Trump is certainly guilty of everything you say, but I personally find arguments about him being a “threat to democracy” besides the point. Our ruling class has been strangling democracy for a long time, and people feel they have no recourse working within the existing system.
From foreign intervention, to abortion, to immigration, 55-60%+ of the American public has a preferred policy approach. It’s become increasingly clear that the wishes of the donor class and activist NGOs take priority however. The two major parties pull out all the stops to preserve the status quo; things like gerrymandering, superdelegates, and now simply bypassing the primary process altogether.
Since Trump arrived we’re seeing color revolution tactics like censorship, selective intelligence leaks, specious prosecutions, and opaque partnerships between government, media, and partisan NGOs intended to push public opinion and elections in a specific direction.
Trump is not the answer to any of this - I’ll be voting 3rd party in a non-swing state as a principled, futile protest - but we’re in fall of the Roman Republic territory, where a corrupt ruling class desperate to cling to power is making a Caesar almost inevitable.
Republics are not direct democracies for a reason. One consequence of their indirectness is that if a certain issue is very animating for a minority, but not very animating for the majority (who hold the opposite opinion), the minority can dominate. If the people who actually care about X issue enough to vote based on it are all on one side of it, it doesn't matter if it's 90-10, they'll get their way [1] because politicians are aiming to get elected. Pro-life and affirmative action both have concentrated support and diffuse opposition (at least historically; it seems like Dobbs has changed that for abortion), which is why they've been politically successful despite never being popular.
I do agree we're in fall of the Roman Republic territory, though. At best, Trump is Sulla, the guy who breaks all the rules and shows just how fragile they really are, laying the groundwork for a Caesar.
[1]: Well, you know, ignoring messy reality where things like "Party A agrees with X, and Party B disagrees with it, but Party B is more popular for other reasons" can happen.
Regarding the minority taking over and imposing their will being bad, tell me what share of the population is homosexual and how "their" legal achievements are not a threat.
Agreed on a lot of this, but tbh there was something to the TDS diagnosis at one time. During the Trump administration a lot of the exasperation about lies and Russia felt like vain attempts to make concise tangible objections out of a nebulous (but well founded) sense that Trump was somehow breaking the rules. People seemed mostly upset that he was uncivil, vulgar & used demeaning rhetoric. But those complaints were often laughed out of the room by both right & left as unserious “civility politics”, more concerned with friendly language than victims killed by interventionist American foreign policy which Trump might restrain (or so the argument went). Now through Trump’s actions, we’ve seen that civility is actually important and a coal mine canary for other more serious democratic norms might be in jeopardy! But in 2018, the beliefs that Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin or was likely to enact explicitly racially discriminatory legislation were symptoms of a legitimate case of TDS. Then with January 6th, Trump effectively inoculated the entire mainstream left from TDS, because he gave them the perfect single sentence encapsulation of why MAGA are a uniquely problematic force in the American political landscape.
Good analysis. There was always going to be a segment that loathed him on style regardless of substance. Over time, evidence accumulated that substance alone justifies serious alarm, regardless of style. The TDS dismissal is a lazy conflation of style and substance, to invalidate the substantive concerns as trivial objections to “mean tweets”
> During the Trump administration a lot of the exasperation about lies and Russia felt like vain attempts to make concise tangible objections out of a nebulous (but well founded) sense that Trump was somehow breaking the rules.
but trump was breaking the rules
the mueller report documented the connections of the Trump campaign to Russia
you missed the plot
> the beliefs that Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin
this is still a possibility(!)
> likely to enact explicitly racially discriminatory legislation
stephen miller's child separation policy was a deliberate policy of cruelty which changed Obama's child separation policy in the case of suspected child trafficking to a situation in which 1000 children still have not been reunited with their parents
>But those complaints were often laughed out of the room by both right & left as unserious “civility politics”<
Concerns about Trump were NOT laughed out of the room by the left. The right, sure, but the left? What planet have you been living on? "Orange Man Bad" has been THE top talking of the left since he first took office.
