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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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Is there anything the government could feasibly do to nudge Republicans towards accepting the results of the election in the event that Trump loses? Trump himself has a big personal incentive to say the election is "rigged" if he loses no matter what. It redirects the conversation from analyzing the defeat ("how could we do better"), which will inevitably shine a light on Trump's shortfalls, to one where the basic facts of reality are debated instead. The obvious example is the 2020 election. Lesser known was that Trump did the same thing in 2016 when he lost the Iowa primary to Ted Cruz. Now it seems he's preparing to do the same in 2024.

Many Republicans are more than willing to go along with this, mostly due to either negative partisanship or living in a bubble ("everyone I knew was voting for Trump, then the other guy won? Something doesn't smell right!"). If the pain of defeat stings, why not just be a sore loser instead? I've debated many people who thought the 2020 election was rigged, and inevitably it goes down one of three rabbitholes:

  • Vibes-based arguments that are short on substance, but long on vague nihilism that "something was off". Nearly 70% of Republicans think 2020 was stolen in some way, yet most are normies who don't spend a lot of time trying to form a set of coherent opinions, so the fallback of "something was off" serves as a way to affirm their tribal loyalty without expending much effort.

  • Motte-and-bailey to Trump's claims by ignoring everything Trump himself says, and instead going after some vague institutional flaw without providing any evidence to how it actually impacted 2020. For instance, while mail-in ballots are a nice convenience for many, there are valid concerns to a lack of oversight in how people fill out their ballots. People can be subjected to peer pressure, either from their family or even from their landlord or another authority figure to fill out their ballot a certain way. However, no election is going to 100% perfect, and just because someone can point out a flaw doesn't mean the entire thing should be thrown out. In a similar vein, Democrats have (rightly) pointed out that gerrymandering can cause skewed results in House elections, yet I doubt many Republicans would say that means results would need to be nullified especially if Democrats had just lost. These things are something to discuss and reform for future elections.

  • People who do buy at least some of the object-level claims that Trump or Giuliani has advanced about 2020 being stolen. There's certainly a gish-gallop to choose from. The clearest meta-evidence that these are nonsense is that nearly everyone I've debated with has chosen a different set of claims to really dig deep into. For most political issues, parties tend to organically rally around a few specific examples that have the best evidence or emotional valence. The fact that this hasn't happened for Trump's claims is indicative that none of them are really that good, and they rely more on the reader being unfamiliar with them to try to spin a biased story. One example occurred a few weeks ago on this site, one user claimed the clearest examples were Forex markets (which were subsequently ignored), Ruby Freeman, and the Cyber Ninja's Audit. I was only vaguely aware of these, so I did a quick Google search and found a barrage of stories eviscerating the Ruby Freeman and Cyber Ninja narratives. I then asked for the response, preferably with whatever relatively neutral sources he could find, since I was sure he'd claim the sources I had Googled were all hopelessly biased. But this proved too high a bar to clear for him, and so the conversation went nowhere. Maybe there's a chance that some really compelling evidence exists out there that would easily prove at least some of the major allegations correct, but at this point I doubt it.

At this point it seems like the idea that elections are rigged is functionally unfalsifiable. The big question on the Republican side now would be whether to claim the elections were rigged even if Trump DOES win. The stock explanation would be that the Dems are rigging it so they have +20% more votes than they normally would, so a relatively close election means Trump actually won by a huge margin. On the other hand, saying the election was rigged at all could diminish Trump's win no matter what, and it's not hard to imagine Trump claiming "this was the most legitimate election in the history of our country" if he manages to come out on top.

Here’s how the government can regain the trust of the right wing:

  • Require an ID to vote.

  • ENCOURAGE as many audits and court cases (with discovery power, that are not dismissed on “standing”) as they want.

  • Pardon everybody who was involved in “January 6th”

  • Drop all the lawsuits against Trump.

  • Actual, televised court cases for any of the grievances republicans have wrt to “January 6th”.

  • Televised, with discovery power, and “you are held in contempt” power to investigate the 2020 election, the origins of Covid, and the vaccine.

Now that I’m writing this out I don’t think it’s really possible. A lot of people have heard the phrase “I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation” one too many times. They feel like their government is working against them and will happily just lie directly to their face, and until a LOT of that is undone I don’t think they’re really going to accept the election outcome.

It's very interesting how the belief in meritocracy falls away when advocating for Low Human Capital beliefs like election denial. Why can't people who think Biden stole the election live by the same laws I do, when it comes to civil lawsuits? If you can't prove standing, either you have a terrible case or a terrible lawyer.

  • -19

meritocracy

Meritocracy where a judge gets to make a subjective decision on if you get to have a trial or not?

I'm just a dumb asshole without a law degree, but here's how "standing" with respect to the election appears to me, a lowly voter:

"You didn't have standing to bring this case before the election because you didn't know if there would be any damage, but you don't have any standing to bring the case after the election because the damage has already been done. Heads we win, tails you lose."

Yes, if you have a good lawyer and good argument, it would've gotten past one of the dozens of judges, including Trump-appointed ones. One or two, OK, a grand left-wing conspiracy. But, every single election lawsuit failed because there was nothing there when it came to actual evidence, as opposed to some very well-made strings on cork board.

Again, why if the elections were so obviously stolen in 2020, is Kari Lake the only person to say her election was stolen in 2022? Even in states where no changes to the law were made. Did the Democrat's not steal them this time, after stealing them in 2020?

  • -11

Yes, if you have a good lawyer

The problem there is that lawyers have been known to get fired for taking RW clients, so it's not so easy to get one. Part of why Trump's legal team sucks so much is that it's common knowledge that taking Trump as a client will result in being blacklisted, and better lawyers have more to lose from that.

Now, the Trump claims regarding 2020 were basically ludicrous AFAIK, and that much is on him, but his lawyers sucking can legitimately be blamed on SJ/cancellation.

There's literally a whole society of conservative lawyers. There are indeed plenty of Federalist Society lawyers out there. They likely didn't take the case for the same reason there were people in Trump's White House telling him he lost the election.

Beyond that, the main reason it seems like Trump has had issues keeping good lawyers pre-President is just like in the rest of his business dealings, he's terrible at actually paying people.