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Those “election deniers” — 44 Comments

1. Ahh….now I see the strategy behind Biden’s speech last Thursday. All the other Ds have now got the memo: tie your opponent to Trump in some way, or just call your opponent a “member of the extremist fringe of the GOP” Hochul just used that strategy against her opponent, and same for the AZ governor race. From Hochul’s tweet today:

   “Lee Zeldin continues to embrace the most far-right fringe elements of his party — and he wants to be Governor of New York.”

   I guess they must have polling that this is going to work. The raid on MAL now also has a reason beyond just getting Trump, but to push him back into the spotlight and then tie all Rs to his coattails.

2. I guess they must have polling that this is going to work.

   I’m guessing focus groups.

3. Shortly after the first GWB election, I was a guest at a wedding, and a guy sitting at the same table was wearing a ‘He’s not my President’ button.

4. Anybody care to remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when Algore lost?

   Time to bring back “Selected Not Elected” bumper stickers.

5. physicsguy:

   That is clearly the strategy. But the speech didn’t help them and was unnecessary because the narrative had already been firmly set since January 6th or even earlier.

6. See…when they use the phrase “our democracy,” the emphasis is on the possessive pronoun. Because they believe it rightfully belongs to them.

7. “Either Dems win or they were cheated” is their operating plan. Has been for decades.

8. pepperidge farm remembers, they called florida, before we had packed up all our equipment, I also remember the hbo special on dominion voting in the spring, and a pbs frontline the previous months to the 2020 election,

9. I guess they must have polling that this is going to work.

   Hillary learned the hard way. Hopefully the same will happen in November.

   Seven years of mean, angry and snivelling falsehoods creates a determined opposition with some Dems switching their party to the other side.

10. I wish pointing out these obvious things worked. I know they don’t, because if they did, no one would have been fooled by the Russian Collusion Hoax from the start. Why would Putin ever prefer Trump over Hillary? Indeed, the “crime” committed by Russians was ad buys that went mostly for causes that supported Hillary.

    Sadly, most voters under 25 likely don’t even recall “selected not elected”, although it continued for quite some time.

11. It has always baffled me that Hillary Clinton, a woman who is Evil Incarnate, ever made it as far as she has. Are the Democrat leaders OK with people like her in charge, the Badger asked, knowing the answer is yes, she is their kind of people.

12. I wish pointing out these obvious things worked. I know they don’t, because if they did, no one would have been fooled by the Russian Collusion Hoax from the start.

    –Leland

    Me too. But conservatives tend to believe they are rational and wish other Americans were too.

    But conservatives are not necessarily rational nor are Americans nor are humans in general.

    Humans can be rational, but mostly they are not. They (we) are driven by emotional needs and their (our) intellects find a way to support their (our) emotional needs.

    We live on the Planet of the Apes.

13. These days I can’t really talk to my old leftist comrades. I’m not that good at talking to my new conservative allies either.

    Most conservatives, neo being an outstanding exception, have never changed their minds in a fundamental way.

    They didn’t have to change their minds and IMO, my current opinion anyway, they were right.

    But most conservatives don’t get what a huge, freaking deal it is to make a fundamental change.

    Everything changes. You lose friends and communities. All of your social/political convictions come under question. You even lose certainty at a spiritual level.

    This is not trivial stuff.

14. A rather extreme example was saul of tarsus taylor caldwells noveled fleshed out his story told in romans and other bookhe was a pharisee who persecuted christiams like stephen to death they didnt trust him initially the pharisees thought he had cracked up. In the modern era whitaker chambers feared he had switched to the losing side

15. Going from believing in Bush and Cheney to reviling them was a big change. So was coming to see that a borderless world wasn’t necessarily a good thing. As was finally realizing that a lot of things politicians promise to do in every election cycle aren’t going to happen — and maybe shouldn’t happen.

    But people do tend to believe that there is some true conservatism — or true progressivism — that they were always loyal to and the politicians betrayed. No one wants to admit that they may have gotten some things wrong themselves.

    It’s curious that when the world is going “nonbinary,” politics are more “binary” than every, but it’s a win or lose environment without much interest in nuances or fine distinctions. Foreign politics may be more interesting to follow because we aren’t so emotionally (and materially) invested in the outcomes.

16. Going from believing in Bush and Cheney to reviling them was a big change.

    Bush and Cheney betrayed their constituency. In Bush’s case, that betrayal has been manifest since 2013.

17. No one wants to admit that they may have gotten some things wrong themselves.

    Ordinary people whose efforts are not devoted to defending what they said last year admit error routinely. People whose self-image isn’t wrapped up in their politics do this.

