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.
On 1) Lawsuits in 2000 election were mostly lost by Bush until the Supremes stopped the recounting.
ReplyDeleteOn 2) Barr made a very carefully worded statement, but not quoting that statement, it is easy to get it wrong what he actually said at the time.
On 3) the working theory is that Trump was winning by so much, that the fraud had to be increased but it was under a time limit and so the false ballots were only marked for Biden with no other down ballot choices.
On 4) there is always low level fraud that favors both candidates is the theory and the hope is that this cancels out somehow. Massive fraud on one side is a different story and that is the claim in this election, which should be investigate and will be starting next week in Congress.
Don: I heard that the moon was made of cheese, that satan worshipping pedophiles eat children and run the country, cats steal childrens souls and tax cuts for the rich help the poor.
ReplyDeleteI also heard that there was massive fraud in the presidential election but after 54 lawsuits Trump has only won one of them and that was to allow vote counting observers to move 2 feet closer in Philadelphia.
Saying there is fraud is not the same thing as there being fraud, partiuclarly when you control the justice department and supreme court and the presidency, and the executive branches in Arizona and Georgia. If you can't find the fraud -- then there probably isn't fraud.
Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
ReplyDeleteI think Joe Biden is the legitimate President of the US, and all sorts of evidence points in that direction.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Sorry to respond so much later than they were made.