I wasn’t implying that. There are many videos, tweets, articles etc from the Trump era where “populist left” pundits argued against and mocked the idea that the problem with Trump was his lack of civility. If you’re interested, look them up yourself. A good place to start would be youtuber Kyle Kulinski AKA Secular Talk.
"But Trump’s vulgarity is appealing precisely because it exposes political truths. As others have noted, Trump’s policies (wildly inconsistent though they may be) are actually no more extreme than those of other Republicans; Trump is just willing to strip away the pretense. Other candidates may say “national security is a fundamental priority,” whereas Trump will opt for “ban all the Muslims.” The latter is far less diplomatic, but in practice the two candidates fundamentally mean the same thing. We should prefer the honest boor, as polite euphemism is constantly used to mask atrocities."
Thank you for writing this. I was on the fence because I'm unvaccinated and opposed the lockdowns, but after reading this, I'm going to vote for Harris. I needed a sobering, clear, honest analysis like this.
Trump Derange Syndrome is neither deranged, nor is it about Trump. In fact, TDS has nothing to do with Trump except insofar as its bizarre and entertaining flare-ups are brought on by the reminder that he exists.
TDS is a syndrome caused by being told, from birth, that American Democracy is unique, exceptional, extremely powerful, and liberating for those living under it. Most people are born and raised to believe that the US is the most powerful country in the world, austere and superior, and therefore immune to the "vagaries" of world politics like social decay, political corruption, and conspiracies against the public. This is obviously not true, and most reasonable outsiders look at the US and see myriad flaws underneath a country which is relatively powerful but not omnipotent, and which has a government system that is otherwise unremarkable in a time where basically every country is some version of parliamentary democracy or monarchy.
There are essentially two strains of TDS: Neoconservative-type TDS and DeAmericanized-type TDS.
DeAmericanized-type TDS is not particularly remarkable. It is an extension of the Bush-obsessed internationals who laugh at the US whenever a US leader does something stupid. It is similar to Americans who laugh at China, Germany, or the UK because some PM did or said something stupid.
Neoconservative-type TDS is particularly fascinating though. Neoconservatives have a very romantic view of the US, as a result of a particularly destructive trapped prior around conspiracies. These are people who essentially fell for the CIA bait and refuse to accept any negative arguments against the United States. US interventionism is always justified. When it isn't justified, it's because the US was tricked or mislead by specific and nameable internal actors. US economics is always perfect. When it isn't perfect, it's because of transient global economic issues, or specific and nameable internal actors.
Notice the theme here: the US does no wrong except when any other person would have done wrong, or because someone specific caused it to commit an evil act. The system is closed against the possibility that the US does evil or undesirable things because the systems that drive the US are themselves evil or undesirable. It is impossible that US banks caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis because the financial systems in the US are themselves faulty and need specific corrections. The issue is instead due to specific greedy bankers. Once they are removed, the system will be fine. The Iraq War happened on false intel because specific intelligence operatives and department heads lied, not because the incentive structures around gathering state intelligence inherently bias operatives to make politically-expedient decisions over fact-based ones.
This culminates in the particular reaction to Trump. Trump is, simply put, a reality TV host. That is his job. That is what he has done for decades. As a result he is not really the kind of stoic, austere person Neoconservatives see as becoming the Presidential Office. The problem is that enough Americans voted for him over stoic, austere persons that it demands response. The tendency is therefore to become trapped in the prior that Trump Did It. Americans voted for Trump because Trump Lies. American politics is radicalized because Trump Radicalized It. COVID was as bad as it was because Trump Mismanaged It. These range from fairly lukewarm takes to some really just incredibly bizarre claims, like that Trump is secretly allied with Putin in a conspiracy to take over the US and make it a Russian puppet state.
