Coming to Grips with Reality
In a sane world, Joe Biden's election win would not have come as a surprise. Alas . . . .
Yesterday, I pointed to a poll showing 70 percent of Republicans believe the 2020 election was unfair after months of President Trump laying the groundwork to delegitimize mail-in votes and charging election officials with malfeasance. Thankfully, there is also strong evidence that people are coming around.
Reuters (“Nearly 80% of Americans say Biden won White House, ignoring Trump’s refusal to concede – Reuters/Ipsos poll“):
Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election after most media organizations called the race for the Democrat based on his leads in critical battleground states, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
[…]
The Reuters/Ipsos national opinion survey, which ran from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday, found that 79% of U.S. adults believe Biden won the White House. Another 13% said the election has not yet been decided, 3% said Trump won and 5% said they do not know.
The results were somewhat split along party lines: about six in 10 Republicans and almost every Democrat said Biden won.
Granting that one would like to see the number much closer to 100 percent and less divided on party lines, this is rather comforting. Despite their President claiming that he won on election night and then shifting to a “the election is not over” narrative, essentially nobody believes it. And this was polling that began hours after the news networks called the election.
More good news:
It showed that 70% of Americans, including 83% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans, trust their local election officials to “do their job honestly.”
The poll also found that 72% think the loser of the election must concede defeat, and 60% think there will be a peaceful transition of power when Trump’s term ends in January.
Again, one would hope the numbers were even higher. Still, given an incredibly fraught four years of rage and distrust, this is rather encouraging.
I also take some solace from this WaPo report (“‘My faith is shaken’: The QAnon conspiracy theory faces a post-Trump identity crisis“):
President Trump’s election loss and the week-long silence of “Q,” the QAnon movement’s mysterious prophet, have wrenched some believers into a crisis of faith, with factions voicing unease about their future or rallying others to stay calm and “trust the plan.”
The uncertainty has been compounded by the abrupt public resignation, also last Tuesday, of Ron Watkins, the administrator of Q’s online sanctuary on the message board 8kun.
Q has gone quiet before. But the abrupt lack of posts since last Tuesday — Election Day, which the anonymous figure had touted for months as a key moment of reckoning — has sparked speculation and alarm among the movement’s most ardent followers.
Some QAnon proponents have begun to publicly grapple with reality and question whether the conspiracy theory is a hoax. “Have we all been conned?” one user wrote Saturday on 8kun.
Wrote another: “HOW CAN I SPEAK TO Q???? MY FAITH IS SHAKEN. I FOLLOWED THE PLAN. TRUMP LOST!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW?????? WHERE IS THE PLAN???”
Trump’s defeat threatens to undermine the tale that Q, a supposed top-secret government operative, has woven over years: that Trump and his allies would soon vanquish a cabal of “deep state” child abusers and Satan-worshiping Democrats, exiling some to the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
QAnon believers treat Q’s thousands of cryptic posts as scripture, and many stretch to connect them to real-world events, often in nonsensical ways. Some prominent Q believers said Trump’s back-to-back golf outings over the weekend were proof that the president was in control and that all was going according to plan.
Others connected Rudolph W. Giuliani’s bizarre Saturday news conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, on an industrial block in Philadelphia between a crematorium and an adult-video store, with two Q posts in the past year in which he used the words “landscape.”
One QAnon account, known as Praying Medic, told its more than 400,000 Twitter followers that many supporters “had to be talked off the ledge” in the past week but that Trump’s strategy remained in motion. Praying Medic tweeted: “He’s going to stick the knife in and twist it. He has no plans to leave office. Ever.”
Travis View, a researcher and co-host of the podcast “QAnon Anonymous,” said he expects that whoever is behind the Q “drops” — as Q’s messages are known — is just waiting to see how things shake out. Q has disappeared for weeks at a time before, shaking some loyalists, including during a three-month absence last year following a public revolt over the message board’s ties to real-world terrorist attacks.
