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What is the steel man for the Trump fake elector scheme being no big deal? To be clear, I'm not talking about a steel man of Trump's behavior as it relates to J6 itself (the tweets, the speech, the reaction to the crowd, etc.), I'm talking exclusively about the scheme where, according to the Democrat/J6 report/Jack Smith narrative, Trump conspired to overturn the election by trying to convince various states, and later Pence, to use a different slate of electors. Here is the basic narrative (largely rephrased from this comment along with the Jack Smith indictment):
There was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election (in the event someone replies with evidence there was, you would also need to prove that Trump knew it at the time to justify his actions)
Trump's advisers, advisers that were appointed by himself, repeatedly told him there was no outcome-determinative fraud after looking into it. Despite this, Trump still insisted there was outcome-determinative fraud. Trump still insisted even after he started losing court cases left and right about there being outcome-determinative fraud. Assuming 1 is true this means that Trump is either knowingly lying or willfully ignoring people he himself picked
Trump, despite knowing there wasn't outcome-determinative fraud (assuming 2), still tried to change the outcome of the election. First, he tried the courts where he knowingly lied about there being outcome-determinative fraud in court filings. When that failed he tried contacting various state legislatures and other state officials to ask them to certify his slate of electors. When that failed, his final option was to try to convince Pence to either use his slate of electors to win (a slate of electors not officially certified despite claiming to be certified), or to invalidate enough state's electors to make it so no one gets 270 electors, throwing the election to the house where Trump would then hopefully win given it becomes 1 state 1 vote there.
With that narrative, here are the Trump critiques that I want a steel man defense of:
Trump knowingly lied about there being outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election. This is wrong.
Trump tried to use this lie to change the results of the election. This is wrong.
Trump used this lie to get slates of electors to falsely certify they were the chosen electors of that state. This is wrong
Trump tried to convince various state legislatures that these were the lawfully chosen slate of electors and to decertify the Biden slate and certify his slate. This is wrong.
Trump tried to convince Pence to step outside of his constitutional authority to make him president. This is wrong
The strongest steel man that I can come up with involved the case of Hawaii in 1960
The New York Times summarizes the situation,
While this is the closest prior case of something similar, and thus no big deal, what Trump did is still different enough that it can be meaningfully distinguished:
Both Nixon and Kennedy had good reason to believe they won. Trump didn't.
Kennedy's first slate of electors, the ones that weren't certified, weren't the ones eventually counted. Only the ones certified by the state were counted. Trump's false electors were never certified, so asking Pence to certify them was completely unprecedented.
Nixon accepted that Hawaii had final say over what was and wasn't their slate of electors. Trump didn't and continually insisted his slate was correct.
Another argument that I don't think is strong, but nonetheless might be the strongest steel man:
This is not a strong argument because then it would've just been a constitutional coup and those are still wrong. The way many Latin American countries have constitutional coups is that they stack the court that allows them to reinterpret their constitution to give them more power or that allows them to violate term limits. This is still wrong despite technically being legal. The problem is the norm breaking, not the technical legality.
What is the steelman for the establishment being unable to steal elections?
Not unwilling, unable. Arguments from unwillingness, such as the ostensible criminality of mass electoral fraud, are tautological, as they assume the ability to read minds. Arguments of it being unnecessary are supremely tautological, as their first assumption is legitimate elections. Tautologies are not steelmen.
That sufficient measures exist to stop illegal voting; that sufficient measures exist to prevent the mass injection of fraudulent ballots; that relevant executive agencies have an interest in auditing elections and investigating to the fullest extent and neutrally charging electoral fraud, so leftist electoral fraud; that the courts have an interest in neutral hearings of electoral fraud, so leftist electoral fraud; that the media has an interest in investigating and neutrally reporting to the fullest extent electoral fraud, so leftist electoral fraud. The caveats of "fullest extent" and "leftist electoral fraud" are necessary, as no national-scope investigation has happened, and while there are rarely stories of left-aligned individuals being charged with electoral crimes, relative to those, stories of right-aligned individuals being charged with electoral crimes occur far more frequently. For the sake of charity, I will agree the inclination to criminal behavior as equal among the left and right, it is however no question that support for criminal behavior is a dominant ethic of the modern left. For these, the probabilistic assumption is one side is caught and/or reported on less often.