Neocon TDSers are also likely to make some really bizarre claims. Like that Trump does something "unprecedented" when in fact the activity in question has happened many times before, or is categorically similar to other common activities in politics. For example, here's an article from Washington Post declaring that Trump's statements on increasing presidential power are "unprecedented" https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trumps-unprecedented-plan-to-expand-presidential-power/2024/07/13/3a2aca52-e01d-472a-a5c8-7d3a49a0be5f_video.html. In fact, I would argue that the levels of power expansion Trump has discussed are pretty in-line with the kinds of oversight increases that happened during the Obama administration. Certainly they are not nearly as radical as actions taken by FDR during the Great Depression and Second World War. And, obviously, if we consider the grand scheme of "Governing powers" the executive office is not nearly as powerful with regards to its ownership of governing power as any corporate CEO or 3rd-world Dictator is with regards to their respective organizations.
It's certainly possible to be conservative and not want Trump as president. I personally plan to vote for Jill Stein if I vote at all. But the way in which TDS-sufferers are anti-Trump is indicative of a particularly bizarre reference frame which really only exists in the kind of Bushite Patriots who think the US is some incomparable giant of liberty, and not just another particularly powerful republic.
Since you advocate listening to the arguments that you're going to refute, I was wondering if you've listened to any of the state legislature hearings about election irregularities in 2020.
Also, what is the argument that Trump "knew the election was fair"? The New York Times reported in 2012 that election officials believe there have already been multiple elections in which it is impossible to know the rightful winner, mainly due to the increase in absentee ballots. It also says that there is a bipartisan consensus that mail-in ballots are prone to error and fraud. How did this all of a sudden become a really stupid and dangerous thing to say eight years later?
>Have you listened to any of the state legislature hearings about election irregularities in 2020?
I haven't, but if their testimony is anything like the affidavits Sidney Powell produced in court, where there "might" be mishandling because "maybe" the ballots were harvested by somebody who "might not have been" an election official, then their testimony probably doesn't constitute good evidence of voter fraud.
>It also says that there is a bipartisan consensus that mail-in ballots are prone to error and fraud.
The linked article says that 2% of mail in ballots are rejected vs 1% of in person votes (not sourced), and correctly notes that at the time Republicans were more likely to use mail in ballots, before Trump downplayed the pandemic and told his voters not to vote via mail in ballot but to vote in person.
>How did this all of a sudden become a really stupid and dangerous thing to say eight years later?
The article also doesn't specifically examine the use of mail in ballots in federal elections. Practically a rogue state or municipality can hold its own elections and mishandle mail in ballots since smaller elections have less oversight than federal ones - and as far as I know fraud is more common in nonfederal elections - but this wouldn't have any bearing on the federal security of mail in ballots.
It seems redundant to write essentially the same article about Trump over again. This means I'll also have to trot out some of the same responses I've posted before.
>The reason I’m anti-Trump, aside from just not liking his policies, is that I think he’s a singularly dangerous feature of American politics, being petty, stupid, vindictive, incompetent, and malicious—totally willing to threaten American institutions for personal gain.<
The key difference is that you characterize Trump as the only actor who this applies to. From my perspective, everyone left of center is collectively guilty of this, as a core feature of their politics. You on the other hand characterize Kamala Harris and the factions she represents as "sane and reasonable adults." This is the real argument and you are sidestepping it. In a world where people actually agreed with your assessment of Democrats, they'd also agree with you about Trump.
You also display this sort of worldview divergence further down when you say "Trump's first term wasn't good." From my perspective it was the best presidential term in my lifetime and it's not even remotely close, not necessarily because it was awesome, but mostly because of how abysmal the competition is. You don't seem to be aware of how wildly many of your assessments diverge from the average right-winger.
>At every stage, he tried to get himself declared victorious in an election he lost and got scarily close; had Pence gone along with his scheme, this would have led to an extreme constitutional crisis, where Republicans and Democrats disagree about the duly elected presidents, and there is no clear institutional answer.<
You're way too optimistic in this assessment. There is no reason to believe Pence playing ball would've been anything more than a speed bump in the whole affair. No serious institutional actors ever entertained Trump's scheme.