In the meantime, QAnon’s devoted fan base has been left to struggle with the meaning of Trump’s election loss — which many argue was actually a win.
“The majority reaction from QAnon followers has been outright denial,” View said. Many expect Trump will seal his reelection through his team’s so-far-unsuccessful legal skirmishes, and “if that doesn’t happen and Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20, the cognitive dissonance will be absolutely as big as it’s ever been for QAnon followers.”
That a meaningful number of Americans believe in wildly nonsensical, conspiratorial bullshit is, on the one hand, pathetic. But the nature of the Internet is that it allows these people to congregate rather than simply live anonymously among us. Still, it appears that even these nutballs are coming to grips with reality.
Meanwhile, another Reuters report (“U.S. Republicans hint at limited time for Trump to make his post-election case“) gives more reason for hope that the charade may be over soon.
Top Republicans in the U.S. Congress for now are supporting President Donald Trump’s attempt to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, but some senior aides said Trump must soon produce significant evidence or exit the stage.
A handful of Republican senators have said they recognize Biden as last week’s winner. Many more have not but are suggesting limits to their patience in giving Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a state that Trump won handily last week, said in a statement that Biden is leading in enough states to win election “and President Donald Trump’s campaign must produce evidence to support allegations of election fraud.” Portman added that he hoped states and courts would move “expeditiously” to resolve the matter.
Behind the scenes, some were more explicit.
“I think the goal here is to give the president and his campaign team some space to demonstrate there is real evidence to support any claims of voter fraud. If there is, then they will be litigated quickly. If not, we’ll all move on,” said one senior Senate Republican aide.
A second such aide, while noting that most Republican senators support Trump’s right to refuse to concede, added that failing any surprise revelations, “At some point this has to give. And I give it a week or two.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Congress’s top Republican, delivered a stinging speech that sounded more like a continuation of 2020 campaign rhetoric than a post-election call for getting down to business. While defending Trump’s challenge of the election result, McConnell took time to chastise “far-left mobs” that engaged in “summertime rioting” following the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
McConnell also hinted at something far less than prolonged litigation, such as was seen in the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore: “Suffice to say a few legal inquiries from the president do not exactly spell the end of the Republic.”
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Marco Rubio late on Monday refused to recognize Biden as the president-elect yet. But responding to reporters’ questions about unsubstantiated fraud allegations in hotly contested states such as Pennsylvania, Rubio said he was in no position to know what was going on anywhere outside his home state of Florida.
Admittedly, that’s not much. I would certainly prefer that they were demonstrating more spine and putting a stop to Trump’s damaging nonsense already. But it certainly sounds like patience is wearing thin.
For political junkies refreshing the news every few minutes, Saturday’s declaration and certainly last Tuesday’s election itself seem ages ago. But Biden has been President-Elect for less than four full days and already most of the country has come to grips with that reality.
Trump’s lawsuits will go nowhere. He’s already been laughed out of more than one courtroom. Republican officials will acknowledge that soon enough even if the President does not. And most of the rest of the public will recognize that it’s over and that Biden will be the next President.
Uhm, 40% of Republicans ≠ essentially nobody
Nope. The majority of polling was conducted prior to Saturday, i.e., before McConnell and other GOP officials started openly casting doubt on the outcome:
First of all, to what god is the guy dressed up as (I think) a Viking referring? The Vikings were Norse pagans. Yet this fellow appears to be citing the Christian God.
Your continued belief that somewhere deep inside Republican Party officials there is a core of decency or honesty is based on… what, exactly? Can you point to one single thing Republican leadership has done in the past four years to stand up to Trump?
The last count I saw, he was 0 for 12.
The trend in AZ is against Trump. From the 538 update thread:
I wouldn’t count on them “coming to grips with reality” anytime soon. People who leave cults tend to be disillusioned with the cult proper and it’s specific trappings, not necessarily the thoughts they’ve internalized with the group.
