They’re still rioting in Portland, not that you would know it from stories in the New York Times. Last night’s rioting was dedicated to Trans Remembrance Day. For as long as they could, this was all blamed on Trump, but the concern remains that when Biden takes office, nothing will change because this isn’t about Trump, they have no greater respect for Biden and the new administration will be caught in the untenable situation of having to deal with the protests and rioting in perpetuity. Unless, of course, it’s never reported and no one knows it’s still going on.
But where once this rioting appeared to be the rioting to watch, their alter egos are about to take their place in the pantheon of the righteous because they believe, with the same religious fervor as any true believer, that the Dems have stolen the election. They, as Patriots, have heard the call that it’s left to them to save democracy, save America, and they plan to answer.
No hard evidence of widespread fraud, no success in the courts or prospect of it. You can have a theory that a bad thing was done, but only facts will establish it. You need to do more than what Rudy Giuliani did at his news conference Thursday, which was throw out huge, barely comprehensible allegations and call people “crooks.” You need to do more than Sidney Powell, who, at the same news conference, charged that “communist money” is behind an international conspiracy to rig the U.S. election. There was drama, hyperbole, perhaps madness. But the wilder the charges, the more insubstantial the case appeared.
The claims are wild, outrageous and utterly baseless. People want to argue about whether a claim of widespread election fraud doesn’t justify action, ignoring that their argument begs the question of whether there was any such fraud. They rely on allegations repeated among their crowd, except Tucker Carlson, who was summarily excommunicated, and can’t understand how any “rational” person doesn’t see the anomalies in the vote that are so clear and certain to them.
Much as it’s as substantively vapid as the cries about “systemic racism” that capture the hearts of the left, they are moved by the most righteous of passions to defend America from being stolen right before our eyes. So what if conservative pundits, not to mention the Never Trumpers who would be expected to side against them, say that Rudy has lost his mind and there is no evidence to show that any of this happened? The answer to those not ready to take the full plunge is “what if.”
At minimum, there are serious questions that this grand fraud happened, and isn’t that enough to give them their day in court, to hear them out, to let them gather the evidence and prove that America is being stolen? What reasonable person wouldn’t want to know the truth?
And they are ready to take up arms to save the nation. They are ready to die for the nation. They are, in their minds, patriots.
The facile response is that this “gaslighting” is Trump’s fault, as he refuses to accept that he has been rejected and humiliated, but that gives Trump far more credit than he could ever deserve. He was never concerned about anything beyond his own self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement, so why would he care now about the harm this does to democracy, to America, to the lives of the useful idiots who inexplicably believe him?
At the next level is the media, which has forsaken credibility to be part and partisan, speaking its “moral clarity” when people just wanted the facts. We now have a nation that no longer shares a common factual reality, with the left seeing cops constantly slaughtering black people in the streets and the right seeing the ghost of Hugo Chavez pulling the levers of voting machines. People disinclined to be a member of either tribe don’t know what’s left to read.
Thoughtful conservatives like Peggy Noonan can try their best to explain the fact that there is no evidence behind Rudy and Sidney’s wild cries, but as long as Republican politicians enable the deception and pander to their most passionate supporters, they will continue to be believe in the righteousness of their cause. Indeed, there may be no way, short of Trump admitting it was all a grift, to alter the trajectory of this cause. And there is no chance Trump will ever admit to being Trump.
The Patriots are armed, both with their passionate certainty that they are defending the nation and with guns. The question is what they will do with them. What does a true Patriot do when his nation’s existence is being threatened?
For the moment, they hope that some judge, some Trump judge perhaps, will finally rule their way and the evidence, the truth, will come out. So far, this is going poorly, with case after case being tossed for the abject failure of evidence, wild allegations being revealed as baseless if not just plain dumb. But like their alter egos, they marshal a litany of excuses as to why judge after judge, even Trump judges, refuse to give them their “what if” moment, to let these claims play out in court and hold up the process of a cheater assuming the presidency.
It won’t be long until the elections are all certified, the electoral college takes its vote and the presumed president-elect becomes the president-elect. It won’t be long until all the filings by Rudy’s strike force strike out in their last at bat. Then what?
Will the Patriots accept the reality that the election was fair and the outcome decided? There was a question of whether Trump would acquiesce in a peaceful transition of power or resist, refusing to leave the White House, refusing to admit that he was a loser. But he’s just one old man who would be easily escorted out of the Oval Office by the Secret Service.
But the Patriots might not be as easily moved. Will they accept a peaceful transition of power or will they be the next tribe of true believers to take to the streets, with the same passionate zeal and righteous certitude as their Antifa cousins, sacrificing their life for the cause?
So far, the more violent protestors have been, well, less than brilliant (cf the attempt on Michigan’s governor). But the fact that a group of protestors tried to assassinate a Governor and take power is enough to start some serious worry. It’s not the protestors in the street I’m worried about; it’s the ones secretly plotting to ‘restore our government’ and, perhaps, being a little (or lot) more intelligent in their plans.
Are they any different the the left who never accepted that Trump was “THIER” President?
The left and right both have their crazies who refuse to accept reality. One is no better than the other.
I can offer some reasons why there is so much skepticism about the election. Forgetting about the errors that have been discovered all of which favor Biden and none for Trump, we have been told over the past four years that Trump is literally Hitler. In fact, he is worse than Hitler because even Hitler can say he was the guy who killed Hitler.