>Additionally, the sheer number of people who have come forward is surprising if he didn’t commit sexual assault.<
No it isn't. For a lot of people it might be. Post-TDS? 26 seems low. People have accused Blumpft of anything and everything in order to get attention and clout. This is the most hated human being on the planet for the past decade we're talking about here, thus any assessments of this type are impossible to evaluate accurately. The irony is that because of how extreme and deranged the Trump hate is, people are correct to assume that any accusations made against him without proof are extremely questionable.
You're not really acquitting yourself well of TDS when you refer to an essay titled "Trump's Coming Reign of Terror" as "insightful." When Trump is president again and none of his political enemies are arrested, will you second-guess your perspective? Do you think the political targeting of Trump during the Biden administration is noteworthy at all?
I find surprising how much the heat has increased now after years of neglect. The Trump concession is totally unprecedented, and the complacency about it is as concerning as the fact itself.
I generally agree with your point. I have been deranged about Trump for a decade myself.
But you should try to make some specific predictions, or at least some specific fears of what exactly he'd do if he gets into power. Maybe point to some areas where he could do real damage, with some specificity.
This author has previously written that Trump might start a nuclear war, for one. I believe he also cited "AI risk"--the idea that one, AGI will be invented within the next four years, and that two, Donald Trump would do something bad with it.
I am voting for Trump because he is the Republican candidate, and I think in our present age liberal ideas are extremely destructive to our nation and culture. But I have huge reservations. Even though the liberal media exaggerates his flaws, they are significant and he is impulsive and dangerous, enough that I am sympathetic to the argument offered by Jonah Goldberg that we ought to vote Kamala and let the Republican party regroup itself.
You're making a terrible mistake, Dan. If neither major candidate is acceptably safe, just don't vote for either of them. Pick a third party instead, or leave that section of the ballot blank.
Yeah I’m not in a swing state so frankly I’m not persuaded by the “democracy” thing. I don’t care to be virtually represented by Pennsylvania, whether they vote for Trump or Kamala. Also, suppose that in 2020 Trump triggered a state-by-state vote in the House. It’s still “democracy”. The House delegations were elected. It’s just switching from one constitutionally prescribed counting system to another. Oh it doesn’t reflect the national median voter? Neither does the Senate. Also, if we think the House vote is unfair, we can break up big states like California or require states to elect their house delegations proportionally. Bigger picture, if Trump had created a new norm that presidential elections could be shunted to the House, either thru the VP (whose role had to be clarified to be ministerial, which suggests that it was unclear before) or by states refusing to timely certify, that practice would have simply been the new rule going forward (if he managed to hang on despite the likely attempted coup by democrats and the military against him).
Also, for the California wildfires, those people were mostly Trump voters. California countryside is GOP. So, if Trump had refused them FEMA, idk, maybe they should have found out.
As for BLM, it was pretty clear at the time that city and state democrats were letting them riot to embarrass Trump. Like, fine, don’t shoot them. But things would have been better if the military had gone double time to get things under control instead of piddling around.
Trump is certainly guilty of everything you say, but I personally find arguments about him being a “threat to democracy” besides the point. Our ruling class has been strangling democracy for a long time, and people feel they have no recourse working within the existing system.
From foreign intervention, to abortion, to immigration, 55-60%+ of the American public has a preferred policy approach. It’s become increasingly clear that the wishes of the donor class and activist NGOs take priority however. The two major parties pull out all the stops to preserve the status quo; things like gerrymandering, superdelegates, and now simply bypassing the primary process altogether.
Since Trump arrived we’re seeing color revolution tactics like censorship, selective intelligence leaks, specious prosecutions, and opaque partnerships between government, media, and partisan NGOs intended to push public opinion and elections in a specific direction.
Trump is not the answer to any of this - I’ll be voting 3rd party in a non-swing state as a principled, futile protest - but we’re in fall of the Roman Republic territory, where a corrupt ruling class desperate to cling to power is making a Caesar almost inevitable.
