Trump’s speech on securing elections
Some of the subject matter of Trump’s speech last night had already been leaked, so for those who had read the advance news, there weren’t too many surprises. Perhaps the scope of the Chinese hacking was a surprise, and the extent of the coverup of the evidence to hide it from the Trump administration – although anyone who has followed Russiagate and COVID and Hunter’s laptop couldn’t be all that shocked.
We have become used to these things, and that’s not good.
What will be the effect of what Trump revealed, and the documents that have been put on the White House website? I obviously don’t know, but if previous experience is any guide, not all that much. It’s incredibly difficult to prosecute these things and in particular to get convictions in DC courts, if DC ends up being the venue for any trials.
For people already inclined to hate Trump – and that’s about half of the country – none of this will convince them in the least. Trump could say that two plus two equals four, and they would say he’s wrong and/or lying. Already the MSM is proclaiming that this is all the same old stuff that Trump’s been peddling since November of 2020, and in a way they’re correct (except for some of the details). But just because he’s been saying it all that time doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
And what have I been saying for those years? Pretty much the following:
– Whatever really happened in 2020 or any other election, it is exceptionally difficult to prove fraud once it has occurred. Therefore election security must be tighter than it has been, in order to prevent fraud or the perception of the strong possibility of fraud. Trust in elections must be restored. That is extremely basic, and yet difficult to do. Not only is the SAVE Act meeting significant opposition in the Senate from a few Republicans in addition to all Democrats, but even if the SAVE Act were to pass and be successfully implemented, half of America would say it excluded many Democrat voters who are qualified to vote but couldn’t prove it by the new rules. Whether or not that is the case, it would be the argument.
– Universal automatic mail-in voting has to end, because it’s too susceptible to fraud. We need to go back to the old system in which absentee voting is only available for good reason, and require that a voter wanting an absentee ballot make a special request ahead of time. Filled-in ballots must arrive back by Election Day, because late-arriving ballots are the reason for long drawn-out vote-counting.
– Voting should all occur on the same day, or at the most a very short number of days such as a week.
– To register to vote, a person must prove citizenship. There are many ways to do that, and there needs to be special consideration for people who lack birth certificates for bona fide reasons. After that initial proof of citizenship, regular ID would do.
– Computer voting needs to end. Paper ballots are preferable although not perfect.
– Ballot harvesting needs to be more limited as well.
Over the next few weeks, I’m fairly certain that much will be written about the evidence on the White House website. For now, I’ll just add that Trump looked understandably tired during his speech. It’s astounding to me how much work he does at the age of eighty, and how much stress he carries.
It’s an old old old way(though effective) way to scare people. Don’t show all the evidence to support (Am I next) though to be effective you need a c ouple of convictions. The money guys will.run.
I flipped through all my local TV channels looking for the speech. Not one of them carried it live. They all had anchors describing it and various “experts” telling us what to think about it during their news programs — and, of course, the late-night variety shows made fun of it.
This might or might not have been a great or even good speech… but how can it be that the president of the United States delivers an address and no station considers it worthy of broadcasting? Shouldn’t we be given a chance to see it and decide for ourselves?
I heard a few minutes of the speech on the radio. President Trump sounded rather tired and hoarse. I hope he will pace himself and get enough rest to stay healthy!
279,000 non-citizens voting is terrible, very bad, no good!
Trump raises some good points, but they will be lost in the noise of his continued obsession with re-litigating the 2020 election.
He’s making the job of his GOP successors just that much harder.
Sadly, his speech seems to have fallen on deaf ears among the, what would you call them, “Influencers?’ (I detest that term)
Over at Powerlineblog.com, which is certainly a conservative site, they shrug it off. Thin, was one of the descriptions.
The speech should have been a wake up call for people who are slightly left, or who drift with the tide. Unfortunately, they probably didn’t hear it. That would be by design, of course.
I did not watch the speech. I have watched some of Fox News’ reporting on it, and don’t think I missed out by not watching it.
I have watched most of his recent speeches, both national and international. I come away from all of them thinking he’s not doing himself a favor by repeating what sounds like a campaign speech. I would like him to make a presidential speech — something uplifting, telling us we need to pull together and stop sniping at each other internally. I’m not sure it would accomplish much, but incessant repetition of the theme that he was robbed of the 2020 election, and reminding us that Biden was asleep most of the time, doesn’t accomplish much either and gives his enemies, particularly in the media, ammunition to disagree with him.
I had hoped last night’s speech would do this. Or at least, when we were promised more information about voting machines that we would see some irrefutable evidence that those machines really did affect the results. What I am hearing now from people who are perusing the WH web sites is that they have not yet found the smoking gun. It’s not a good look for a White House to repeat an ambiguous charge.