How many of these folks will still think extremely negatively of liberals even if they don’t hold Q-specific views? How many will nod when someone rants about a conspiracy or lib pedos or false secret ballots? What attracted them in the first place is still there – a way to blame what they don’t like on people they don’t like. Maybe they can’t claim #Pizzagate anymore but they’ll still believe something like it can happen and accept “signs” when offered by a fellow believer. In the words of Fox Mulder, they *WANT* to believe and that’s what made them vulnerable to the Q scam in the first place. Chances are they’ll fall for the next one, too.
@drj:
The way I read it, this was a tacked-on question added to an ongoing national survey, which “ran from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday.”
It’s 40% of roughly 35% of the adult population. That’s significant but not massive. Again, the topline is 79% that already believed Biden was the winner in the Saturday-Tuesday window.
@CSK:
Looks more Native American Bison fethishism to me than Asatru.
He does look fancy. I give him that.
I have been monkeying around in pre-Christian Nordic mythology recently. Is absolute bonkers and fascinating.
From a quoted source:
So basically, it’s almost exclusively Republicans who think the vote was rigged. Plus the 5-10% of the population who always exist in Crazytown.
@MarkedMan:
I’m passing along a Reuters report about what they’re saying privately. I’m not attributing it to decency or honesty so much as calculation.
@de stijl:
Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t appear to be Christian. I thought all good patriots were Christians.
To repeat from the open thread:
This is the Republican party you have so much faith in James. They are certain DEMs cheated because how else could they have overcome all the GOP roadblocks thrown up in their way?
@James Joyner: Not to rag on you, but the Reuters report doesn’t mention anything about Republican leadership outside of the administration. I’m pressing the issue because over the past few days you’ve made a number of comments about how the Republican leadership is pushing back or ready to push back or, in this case, losing patience. I’ve seen nothing whatsoever to indicate any such thing, other than meaningless off-the-record comments. I’m curious as to where you are getting the opposite impression?
@CSK:
If God was a candidate in this election, they ran a terrible campaign. I didn’t even know they were running!
@MarkedMan:
@James Joyner:
Given the loud calls from some precincts that R state legislatures should exercise their constitutional prerogative, there has been very little talk about the legislatures actually taking steps in that direction. The odd loud mouth, yes, but no concerted effort. Mostly the R state legislatures have been more responsible than the congress critters and senate cardinals.
Politico has somewhat the opposite tack than the one proposed by our OP: “A Grand Scheme: Trump’s election defiance consumes GOP”.
http://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/11/trump-fraud-claims-gop-435884
People like to take pride in their work, like to think they are doing a good job. They will not readily agree they screwed up conducting an election just because Donald the dim and Mike Pompeo and other national level GOP would like them to.
Me in 2015: The Republicans will never pick Trump as their nominee.
Me in 2016: The American people will never elect Trump.
My view of what can happen here has shifted considerably. What was once unthinkable is now possible.
I suppose we need to clarify the question: what is the “reality” we’re expecting Republicans to come to grips with?
– That Biden “won” or that he’s POTUS? You can argue someone is POTUS without having won the election ie they cheated or stole the Office. That’s what they’re doing right now and can easily settle into for decades. A fraudulent President held in power by the Deep State against the will of The People and supported by too many libs and con traitors to remove from office. Biden winning means they lost and they’re not prepared to admit they’re losers.
– That Biden is legitimately POTUS elected properly or did he win because of unfair rules. laws and manipulation? The number of Repubs willing to state publicly Biden’s legitimate will be rather small for a while. That he was fairly elected even smaller. They’ll give you that he’s in power but got there dishonestly.
– That Biden and the Dems have a mandate from their wins or that they need govern according to GOP sensibilities to not offend MAGAts and moderates? You won’t get them to admit this means Dems have control and should be able to enact liberal agendas. They’ll argue it was a squeaker (it wasn’t), too contested to be a mandate (nope, just whiners) and that it doesn’t mean anything. Biden “barely won” and that means he shouldn’t do anything at all, even though it looks like he’ll end up with the same amount of EC votes Trump did.