This post by Caplan argues that the wealthy are saving us from the insane policies of the majority. I don’t have a view either way.
https://www.betonit.ai/p/why_is_democrachtml?publication_id=820634&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=12v0t&utm_medium=email
Yeah, Caplan's a hired apologist for kleptocracy, of course he says that. It's like writing that a hired hitman said the guy he shot had it coming.
"It's like writing that a hired hitman said the guy he shot had it coming"
LOL
Republics are not direct democracies for a reason. One consequence of their indirectness is that if a certain issue is very animating for a minority, but not very animating for the majority (who hold the opposite opinion), the minority can dominate. If the people who actually care about X issue enough to vote based on it are all on one side of it, it doesn't matter if it's 90-10, they'll get their way [1] because politicians are aiming to get elected. Pro-life and affirmative action both have concentrated support and diffuse opposition (at least historically; it seems like Dobbs has changed that for abortion), which is why they've been politically successful despite never being popular.
I do agree we're in fall of the Roman Republic territory, though. At best, Trump is Sulla, the guy who breaks all the rules and shows just how fragile they really are, laying the groundwork for a Caesar.
[1]: Well, you know, ignoring messy reality where things like "Party A agrees with X, and Party B disagrees with it, but Party B is more popular for other reasons" can happen.
Regarding the minority taking over and imposing their will being bad, tell me what share of the population is homosexual and how "their" legal achievements are not a threat.
Agreed on a lot of this, but tbh there was something to the TDS diagnosis at one time. During the Trump administration a lot of the exasperation about lies and Russia felt like vain attempts to make concise tangible objections out of a nebulous (but well founded) sense that Trump was somehow breaking the rules. People seemed mostly upset that he was uncivil, vulgar & used demeaning rhetoric. But those complaints were often laughed out of the room by both right & left as unserious “civility politics”, more concerned with friendly language than victims killed by interventionist American foreign policy which Trump might restrain (or so the argument went). Now through Trump’s actions, we’ve seen that civility is actually important and a coal mine canary for other more serious democratic norms might be in jeopardy! But in 2018, the beliefs that Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin or was likely to enact explicitly racially discriminatory legislation were symptoms of a legitimate case of TDS. Then with January 6th, Trump effectively inoculated the entire mainstream left from TDS, because he gave them the perfect single sentence encapsulation of why MAGA are a uniquely problematic force in the American political landscape.
Good analysis. There was always going to be a segment that loathed him on style regardless of substance. Over time, evidence accumulated that substance alone justifies serious alarm, regardless of style. The TDS dismissal is a lazy conflation of style and substance, to invalidate the substantive concerns as trivial objections to “mean tweets”
> During the Trump administration a lot of the exasperation about lies and Russia felt like vain attempts to make concise tangible objections out of a nebulous (but well founded) sense that Trump was somehow breaking the rules.
but trump was breaking the rules
the mueller report documented the connections of the Trump campaign to Russia
you missed the plot
> the beliefs that Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin
this is still a possibility(!)
> likely to enact explicitly racially discriminatory legislation
stephen miller's child separation policy was a deliberate policy of cruelty which changed Obama's child separation policy in the case of suspected child trafficking to a situation in which 1000 children still have not been reunited with their parents
YOU GOT PLAYED. You were the dupe.
>But those complaints were often laughed out of the room by both right & left as unserious “civility politics”<
Concerns about Trump were NOT laughed out of the room by the left. The right, sure, but the left? What planet have you been living on? "Orange Man Bad" has been THE top talking of the left since he first took office.
It seems like you might not be aware of the diversity of opinion on the left
If you're implying that there is some large segment of the left that doesn't think Trump is bad, then you're right, I am not aware of that.
I wasn’t implying that. There are many videos, tweets, articles etc from the Trump era where “populist left” pundits argued against and mocked the idea that the problem with Trump was his lack of civility. If you’re interested, look them up yourself. A good place to start would be youtuber Kyle Kulinski AKA Secular Talk.
