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Notes -
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/worried-meta-decision-allowing-2020-election-denial-ads/story?id=104985165
So Meta the parent company of Facebook and instagram is now allowing users and advertisers to post claims about election fraud in the last election but not the soon to be held 2024 elections. I’ll lay my cards out here and say I’m personally a skeptic of the claims that the 2020 elections were stolen. I don’t see why that should prevent other people from making such arguments.
But my question for you guys is whether these claims are going to really erode trust in future elections. To me the issue that erodes that trust is that the official government structures never bothered to look into the claims that such fraud might have happened and instead opted for the COVID style full court press of “nobody should bother to take it seriously, and if you do it’s clear that you’re falling for misinformation.” To me nothing erodes trust faster than an official response of “nothing to see here.”
There’s a kind of incoherence to ‘stolen election’ claims that I dislike, in that they’re almost always made by people who assume that the permanent bureaucracy / deep state / powers that be / white supremacist patriarchy / Russia / etc means that Our Guy can win but still lose anyway.
If the deep state can have its way even when /ourguy/ wins, then why does it also need to rig elections? Either elections don’t matter because the President has no power, or they do matter because the President actually has a lot of power, but Trump just failed to do anything with it.
I’m convinced the stolen election narrative was profoundly damaging to the Trumpist right and GOP more generally in the US. What is more demoralizing than suggesting that ‘they’ will win even if you come out to vote? Or even, if you take the theory further, that they ‘allowed’ Trump to win in 2016 knowing, presumably, that they could control him or prevent him from doing anything they didn’t want him to?
The stolen election narrative was strategically moronic. It exists solely to assuage Trump-the-man’s ego, and spread because the modern US right is in large part a Trump personality cult, so various operatives, media figures etc wanted to do their best to remain on his good side. A single shout out or mockery from the oracle of Mar a Lago can make or break a career, so playing to his ego was so important they forgot strategy to claim that Donald actually did win for real.
(I think all US elections involve some low-level corruption, rigging and machine politics, but that broadly the most popular candidate in the majority of the country - pursuant to minor discrepancies in popular vote subject to the unique dynamics of the EC system obviously - wins).
That's like asking "if you have a password, why do you also need any other security measures?".
Security is multilayered, because each level is not perfect on its own. So is corruption.
My point was that the 'motte' of 'they can rig elections' is pretty absolute. Putin doesn't need a 'back up' plan 'in case' the vote totals come out wrong, because the vote totals won't come out wrong, it isn't even a question.
And yet he still needs to have elections. Surely simply suspending elections would be the true motte?
But even then, why suspend elections when one could simply cancel them, or not offer them in the first place? would that be the true motte?
I think that many of the methods used to secure Trump's defeat in 2024, a number of which preceded the actual race, were both efficacious and illegitimate. Do you disagree?
I think it’s likely that some low level corruption / rigging occurred on both sides as is the norm in American politics, but it’s unlikely it’s impact can be fully quantified and there’s limited evidence it secured Biden’s victory. And I think there was a major effort by the majority of the American ruling class to (as various things about ‘securing (or fortifying) the election’ suggest) strongly discourage Trump support, encourage Biden support, and establish favourable conditions on the ground for Biden in terms of covid rules, voting by mail etc. I also think Trump was almost uniquely unpopular as President and would most likely have lost even without any illegal actions, as far they occurred.
Do you think such actions are legitimate, as distinct from legal? That is, do you think that people on the other side should accept outcomes secured through such methods?
Do you likewise think his unpopularity was arrived at by legitimate means?
No, I think it likely a result of his longstanding poor character and reputation coupled with a failure to accomplish most of what he promised his voters once in office.
I am yet to be convinced the other side don’t do the same thing themselves.
You are unconvinced that there is no effort by a majority of the ruling class to strongly discourage support for Blue candidates, encourage support for Red candidates, and establish favorable conditions on the ground for blue candidates in terms of impactful process mechanisms? That the security services illegally spy on Blue candidates, or pushing or suppressing rape accusations against blue and red candidates as partisan inclination requires? Or encouraging and selectively prosecuting widespread political violence? Can you give some examples of equivalent illegitimacy?
And again, I emphasize that I'm not claiming any of this is even illegal, much less prosecutable. I'm asking you your assessment of the sum total of the political game: Do you think the other side is well-advised to play a game that operates, in aggregate, in the way we observe?
Would it be fair to say that you consider "legitimacy" as the output of a process? If so, to the extent that this process can be observed or understood, what percentage of control would you say Blues have, roughly speaking?
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