If we’re just expecting them to acknowledge Biden holds the Office of POTUS, then yes most will eventually agree. However if we’re asking them to acknowledge he fairly won the election and is the rightful POTUS by will of the People and the EC, nope – they’ll cling to him being fraudulently elected but nobody can do anything about it. They’ll not give up the cheating aspect of it as FOX needs it to base all their future smears on.
@KM:
I‘m going to go with That Biden is legitimately POTUS elected because of unfair rules, laws and manipulation. Therefore there is no legitimacy to a Biden administration and likewise no mandate.
Lindsey Graham stated the GOP position when he said on Fox Monday night that, “We win because of our ideas, we lose elections because they cheat us.” That’s not a statement about current events, that is a tenet of Republicanism. It’s not a new belief, but a conviction held for decades. Votes don’t truly show the will of the governed, polls don’t truly reflect public sentiment, the media or the academy is biased against conservatism, and any people who don’t love our ideas are stupid or crooked.
@Scott O:
true, but keep in mind Trump won due to systemic advantages for minority candidates.
As I recall, most of the primaries he won were by plurality, not majority. So the majority of GOP primary voters preferred someone else. It’s notable he won more pluralities than other candidates, to be sure, but the preference for someone else remains.
Also the field was way overcrowded. Suppose only Kasich, Cruz, and Trump had run I know: impossible). There’s a good chance results would have been very different.
And a clear majority of the US electorate voted against Trump. He rode the extremely flawed EC to victory.
There’s a sense in sports that a championship team ought to be favored to win the next season, as they clearly have assembled a capable team and executed the game well. Sometimes this is true (note how many teams repeat a championship, or run through several over five to ten years, see the 70s Steelers, 80s 49ers, 90s Cowboys, and the Brady/Belichick Pats ). Sometimes it’s a fluke, or a short-term advantage (see the Manning Broncos).
Trump was the latter. But nothing prevents another such fluke from happening again.
@Scott O:
Me in 2008: The Great American Melting Pot elects Obama as the first President in it’s history who isn’t a white male.
What was once possible is now a faint memory clouded by >40% of the population fighting for an open white supremacist to the bitter end. My view of what can happen here has plummeted.
Called it!
Regarding the image on the post, I love needling folks like that. Yes indeedy, God does always win…. meaning Biden is God’s chosen representative and you’re a sinner for going against His Will. If you believe He is “In Control!!!111” like so many have been screaming lately, then you have to accept His answer to nearly every prayer is a firm “No”. The Lord isn’t a concierge that gets you what you want on command and isn’t going to change the Divine Plan because you’re having a hissy over an AntiChrist gets his ass handed to him. Donald Trump is an AntiChrist (if not *the* one) in that he is the complete opposite of everything Christianity hold their Savior to be. None of this should be surprising to them and their answer is supposed to be “yes Lord, do as thou wilt”.
God said No, GOP – deal with it!!
@CSK: Yeah! I had the same cognitive dissonance. Even if he was supposed to be a Celt, he would be a Celt from pagan times when they played their bagpipes painted their faces blue to scare away the demons.
@MarkedMan: Shh! ([sotto voce] He’s found his way back home and is really trying to ignore that it hasn’t actually changed. Quit roiling the mire and work around it.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Wait. You mean he’s not a Furry?
@Sleeping Dog: Certainly. Then again, a lot of the GOP in state legislatures have resolved that they are local politicians. They don’t have to be bat-shixt cray cray because they’ll never be in Congress. I suspect that as you get down to the county and regional levels, their even less blatantly partisan. That’s what I see in my area. You can’t tell the Demonrats from the Rethuglicans apart until you get to the state legislature level. There, one side is for paying for stuff and the other side is for not having it because it either raises or prevents cutting taxes. I’ll let you figure out which side is which.
