Glenn, I'm curious if you believe that the entire brouhaha over the 2020 election being stolen is a deeper reflection of a deficiency in our national character. Whether in the domestic or international realms, Americans seem to possess a sore loser mentality. We're very good at gloating about being number one and feeling good when we're on top, but we frequently cast scorn and vitriol towards others when they outcompete us, denouncing them as frauds or cheats. I feel like other countries don't embody this sort of mentality to nearly the same extent. Maybe there's something radically individualistic and dog-eat-dog about American society that encourages this, but I'm skeptical that the kind of polarization that we've seen in recent years is sustainable long term.
What's been really fascinating about the fight over the 2020 election is how little legitimacy many Americans place in their own democratic system. Americans might not be generally aware of this, but in China, democracy in the form of one person one vote is fairly common at the village level. As political scientist Daniel Bell points out, Chinese governance becomes less democratic and more meritocratic the higher up one goes, from the village level to the national level where ultimately the CCP rules with an iron fist. Bell argues that interestingly enough, the level of confidence towards government increases the higher up one goes. For instance, many newsworthy instances of corruption in recent years in China have been at the local level, such as allegations of corruption by local officials in the construction of schools in Sichuan in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake. By contrast, most Chinese tend to view the central government as highly competent, a few recent hiccups over zero Covid aside.
One gets the feeling that in America the opposite is true and that American views of government tend to decline as one goes from the local to the national, as evidenced by the generally angry and conspiratorial nature of American political discourse, with its frequent claims of the deep state and elections being stolen by the opposition. Anyway, I'm sure this contrast reveals something interesting about the shibboleths that we as Americans have based our philosophical worldview on, but alas I digress.
Yours is an interesting observation, Yan Shen. Plausible, too. Beyond my expertise, though I did see Daniel Bell talk about democracy in China in 2015, when I was on leave at Stanford...
Carol is absolutely correct. There was the lie over the laptop, as perpetrated by the 50 “intelligence” officials, the changes to voting procedures in violation of the US constitution, the propaganda media, and the DOJ and FBI failures. This is in addition to all the election irregularities. I’ve been independent my entire life, until this year. I was independent because I didn’t like the hypocrisy from either of the 2 main parties, but the democrats have set themselves on fire this time with their unhinged, “anything goes” attempt to hold onto power and the attacks on our constitutional rights.
I try to understand the Conservative viewpoint, I honestly do. I tried listening to the audio version of Jason Riley’s “The Black Boom”, but found the task impossible. Riley begins by essentially saying Trump is a bigot and a racist (my interpretation). He then presents data to show that Blacks benefited economically from the Trump Presidency. This may be the problem. Riley is telling me that I’m about to be presented with an elegant meal, but it will be served on a slimy, smelly, rat infested platter. Since I am not in dire financial circumstances, I’m already rejecting the meal. Herein lies the problem, Black Conservatives want me to ignore the racism and enjoy some meager economic benefit. Where I sit financially, I saw little financial benefit. I was comfortable before, during, and after Trump. I refuse to accept Trump’s embrace of the racists (Like he didn’t know David Duke, or why Duke supported his campaign). I understand what Riley was trying to do, but like Carol Swain, I tune him out with no loss of income.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Jesse Waters views Blacks as thugs who will purchase Trump mugshot tshirts. Waters had the supposed discussion with his fictional garbage man, not his neighbor. The actual T-shirt people were buying was one with a white chair ageist a black background depicting the Alabama Brawl where Black people came to the rescue of a Black man was about to be murdered by a group of unruly white people.
Black Conservatives are in the same bubble as the other Conservatives.
Robert, in your real life do you know any black conservatives? I have usually found, in the real world, black men especially to be far more conservative than I am. I’m pretty old school liberal, so granted that isn’t a high bar. I heard a lot of grumbling from many of my friends and friendly coworkers about the expectations of other black people and they were more critical of their culture than anything I ever heard from a white person. Especially amongst the church going types, there is a strong vein of conservatism. When you talk about “conservatives” are you talking about them? I find usually when people have drastically different politics it is because they have had drastically different life experiences.
For example, I am an adamant feminist because of all the life experiences I have had where I have been hurt, excluded, discriminated against, harassed, etc because I am female. Many women have never had any of those experiences, and of those many aren’t going to think that those problems persist or are a big problem. It isn’t because they are stupid or hateful…
Point is, I don’t think black conservatives think they are getting a “slimey, smelly, rat infested platter.”
Of course I include Black Conservatives as Conservatives. I grew up in the church and read the teachings of Jesus. If Black Conservatives can stand mute as their light skinned brethren plan a coup, I have no use for them. I noted that Tom Scott, Byron Donald’s etc were put in their place by Ron DeSantis and had no pushback. I have no use for them. Those who choose multicultural whiteness are free to flay their freak flag. If they want to quote scripture to justify a coup, let’s have that debate. Christianity does not support Donald Trump. I hope Black Conservatives enjoy their meal. We will meet at the ballot box.
Okay, so you know people who have these politics but you still say “ I try to understand the Conservative viewpoint, I honestly do.”. I guess I don’t get that.
You have seen, I assume, the polling showing partisans think increasingly of their opponents as evil, stupid, and dangerous. Politics for many seems to be a team sport more akin to football than it is a way to solve problems.
I don’t know what you mean about Scott and Donald being “put in their place” by DeSantis. They seem like true believers to me… both seem to have done well for themselves in business = which seems to be a shortcut to conservative values (they talk a lot about lowering taxes), You may not think Christianity supports Trump, but an awful lot of Christians do seem to think just that.
Also not sure what you mean by “multicultural whiteness”. Is that where “white” is just a euphemism for “all the things I don’t like.” I was raised in the 80s and 90s to believe having a white identity is foundationally racist, and now everything is whiteness and white supremacy. It’s really weird.
Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hit back at fellow White House contender Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on Friday after the latter criticized Florida's new school history curriculum and its approach to teaching about slavery.
"I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left," DeSantis said during a campaign stop. "And to accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating even when that has been debunked – that's not the way you do it."
