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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Didn't a bunch of states create mail-in-ballot rules that undermine ballot secrecy just for that election in particular before some of them got taken out by courts due to their irregularity?

Before 2020, nobody thought that mail-in ballots were per se fraudulent. In 2016, three states including one swing state had all-postal elections (Washington, Oregon and Colorado), and most other states had no-excuse postal voting for anyone who applied. 23.7% of all votes were cast by post (see pp 9/10 here). And nobody on either side of the aisle thought that this was a problem that would justify overturning a close election.

Trump made specific allegations of fraud which were not true. He could have made the purely legal argument that slightly easier postal voting introduced in an irregular way was grounds for tossing the election on a technicality (as of 2016, it was a colourable legal argument based on the independent state legislature theory, which wouldn't be rejected by SCOTUS until Moore vs Harper in 2022) and allowing Republican State legislatures to choose electors, but that wasn't the argument he made. He said that he won by a landslide, that there was "massive fraud", that Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines meant that the in person votes were invalid, and that rogue election officials had added large numbers of fake ballots to Biden's tally.

Wasn't the whole Covid psy-ops leading to these rule changes in the first place?

You mean the pandemic with an impact visible at the macro-demographic level? Or are you telling me that governments outside the US faked 6 million deaths (by official count) or 25 million deaths (based on demographic statistics) in order to allow slightly easier postal voting in a US election?

If there was evidence of a massive conspiracy showing all level of governments and media building up the Covid scare with the ultimate goal to undermine the integrity of the elections, wouldn't that be some kind of coup, or at least conspiracy to commit a coup?

Yes, which is why it is good that there is no such evidence. The pre-2020 conventional wisdom was that easier postal voting helps Republicans (because of the military vote), so if there had been a large-scale conspiracy to steal the election for Democrats, the main goal of the conspiracy would not have been slightly easier postal voting.

Well yes, of course the average rich and powerful American is a honest guy.

I didn't say that. I said that by the (low) standards of rich and powerful Americans, Trump is unusually dishonest. Heck, even by the (even lower) standards of greater-NYC real estate operators, Trump was unusually dishonest, this was common knowledge on Wall Street, and was in fact sufficiently common knowledge that a joke about it got into Sex and the City.

and not Epstein's buddies

Epstein's buddies like one Donald Trump, who allowed Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit girls at Mar-a-Lago, who was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express, and who promoted the corrupt prosecutor who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal the first time he got caught? Even by the (very, very low) ethical standards of Epstein's social circle, Donald Trump went above and beyond.

Before 2020, nobody thought that mail-in ballots were per se fraudulent.

Because they don't have to be. Ballots can still be considered relatively secret with the exception of a few %age. When a large share of ballots get mailed in, then the mechanism by which these ballots get collected, who handles them and whether or not people influenced how they are filled becomes a bigger issue.

And nobody on either side of the aisle thought that this was a problem that would justify overturning a close election.

No, one side thought the Russians fixed the elections through Facebook ads or some such nonsense.

He said that he won by a landslide, that there was "massive fraud", that Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines meant that the in person votes were invalid, and that rogue election officials had added large numbers of fake ballots to Biden's tally.

Maybe he got it wrong, doesn't mean that there was no plot to fix the elections.

You mean the pandemic with an impact visible at the macro-demographic level? Or are you telling me that governments outside the US faked 6 million deaths (by official count) or 25 million deaths (based on demographic statistics) in order to allow slightly easier postal voting in a US election?

Governments that are essentially vassals to the US, perhaps. Other governments could also independently find their own reasons to dabble in medical authoritarianism, and join in on the fun using the same existing justifications made-up by the most effective media in the world. "Look I'm not forcing you to stay home to cover up ongoing political issues, see Hollywood has the same problem"

And of course media control made it easy to dismiss outliers like Sweden which did not have any lockdown and was basically fine.

governments outside the US faked 6 million deaths

People all-over the world die all the time. I could see a strong incentive from less-developed countries to claim X number of citizens died 'from Covid' if that means they can get or simply maintain existing humanitarian aid from the West

The pre-2020 conventional wisdom was that easier postal voting helps Republicans (because of the military vote)

There are only so many military votes you can get even if you made postal voting easier. On the other hand 'democracy'-supporting organizations used to hold ballot secrecy as important prior to 2020, so idk why.

so if there had been a large-scale conspiracy to steal the election for Democrats, the main goal of the conspiracy would not have been slightly easier postal voting.

How would they go about it? I'm not in charge of election-fixing for Democrats, so I wouldn't know but it seems you have some experience in their manner of thinking.

Trump is unusually dishonest. Heck, even by the (even lower) standards of greater-NYC real estate operators, Trump was unusually dishonest, this was common knowledge on Wall Street, and was in fact sufficiently common knowledge that a joke about it got into Sex and the City.

Oh man then if Sex and the City said it, it must be true. Out of all the real-estate scammers in the US, Trump is unusually dishonest. He was buying every judge to the point that it took him reaching the Presidency and suggesting defending the Southern border for somebody to finally decide, "that's enough, now we gotta get this unusually dishonest guy!" "Let me find the dirtiest dirt I have on this guy... Yes... This is perfect, the Russian President had some prostitutes pee on him!"

Epstein's buddies like one Donald Trump, who allowed Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit girls at Mar-a-Lago, who was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express

You have Epstein's flight logs? Why aren't you releasing them then?

who promoted the corrupt prosecutor who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal the first time he got caught?

Oh he promoted him but didn't hire him and was not in charge when the actual ruling happened. But he was in charge at the time Epstein almost saw consequences for his crimes.

If Trump was such a good buddy with Epstein, why are we investigating Trump over some paperwork issues or election quiproquo instead of Epstein? Why not investigate his role in the Covid masquerade?

Show us the flight logs, show us the Pfizer receipts, show us the meeting notes from the FDA, now that would be an interesting investigation.