Do also consider the history of American conspiracies; principally, that evidence indicates coordination and silence are solved problems.
And to repeat myself, "it's a crime" and "they didn't need to" are not positions of a steelman. Not unwilling, unable.
Just being sure, but I assume that the unwritten assumption here is "unable to steal elections without being caught", right?
After reading the post you linked, my basic counterargument is that massive electoral fraud is just much harder to pull off than anything else we've caught the government doing. Given that it is harder (because of the highly decentralized nature of US elections), there would be way more "breadcrumbs" left behind so we would have good evidence if it happened. I'm having a similar conversation with many people here which is that my priors for election fraud are clearly much lower than yours, so I need much stronger evidence to convince me compared to you.
Stealing an election implies not getting caught.
The essay elaborates specifically on how those programs weren't caught. COINTELPRO was a lucky break-in. MKUltra was uncovered while the government was looking at something entirely different, after decades of nobody coming forward. We know, generally, the CIA was running guns and drugs, but the extent is unknown, and what they do today is likewise unknown. How much does the CIA hold in unaccountable bitcoin, for example? It's certainly not $0.
What are your "priors" for no fraud? I can conceive of what those priors would necessarily include.
Necessity? This assumes consistent electoral legitimacy and this is a necessarily irrational belief. There is no basis for a necessity prior.
Morality? It requires an unwillingness to break the law. It's no longer journalists making the comparison, a general calls him Hitler, Harris calls him a fascist. True or false, there is no basis for a moral prior.
Journalism? The modern media establishment would neither investigate nor report on systemic leftist fraud, as they would be reporting on themselves. There is no basis for a journalistic prior.
Investigations? The FBI has been working against Trump since the Obama administration, they were working against him while he was the sitting President. No evidence supports the impartiality of the agency. Additionally, Republicans have only recently been made aware of the potential fraud occurring beneath them, and the areas for that potential fraud are hyper blue cities of purple states. How do Pennsylvania Republicans investigate fraud in Philadelphia? Who's cooperating with them? More, in states like California and Oregon, who would possibly investigate leftist fraud? There is no basis for an investigative prior.
A note before the last, since your priors can only rationally hinge on this: in the United States, to strike a ballot, it must be proved how that exact ballot is fraudulent. A hypothetical poll worker who fraudulently fills out 1,000 ballots and washes them together with legitimate ballots cast at their precinct has no fear of reveal or recourse because in this instance there is no method to differentiate legitimate and fraudulent ballots. It would not only require the poll worker to admit what they did and the exact number, but also be able to identify and prove with court-accepted evidence what ballots they cast in fraud, as it is illegal to destroy a legitimate ballot.
Courts not hearing the cases is all you have, and it would be fair were it not for the above. The citizenry has no method of auditing elections, and it should surprise no one that a crime that is so enabled by the system its revelation all but requires its perpetrators come forward has such little evidence. I would say in real fairness to the courts, what were they going to do? Pause the process for citizen journalism? I would say it, but leftist judges in random circuits have no problem making sweeping constitutional rulings. It is as simple as this: the matter was not given a full hearing by SCOTUS, their declination to hear the case is the strongest argument, but what would they hear? What results from what formal investigation? No, it is the strongest evidence because it is the only evidence, it is very weak evidence indeed.
All of them? Every single one? Every single MSM journalist is in on this? I 100% believe in institutional biases that can lead to things that looks like conspiracies but are not actually, but this is well beyond bias into a full blow conspiracy. Now, me saying conspiracy doesn't automatically dismiss it like some who say throw around conspiracy do, but it does mean that the more people you add, especially if you add people from more and more disparate groups (keeping a secret in one group in the CIA is easier than keeping it in one CIA division is easier than keeping it in the CIA is easier than keeping it in the CIA + journalists, etc), the more likely it is for things to leak.
Do you think it's impossible to investigate things like criminal gangs as well? The problem is similar, but it still happens. People will never be 100% lock step with the party, especially as you expand the scope of the fraud. There are always people willing to whistle blow if the group gets large enough.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is why they have explicitly partisan poll watchers to watch the poll workers to make sure they don't cheat. You can literally walk in and watch poll workers work and if you see someone doing something, they will throw out the votes before they ever get put in the pile and get mixed up.
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