"The way you do it, the way you lead is to fight back against the lies, is to speak the truth. So I'm here defending my state of Florida against false accusations and against lies. And we’re going to continue to speak the truth," he added.
Oh, you are referring to that Kerfuffle.. I remember when I was in school it was progressive to talk about the achievements some enslaved people were able to accomplish despite everything being against them, even freeing themselves and family. It was humanizing and empowering. It is my understanding that was what the in the curriculum was in essence. It was characterized all over the place in ways that would annoy or inflame the particular audience. Some to be outraged by “saying there were advantages to slaves in slavery” and some to further disparage Kamala Harris by characterizing her as intentionally mischaracterizing the standards to get people angry. I believe strongly, that it doesn’t matter as much what’s in the curriculum as it matters how it is taught and that is teacher by teacher, school by school.
Well as long as you don’t think it matters, the discussion in 2023 is of no importance. Again, you sound like the typical Conservative. The context of a Governor who objected to an AA history course and is allowing rightwing PragerU videos into schools means nothing to you.
Also… I didn’t ask if you thought black conservatives counted as conservatives. I asked if you you knew any in real life, and wondered if you hold these real world people with the same contempt you express for “conservatives”.
It is fascinating to me that you see a Conservative Party attempting to destroy democracy and instead of pointing out that clear and present danger, you want me to offer emotional support for Conservatives. I really believe that at your core, you are a Conservative.
Glenn, one should not dignify a lie by inviting a supporter of the lie to an interview. In the same way that Holocaust denial is not just “another opinion,” neither is election denial. Further, by giving your guest a forum to express a totally debunked conspiracy theory, you do damage to an already fragile democracy.
I think Carol seems like a kind and pleasant person, but her stated reasons for believing there was election fraud don't seem to justify her degree of certainty. Election irregularities aren't tantamount to election fraud. Additionally, for her position to be validated, she would have to believe that Joe Biden cheated and Donald Trump did not. While it is difficult-to-impossible to demonstrate the absence of cheating, Trump's withholding of funds to Ukraine as pressure to link Hunter Biden to Burisma, even though true, demonstrate a willingness to operate outside the bounds of the rules of a fair electoral process, and the issue of whether he cheated was superceded by the fact that he lost. I think Biden and Trump both seem too old to be running again, and while I don't believe their degree of corruption to be on equal footing, I do think they both seem too corrupt to qualify for the presidency.
Biden should pardon both Trump in exchange for him not running and his idiot son, Hunter, and then declare he's not running again so the country can have a clean break and move forward.
One of the striking things to about today's right wing is its deep pessimism. There's a lot going on that people have every right to be upset or worried about, but the US has always had a lot of that going on.
On the right, today, there is no one with a broadly appealing optimistic message. Tim Scott tries to do it, but whether the fault is with him or his audience he is not breaking through.
I was never politically on the same side Ronald Reagan in policy terms, but... he was an optimist through and through. A believer in the imperfect greatness that is the USA. From my perspective, maybe the best thing about him was his optimism.
A huge part of Trump's message is exactly the opposite - America is a terrible, awful place now and (he claims) only he can fix it, although he didn't when he was in office.
I'd like to believe that there is room to acknowledge our problems while also being optimistic. But there seems to be very little room for that on today's right.
Republicans in Texas closed school libraries in minority neighborhoods in Houston. We know the intentions of Conservatives. We will not forget or forgive your actions.
Authoritarians.
Edit to add:
Even prisons have libraries. We are much more tired of Conservatives than they are of us!
Same shit going on in Tulsa where far right state schools superintendent has forced the resignation of head of Tulsa school board after threatening to remove accreditation.
They are a cult. All we can do is work to vote them out and find other ways to limit their power. This is our fault. We kept giving them the benefit of doubt and they walked all over us. They want an authoritarian version of history. They replaced libraries in Houston schools with detention centers. They destroyed a college in Florida. They are irredeemable.
We have to encourage people to vote from school boards, to city councils, to state legislatures, to Congress, to the Presidency. They will try to suppress votes. They will lie, cheat, and steal. Unfortunately, there are many who will give their idiocy and venom a platform. We have to understand what they are willing to do. Looking away is ignoring the danger we face.
No one in their ranks will speak up to stop the madness. If you saw the debate, you saw their cowardice. Asked if they would vote for a convicted Trump, 6 of the cowards on stage said “Yes”
The Pope pointed out there is a faction of the U.S. Catholic leadership that has gone rightwing. The editor of “Christianity Today” tells us white Evangelicals chops Trump over Biblical scripture. We are the only hope.
BREAKING: A Republican state representative in Alabama is arrested on felony voter fraud charges after he allegedly voted in a district where he did not live — proving once again that conservative cries of "stolen elections" are nothing but projection.
This is just too perfect.
Representative David Cole of Huntsville was arrested in humiliation yesterday according to Madison County jail records and his mugshot is now doing the rounds.
While the exact details of the charges have not yet been revealed, there have been pronounced accusations that Cole did not live in the district in which he cast his vote.
It's worth noting that voter fraud — which is exceptionally rare and only seems to be done by Republicans who then get caught — is a Class C felony punishable by up to a decade in prison.
That black federal female judge in New York is no joke. She's handing out some long prison sentences for the January 6 capitol insurrectionists. Pookie and Ray-Ray are having prison-made parties for the new kids on the block. Good old-fashioned reality therapy/behavior modifications. Lol!!!!
Watching Conservatives twist themselves into pretzels to defend a bigoted conman is amusing. They criticized defund the police, but are willing to defund the FBI and DOJ to protect Trump. DeSantis destroyed a public college in Florida with no Conservative complaint about cancel culture. They actually think Trump’s mugshot is a way to recruit voters in the Black community. He probably gained Ice Cube and Ye’s vote, but every other Black person with the exception of Carol Swain is laughing.
Conservatives have no moral bearings. Clarence Thomas is the most corrupt jurist in Supreme Court history, but he is a docile Black like Swain, so he is acceptable. This site provided an enlightening glance into the warped mindset of the Conservative Trump cult. 60% are deluded enough to believe Trump won the election.