18. huxley:

    I agree that it’s a big big deal, and that most people don’t get it if they haven’t experienced it. But I’m not sure what you mean by losing certainty at a spiritual level. Did you ever have “certainty at a spiritual level”? And if so, I’m not sure why a political change would alter that.

19. Humans can be rational, but mostly they are not. They (we) are driven by emotional needs and their (our) intellects find a way to support their (our) emotional needs.

    No, ordinary people usually make passable decisions in their mundane life. In contemplating the larger world, they make bad judgments, but in those cases, there aren’t palpable and obvious penalties for making bad judgment. The people who make the worst judgments are (1) under 25 and (2) addicts. People tend to make bad judgments in their domestic life for a variety of reasons, most commonly because they’re attempting to supervise people who are (1) under 25 or (2) addicts or because they’re operating under the illusion in re their spouse that they could do better.

20. “You even lose certainty at a spiritual level.”

    Some might claim that losing certainty is a necessary step on the spiritual path.
    (Otherwise, how would one make that “leap of faith”?… To be sure, not everyone feels, or believes, that he or she absolutely has to make that leap…)

21. I agree with the Bush betrayal. I haven’t listened to a political speech since the 2003 SOTU. Bush was hounded by opponents for that speech, about WMD, and the 16 words. At the time, the whole of the speech seemed to make a good case for Iraq, although I was then and now opposed to “nation building”. What I quickly noticed was that I defended his speech more than Bush or anyone in his Administration. Politicians routinely say anything but don’t stand behind it. However, when you make a case for war against another country, you damn well better stand behind those words. Bush did not, and that was a total betrayal to supporters, the military, the US, and the people of Iraq. Biden is simply continuing that part of the Bush legacy.

22. However, when you make a case for war against another country, you damn well better stand behind those words. Bush did not,

    Not sure to what you’re referring. Bush was steadfast in re Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Where both Bushes failed was in being willing to associate with the Clintons and the Obamas except as strictly necessary for ceremonial occasions. If I’m not mistaken, the Carters were wary of the Clintons and made it a point to stay away from them. Both Bushes also failed to call attention to (1) the decay of ballot security and (2) abusive behavior by the IRS, unpunished and (3) the immunity extended to the Clintons and their camarilla. Bush the Younger also failed by not critiquing the hounding of Trump and his associates by the prosecutocracy, and by not critiquing the abuse of the J6 protesters; he, in fact, endorsed it. So has Cheney. (George P. and Jeb at least welcomed the Dobbs decision. W’s now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t ‘silence’ was in evidence on that one).

23. “In the 2020 presidential election, however, there was reason to believe it based on the loosening of the rules for voting”

    Changing “loosening” to “breaking”.

    The election was stolen before it even happened. See Texas v. Pennsylvania.

24. “The election was stolen before it even happened. See Texas v. Pennsylvania.”

    Actually, it wasn’t.
    Though it should have been (you’re right about THAT).
    But Trump was polling SO STRONGLY that the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DEFENDERS OF FREEDOM AND THE FLAG, had to STOP the vote counting in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for several hours and get those Republican election officials and observers OUT OF THE POLLING AREAS—and KEEP THEM OUT—before “counting” could be “resumed”.

25. Related (from Nov. 4, 2020):
    https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/04/yes-democrats-are-trying-to-steal-the-election-in-michigan-wisconsin-and-pennsylvania/

26. “…our democracy…”
    This is what the exemplar of “our democracy” (AKA the “leader” of “the free world”) looks like:
    “12 Numbers That Show That We’re Getting Dangerously Close To An Economic Crash As The Fall Of 2022 Approaches”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/12-numbers-show-were-getting-dangerously-close-economic-crash-fall-2022-approaches

    + Bonus:
    CALLING ALL FINGERS!! (the fatter the better):
    “Trillions In “Liquidity Support Is Going To Be Needed” As Swiss, Finns Join Europe’s Bailout Brigade”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trillions-liquidity-support-going-be-needed-swiss-finns-join-europes-bailout-brigade
    “Futures, Global Markets Rise As Europe Unleashes Energy Hyperinflation Bailout Bazooka”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-global-markets-rise-europe-unleashes-energy-hyperinflation-bailout-bazooka

27. Related:
    Althouse chimes in…
    “I’m disgusted by the burgeoning “Denier” rhetoric…
    “…The election season begins officially today, the day after Labor Day, and if this is the way it’s launching, what a horrorshow!”
    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2022/09/im-disgusted-by-burgeoning-denier.html

    Wherein she compares “Biden” ‘s denier rhetoric mapping to COVID-19 mapping, as thought “denying” the election results is a pandemic disease…
    (With some excellent comments.)
    H/T Instapundit.

