In this case you don't have to rely on those. there have been close to 70 court cases with all but one resulting in defeat for Trump. Also the magnitude of this makes it very unlikely that the election could've been "stolen". This would require possibly hundreds of thousands of people from volunteer poll workers to the USSC to have actually worked the way Trump and his supporters claim it is. Applying basic logic using Occam's Razor. What is more likely that a conspiracy of the scope and size that would make faking the Moon Landing look like an elementary school prank actually happened or that Trump was an unpopular President that was defeated electorally?
I wasn't referring to the "stop the steal" stuff. That is pretty obvious. I was referring to broader political discussion and where to draw the line on discourse.
It seems this is where we are in our society. It's very dangerous and both sides should recognize what's going on and speak out against it. Maybe some of ya already have. The issue that you bring up is a bi-partisan issue. I think Glen Greenwald is pretty outspoken about what's going on. He's not a raging Trump supporter by any means. And he's on point.
The question is about the balance between freedom and extremism. No right in the constitution is absolute regardless of what people say. Freedom of religion and speach does not allow you to hurt people. Right to bear arms doesn't allow you to own nukes. Etc. So at what point do we draw the line and who gets to draw that line?
re your claims of election fraud or irregularities, others have already posted cogent responses as to why they are unsubstantiated. Yet I’m guessing you still feel they are valid. Why? Consider confirmation bias - People are predisposed to believing things that support their desires or world view. Everyone wants to be right, everything thinks they are right. Sometimes, the comforting thing is to keep thinking something is true despite clear and reasonable explanations as to why it is not. I submit that of trump world is consumed by confirmation bias and incapable or unwilling to confront the responses to the unsubstantiated claims. Pull back and think about it - flooding the zone with all these comforting theories of election fraud is an incredibly effective strategy. It is also absolutely morally corrupt and corrosive to society.
You can always have discourse but what we’ve been seeing isn’t discourse. We can endlessly speculate on all sorts of thing but in the realm of politics rhetoric has consequences. Especially for people in a leadership position pushing things are not logical or not supported by empirical evidence for one sided political gain has consequences.
A million a day. That's what we paid every time Trump stayed at HIS resorts. This is a good article about his big Mar a Lago money train. He's smart when it comes to secret ways to hide money. This was the perfect con game while it lasted. Here's a few interesting quotes from the article Inside Mar-a-Lago: the secret history of Trump’s Florida retreat https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/inside-mar-a-lago-the-secret-history-of-trumps-florida-retreat/ For many years, the elite private members’ club has sustained the outgoing US president. But is it all about to fall apart? Mar-a-Lago’s dual status as a business and as Trump’s residence also allows him to subsidise his lifestyle. The New York Times elaborated on how this can be done with his taxes: Mr. Trump may be reporting business losses to the government, but he can still live a life of wealth and write it off … As a business, [Mar-a-Lago] is also the source of millions of dollars in expenses deducted from taxable income, among them $109,433 for linens and silver and $197,829 for landscaping in 2017. Also deducted as a business expense was the $210,000 paid to a Florida photographer over the years for shooting numerous events at the club, including a 2016 New Year’s Eve party hosted by Mr. Trump. Mar-a-Lago boasts the elite connections of private clubs, only with an even richer and more exclusive membership than most. The club’s membership list remains a closely guarded secret, although an aggregation of news reports from major media outlets lists 133 current or former members. All are millionaires, and many are billionaires. Wealth seems to be the primary requirement for membership Trump’s leaked tax returns suggests at least 100 new members signed up between 2014 and 2017, at a time when the joining fee was still only $100,000. (Trump doubled the fee on becoming president.) This in itself may be a serious under-estimate – But influence can flow in more than one direction. Prospective members are not asked to produce any proof of the source of their $200,000 joining fee – a loophole, common to many clubs, that potentially allows agents of foreign governments to join with state-sponsored funds. While presidents have long appointed campaign donors as US ambassadors, the Trump presidency has seen a new twist on this, with at least five current or former members of his clubs having been given posts in countries In September 2019, Trump officially designated Mar-a-Lago his primary residence for the first time. But this presents a possible legal minefield. In theory, Trump is still constrained by the original Declaration of Use Agreement, which sets out that no member, including Trump, shall reside at the Club for more than 21 days a year there – something which he is plainly already doing. NBC News found that Trump had spent 133 days (over 4 months) of his first 10 months of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago. Last month, lawyers for Trump’s next-door neighbours delivered a formal letter, stating that they would hold him to the 1993 agreement, and making it clear they did not wish him to reside there. This year’s annual black-tie gala New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago went ahead despite the pandemic, drawing complaints for the hundreds of maskless members and guests milling around. In its wake, Omari Hardy, a member of Florida’s House of Representatives and former Palm Beach Town Council member, has called for Mar-a-Lago to be shut down. Trump can expect this to be only the first of many attempts to remove his club licence. Trump picks golf club, Mar-a-Lago members as ambassadors https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...sadors-golf-club-mar-lago-members/2748260002/ His legal battles are coming from all directions. I wonder how he sleeps at night.