I'll have to admit that I've seen no such content.
Here's an example (written by a Chapo host) prior to the 2016 election:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2016/08/the-necessity-of-political-vulgarity
"But Trump’s vulgarity is appealing precisely because it exposes political truths. As others have noted, Trump’s policies (wildly inconsistent though they may be) are actually no more extreme than those of other Republicans; Trump is just willing to strip away the pretense. Other candidates may say “national security is a fundamental priority,” whereas Trump will opt for “ban all the Muslims.” The latter is far less diplomatic, but in practice the two candidates fundamentally mean the same thing. We should prefer the honest boor, as polite euphemism is constantly used to mask atrocities."
Thank you for writing this. I was on the fence because I'm unvaccinated and opposed the lockdowns, but after reading this, I'm going to vote for Harris. I needed a sobering, clear, honest analysis like this.
Trump Derange Syndrome is neither deranged, nor is it about Trump. In fact, TDS has nothing to do with Trump except insofar as its bizarre and entertaining flare-ups are brought on by the reminder that he exists.
TDS is a syndrome caused by being told, from birth, that American Democracy is unique, exceptional, extremely powerful, and liberating for those living under it. Most people are born and raised to believe that the US is the most powerful country in the world, austere and superior, and therefore immune to the "vagaries" of world politics like social decay, political corruption, and conspiracies against the public. This is obviously not true, and most reasonable outsiders look at the US and see myriad flaws underneath a country which is relatively powerful but not omnipotent, and which has a government system that is otherwise unremarkable in a time where basically every country is some version of parliamentary democracy or monarchy.
There are essentially two strains of TDS: Neoconservative-type TDS and DeAmericanized-type TDS.
DeAmericanized-type TDS is not particularly remarkable. It is an extension of the Bush-obsessed internationals who laugh at the US whenever a US leader does something stupid. It is similar to Americans who laugh at China, Germany, or the UK because some PM did or said something stupid.
Neoconservative-type TDS is particularly fascinating though. Neoconservatives have a very romantic view of the US, as a result of a particularly destructive trapped prior around conspiracies. These are people who essentially fell for the CIA bait and refuse to accept any negative arguments against the United States. US interventionism is always justified. When it isn't justified, it's because the US was tricked or mislead by specific and nameable internal actors. US economics is always perfect. When it isn't perfect, it's because of transient global economic issues, or specific and nameable internal actors.
Notice the theme here: the US does no wrong except when any other person would have done wrong, or because someone specific caused it to commit an evil act. The system is closed against the possibility that the US does evil or undesirable things because the systems that drive the US are themselves evil or undesirable. It is impossible that US banks caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis because the financial systems in the US are themselves faulty and need specific corrections. The issue is instead due to specific greedy bankers. Once they are removed, the system will be fine. The Iraq War happened on false intel because specific intelligence operatives and department heads lied, not because the incentive structures around gathering state intelligence inherently bias operatives to make politically-expedient decisions over fact-based ones.
This culminates in the particular reaction to Trump. Trump is, simply put, a reality TV host. That is his job. That is what he has done for decades. As a result he is not really the kind of stoic, austere person Neoconservatives see as becoming the Presidential Office. The problem is that enough Americans voted for him over stoic, austere persons that it demands response. The tendency is therefore to become trapped in the prior that Trump Did It. Americans voted for Trump because Trump Lies. American politics is radicalized because Trump Radicalized It. COVID was as bad as it was because Trump Mismanaged It. These range from fairly lukewarm takes to some really just incredibly bizarre claims, like that Trump is secretly allied with Putin in a conspiracy to take over the US and make it a Russian puppet state.