28. More proof that the GOP does not respect dead voters…

    ‘ ‘25,000 dead registrants’: Why legal nonprofit is suing Soros-backed Michigan elections chief;
    ‘ “We had pictures of their gravestones in the complaint,” said former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams. “We sent Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state in Michigan, notice about these dead people before the 2020 election. She didn’t do anything.” ‘

29. Ordinary people whose efforts are not devoted to defending what they said last year admit error routinely. People whose self-image isn’t wrapped up in their politics do this.

    An awful lot of ordinary people who post on line about politics do have self-images — or at least internet personas — wrapped up in their politics. Many in the base don’t want to believe that the conservatism they championed in earlier decades isn’t the same as conservatism now, and may even have been partially responsible for some of the problems we are having now. It was always the leaders that led them astray.

    Fair enough, but having been led astray once and having cheered on the leaders who did so might make people more modest and more skeptical now. If you want to frame things in terms of who got things wrong, fine, but if it’s about who’s the “true conservative” it’s not very convincing anymore, because that line has been used too often to manipulate opinion.

30. “…might make people more modest and more skeptical now…”

    From my point of view it’s actually VERY simple: Vote for the LEAST WORST.

    I suspect that I’m not alone in this (but then I would, wouldn’t I…?)
    I also suspect that this is a feature/bug/characteristic of BOTH sides of the aisle.

    That being said, while the CENTER (whatever that is) and RIGHT-OF-CENTER bemoan and detest the Democratic Party’s overt and across-the-board policies of destruction, the LEFT—SIMPLY—paints its opponents as DEVILS, DEMONS, DEPLORABLES, INSURRECTIONISTS, EXTREMISTS, ANTI-AMERICANS, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, ENEMIES OF THE STATE, FASCISTS, HITLERITES, etc., and repeat (and rinse), consistently, this lurid, outrageously dishonest—but SIMPLE—message 24/7…till in best Goebbels-like fashion, IT SINKS IN.

    Until it becomes THE TRUTH.

    (As they say, there is something to “simplicity”….)

31. huxley, I kind of get what you’re feeling. In my case I’d call it a psychological or emotional crisis, but crisis it is. Aside from personal issues, of which I have plenty, I have a sense that politically, culturally, socially, things are *not* going to be ok. Things are *not* going to work out. The America that we knew is not going to survive. The people who will populate the new America do not have the foundation of fundamentally American thinking that we had even when we rebelled against it. Part of the crisis for me is that many or most of my own family are among these new people.

    There is no place for people like me in the new America. We will be marginalized and subjugated. I’m old, and I tell myself that I won’t be around, and my descendants will live in a different world and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s not much help though.

    A sense of crisis is not an unreasonable response to that. 🙂

32. Love the smiley, though.
    The only thing to do is to soldier on, keeping in mind that things are seldom as bad as we can imagine. (As one wag put, they’re either better. Or worse….)
    Still, can only do what we can. And a bit more (a more than a bit). That, with a bit more effort, perhaps, might just count as courage….

33. Many in the base don’t want to believe that the conservatism they championed in earlier decades isn’t the same as conservatism now, and may even have been partially responsible for some of the problems we are having now. It was always the leaders that led them astray.

    Except that the only changes have been on the margins. More emphasis on immigration enforcement, more skepticism in regard to trade agreements, a more circumspect Kissingerian disposition abroad. And, now, more concern with ballot security.

    And, yes, their leaders were pursuing an agenda against their interests and sentiments. For reasons that have never been explained, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Paul Ryan were all in favor of open borders, just not making it explicit. Jack Kemp had a long association with Robert Bartley, who was clear and explicit about it. This is the view of the donor class, not rank-and-file Republicans.

34. Art Deco:

    So you live in a world in which:

    Ordinary people whose efforts are not devoted to defending what they said last year admit error routinely. People whose self-image isn’t wrapped up in their politics do this.

    I am probably at least as old as you. I’ve seen a lot and heard a lot and observed and/or interacted with a great many people. And the world you describe is unfamiliar to me. On the contrary, in matters both great and small, I find it very unusual indeed for people to admit error, especially about matters that are more philosophical and not about something like math that has an obvious right and wrong answer.

