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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   20448 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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True The Vote, the group behind the wildly popular "2000 Mules" film that purported to document extensive election fraud in Georgia, has admitted to a judge that it doesn't have evidence to back its claims.

Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials. TTV has a pattern of making explosive allegations of election fraud only to then do whatever it takes to resist providing supporting evidence. TTV has lied about working with the FBI and also refused to hand over the evidence they claimed to have to Arizona authorities. In Georgia, TTV went as far as filing formal complaints with the state, only to then try to withdraw their complaints when the state asked for evidence. The founder of TTV was also briefly jailed for contempt in 2022 because of her refusal to hand over information in a defamation lawsuit where TTV claimed an election software provider was using unsecured servers in China. Edit: @Walterodim looked into this below and I agree the circumstances are too bizarre to draw any conclusions about the founder's intentions.

I have a theory I'm eager to have challenged, and it's a theory I believe precisely explains TTV's behavior: TTV is lying. My operating assumption is that if someone uncovers extensive evidence of election fraud, they would do whatever they can to assist law enforcement and other interested parties in fixing this fraud. TTV does not do this, and the reason they engage in obstinate behavior when asked to provide evidence is because they're lying about having found evidence of election fraud. It's true that they file formal complaints with authorities, but their goal is to add a patina of legitimacy to their overall allegations. TTV's overriding motivation is grifting: there is significant demand within the conservative media ecosystem for stolen election affirmations, and anyone who supplies it stands to profit both financially as well as politically. We don't have direct financial statements but we can glean the potential profitability from how 2000 Mules initially cost $29.99 to watch online, and the millions in fundraising directed towards TTV (including a donor who sued to get his $2.5 million back). There's also a political gain because Trump remains the de facto leader of the conservative movement, and affirming his 2020 stolen election claims is a practical requirement for remaining within the sphere.

I know this topic instigates a lot of ire and downvotes, but I would be very interested to hear substantive reasons for why my theory is faulty or unreasonable! I believe I transparently outlined my premises and the connective logic in the above paragraph, so the best way to challenge my conclusion could be either to dispute a premise, or to rebut any logical deduction I relied on. You could also do this by pointing out anything that is inconsistent with my theory. So for example if we were talking about how "John murdered Jane", something inconsistent with that claim could be "John was giving a speech at the time of Jane's murder". I would also request that you first check if any of your rebuttals are an example of 'belief in belief' or otherwise replaying the 'dragon in my garage' unfalsifiability cocoon. The best way to guard against this trap would be to explain why your preferred explanation fits the facts better than mine, and also to proactively provide a threshold for when you'd agree that TTV is indeed just lying.

I'm excited for the responses!

Edit: I forgot I should've mentioned this, but it would be really helpful if responses avoided motte-and-bailey diversions. This post is about TTV and their efforts specifically, and though I believe stolen election claims are very poor quality in general, I'm not making the argument that "TTV is lying, ergo other stolen election claims are also bullshit". I think there are some related questions worth contemplating (namely why TTV got so much attention and credulity from broader conservative movement if TTV were indeed lying) but changing the subject isn't responsive to a topic about TTV. If anyone insists on wanting to talk about something else, it would be helpful if there's an acknowledgement about TTV's claims specifically. For example, it can take the format of "Yes, it does appear that TTV is indeed lying but..."

As I've tried to explain in some of your earlier 2020 election threads I feel like you are either misrepresenting or fundamentally misunderstanding the nature opposition's objections.

Elections are by their nature a contested environment not just between the individual candidates, but as Tom Scott touches upon in this video on electronic voting, between the candidates, their respective voters, and those administering the election. You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works. You need to understand that the purpose of an election isnot to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and thier voters) can accept as legitimate, including the ones who lost. This is why we use paper ballots with documented chains of custody, this is why we have laws requiring that the counting be witnessed by representative of each candidate/party. Defendants may be constitutionally entitled to a presumption of innocence, but there's nothing in the constitution about presuming that election officials are impartial or even competent for that matter. As such I would suggest that in the event that the above safeguards are broken/removed or other irregularities appear (and I don't think you can deny that there were irregularities) it is only fair, dare I say it rational, to ask "what gives?". Likewise the more stridently partisans of the winning candidate insist that "there's nothing to see here" while simultaneously denying access to recourse, the more reasonable it becomes for the losing candidates and their voters to suspect foul play.