Neocon TDSers are also likely to make some really bizarre claims. Like that Trump does something "unprecedented" when in fact the activity in question has happened many times before, or is categorically similar to other common activities in politics. For example, here's an article from Washington Post declaring that Trump's statements on increasing presidential power are "unprecedented" https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trumps-unprecedented-plan-to-expand-presidential-power/2024/07/13/3a2aca52-e01d-472a-a5c8-7d3a49a0be5f_video.html. In fact, I would argue that the levels of power expansion Trump has discussed are pretty in-line with the kinds of oversight increases that happened during the Obama administration. Certainly they are not nearly as radical as actions taken by FDR during the Great Depression and Second World War. And, obviously, if we consider the grand scheme of "Governing powers" the executive office is not nearly as powerful with regards to its ownership of governing power as any corporate CEO or 3rd-world Dictator is with regards to their respective organizations.
It's certainly possible to be conservative and not want Trump as president. I personally plan to vote for Jill Stein if I vote at all. But the way in which TDS-sufferers are anti-Trump is indicative of a particularly bizarre reference frame which really only exists in the kind of Bushite Patriots who think the US is some incomparable giant of liberty, and not just another particularly powerful republic.
Since you advocate listening to the arguments that you're going to refute, I was wondering if you've listened to any of the state legislature hearings about election irregularities in 2020.
Also, what is the argument that Trump "knew the election was fair"? The New York Times reported in 2012 that election officials believe there have already been multiple elections in which it is impossible to know the rightful winner, mainly due to the increase in absentee ballots. It also says that there is a bipartisan consensus that mail-in ballots are prone to error and fraud. How did this all of a sudden become a really stupid and dangerous thing to say eight years later?
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html
You can read my article where I lay out the evidence which I linked.
"Also, what is the argument that Trump "knew the election was fair"? "
He said that he lost legitimately, once.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-acknowledges-lost-2020-election-whisker-rcna169526
>Have you listened to any of the state legislature hearings about election irregularities in 2020?
I haven't, but if their testimony is anything like the affidavits Sidney Powell produced in court, where there "might" be mishandling because "maybe" the ballots were harvested by somebody who "might not have been" an election official, then their testimony probably doesn't constitute good evidence of voter fraud.
>It also says that there is a bipartisan consensus that mail-in ballots are prone to error and fraud.
The linked article says that 2% of mail in ballots are rejected vs 1% of in person votes (not sourced), and correctly notes that at the time Republicans were more likely to use mail in ballots, before Trump downplayed the pandemic and told his voters not to vote via mail in ballot but to vote in person.
>How did this all of a sudden become a really stupid and dangerous thing to say eight years later?
The article also doesn't specifically examine the use of mail in ballots in federal elections. Practically a rogue state or municipality can hold its own elections and mishandle mail in ballots since smaller elections have less oversight than federal ones - and as far as I know fraud is more common in nonfederal elections - but this wouldn't have any bearing on the federal security of mail in ballots.
Excellent and disturbing overview. We must vote to secure Our Democracy.
It seems redundant to write essentially the same article about Trump over again. This means I'll also have to trot out some of the same responses I've posted before.
>The reason I’m anti-Trump, aside from just not liking his policies, is that I think he’s a singularly dangerous feature of American politics, being petty, stupid, vindictive, incompetent, and malicious—totally willing to threaten American institutions for personal gain.<
The key difference is that you characterize Trump as the only actor who this applies to. From my perspective, everyone left of center is collectively guilty of this, as a core feature of their politics. You on the other hand characterize Kamala Harris and the factions she represents as "sane and reasonable adults." This is the real argument and you are sidestepping it. In a world where people actually agreed with your assessment of Democrats, they'd also agree with you about Trump.
You also display this sort of worldview divergence further down when you say "Trump's first term wasn't good." From my perspective it was the best presidential term in my lifetime and it's not even remotely close, not necessarily because it was awesome, but mostly because of how abysmal the competition is. You don't seem to be aware of how wildly many of your assessments diverge from the average right-winger.