35. I am probably at least as old as you. I’ve seen a lot and heard a lot and observed and/or interacted with a great many people. And the world you describe is unfamiliar to me. On the contrary, in matters both great and small, I find it very unusual indeed for people to admit error, especially about matters that are more philosophical and not about something like math that has an obvious right and wrong answer.

    Older, actually, but perhaps more ensconced in a world populated with a particular social type.

36. “You even lose certainty at a spiritual level.”

    neo, Barry Meislin, Mac:

    I didn’t word that as well as I might have. It was getting late.

    Over 2000-2001 I made a spiritual journey which culminated in a born-again experience. My new faith as a Christian gave me a new life and a church community.

    Then 9-11 happened and I made a political journey which flipped me from left to right.

    Unfortunately, I attended a progressive Episcopalian church in San Francisco. I found myself more and more at odds with nearly everyone else. I would have been quite happy with “We’re Christians and we can get along despite political differences.” But that’s not how progressive Christians operate.

    I hung in until 2008. At Easter Sunday mass the priest gave a sermon about his sad story as a gay teen in Texas. To me Easter is the awesome and joyous Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I realized I was in the wrong place and it wasn’t going to get better.

    I thought I might look for another church, but I found myself deep down reluctant to go church shopping. I wasn’t interested in Churchianity, so I’ve let the issue hang fire since then.

37. For me, it was slow, at first, but easy. Gradually, over time, we came to see that government “aid” did not deliver, in fact, harmed the intended beneficiaries. We thought that at least, their hearts are in the right place. Then, in two thousand, they tried to steal a Presidential election. As Democrat precinct chairman, I had been an election official. I knew exactly how punch card voting machines worked, or even how they failed. Dimpled chads are not failures to register voter intent. They are what happens when one stacks a bunch of punch cards and tries to punch ten or more at one time. The recounts in four Florida counties, all with Democrat majorities, always produced more votes for Algore. We might expect that the randomness of things would produce different results. Nope. Always more for the Democrats, every time, without fail. After weeks of NPR blarney, one of the “info babes” let things slip. she gushed that thing were so confused that some jurisdictions were reporting more total votes than registered voters. This was in the first half-hour of All Things Considered, the half-hour that was rebroadcast as a fourth half hour, for those who had been unable to listen to it the first time. In that rebroadcast, her gaffe was neatly excised. I think that that may have been the last time I listened to National Pinko Radio “news.”

    So, very slow, drip by drip, until a sudden realization. “Oh, they’re lying to us!”

38. huxley:

    Thanks for the explanation. I was somewhat puzzled but now you’ve cleared it up.

39. Huxley, there are formerly Episcopal churches who have walked away and formed “Anglican” parishes, generally apolitical, although mine is, quietly, pretty conservative. I heard of another Anglican church that is now putting out some fairly “Woke” krep. I heard it from a family who have walked out, and are now in my parish. Really nice people, too, five beautiful and brilliant teen agers and two married parents. It was just very hard for them, as it would be for me, a veteran of Civil Rights struggles when that was actually dangerous, to be told now racist we are. Fuhgeddaboutit.

40. Art Deco:

    I’m not ensconced in the world you imagine I’m ensconced in.

41. I have a standing offer I make to any leftie who says the 2020 election was “not stolen” because “nobody saw any cheating.” I offer those folks the opportunity to play one hand of draw poker, with the wager being their house against my house (or, if they don’t have a house, their car against my car). But then I tell them I get to play by “Democrat’s rules” which means that after the cards are revealed, if I show a losing hand, my opponent will be forcibly removed from the room for a period of time (such as were the Republican poll watchers in Detroit when they were counting the 2020 votes). And then, voila! When they are allowed to return to the room, they will suddenly see that I now hold the winning hand! And, by their own rules, since they didn’t actually see any cheating, then there wasn’t any cheating!

    Unsurprisingly, none of them have accepted my offer.

42. The difference between the sides is manifest: if Dems accuse us of cheating, we’re willing to have a transparent process to prove that we won. The Dems are not.

    They did everything in their power to stop vote audits in Arizona and other states.

43. Pew research did an analysis of election voting. One interesting fact was that 68% of Trump voters, voted in person on or before Election Day. 42% of Biden voters voted in person on or before Election Day. That is quite a difference. Age, ethnicity and education were very consistent with the total numbers. Why was that not interesting? Given that election methods was the biggest controversy, a real media would have shown some curiosity.

    While not proof of anything, the difference was obviously not a random event. So why do democrats not like to vote in person? Curious people want to know

44. Michael Rulle:

    One fairly benign reason I can think of is that most states that have really pushed and facilitated vote by mail are blue states, so of course in those states more Democrats will be voting that way.

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