You sound very ignorant of American history. Do you know about the corrupt bargain that deprived Andrew Jackson of the Presidency in 1824. Or the crooked Presidential Commission that ended Reconstruction by giving the Presidential election away in 1876? How bout the strange story of the electoral college votes in Texas and Illinois in 1960? Or Bush v. Gore, etc....
"Appointed by Trump" is a misleading trope to valorize a politicized judge. Federal judges are determined by the Senators of their state, who have a hold or veto power on appointment. So the crooked special counsel currently on Trump is a nominal Republican from Delaware who is in reality deeply tied to the Biden crime family, because otherwise no Democratic Senator from Delaware would allow the appointment to go forward.
Conservative scumbag Rudy Guiliani lost the defamation suit filed by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Black female election workers terrorized because of Guiliani’s actions. Give Carol Swain a head’s up.
Of course the 2020 election was stolen. Hundreds of thousands of unsolicited mail in ballots sent out based on dirty voter rolls, in a pandemic year where lots of people relocated (unsolicited = state sends out ballots without the voter requesting; no signature, ID or authorization needed). And then mail-in rules for envelopes going back were changed without state legislatures in key battleground states (e.g., no address).
So you change the rules unconstitutionally and flood the zone with illegal ballots; change election from election day to election week; do God knows what with machines (i.e., monitor real-time tallies during election week and keep feeding the machines with fake ballots).
Here was Biden's alleged margin of victory in battleground states:
AZ: 10.5K
GA: 11.8K
MI: 154.2K
NV: 33.6K
PA: 81.7K
WI: 21.7K
~313 total votes shaped 79 electoral college votes.
Motive means and opportunity are three components to every crime. The motive is in your face: "stop a unique existential threat by any means necessary". Do you guys think cancel culture takes a reprieve on election day? Means: it's the US gov't, we've been rigging elections around the world for decades Opportunity: Pandemic.
They’ve got Trump on likely 5 indictments with GA case to begin before Super Tuesday. Let’s stop pretending that anti-Trump wouldn’t steal an election, it’s in your face. Baked into the “stop a fascist with fascism” mentality. Cancel culture has more interest in elections than they do trivial Twitter posts.
Vague unprovable assertions is all you have. Basically, what you have is a quasi-religious belief that the election was stolen, rather than any factual basis.
Mail-in rules changed without approval of state legislators in key battleground states - that's fact. Facts don't matter because truth of 2020 shows that: 1. moral high ground of anti-Trumpism is and was always faker than a 3 dollar bill 2. suckups like yourself miscalculated who the bad guys domestically really are. Everything is about protecting the moral high ground.
You are making the same pivot that all the election deniers do. First talk about fraud and theft, then fall back on rule changes that you don't agree with. It's not the same. Levels of fraudulent voting needed to change an election result would have been so large that evidence acceptable to courts would have been everywhere.
"I showed up to vote and was told I had already cast a mail in ballot." There would have been huge numbers of people, would be Trump and would be Biden voters, who would have attested to that simple fact under penalty of perjury, had there been the kind of wrongdoing you allege.
"Facts don't matter" the true motto of the "election was stolen" crowd.
They weren't rule changes that I disagree with, they were rule changes that circumvented state legislatures based on "emergency powers" that were objectively unconstitutional. You can't skate around this, it's matter of fact.
Never before in US history have states sent out mail-in ballots en masse without first authenticating voter information. Unsolicited mail-ins <> absentee ballots.
Moreover, your whole argument is self-referential. Which is a common tactic of anti-Trump - e.g., Hunter Biden laptop is discovered - 51 intel experts write a bogus letter disproving its authenticity (Russian disinformation). In other words, the system fact checks itself. There lots of sworn affidavits in AZ, PA, GA that will never be allowed to see the light of day on "standing".
We don't live in a system where assertions can be adjudicated with facts, the system appoints experts (fact checkers, academics, media hacks) to speak from authority and override the fact finding process. And then system pigs of bad faith blindly back up what experts say (e.g., Covid origins, mRNA vax efficacy, Nordstream II bombing, Biden 50M). That's what is so hilarious about your quasi-religious comment: "argument of authority" is inextricably linked to "never Trump".
- Media interference: 16% of voters wouldn't have voted Biden if laptop story was properly disseminated. Biden ran a "basement strategy" to avoid campaigning and let the voters know his policies: Covid vax mandate through OSHA + energy policy would've finished him)
- Suppression polling - e.g., fake polls suggesting Biden would win FL (Trump had it wrapped up by 8:00)
- Gameday shenanigans w/ mail-in ballots and machines connected to Internet
- Post election lawfare to criminalize election skepticism (these Trump indictments are exactly what a guilty party would do).
"Objectively unconstitutional" is merely your personal view. You also likely had a preferred remedy in mind - but that remendy was rejected by multiple courts because there were competing, legitimate interests at play.
At bottom, your argument devolves to "even if every single vote cast was cast legitimately by a registered voter," the result of the election shoudl be set aside anyway because the officials running elections made rules changes. That won't and shouldn't fly, because every voter who cast a legitimate ballot has a right to have it counted.
I’m more with you than against on legitimate votes cast through unlawful means being discarded. There is some gray area to pandemic voting. The problem is that “emergency powers” were used to soften the rules (unsolicted mail-ins, ballot harvesting, return envelopes with no chain of custody/signatures/return addresses); the softened rules then used to perpetuate fraud: election week > day allows ballots to continuously pour in with no verification; the real-time reporting of machines gives people insight into how many ballots need to be stuffed to make up the deficits and pull Biden ahead. This was obvious on election night when truckloads of ballots were dumped early morning when pollwatchers/oversight went home.
The irony is that this fits the actual criteria of a RICO case.
Biden supposedly got 81M million votes (more than prime Obama - most in history!) yet he bled out in polls by end of 2021. US voters don’t behave like this: 81M fuck you votes to Trump would: A) dig in not turn on Biden B) lead to fewer down ballot gains by R’s which didn’t happen.
