11-04-2020, 08:58 PM
(11-04-2020, 06:36 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 04-Nov-2020 World View: Lawsuits
Guest Wrote:> Do you think there is any substance behind Trump's legal
> challenges? Is it a case of a sore loser or will there be a
> Bush-esque outcome?
> I'm not a fan of postal votes as they are open to abuse. It will
> be interesting to see if the decisions taken by state officials to
> expand voting opportunities for this election have created genuine
> flaws in the system which have been exploited.
This afternoon, Biden gave a speech saying that he would not declare
victory, but that he would soon have enough electoral votes to declare
victory. That seems to be true.
The Trump campaign is launching about 20 lawsuits to challenge the
results. One of them is in Wisconsin, which the Washington Post
pollsters said that Trump would lose by 17 points. It turns out that
Trump is behind by a mere half a point. The Washington Post, directed
by the Democratic Party, has been publishing false news for months,
whether about the Mueller investigation, the Ukraine impeachment, the
multi-city riots, or the Biden criminality investigation, and now it's
obvious that it has also been publishing phony poll results. So it's
quite reasonable to believe that, under the direction of the
Democratic Party, Wisconsin has been manufacturing phony ballots
favoring Biden. At least, that's what the Trump administration
thinks.
One wins the ten electoral votes of Wisconsin whether one wins the state by 40% or by forty votes. Polling from before the election is no longer relevant. It is usually good for making predictions.
People aligned with Donald Trump and his part of the political spectrum, the semi-fascist Right (not to be confused with genuine conservatives that you surely remember, like Gerald Ford and George H W Bush who showed scrupulous respect for human rights, due process, and integrity in communications. The semi-fascist Right which is what the Trump-era Republican Party was (and I am assuming that Trump loses fair and square at this point) repulses me as the old sort of conservative doesn't. The demagogue who becomes a despot, whether Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, or Donald Trump is horrible no matter what his ideology. I prefer that our politicians do service to voters or potential voters instead of sticking it to those that they expect to never vote for them. As basic decency I do not accept bad things done to other people just because those people are not in my group. I need not be a Jew to see antisemitism repugnant or gay to consider gay-bashing a hideous crime.
The most charitable explanation that one can give of Donald Trump is that he is erratic or crazy. I do not accept this. This man is an evil genius who knows how to exploit visceral concerns and primitive impulses. Maybe I despise him for seeking to appeal to something I distrust in myself but little else. Trump disparages values that I consider essential to personal goodness, and I do not fully trust my gut feelings. It's easy to see his hideous grammar, spelling, taste, and violations of logical convention as stupid. If he is dumb he is dumb like a fox -- cunning and resourceful in appealing to the worst in human character. Maybe he better knows what he is doing than I have given him credit for even if I hold it all in contempt.
...If you have reasonable cause to believe that the Wisconsin Democratic Party has been fabricating fraudulent ballots in a modern version of stuffing the ballot box, then I suggest that you contact the FBI, which would investigate any administrative fraud in voting. As the late Mike Royko said in mocking a crooked Chicago pol, "Make sure that if you rely entirely upon fake ballots that you have enough for the opponent's family and his campaign manager unless you want the FBI snooping around". Note well that the FBI typically insists upon convincing evidence or eyewitness testimony, and not mere hearsay before investigating a wrong-doing target.
Donald Trump is one of the most inveterate liars since Josef Goebbels. Again, if one seeks to convince people to do some act of self-ruin for personal gain or gratification, then one must lie.
Quote:So this is going to get very ugly and could last a long time. The
only good thing that can be said about this massive change to allow
random mail-in ballots is that by the time of the 2022 election, the
kinks might be worked out, and the rules will be defined.
One of the most infamous statements that I ever heard from Donald Trump was "I love low-information voters". Were I a pol I would rather inform than deceive. This man appeals to the gullible, exploiting gullibility of suckers. I have seen him on television and have come to realize that I want to have dealings with him about as much I want unprotected sex with someone with AIDS.
Politicians with good personal character ordinarily a "kinder, gentler" political culture. George H W Bush may have been just as reactionary as Trump, but he was not the sort to stir up domestic unrest as Trump. (Incompetence can also have that effect, of course).
Antifa was no problem when Obama was President. Obama was more likely to promote deals than confrontations. Although Black Live Matter did not exist until Trump became President, I can easily imagine how Obama would have dealt with Black Lives Matter. Trump is the antithesis of a peace-maker.
...Donald Trump is now (as I last heard) six electoral votes away from becoming a one-term President, and so far as I can tell it is a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's as cautious formality. When it comes to something so important as the election of a President I will settle for rigid formality as a defense against a mistake. Statewide elections are made when either the results are obvious (Trump wasn't going to win Vermont and Biden wasn't going to win Wyoming) or when in a close election the counters have fewer votes left than the margin.
Give us liberals some credit. Most of us had good cause to loathe Donald Trump. He's easy to mock for his lack of obvious virtues. People can like him only because they like his agenda or adore rogues. After all, there were people who admired Wild West outlaws and robbers like John Dillinger and the Barrow-Parker gang; there are Mafia groupies. I despise his agenda, and I see no good to come from rogues.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