The simple thing that after 4 years of this conversation you still don't seem to grasp is that you aren't going to convince anyone the election was legitimate by arguing the niggling technical details of individual cases and motions. You need to actually address the elephant in the room.

Elections are by their nature a contested environment not just between the individual candidates, but as Tom Scott touches upon in this video on electronic voting, between the candidates, their respective voters, and those administering the election. You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works. You need to understand that the purpose of an election is not to produce a "true" or "accurate" result. It is to produce a clear result that the candidates (and their voters) can accept as legitimate, including the ones who lost. [some spelling corrections]

So one side gets a Heckler's Veto until they are convinced of the legitimacy of the election? If they're upset enough, then the government needs to alter procedures until they are satisfied? No evidence is required, merely a sense of disquiet among some portion of voters? What procedural changes would produce a "legitimate" election for those people?

Basically yes.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained, and this sort of attitude strikes me as a manifestation of this tendency.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

Is there a responsibility, in your view, for the losers to examine if their real objection might not be principled, but literally over just losing?

I think you two might be talking past each other. Whether or not the losers should have good objections is a normative statement. Whether or not their objections are a problem is a descriptive statement. If the losers refuse to accept the result of an election no matter how fair and transparent it is, you don't have a functioning democracy.

In other words, no matter how fair an election might be that both sides had previously agreed to, the loser should be catered to with negotiations and compromises simply because they refuse to accept the outcome.

I reject that idea entirely. If Trump supporters and other election truthers need to have refuges from the rest of the American nation, I'm willing to accommodate that, but I'm not going to accept their claim that they just have a principled concern about election security.

I'm not giving a "should". Maybe Hlynka is, but there's certainly multiple options how you deal with people not recognizing the legitimacy of a government. Simply ignoring them is the default, and works just fine if there aren't too many of them or they aren't particularly interested in taking action. On the other extreme is civil war. I think the US is leaning a lot closer to the former than the latter.

I recognize you didn't give a "should", but Hlynka very much would agree with the absurd position I detailed in my previous comment. That's his position, unless he draws some line based on how many people actually disagree.

What does it mean for an election to be "fair" or "legitimate" if it doesn't mean having buy-in from both sides?

Consider an unopened box. You and I agree that whatever is inside, we will share equally between ourselves. We open it, and it happens to be your favorite candy bar. I go to split it equally, but you grab one side of it and insist that actually, you want the whole thing and I should re-negotiate over it.

Would you say you are acting in bad faith?

As much as there’s responsibility for the winners to examine if their belief in the legitimacy of their win might not be principled, by verifying the methods with the same scrutiny as if they’d lost.

I agree. But if you want to go down the route of saying the losers are refusing to be rational because that would cost them energy and momentum vs. the winners who don't, then just say that.

No because that's not how Democracy works.

You want Democracy? You need buy-in from the démos.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy. Because if the losers, as I suspect, are a bit more motivated by losing than they claim to be, then no amount of proof would work because they don't care about proof in the first place.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

Otherwise, I refer you to @DuplexFields' response above.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

No, my point is that you and anyone else who takes this viewpoint is essentially claiming that you don't care about proof over whether the election was stolen in the first place. You just want a guarantee that your policies are enacted.

Suppose the Democrats were to offer a guarantee that they'd quash any attempt at enacting laws which would shift the government's stance to be more socially progressive in exchange for Republicans (including the MAGA ones) never bringing up the 2020 election again, and that this would hold for the next 10 years. God himself comes down and says they're not lying about what they'll do. In this scenario, I would expect people complaining about the election losers to largely come down against this deal on principle. Instead, I suspect the losers would actually, seriously debate if they should accept.

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Traditionally, even the losers in the US have been quite principled and put country over party, and their own specific interests.

Even Nixon stepped down.

You’re trying to justify a race to the bottom instead of calling out unjustified behavior.

No non-authoritarian system of government is going to do well with unprincipled, unreasonable behavior at scale.

You’re trying to justify a race to the bottom instead of calling out unjustified behavior.

No, those objecting to the election shenanigans are trying to call out bad behavior. Those excusing them on the grounds that it's bad to question elections are attempting to elevate the appearance of legitimacy over actual legitimacy.

You’re doing the motte n bailey between “were things perfect” and “was the election rigged/stolen.”

Instances of bad behavior can be acknowledged and we are still nowhere near what was claimed by Trump or TTV.

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