The criminalization of election skepticism (despite Stacey Abrams, Hillary, Al Gore etc. being “election deniers”) and efforts to interfere in 2024 are the tell. And when they say it’s okay to use fascism to stop a fascist - that automatically discredits the idea of an impartial, fair handling.
We can drill into all of the specifics of fraud: the affadavits, eye witness accounts, statistic abnormalities. But again: this would level the moral high ground of Never Trumpers and ultimately make the case of Trumpism (1. US is in sharp decline 2. Its leadership class is iredeemably corrupt and against actual democracy. So the idea is to turn the other way, never allow discussion and set-up so much plausible deniability (which again is textbook RICO).
It’s all well and good to dislike Trump. There’s lots of meat on that bone to chew. But when anti-Trump became a secular morality then 2020 election realities flip that morality on its head.
You can say all this is bunk but nothing like 2020 voting has ever been done before. There’s no way to say it was safest and most secure election ever - unless you nestle in under the titty of the regime and just recite the safe talking points. Consensus isn’t truth.
Anti-Trumpism gets so many things wrong: "Make America Great Again" is a response to managed decline and de-industrialization not reviving the Old South.
And because they don't understand decline, it shapes how 2020 election theft is viewed: we're an empire in decline trying to manage a quickly shifting world order; with this decline comes increased internal/external pressures on the administrative state; because these internal pressures (populism, unrest with the ruling class) are just as "existential" as the ones from abroad, *****domestic and foreign policies are now inseparable*****
That is: all of the sleazy empire things done around the world since the 50's are now used on the public. CIA has been in foreign elections for a long long time.
Many of the crazy allegations made by Trump and his various supporters and those filing lawsuits on his behalf included wild nonsense like:
1. Hugo Chavez was part of a plot to corrupt the software used by the largest manufactorers of voting machines. (For the reality-based community, Chavez died in 2013).
2. There was some plot involving Italy, satellites, and thermostats that was used to steal the election. Yes, thermostats.
3. In Arizona, there were accusations that huge numbers of ballots were smuggled in from China, and that this could be proven because the ballots were :laced with bamboo."
A lot of the other allegations raised in court filings were either easily disproven facts or things that happened but weren't indicative of any wrongdoing.
There were allegations that in a particular county in Michigan, boxes of ballots were being moved in trucks. Well, yes. That county's practice is to count the ballots in a centralized location, so all of the ballots were moved.
There were allegations that more votes were cast in some jurisdictions than there were registered voters. These allegations were untrue and easily disproven. One of the allegations in a lawsuit challenging Michigan results made this claim, but ran into the problem that "many of the municipalities cited in the Michigan (MI) document, such as Albertville, Houston, Monticello, Runeberg, Lake Lillian, Brownsville, Wolf Lake, Height of Land, Detroit Lakes, Frazee, and Kandiyohi, are located in Minnesota (MN)."
Allegations were made that 10,000 dead people voted in Georgia - these were provien false in multiple recounts. Georgia identified something like 10 dead people who "voted."
Rudy Giuliani took a short snippet of an hours long election night video in Georgia that showed a Georgia election worker either pulling a trunk full of ballots out from under a desk or pushing it under, I forget which. Rudy claimed this was fraudulent. However, if anyone watched the full length video, which the state of GA posted on line, what actually happened was obvious: at some point a decision was made to stop counting for the night and ballots were stored securely in trunks, then the decision was reversed and the ballots were taken out and counted. Rudy pulled a snippet on which he could craft a narrative of fraud. The Trump campaign doxed this election worker and she had to flee from her home due to harrassment. Trump actually raised this issue in his call with the Georgia Secretary of State, who offered to provide the full unedited election night video - and Trump wanted no part of it - he preffered Rudy's snippet.
Robert, you've tucked yourself under the breast of the most powerful empire on earth and mistake regime comfort as moral courage and intellectual rigor. The system abuses people like you the hardest; and you accept that abuse for fake status. Nietzsche's Last Man!
I don’t mistake anything about the situation. I will make sure my family survives independent of the political party is in office. I attack Republicans because they are the current and present danger to me and my family. Conservatives want to teach the history of the Lost Cause. My children would come home thinking that Blacks fighting back against white supremacists in places like Tulsa and Rosewood meant that Blacks and whites were equally violent.
Republicans are openly defying a SCOTUS voting districting order in Alabama. They set up a separate judicial system in Jackson, Mississippi. They are abusing two Black state legislators in Tennessee. Conservative culture is deplorable. Conservative culture produced the Jacksonville shooter. Conservative culture produced the people who attacked and might have killed the dock security guard in Montgomery, Alabama. I can smell the stench of Conservatives who make no effort to deal with the scumbags in their own ranks on a daily basis. They put a bigoted conman at the top of their Presidential ticket. They have an adulteress tantric sex practioner as their spokes person. I know who they are and the system that produced them. I am not accepting the abuse.
If you have some better super secret plan to fight the system, let me know. I vote for Democrats because third parties can’t win. People doing worse off than I may benefit from lower drug prices etc. Again tell me your plan if it’s something other than standing on the sidelines complaining.
Glenn, I'm curious if you believe that the entire brouhaha over the 2020 election being stolen is a deeper reflection of a deficiency in our national character. Whether in the domestic or international realms, Americans seem to possess a sore loser mentality. We're very good at gloating about being number one and feeling good when we're on top, but we frequently cast scorn and vitriol towards others when they outcompete us, denouncing them as frauds or cheats. I feel like other countries don't embody this sort of mentality to nearly the same extent. Maybe there's something radically individualistic and dog-eat-dog about American society that encourages this, but I'm skeptical that the kind of polarization that we've seen in recent years is sustainable long term.