>At every stage, he tried to get himself declared victorious in an election he lost and got scarily close; had Pence gone along with his scheme, this would have led to an extreme constitutional crisis, where Republicans and Democrats disagree about the duly elected presidents, and there is no clear institutional answer.<
You're way too optimistic in this assessment. There is no reason to believe Pence playing ball would've been anything more than a speed bump in the whole affair. No serious institutional actors ever entertained Trump's scheme.
>Additionally, the sheer number of people who have come forward is surprising if he didn’t commit sexual assault.<
No it isn't. For a lot of people it might be. Post-TDS? 26 seems low. People have accused Blumpft of anything and everything in order to get attention and clout. This is the most hated human being on the planet for the past decade we're talking about here, thus any assessments of this type are impossible to evaluate accurately. The irony is that because of how extreme and deranged the Trump hate is, people are correct to assume that any accusations made against him without proof are extremely questionable.
You're not really acquitting yourself well of TDS when you refer to an essay titled "Trump's Coming Reign of Terror" as "insightful." When Trump is president again and none of his political enemies are arrested, will you second-guess your perspective? Do you think the political targeting of Trump during the Biden administration is noteworthy at all?
Both parties richly deserve to lose. The country has already lost.
Justified, but productive?
I find surprising how much the heat has increased now after years of neglect. The Trump concession is totally unprecedented, and the complacency about it is as concerning as the fact itself.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ekM9jQqXq8D8qa2fP/united-states-2024-presidential-election-so-help-you-god
Justified, perhaps, yet still not constructive.
I generally agree with your point. I have been deranged about Trump for a decade myself.
But you should try to make some specific predictions, or at least some specific fears of what exactly he'd do if he gets into power. Maybe point to some areas where he could do real damage, with some specificity.
This author has previously written that Trump might start a nuclear war, for one. I believe he also cited "AI risk"--the idea that one, AGI will be invented within the next four years, and that two, Donald Trump would do something bad with it.
I am voting for Trump because he is the Republican candidate, and I think in our present age liberal ideas are extremely destructive to our nation and culture. But I have huge reservations. Even though the liberal media exaggerates his flaws, they are significant and he is impulsive and dangerous, enough that I am sympathetic to the argument offered by Jonah Goldberg that we ought to vote Kamala and let the Republican party regroup itself.
A bad set of choices for president this year.
I think that Trump is orders of magnitude worse than any Democrat.
You're making a terrible mistake, Dan. If neither major candidate is acceptably safe, just don't vote for either of them. Pick a third party instead, or leave that section of the ballot blank.
Yeah I’m not in a swing state so frankly I’m not persuaded by the “democracy” thing. I don’t care to be virtually represented by Pennsylvania, whether they vote for Trump or Kamala. Also, suppose that in 2020 Trump triggered a state-by-state vote in the House. It’s still “democracy”. The House delegations were elected. It’s just switching from one constitutionally prescribed counting system to another. Oh it doesn’t reflect the national median voter? Neither does the Senate. Also, if we think the House vote is unfair, we can break up big states like California or require states to elect their house delegations proportionally. Bigger picture, if Trump had created a new norm that presidential elections could be shunted to the House, either thru the VP (whose role had to be clarified to be ministerial, which suggests that it was unclear before) or by states refusing to timely certify, that practice would have simply been the new rule going forward (if he managed to hang on despite the likely attempted coup by democrats and the military against him).
Also, for the California wildfires, those people were mostly Trump voters. California countryside is GOP. So, if Trump had refused them FEMA, idk, maybe they should have found out.
As for BLM, it was pretty clear at the time that city and state democrats were letting them riot to embarrass Trump. Like, fine, don’t shoot them. But things would have been better if the military had gone double time to get things under control instead of piddling around.
I'll give you your tds argument and raise you this
https://www.mikelofgren.net/the-american-billionaires-who-fell-in-love-with-fascism-are-not-the-first/
My evidence for my other comment saying nobel memorial prize winning economists support Kamala Harris.
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/24/nobel-prize-winners-endorse-harris-president