I find the Reuter/Ipsos poll comforting. I also find it disturbing that while, in this poll, 59% of Republicans thought Biden had won the WH, in the Politico poll we saw that 80% of Republicans thought the voting wasn’t fair somehow. So, what that’s minimum of 40 points worth of overhang there? Republicans who thought “Biden has won, but he cheated”.
Yeah, yeah, these attitudes could be shifting rapidly.
This isn’t my worst-case scenario, but I don’t really feel good about it either.
@James Joyner: James forgive me if this turns out to be a double post but I haven’t posted any comments on OTB in several years but I have kept reading it and the comments section. I’m probably not smart enough to figure out how to push the right button based on previous insults I have received. I used to enjoy having intelligent discussions with other readers but I finally got tired of being called ignorant and worse because I disagreed with what was plainly obvious to everyone else living in the left wing bubble. I can substitute Trumps name with Obama or Hillary or Biden and get an opinion I don’t have to defend myself for. I respect your intelligence and agree with some of your articles. Keep up the good work but if you think that 70 million people voted for Biden and 70 million voted for Trump but there wasn’t a Blue wave behind Biden in vote tallies I need that explained to me. The Democrats lost seats in the House, didn’t gain in the Senate and got less vote totals than Biden. Looks like a million people voted for Biden and didn’t vote for anyone else. If Joe Biden thinks he won and really wants to heal the divide in this country he should embrace a transparent recount in the contested states. Where there is smoke there is fire and I can see the smoke in NC and there is plenty of questions in other states that need answers. Just for the record I voted for Obama twice because McCain was a war hawk and a idiot and Romney was a Moron (Not Morman I know the difference) and got rich selling out american businesses thru leveraged buyouts and Hillary is a self entitled self serving liar. I voted for Trump thinking he was going to lose but am glad he won because of all the ruckus he has caused. Now I can’t even wear a red hat or put a bumper sticker on my car without having to defend myself from some rabid lunitic who calls me a racist and compares me to Hitler. I couldn’t voice my feelings for Obama because they were going to fire me from my job. I’m still glad I voted for Obama and I still don’t like him but he was the better choice. Just for the record Michael Reynolds is a moron. He thinks that he is smarter than everyone else because he made a bunch of money writing books and his opinions are right and nobody else is entitled to an opinion if it disagrees with his. I was born in this country, I went to college, I started my own business twice and paid my taxes. He is entitled to his own opinion but not is own facts. My opinion is just as important as his and that doesn’t make either one of us right or wrong on any subject. But I do enjoy him using pretzel logic to explain his own contridictions. I’m looking forward to someone insulting and telling me my voice don’t matter because I misspelled a word or some other dribble…
@MarkedMan: I hadn’t considered that. Hmmm…
Nope, doesn’t matter. Still the same cognitive dissonance.
@KM:
Here’s where the allegedly free press needs to step up. Ask GOP officials point blank, “Do you believe that Joe Biden is the legitimately-elected POTUS?” If they say anything other than “yes”, follow up with “what evidence are you basing that on?”. Don’t let them get away with handwaving and weasel words. Either you believe he is, or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s a constitutional crisis and you’d better have some serious basis for it.
@Tom Parker:
I can’t imagine a more concise summary of the cognitive dissonance that is Trumpism.
@Tom Parker:
No. Evidence is the basis of the law in this country, not hearsay. “Smoke” is not evidence. Where is it?
I’m fine with recounts as long as Trump personally pays for it. In cash, upfront. Not his campaign – *him*. He also must direct the GSA to stop stalling on the transition. Also, a signed affidavit that when he loses the count again, he will call Biden the legitimately elected POTUS on camera.