What's been really fascinating about the fight over the 2020 election is how little legitimacy many Americans place in their own democratic system. Americans might not be generally aware of this, but in China, democracy in the form of one person one vote is fairly common at the village level. As political scientist Daniel Bell points out, Chinese governance becomes less democratic and more meritocratic the higher up one goes, from the village level to the national level where ultimately the CCP rules with an iron fist. Bell argues that interestingly enough, the level of confidence towards government increases the higher up one goes. For instance, many newsworthy instances of corruption in recent years in China have been at the local level, such as allegations of corruption by local officials in the construction of schools in Sichuan in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake. By contrast, most Chinese tend to view the central government as highly competent, a few recent hiccups over zero Covid aside.
One gets the feeling that in America the opposite is true and that American views of government tend to decline as one goes from the local to the national, as evidenced by the generally angry and conspiratorial nature of American political discourse, with its frequent claims of the deep state and elections being stolen by the opposition. Anyway, I'm sure this contrast reveals something interesting about the shibboleths that we as Americans have based our philosophical worldview on, but alas I digress.
I think there is some deficiency of national character at play here and elsehwere. In a broader sense than just who we think won and lost.
Yours is an interesting observation, Yan Shen. Plausible, too. Beyond my expertise, though I did see Daniel Bell talk about democracy in China in 2015, when I was on leave at Stanford...
Cue--- Chinese authoritarian superiority! Lol!!!!
You seem to have a great deal of empathy. I don’t see YOU uplifting other sides. You heap praise on Coleman Hughes. You appear biased.
Carol is absolutely correct. There was the lie over the laptop, as perpetrated by the 50 “intelligence” officials, the changes to voting procedures in violation of the US constitution, the propaganda media, and the DOJ and FBI failures. This is in addition to all the election irregularities. I’ve been independent my entire life, until this year. I was independent because I didn’t like the hypocrisy from either of the 2 main parties, but the democrats have set themselves on fire this time with their unhinged, “anything goes” attempt to hold onto power and the attacks on our constitutional rights.
I try to understand the Conservative viewpoint, I honestly do. I tried listening to the audio version of Jason Riley’s “The Black Boom”, but found the task impossible. Riley begins by essentially saying Trump is a bigot and a racist (my interpretation). He then presents data to show that Blacks benefited economically from the Trump Presidency. This may be the problem. Riley is telling me that I’m about to be presented with an elegant meal, but it will be served on a slimy, smelly, rat infested platter. Since I am not in dire financial circumstances, I’m already rejecting the meal. Herein lies the problem, Black Conservatives want me to ignore the racism and enjoy some meager economic benefit. Where I sit financially, I saw little financial benefit. I was comfortable before, during, and after Trump. I refuse to accept Trump’s embrace of the racists (Like he didn’t know David Duke, or why Duke supported his campaign). I understand what Riley was trying to do, but like Carol Swain, I tune him out with no loss of income.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Jesse Waters views Blacks as thugs who will purchase Trump mugshot tshirts. Waters had the supposed discussion with his fictional garbage man, not his neighbor. The actual T-shirt people were buying was one with a white chair ageist a black background depicting the Alabama Brawl where Black people came to the rescue of a Black man was about to be murdered by a group of unruly white people.
Black Conservatives are in the same bubble as the other Conservatives.
Robert, in your real life do you know any black conservatives? I have usually found, in the real world, black men especially to be far more conservative than I am. I’m pretty old school liberal, so granted that isn’t a high bar. I heard a lot of grumbling from many of my friends and friendly coworkers about the expectations of other black people and they were more critical of their culture than anything I ever heard from a white person. Especially amongst the church going types, there is a strong vein of conservatism. When you talk about “conservatives” are you talking about them? I find usually when people have drastically different politics it is because they have had drastically different life experiences.
For example, I am an adamant feminist because of all the life experiences I have had where I have been hurt, excluded, discriminated against, harassed, etc because I am female. Many women have never had any of those experiences, and of those many aren’t going to think that those problems persist or are a big problem. It isn’t because they are stupid or hateful…
Point is, I don’t think black conservatives think they are getting a “slimey, smelly, rat infested platter.”
Of course I include Black Conservatives as Conservatives. I grew up in the church and read the teachings of Jesus. If Black Conservatives can stand mute as their light skinned brethren plan a coup, I have no use for them. I noted that Tom Scott, Byron Donald’s etc were put in their place by Ron DeSantis and had no pushback. I have no use for them. Those who choose multicultural whiteness are free to flay their freak flag. If they want to quote scripture to justify a coup, let’s have that debate. Christianity does not support Donald Trump. I hope Black Conservatives enjoy their meal. We will meet at the ballot box.
Okay, so you know people who have these politics but you still say “ I try to understand the Conservative viewpoint, I honestly do.”. I guess I don’t get that.
You have seen, I assume, the polling showing partisans think increasingly of their opponents as evil, stupid, and dangerous. Politics for many seems to be a team sport more akin to football than it is a way to solve problems.
I don’t know what you mean about Scott and Donald being “put in their place” by DeSantis. They seem like true believers to me… both seem to have done well for themselves in business = which seems to be a shortcut to conservative values (they talk a lot about lowering taxes), You may not think Christianity supports Trump, but an awful lot of Christians do seem to think just that.
Also not sure what you mean by “multicultural whiteness”. Is that where “white” is just a euphemism for “all the things I don’t like.” I was raised in the 80s and 90s to believe having a white identity is foundationally racist, and now everything is whiteness and white supremacy. It’s really weird.
Sigh
Here is DeSantis’ response to Tim Scott
Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hit back at fellow White House contender Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on Friday after the latter criticized Florida's new school history curriculum and its approach to teaching about slavery.
"I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left," DeSantis said during a campaign stop. "And to accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating even when that has been debunked – that's not the way you do it."