If Trump is literally Hitler, would not it be assumed that those making this accusation would use every means necessary to remove him from office? Is there a history of opposing Trump’s every move, no matter how trivial?
As a thought experiment, if you could kill Hitler as a baby, and prevent the Holocaust, would you? Most people would say yes. If you could kill Hitler’s parents before he was conceived and prevent the Holocaust, would you? This one is a bit more difficult and people tend to be more torn. If you could rig the 1933 elections and prevent Hitler from winning, would you? That’s a far easier question, no killing is involved only rigging a single election for a greater cause.
Assuming those who accused Trump of being Hitler meant it, they would be morally repugnant not to cheat or do nearly anything to prevent him from winning again.
The motivation to cheat is there. That alone does not prove cheating of course, but there is no doubt that if the opportunity presented itself it would and should happen. That’s the light the results are being viewed in.
It also illustrates one of the costs of the literally Hitler argument. Another one is a rejection of Biden’s call for unity. Why would anyone want to rally behind someone who would reach out to fascists, bigots and white supremacists.
No need to explain the passion of delusions. We get it, just as we got it when the other tribe argued its absolute belief that Trump was literally Hitler.
Remember the fear that white supremacists in South Africa would rise up in arms against the first post-apartheid government? Nothing happened. Trumpism has weaker roots and less heft. It’s all posturing and hot air, flag waving and strutting around with rifles in front of tolerant police officers.
Would battalions of them be prepared to die for Trump? Would they even sign up to drill for a battle where real bullets and bombs will fly towards them? And a federal prison cell awaits their capture? I’ve seen nothing to suggest they would.
They call themselves patriots, but like Mr Bone Spurs himself, when it comes to blood and guts, you’ll find them in their bedrooms talking tough on the Twitters.
Counterpoint: underestimating other people’s capacity for violence or perseverance through violence doesn’t have a great track record historically. Nor does overestimating, of course, like your 90s South Africa example. Yugoslavia was by no means a poor or divided country in the 80s so it wasn’t supposed to collapse into ethnic conflict within a decade, WWI wasn’t supposed to have happened because turn of the century commentators believed people were too comfortable with modern life, the Shah in a (relatively) prosperous and reformist Iran was supposed to be invincible against assorted Islamist, Communist, or liberal democratic student rabble rousers who talked about revolution but were assumed by CIA analysts to fold like cards if they had rifles or SAVAK torture turned on them.
It’s very difficult I think to get people to believe that willingness to accept rioting and stupid tactics because it favors a supposed political position _ means that the position not so much favored could also resort to using dumb, tragic destructive tactics
Only time will tell if they do…
Fingers point and people shout, “well, he started it,” or “what about him,” as if no one matures past third grade. And perhaps they didn’t. Only time will tell.
Being a number cruncher and data guy, I find the statistical and data analysis of the voting patterns in the contested areas disturbing. That being said these need to be investigated and presented in a court of law. The problem is it may take some time to do so, perhaps longer than election law allows. The writers of the 1887 law you referred to earlier in your posts could not have comprehended both the numbers of people and technology of today. The Senate definitely should investigate regardless of who wins.
So what happens if Biden is installed as President and it is found out sometime after that enough fraud occurred to invalidate the election?
As for your other topic: Never underestimate human stupidity. That being said most of the violence is coming from the left. The originators of the Michigan plot were Anarchists (stupid by definition). They think they are invincible because they have not been called to account. Trump rallies have been both large, peaceful, and ignored by the media. There have already been incidents where people have armed them selves and displayed those arms to protect their communities from Antifa.
The Democrats would have been better off if they lost. If Biden assumes the Presidency, a statistically significant portion of the population will believe that he did so by fraud and he will be working against that for as long as he and Kamal are in office. Plus facing a Republican Senate and very closely divided House that may go Republican.
This is what makes this gravely disturbing: many things were different this year than past, from mail in due to COVID to the huge number of people voting due to Trump, both for and against him. Whether there really were anomalies (because someone said so?) and whether or not questions are raised by “anomalies” might be fine a hypothetical for leisurely academic discussion, but are worthless for law. We have a nation to run, and thus far, every single complaint has been utter garbage and properly dismissed. Where are those serious and supportable issues everyone keeps claiming exist, for not a single one has appeared in an actual suit. They’re all crap. Total crap.
If there’s a problem, file a timely lawsuit by someone with standing and make actual allegations of fact with evidentiary support within the time frame allowed by law. There is nothing else, and no amount of “I dunno, but” changes that. People claim stuff? Put up or shut up. And if you can’t but need more time to figure out *if* there’s really a problem, and *if* you can find evidence of a problem, then you’ve got nothing. “It seems weird” is not a cause of action, not evidence and not reason to ignore the entirety of our system because someone feels the vote seemed weird. Our national democratic framework doesn’t shift based on either the depth of legal stupidity of the complainers or the depth of their sad concerned moans.
And if you are over 60, they want you dead. The sooner the better . . .
Which “they” are you talking about? Details matter.
“So what happens if Biden is installed as President and it is found out sometime after that enough fraud occurred to invalidate the election?”
It gets ignored.. no different to a non-existent/faked/altered/ non-standard birth certificate…
If you’re going down the rabbit hole of crazy, might as well go all the way.