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Given the significant interest around the 2020 stolen election claims (definitely my favorite hobby horse topic), and the serious accusations that I have been weakmanning the overall category of election fraud claims, I would like to extend an open invitation to anyone interested in exposing the errors of my ways to a real-time discussion for a Bailey episode.
Here are the conditions I would suggest:
Are any of the above unreasonable or unfair? Do you have any suggested additions/changes?
I've been trying to set a conversation like this for years but haven't found any takers. @Dean, @jfk, @motteposting are the ones I know are sufficiently motivated and informed about the topic, and whom I'd most look forward to dissecting this topic with. Feel free to nominate anyone else you think would be good.
I'm curious as to what makes you so passionate about this issue. I have to admit it's just not that interesting to me. It just feels like Daily Show level dunking on the proles.
The equivalent might be multiple effort posts trying to argue against flat earthers, Nation of Islam, Bush did 9/11, or astrology.
I just don't feel a strong need to make arguments for or against low status belief systems.
I’ll back @ymeskhout here and say that there’s a pretty significant amount of motte-and-baileying going on, where people retreat to ‘obviously the Deep State didn’t literally hack voting machines and the people who claim to have evidence of large-scale ballot stuffing are grifters, but there was still a widespread effort across the country to swing it for Biden using unsavoury methods’. And then the minute pressure is relaxed, people go back to ‘the deep state literally stole the election’.
So I understand why he’s being a hardass and saying, ‘can any of you provide any evidence at all that the election was literally, actually stolen’. And he gets crickets, or attempts at sanewashing.
I do actually believe that the combination of censorship, changed voting rules, and keeping Biden in a basement so his senility wouldn’t show add up to ‘an election that should shame a first-world country’. But the American Right has an amazing ability to take valid, compelling critiques and convert them into obviously wrong factual claims.
When it comes to "hacked voting machines", I remember that being the explanation for how Trump beat Hillary coming from the liberal/left side. My go-to example of that is the otherwise reasonable and sensible Jane on the old SSC who provided accounts of how the Russians had hacked the machines and stolen votes and meddled in all kinds of elections to give Trump the victory.
What's that saying again, 'what goes around, comes around'? If you've been going on for years about how obviously voting machines are insecure because the operators/owners of the software are all Republican donors, then you can't expect to swing round now and go "no, this election was 100% secure" when it's the other side making the complaint.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't think there was voting machine hacking by Russians or Republicans or Venezuelans or Democrats (even though the attempt to introduce electronic voting in my country in 2002 faltered and ended up a total fiasco), but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If, when your candidate lost, you had 'reputable' sources going on about 'this is how the machines could have been hacked', you don't get to call it conspiracy theory when the other side do it when their candidate lost.
I'll say three things about this:
I have professional familiarity with voting machine security, enough to know that most people would be horrified to realize how insecure they are.
If I were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, I would fire my intelligence chiefs if they weren't trying to influence American elections to our advantage.
It stands to reason, therefore, that any sufficiently motivated and financed group could be (and has probably at least considered) trying to hack elections.
That doesn't mean it's actually happening, of course, but the concerns are not crazy moonbat conspiracy theories.
We've seen American attempts to influence elections in other countries, something which seems to be conveniently forgotten; Obama making suggestions about what way to vote in the independence and Brexit referendums for one.
Yes, exactly. Everyone does it, we all know this, we pretend to be shocked when it's suggested that we would do that and we pretend to be outraged at the suggestion that anyone else might do it to us.
Conflating a politician making an overt statement of preference, regarding the closest ally of the US, and covert influence or interference operations is not a smart way to analyze the issue of election meddling.
You seem to think I am making an argument I'm not.
I'm saying I think that Russia trying to meddle in American elections is plausible and in fact I would expect them to try.
I am not saying I believe all the various theories about how they did.
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