"The way you do it, the way you lead is to fight back against the lies, is to speak the truth. So I'm here defending my state of Florida against false accusations and against lies. And we’re going to continue to speak the truth," he added.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-hits-back-dc-republican-tim-scott-florida-slavery-curriculum
Did you even know Tim Scott criticized the benefits of slavery comment
DeSantis criticized Byron Donald’s as well
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/destantis-takes-swing-byron-donalds-defense-florida-slavery-curriculum
Regarding religion, Southern Baptists supported Jim Crow
Southern Baptists split from other Baptists because Southern Baptists supported slavery
A similar split occurred in the Methodist church
White Christians have shown their flaws
Oh, you are referring to that Kerfuffle.. I remember when I was in school it was progressive to talk about the achievements some enslaved people were able to accomplish despite everything being against them, even freeing themselves and family. It was humanizing and empowering. It is my understanding that was what the in the curriculum was in essence. It was characterized all over the place in ways that would annoy or inflame the particular audience. Some to be outraged by “saying there were advantages to slaves in slavery” and some to further disparage Kamala Harris by characterizing her as intentionally mischaracterizing the standards to get people angry. I believe strongly, that it doesn’t matter as much what’s in the curriculum as it matters how it is taught and that is teacher by teacher, school by school.
Well as long as you don’t think it matters, the discussion in 2023 is of no importance. Again, you sound like the typical Conservative. The context of a Governor who objected to an AA history course and is allowing rightwing PragerU videos into schools means nothing to you.
Also… I didn’t ask if you thought black conservatives counted as conservatives. I asked if you you knew any in real life, and wondered if you hold these real world people with the same contempt you express for “conservatives”.
I know Blacks who are former Conservatives.
It is fascinating to me that you see a Conservative Party attempting to destroy democracy and instead of pointing out that clear and present danger, you want me to offer emotional support for Conservatives. I really believe that at your core, you are a Conservative.
Glenn, one should not dignify a lie by inviting a supporter of the lie to an interview. In the same way that Holocaust denial is not just “another opinion,” neither is election denial. Further, by giving your guest a forum to express a totally debunked conspiracy theory, you do damage to an already fragile democracy.
You are better than this.
I think Carol seems like a kind and pleasant person, but her stated reasons for believing there was election fraud don't seem to justify her degree of certainty. Election irregularities aren't tantamount to election fraud. Additionally, for her position to be validated, she would have to believe that Joe Biden cheated and Donald Trump did not. While it is difficult-to-impossible to demonstrate the absence of cheating, Trump's withholding of funds to Ukraine as pressure to link Hunter Biden to Burisma, even though true, demonstrate a willingness to operate outside the bounds of the rules of a fair electoral process, and the issue of whether he cheated was superceded by the fact that he lost. I think Biden and Trump both seem too old to be running again, and while I don't believe their degree of corruption to be on equal footing, I do think they both seem too corrupt to qualify for the presidency.
Biden should pardon both Trump in exchange for him not running and his idiot son, Hunter, and then declare he's not running again so the country can have a clean break and move forward.
One of the striking things to about today's right wing is its deep pessimism. There's a lot going on that people have every right to be upset or worried about, but the US has always had a lot of that going on.
On the right, today, there is no one with a broadly appealing optimistic message. Tim Scott tries to do it, but whether the fault is with him or his audience he is not breaking through.
I was never politically on the same side Ronald Reagan in policy terms, but... he was an optimist through and through. A believer in the imperfect greatness that is the USA. From my perspective, maybe the best thing about him was his optimism.
A huge part of Trump's message is exactly the opposite - America is a terrible, awful place now and (he claims) only he can fix it, although he didn't when he was in office.
I'd like to believe that there is room to acknowledge our problems while also being optimistic. But there seems to be very little room for that on today's right.
Republicans in Texas closed school libraries in minority neighborhoods in Houston. We know the intentions of Conservatives. We will not forget or forgive your actions.
Authoritarians.
Edit to add:
Even prisons have libraries. We are much more tired of Conservatives than they are of us!
Same shit going on in Tulsa where far right state schools superintendent has forced the resignation of head of Tulsa school board after threatening to remove accreditation.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/tulsa-public-schools-have-averted-a-takeover-for-now-but-threats-from-top-education-official-arent-over
They are a cult. All we can do is work to vote them out and find other ways to limit their power. This is our fault. We kept giving them the benefit of doubt and they walked all over us. They want an authoritarian version of history. They replaced libraries in Houston schools with detention centers. They destroyed a college in Florida. They are irredeemable.
We have to encourage people to vote from school boards, to city councils, to state legislatures, to Congress, to the Presidency. They will try to suppress votes. They will lie, cheat, and steal. Unfortunately, there are many who will give their idiocy and venom a platform. We have to understand what they are willing to do. Looking away is ignoring the danger we face.
No one in their ranks will speak up to stop the madness. If you saw the debate, you saw their cowardice. Asked if they would vote for a convicted Trump, 6 of the cowards on stage said “Yes”
The Pope pointed out there is a faction of the U.S. Catholic leadership that has gone rightwing. The editor of “Christianity Today” tells us white Evangelicals chops Trump over Biblical scripture. We are the only hope.
BREAKING NEWS: Rudy Guiliani loses defamation suit. Lol!!!!
He terrorized those two women.
Edit to add:
BREAKING: A Republican state representative in Alabama is arrested on felony voter fraud charges after he allegedly voted in a district where he did not live — proving once again that conservative cries of "stolen elections" are nothing but projection.
This is just too perfect.
Representative David Cole of Huntsville was arrested in humiliation yesterday according to Madison County jail records and his mugshot is now doing the rounds.
While the exact details of the charges have not yet been revealed, there have been pronounced accusations that Cole did not live in the district in which he cast his vote.
It's worth noting that voter fraud — which is exceptionally rare and only seems to be done by Republicans who then get caught — is a Class C felony punishable by up to a decade in prison.
That black federal female judge in New York is no joke. She's handing out some long prison sentences for the January 6 capitol insurrectionists. Pookie and Ray-Ray are having prison-made parties for the new kids on the block. Good old-fashioned reality therapy/behavior modifications. Lol!!!!
Watching Conservatives twist themselves into pretzels to defend a bigoted conman is amusing. They criticized defund the police, but are willing to defund the FBI and DOJ to protect Trump. DeSantis destroyed a public college in Florida with no Conservative complaint about cancel culture. They actually think Trump’s mugshot is a way to recruit voters in the Black community. He probably gained Ice Cube and Ye’s vote, but every other Black person with the exception of Carol Swain is laughing.