Deb, I was kind of wondering as well when the lawsuits would start coming against trump. I would have thought they would have started by now. My hope, although this slippery b*stard always seems to get away with everything, is that he will be punished and punished severely for each and every lawsuit that will be brought against him. And for each and every life that he has affected not in a good way. Either due to death or sickness from his mismanagement of covid or by taking over a country that was already divided and amplifying this division to the point where there appears to be no turning back from a path towards anarchy and chaos. I wish we were in a better place right now but Biden has his work cut out for him in trying to unite the country while leaders of trumpism, false reality, continued lies, propaganda, and misinformation continue to pull even harder in the opposite direction. At some point something has to give.
Looking back over the failed trump presidency a couple of vivid pictures come to mind. One was him at one of his mindless rallies or news conferences, I can't remember which. Him hugging the flag and proclaiming his love for his country. This moment for me showcased the epitome of trumpism. He is a narcissist for crying out loud to all the boot lickers out there. He only cares about himself. He is not a patriot in fact embodies and represents everything that is not patriotic. How he twisted things and led enough followers believing in him to where we are today is reprehensible. He incited a hoard of MAGA domestic terrorists in a false coup attempt. They shouted USA, USA, USA while using the American flag to attack police officers or anyone else that tried to get in their way. While riling them up and promising to march with them to the Capitol, trump lied to them and like the coward that he is, went back to the Whitehouse and watched everything unfold on TV. Loving every minute of it. Playing with fire. Knowing he would probably get away with it. What a loser.
The system isn't broken. You are just unhappy with the result. No amount of recounts, audits, or laws will make you believe the election is fair unless your candidate wins.
The facts are the truth. Accusations, conjecture, theories - this is what is getting spread around. You want the truth, stick to the facts and don't go beyond the facts. What I see on the right is that they fill in the gaps and make assumptions or leaps to attack others. Then on the defense, they ignore the facts and deflect. It's not that hard to know the truth, but you have to actually want to know the truth. Believe it or not there are still journalism out there that report the facts. NPR is for instance extremely accurate, but it gets labeled as left wing because the facts are not good for the right.
The Trump administration reaffirmed one thing. The American people as a whole are more interested in narratives than facts.
This is pretty much it. It’s been obvious since before the election when Trump said if he lost it would be due to fraud.
The right is not the only ones guilty of this. For example in the gun control debate. The fact is that less people are killed with AR rifles than knives and a small fraction of gun homicides overall, but for some reason regulating AR rifles is all we talk about.
The difference is I don't see anyone claiming the majority of gun deaths are from AR rifles. So you are right, AR rifles might not be the right focus, but there's a difference between sensationalism and misinformation.
I agree there is a difference but both are intellectually dishonest. And both are trying motivate an action not based in facts but emotion. My point that both sides does it, but Trump did take it to the extreme.
