The Fraud of Belief in Election Fraud?

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, to those unfamiliar with the 2020 US Election, there was a muddled, outcome immediately, however, the tea leaves indicated a Biden victory, despite a decent margin for Trump. It'd be close, but decisive.

Prior to the election, the President (Trump), kept whining that election fraud of a scale unimagined by any would happen in 2020 (he also claimed fraud would be needed for him to lose in 2016). Well, he didn't stop this... and then a lot of people got on the fraud bus.

Despite failing to provide a case in courts with legal standing to address all of this "fraud", supporters of Trump are adamant that the election was stolen. On the day Congress counted the electoral votes, we saw a short insurrection post a rally with Trump telling people that this was their last chance. People died, mostly protesters. Congress evacuated, it was ugly.

There have been crickets ever since on the streets.

This is a tad bit different than in Myanmar, which is seeing it's latest coup being put down with notable violence. Over 100 killed in a single day of protesting, as the military junta continues to hold harder onto the power it seized a long time ago. In America, we aren't even seeing protests, and in the US, if you are conservative white person, the penalty for protesting is negligible. You have to really screw something badly to get into trouble (see insurrection).

So, this makes me ponder about the loud complainer in the office who always leads via hindsight and has all the solutions... being provided the venue to be forward thinking and they have nothing to provide, they clam up real quick. There are tens of millions of Americans that say/post Biden stole the election... but they aren't doing anything about it. Making me wonder, do they really believe it, or do they believe it enough to whine, but not to act on it.

Yes, in 2016, there were parallels (slight parallels) between the claims Russia helped Trump win. We do know that Russia was involved in the 2016 election with Wikileaks, but we know that Trump got more electoral votes. It was rarely claimed that the machines cheated in his favor or that Republicans voted illegally in large numbers, so the parallel is similar, but only a little bit.

I'm just left uncertain how the insurrection could have occurred, yet nothing to follow it up, in any sense of significance. Is Trump literally the only reason they listened and acted? The Second Amendment folks said they are armed to defeat such tyranny. So where the heck are they? Do they not believe the lie enough to act, beyond posting on web boards?

 

[Patooka]

I remember, but can't find unfortunately, an interview Jon Stewart had around December 2016 where the host asked him about how Trump is such a phenomenon. Stewart pointed out Trump is only an anomaly when compared to what Republican politicians explicitly said at the time. If one was to listen to all the frothing at the mouth rhetoric right wingers listen to from the likes of Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt and of course Limbaugh, it's a lot easier to see Trump as the logical conclusion to conservative vitriol. At least for decades, GOP strategy has always been throw a whole bunch of shit onto a wall, see what sticks and run with that. It's random, it shows a total lack of values and yet is depressingly effective. That's why you saw Trump supporters after the election protest for every vote to be counted in one state and protest the exact opposite in another. Consistency never entered their minds, it was all about what was convenient.

I very much believe, but understand that I could never prove, that Trump made a conscious effort to ensure the integrity of the election would always be in doubt. The whiny cunt bitched and moaned about election fraud for years and did nothing to address this. That way if he did lose, there would be enough shitty ambiguity to convince his disciples that the election was rigged. It certainly fits into the lazy ratfuckery we've all come to expect from him and Trump supporters have shown time and again how they would happily cut off their nose to "own the Dems". For example I have no doubt that when Trausti weighs in on this, his argument will be a hit and run meme spouting whataboutism with a false equivalence so large it can be seen from outer fucking space. Because it's not so much Trumptards "believing in the lie", as it is using the lie to cloud the discussion. Pretty much every argument about election fraud in 2020 was poised as a hypothetical, so in the minds of Trump supporters the onus is on the Dems to prove election fraud didn't happen (i.e. proving a negative). This is never a technique employed by someone who wishes to argue in good faith and in shitty partisan bickering, a draw is as good as a win.

 

[untermensche]

Adults that still believe some invisible being in the sky is watching them and is very interested in their behavior, even their thoughts, can be made to believe anything.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Adults that still believe some invisible being in the sky is watching them and is very interested in their behavior, even their thoughts, can be made to believe anything.

That isn't the OP. I have no trouble believing people can believe anything or that the election was stolen. What I'm saying is, there appears to be an odd gap of concern over the election since the Electoral College count in Congress. Protests are virtually unheard of. People are protesting under threat of being murdered by the military in Myanmar, while the alt-right can't be bothered to protest the theft of an election. Which makes one ask themselves, just how much do they actually believe the election was stolen?

It is like in a Poker hand. You think you have the best hand, and the other guy goes all-in, forcing you to think a bit harder about where you actually stand. At the Capitol Building and online, these people are pretty certain of themselves. But when it comes to even handling a modest raise, they freeze.

 

[untermensche]

The point is children are abused and taught nonsense as fact when they are vulnerable.

I think this has long lasting effects in many.

 

[untermensche]

I agree. The concern was totally generated by Trump.

When Trump had no more hope, and it was a sick insane hope he had that day, and he no longer promoted the lie the concern went away.

The Capitol riot was the result of a cult of personality. Irrationality.

It is how dictatorships begin.

 

[TV and credit cards]

They were hit with a cold dose of reality.
In Myanmar we have a people who have spent a lifetime under an authoritarian regime who got a whiff of freedom which is worth dying for. In the US it has more or less always been free. But a group of highly impressionable people got it totally ass-backwards and thought losing Trump meant losing democracy. *Kind of funny actually. Now a bunch of them are going to prison. And sedition has been mentioned. Splash! So maybe they figure we won't lose our democracy. Or maybe it will be AOSocialism. Whatever. But prison is worse because the black guys won't let you watch what you wanna watch on TV.

Now they are awaiting further instruction through the amplitude modulated radio waves that adjust their brains.


*Unless it happens again.