Conservatives have no moral bearings. Clarence Thomas is the most corrupt jurist in Supreme Court history, but he is a docile Black like Swain, so he is acceptable. This site provided an enlightening glance into the warped mindset of the Conservative Trump cult. 60% are deluded enough to believe Trump won the election.
Mitch McConnell just froze while talking to reporters again. This is going to call his health into question again.
You sound very ignorant of American history. Do you know about the corrupt bargain that deprived Andrew Jackson of the Presidency in 1824. Or the crooked Presidential Commission that ended Reconstruction by giving the Presidential election away in 1876? How bout the strange story of the electoral college votes in Texas and Illinois in 1960? Or Bush v. Gore, etc....
"Appointed by Trump" is a misleading trope to valorize a politicized judge. Federal judges are determined by the Senators of their state, who have a hold or veto power on appointment. So the crooked special counsel currently on Trump is a nominal Republican from Delaware who is in reality deeply tied to the Biden crime family, because otherwise no Democratic Senator from Delaware would allow the appointment to go forward.
This is only partially true.
Conservative scumbag Rudy Guiliani lost the defamation suit filed by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Black female election workers terrorized because of Guiliani’s actions. Give Carol Swain a head’s up.
I love ya for bringing in diverse viewpoints, Glenn, but this chick is kook.
Of course the 2020 election was stolen. Hundreds of thousands of unsolicited mail in ballots sent out based on dirty voter rolls, in a pandemic year where lots of people relocated (unsolicited = state sends out ballots without the voter requesting; no signature, ID or authorization needed). And then mail-in rules for envelopes going back were changed without state legislatures in key battleground states (e.g., no address).
So you change the rules unconstitutionally and flood the zone with illegal ballots; change election from election day to election week; do God knows what with machines (i.e., monitor real-time tallies during election week and keep feeding the machines with fake ballots).
Here was Biden's alleged margin of victory in battleground states:
AZ: 10.5K
GA: 11.8K
MI: 154.2K
NV: 33.6K
PA: 81.7K
WI: 21.7K
~313 total votes shaped 79 electoral college votes.
Motive means and opportunity are three components to every crime. The motive is in your face: "stop a unique existential threat by any means necessary". Do you guys think cancel culture takes a reprieve on election day? Means: it's the US gov't, we've been rigging elections around the world for decades Opportunity: Pandemic.
They’ve got Trump on likely 5 indictments with GA case to begin before Super Tuesday. Let’s stop pretending that anti-Trump wouldn’t steal an election, it’s in your face. Baked into the “stop a fascist with fascism” mentality. Cancel culture has more interest in elections than they do trivial Twitter posts.
Vague unprovable assertions is all you have. Basically, what you have is a quasi-religious belief that the election was stolen, rather than any factual basis.
https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf
Mail-in rules changed without approval of state legislators in key battleground states - that's fact. Facts don't matter because truth of 2020 shows that: 1. moral high ground of anti-Trumpism is and was always faker than a 3 dollar bill 2. suckups like yourself miscalculated who the bad guys domestically really are. Everything is about protecting the moral high ground.
You are making the same pivot that all the election deniers do. First talk about fraud and theft, then fall back on rule changes that you don't agree with. It's not the same. Levels of fraudulent voting needed to change an election result would have been so large that evidence acceptable to courts would have been everywhere.
"I showed up to vote and was told I had already cast a mail in ballot." There would have been huge numbers of people, would be Trump and would be Biden voters, who would have attested to that simple fact under penalty of perjury, had there been the kind of wrongdoing you allege.
"Facts don't matter" the true motto of the "election was stolen" crowd.
They weren't rule changes that I disagree with, they were rule changes that circumvented state legislatures based on "emergency powers" that were objectively unconstitutional. You can't skate around this, it's matter of fact.
Never before in US history have states sent out mail-in ballots en masse without first authenticating voter information. Unsolicited mail-ins <> absentee ballots.
Moreover, your whole argument is self-referential. Which is a common tactic of anti-Trump - e.g., Hunter Biden laptop is discovered - 51 intel experts write a bogus letter disproving its authenticity (Russian disinformation). In other words, the system fact checks itself. There lots of sworn affidavits in AZ, PA, GA that will never be allowed to see the light of day on "standing".
We don't live in a system where assertions can be adjudicated with facts, the system appoints experts (fact checkers, academics, media hacks) to speak from authority and override the fact finding process. And then system pigs of bad faith blindly back up what experts say (e.g., Covid origins, mRNA vax efficacy, Nordstream II bombing, Biden 50M). That's what is so hilarious about your quasi-religious comment: "argument of authority" is inextricably linked to "never Trump".
In Feb 2021, TIME mag brazenly admits how systemic the "stop Trump" efforts in 2021 in https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
The 2020 fraud was multi-layered:
- Media interference: 16% of voters wouldn't have voted Biden if laptop story was properly disseminated. Biden ran a "basement strategy" to avoid campaigning and let the voters know his policies: Covid vax mandate through OSHA + energy policy would've finished him)
- Suppression polling - e.g., fake polls suggesting Biden would win FL (Trump had it wrapped up by 8:00)
- Gameday shenanigans w/ mail-in ballots and machines connected to Internet
- Post election lawfare to criminalize election skepticism (these Trump indictments are exactly what a guilty party would do).
"Objectively unconstitutional" is merely your personal view. You also likely had a preferred remedy in mind - but that remendy was rejected by multiple courts because there were competing, legitimate interests at play.
At bottom, your argument devolves to "even if every single vote cast was cast legitimately by a registered voter," the result of the election shoudl be set aside anyway because the officials running elections made rules changes. That won't and shouldn't fly, because every voter who cast a legitimate ballot has a right to have it counted.
