On Republican response to the Presidential election

A recent poll indicates that less than 25% of Republican respondents believe that the 2020 Presidential election was fair.

When our emotions guide our beliefs, it takes more than facts to change our minds. Most Republicans want to believe that the election was rigged. It's no wonder, when the head Republican warned everyone about this months and months ago, and hasn't stopped yet. He is a fount of misinformation, but his followers don't seem to realize this, or care. Mr. Trump, for example, said that, after November 3rd, the COVID pandemic would drop out of the news, implying that coverage of the pandemic was some sort of plot against him. I wish it had been. News about it has increased, not gone away.

But consider some facts: 1) Lawsuits from Trump's followers, and his legal team, have mostly been lost. And the judges involved have been, quite often, Trump appointees.

2) William Barr, attorney general, and head of the US Justice Department, has said that his Department has found no evidence of rigging, etc., during the election and vote counting. Other officials, national and state, many of them, like Barr, Republicans, have said the same thing. One of them was fired because he said that.

3) The Democrats lost seats in the US House (although they still have a majority), and they probably will not have the same number of Senators as the Republicans (meaning that Vice President Harris can break ties). What kind of conspiracy would diminish votes for Trump, while at the same time hurting Democrats?

4) All the complaints about the election have been that somehow Democrats got more votes than they should have, and/or Republicans got less votes than they should have. Again, it seems preposterous to suppose that there was massive fraud, all committed by Democrats. If they changed, say, 8,000,000 votes, wouldn't it be reasonable to suppose that a comparable number of Democratic votes were changed. Surely, if there was cheating, there would have been some on both sides.

I doubt that the number of Republicans who believe that the election was fair is going down much in the foreseeable future. That means that a significat fraction of the electorates won't believe in the process, and they may turn to some sort of coup, or to violence against Democrats. I hope not. 

Most Republicans don't want to believe that the election was fair.

Why is President Trump continuing to fight a losing battle? I can only speculate. Perhaps he really believes that he won the election. Perhaps he is just raising money for a run in 2024. Only time will tell. God help us all.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 641

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: He Lives argues, from the Bible, that the days of Genesis 1 were not necessarily 24 hours in length.

And He Lives discusses the importance (or not) of belief that Mary was a perpetual virgin, and the evidence for and against that idea.


Computing:Wired warns us that robots can be hacked. In other words, we don't have to wait until they are intelligent and self-aware to be in possible danger from them.

Gizmo's Freeware suggests an easy way to download YouTube videos to your information appliance.

Finance: Wired reports that California's emphasis on cutting down on Carbon Dioxide emissions, and on green energy, has not hurt their economy.

Health: Listverse reports on 10 common "health" practices that aren't really healthy, such as the use of hand sanitizer.

History: Listverse reports on 10 controversies involving monuments, all but one of them outside North America.

Humor (or Literature): National Public Radio reports that the University of Southern California and UCLA are arguing over whether William Shakespeare should be spelled without the final e.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight tells us that there are now fake polls, in addition to fake news. And, I was surprised to learn, one of the main reasons for publishing a fake poll is to make money through betting on the outcome of a political contest. Oh, dear. Here's another post on the subject from the same source.

Wired reports that Exxon agreed that climate change was real, and human activity was an important cause of it, but did not say these things in its advertisements.

Science: Scientific American reports on studies of fairness in young children, who seem to have an inborn sense of fairness.



Image source (public domain)

Justice as a topic in the Bible

How does the Bible use the word, “justice”? Below is the result of a search. I used the ESV for the search, but the scripture quotations below are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. A search of the entire Bible returned 136 occurrences, with only a few in the New Testament. These are below:

Matthew 12:18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen;
my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased:
I will put my Spirit on him.
He will proclaim justice to the nations.

Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. (Repeated in Luke 11:42.)

Luke 18:1 He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up, 2 saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man. 3  A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ 4  He wouldn’t for a while, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God, nor respect man, 5  yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’ ”
6 The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. 7  Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? [The ESV uses the word, justice, four times in this passage.]

Acts 8:33 In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away.
Who will declare His generation?
For his life is taken from the earth.” [The ESV uses “justice,” rather than “judgment.” This is a quotation from Isaiah 53.]

Hebrews 11:33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked out righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, [The ESV uses “enforced justice,” rather than “worked out righteousness.”]

The Old Testament uses justice many times, mostly in warnings against the rich and powerful, for exploiting the poor and powerless.

In Amos: 5:11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor,
and take taxes from him of wheat:
You have built houses of cut stone,
but you will not dwell in them.
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many your offenses,
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the just,
who take a bribe,
and who turn away the needy in the courts.

Amos 5:24 But let justice roll on like rivers,
and righteousness like a mighty stream. [This was quoted by Martin Luther King, jr., in his “I Have a Dream” speech.]

Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good.
What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Do Justice!