may be different, but the fact is that in both cases election results were questioned.

 

[Simpleton]

No one is claiming the entire system across the country is corrupt. Obviously the states conduct the elections. It's mostly just individual cities in select states. But that's enough to tip the balance.

I mean, I doubt even most Dems would admit that Philly and Detroit and Milwaukee and Chicago have had corrupt political machines for many decades. It's hardly some wild claim without evidence. Of course if that machine helps you win, 95% are fine with it.

Let me ask you, do you think we should have to wait days and weeks for some of these elections to be called? I don't care who wins in the end, this is ridiculous and should be cleaned up. Mass mailed ballots? Ballot harvesting where the "voter" doesn't even know or care who their vote goes for? Dead and out of state people voting? No ID or dates whatsoever? Third world countries literally aren't this bad.

No I don't think it should take that long but I also know very intimately how patchwork so much of our state infrastructure is, with wild variation from state to state in terms of capabilities/processes, which is why I'm not surprised that some states are able to more or less wrap things up in a day or two while others take a week.

Let me ask you a question, should election days be national holidays if we want to be more strict with mail-in ballots, pushing for in-person and so forth?

 

[Chocolate Lab]

The left has a game they play and they play it well. The media is complicit and they do just as good a job of playing along.

2016: Trump wins. Clinton claims Russia is responsible for her loss. Says the election was stolen from her. The media and countless democrats spend 3+ years running with the narrative that Donald Trump is an illegitimate President and he collided with Russia to win the election. 3 fucking years half the country and now probably a 3rd actually believe that because it was front page news and back page retraction.

I remember that I believed there had to be something to the Russia stuff, too. I thought even if it wasn't as bad as they made it out to be, that he probably did some things wrong, even if only because he made mistakes not being a career politician.

It wasn't until I started following politics more closely that I realized it was all complete bullshit to stop his agenda.

I hope, and think, that 2020 woke a lot of people like me up and people who never got into the weeds before now understand what's happening.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Let me ask you a question, should election days be national holidays if we want to be more strict with mail-in ballots, pushing for in-person and so forth?

I don't care much one way or another about a national holiday, honestly ,but I'd be fine with that if they did it.

I would take that over these unsupervised mass mailouts with no ID required any day.

But to something you said... Every state could clean things up if they wanted to. These states aren't disasters by happenstance. It's not rocket science. They're this way because they want them this way.

 

[Simpleton]

I don't care much one way or another about a national holiday, honestly ,but I'd be fine with that if they did it.

I would take that over these unsupervised mass mailouts with no ID required any day.

But to something you said... Every state could clean things up if they wanted to. These states aren't disasters by happenstance. It's not rocket science. They're this way because they want them this way.

The beauty and curse of 50 federated states is that you're going to have a bunch of variance between how each is run, it can be seen in a bunch of ways but elections are probably the most public/obvious.

If the goal is to have secure, efficient elections that ensure that the voice of the people are heard, I don't see why we shouldn't just make it a 2-3 day thing, make one of those days a national holidays to make sure people get time off work, no results released until the end of the 3rd day (but results finalized by the "4th" day), mail-in ballots in only a narrow subset of circumstances (i.e. military, expats, etc.) and leave it at that.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Don't most, if not all, states have early voting? In Texas we have 10 days (maybe even two weeks?) of early voting where you can vote from before work to after work, plus Saturday. And it's never busy those times. So we already have more than 2-3 days.

I will say that as important as it is, I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring some minimal effort to vote. I don't think it should be as easy and convenient as a Twitter poll. It's still pretty damn easy as it is.

 

[bbgun]

What's your point? Philadelphia is the major population center in the state, that's how elections work.

That major cities are Dem strongholds and it will be tough for Republicans to win states where heavily populated cities are skewed as badly as Philly.

The electoral college is in place to act as a counter to things like this but what would you prefer? Proportional voting assigned by blades of grass?

This is a Senate race where the most votes wins. EC doesn't apply and I never suggested it should.

 

[Simpleton]

Don't most, if not all, states have early voting? In Texas we have 10 days (maybe even two weeks?) of early voting where you can vote from before work to after work, plus Saturday. And it's never busy those times. So we already have more than 2-3 days.

I will say that as important as it is, I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring some minimal effort to vote. I don't think it should be as easy and convenient as a Twitter poll. It's still pretty damn easy as it is.

I have no idea what the early voting processes are like since i just vote the day of, but I think the entire apparatus as it exists on any given Tuesday election day should be set up for a few days. If that already happens then great, leave it be, but I haven't seen that in my particular state.

 

[jsmith6919]

Don't most, if not all, states have early voting? In Texas we have 10 days (maybe even two weeks?) of early voting where you can vote from before work to after work, plus Saturday. And it's never busy those times. So we already have more than 2-3 days.

I will say that as important as it is, I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring some minimal effort to vote. I don't think it should be as easy and convenient as a Twitter poll. It's still pretty damn easy as it is.

Yeah I always vote early and there's never more than half dozen people in front of me

 

[Texas Ace]

Yeah I always vote early and there's never more than half dozen people in front of me

Same here..... But not this year.

There was a record early turnout here in Houston for early voting.

 

[Cotton]

The left has a game they play and they play it well. The media is complicit and they do just as good a job of playing along.

2016: Trump wins. Clinton claims Russia is responsible for her loss. Says the election was stolen from her. The media and countless democrats spend 3+ years running with the narrative that Donald Trump is an illegitimate President and he collided with Russia to win the election. 3 fucking years half the country and now probably a 3rd actually believe that because it was front page news and back page retraction.

Summer 2020: Democrats were silent as BLM and ANTIFA extremist groups set cities on fire for 100+ days and nights. Prominent democrats said things like “people will do what they do.”, the media parroted the nonsensical talking point that these were “mostly peaceful protests”. Ill never forget that live news report where the background is on fire and he’s talking about everything is mostly peaceful.

The game starts January 6th and hasn’t stopped yet. Thousands of protestors go to the capital. A very small minority of people are let in to the capital, a few idiots became violent and now we have an insurrection? The left spent the whole summer with the media romanticizing the riots because it was politically expedient. Anyone who doesn’t see the game has an agenda.

January 6th and beyond: A segment of the GOP and their supporters are labeled as “election deniers”. Have you ever heard Hillary Clinton described as an election denier? How about the countless senate members who skipped the inauguration of Trump because he was illegitimate as they described? How about morons who filed lawsuits to contest the electoral votes of red states? But because we had questions about an election where the rules were changed and cluster fucking was abundant for weeks, we can’t ask questions and are now a threat to democracy?

The left and the media create and push the narrative. The frustrating part is you have a significantly ignorant percentage of Americans that don’t pay attention and take it all as gospel.

Both sides are playing a game, but the referees have picked a side and they don’t call a fair game.

Hell yeah, brother. Well said.