I’m more with you than against on legitimate votes cast through unlawful means being discarded. There is some gray area to pandemic voting. The problem is that “emergency powers” were used to soften the rules (unsolicted mail-ins, ballot harvesting, return envelopes with no chain of custody/signatures/return addresses); the softened rules then used to perpetuate fraud: election week > day allows ballots to continuously pour in with no verification; the real-time reporting of machines gives people insight into how many ballots need to be stuffed to make up the deficits and pull Biden ahead. This was obvious on election night when truckloads of ballots were dumped early morning when pollwatchers/oversight went home.
The irony is that this fits the actual criteria of a RICO case.
Biden supposedly got 81M million votes (more than prime Obama - most in history!) yet he bled out in polls by end of 2021. US voters don’t behave like this: 81M fuck you votes to Trump would: A) dig in not turn on Biden B) lead to fewer down ballot gains by R’s which didn’t happen.
The criminalization of election skepticism (despite Stacey Abrams, Hillary, Al Gore etc. being “election deniers”) and efforts to interfere in 2024 are the tell. And when they say it’s okay to use fascism to stop a fascist - that automatically discredits the idea of an impartial, fair handling.
We can drill into all of the specifics of fraud: the affadavits, eye witness accounts, statistic abnormalities. But again: this would level the moral high ground of Never Trumpers and ultimately make the case of Trumpism (1. US is in sharp decline 2. Its leadership class is iredeemably corrupt and against actual democracy. So the idea is to turn the other way, never allow discussion and set-up so much plausible deniability (which again is textbook RICO).
It’s all well and good to dislike Trump. There’s lots of meat on that bone to chew. But when anti-Trump became a secular morality then 2020 election realities flip that morality on its head.
You can say all this is bunk but nothing like 2020 voting has ever been done before. There’s no way to say it was safest and most secure election ever - unless you nestle in under the titty of the regime and just recite the safe talking points. Consensus isn’t truth.
Anti-Trumpism gets so many things wrong: "Make America Great Again" is a response to managed decline and de-industrialization not reviving the Old South.
And because they don't understand decline, it shapes how 2020 election theft is viewed: we're an empire in decline trying to manage a quickly shifting world order; with this decline comes increased internal/external pressures on the administrative state; because these internal pressures (populism, unrest with the ruling class) are just as "existential" as the ones from abroad, *****domestic and foreign policies are now inseparable*****
That is: all of the sleazy empire things done around the world since the 50's are now used on the public. CIA has been in foreign elections for a long long time.
Many of the crazy allegations made by Trump and his various supporters and those filing lawsuits on his behalf included wild nonsense like:
1. Hugo Chavez was part of a plot to corrupt the software used by the largest manufactorers of voting machines. (For the reality-based community, Chavez died in 2013).
2. There was some plot involving Italy, satellites, and thermostats that was used to steal the election. Yes, thermostats.
3. In Arizona, there were accusations that huge numbers of ballots were smuggled in from China, and that this could be proven because the ballots were :laced with bamboo."
A lot of the other allegations raised in court filings were either easily disproven facts or things that happened but weren't indicative of any wrongdoing.
There were allegations that in a particular county in Michigan, boxes of ballots were being moved in trucks. Well, yes. That county's practice is to count the ballots in a centralized location, so all of the ballots were moved.
There were allegations that more votes were cast in some jurisdictions than there were registered voters. These allegations were untrue and easily disproven. One of the allegations in a lawsuit challenging Michigan results made this claim, but ran into the problem that "many of the municipalities cited in the Michigan (MI) document, such as Albertville, Houston, Monticello, Runeberg, Lake Lillian, Brownsville, Wolf Lake, Height of Land, Detroit Lakes, Frazee, and Kandiyohi, are located in Minnesota (MN)."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/20/trump-lawsuit-mixes-up-red-flags-michigan-minnesota/6362056002/
Oops.
Allegations were made that 10,000 dead people voted in Georgia - these were provien false in multiple recounts. Georgia identified something like 10 dead people who "voted."
Rudy Giuliani took a short snippet of an hours long election night video in Georgia that showed a Georgia election worker either pulling a trunk full of ballots out from under a desk or pushing it under, I forget which. Rudy claimed this was fraudulent. However, if anyone watched the full length video, which the state of GA posted on line, what actually happened was obvious: at some point a decision was made to stop counting for the night and ballots were stored securely in trunks, then the decision was reversed and the ballots were taken out and counted. Rudy pulled a snippet on which he could craft a narrative of fraud. The Trump campaign doxed this election worker and she had to flee from her home due to harrassment. Trump actually raised this issue in his call with the Georgia Secretary of State, who offered to provide the full unedited election night video - and Trump wanted no part of it - he preffered Rudy's snippet.
All these court case deniers will willingly accept to result if Trump is found not guilty in any trial. The system only works if they win.
Robert, you've tucked yourself under the breast of the most powerful empire on earth and mistake regime comfort as moral courage and intellectual rigor. The system abuses people like you the hardest; and you accept that abuse for fake status. Nietzsche's Last Man!
I don’t mistake anything about the situation. I will make sure my family survives independent of the political party is in office. I attack Republicans because they are the current and present danger to me and my family. Conservatives want to teach the history of the Lost Cause. My children would come home thinking that Blacks fighting back against white supremacists in places like Tulsa and Rosewood meant that Blacks and whites were equally violent.
Republicans are openly defying a SCOTUS voting districting order in Alabama. They set up a separate judicial system in Jackson, Mississippi. They are abusing two Black state legislators in Tennessee. Conservative culture is deplorable. Conservative culture produced the Jacksonville shooter. Conservative culture produced the people who attacked and might have killed the dock security guard in Montgomery, Alabama. I can smell the stench of Conservatives who make no effort to deal with the scumbags in their own ranks on a daily basis. They put a bigoted conman at the top of their Presidential ticket. They have an adulteress tantric sex practioner as their spokes person. I know who they are and the system that produced them. I am not accepting the abuse.
If you have some better super secret plan to fight the system, let me know. I vote for Democrats because third parties can’t win. People doing worse off than I may benefit from lower drug prices etc. Again tell me your plan if it’s something other than standing on the sidelines complaining.