He wants to tilt at windmills, fine. However, if he’s going to waste everyone’s time there’s conditions attached. The nation doesn’t owe him time to grieve or get over it, nor does it owe you or any Trump voter the same. You are one of millions of Americans and you’ll get the same equal time we all get after every election. I’m sorry you feel aggrieved but honestly if we really were running this country like a business, this crap wouldn’t be happening. Would you put up with an employee contesting a firing by letting them stay in the building, running around asking everyone for their opinion on the matter? Would you put up with them telling you that you weren’t the legal owner and don’t count, they were falsely fired and demanded a new review of the evidence of their dismissal? Would you let your business be besmirched by their friends all talking about how you faked the process and they still work there because of it?
@KM:
*shakes fist and does her best Shatner* Editting!
Also, we want recounts EVERYWHERE. All states, all races including every GOP win that polls show is sus. Looking at you KY and Maine. Mitch and Collins need to be checked at the least and there’s a couple of House seats we might want to investigate. Every Repub that flipped a seat – recount and lawyers. Every close Senate race – recount!
Why is the call for recounts only for the Presidential race? If Trump gets one, everybody should get one! Seat nobody till we’re sure – no certifications till we clear all the “smoke”.
@CSK:
@de stijl:
Interesting mix of imagery on him at any rate.
Hat looks bison-y; but that lower chest tat or painting is a Mjolnir if ever I saw one.
Like a sharper image for other details.
As to “god” I’ve come across some pagans who believe in a god/God above the gods.
Insofar as anything about it makes sense.
Some are nice enough; but heavy mjolnir tat triggers my alarm bells; quite common with some neo-nazi types.
@Tom Parker: You are absolutely right that you are entitled to your opinion and it’s contrary to the intent of this forum for others to insult you just for expressing that opinion. So, just out of curiosity, after you spent several hundred words on how wrong it would be for someone to randomly insult you, did you consider even for a moment that sticking a totally random insult towards another commenter might defeat your purpose?
@Tom Parker:
You voted for Trump over Hillary because SHE was a liar?
Do you hear yourself. No one – NO. ONE. – in the history of the political class has lied as much as Donald Trump. He’s lied so much that it’s dismissed because it’s so common.
That you can call Hillary a liar and vote for Trump because of it says alot about you Tom, none of it good. I’m sorry if you feel that what I’m saying to you is an insult, but your inability to have any consistency in your position leaves me no choice.
@Scott F.:
And with that mindset they’re hanging out on the fascist doorstep.
The next steps are so easy from that point:
We are the Party of the True Nation;
Therefore the True Nation votes for us;
Therefore anyone who does not is not part of the True Nation;
Therefore they have no rights and their votes don’t count.
And anything we do is justified by the necessity of defeating the enemies of the True Nation.
@Tom Parker:
Hi Tom,
Why just the (Trump) contested states? After all there are close states that Trump won, but Biden has trust in the elected officials in those states.
A couple of things about the electoral process:
1. States have provision for an automatic recount if the margin between the candidates is within a specific range. This is typically expressed as a percentage that varies from state to state. Many states also have a procedure that allows a campaign to ask for a recount if the auto recount does not kick in. In this case the campaign pays the cost of the recount.
2. On election night the local election officials make a preliminary count and this is what we see when the TV says with X precincts reporting. After that the votes are sent to the state for the certification process. Representatives of the campaigns/parties are observers to this process and can challenge specific votes. The ~200 votes that are contested in Maricopa Cty, are the result of something an R observer caught. If a campaign has an issue, they have the option of going to court, but their case must be substantive supported by evidence.
3. During the certification process is where issues with potential defective ballots are addressed. After a determination is made the election is certified by whatever process the state has and sent to the legislature for sign off.
Why isn’t this process acceptable to you?
@JohnSF:
John, something I’ve been meaning to ask you, partly out of ignorance. Typically in the UK and for that matter most of Europe, the election is held and within a short period of time the new government takes over. I know this might stretch our longer if no party gains a majority (Yo Italy). How do you count the bloody votes so quickly?
@Tom Parker: I just want to note what a good example you have provided of the issues we’re having in the country. You do have every right to your opinion. And in some forums on the internet, there is an expectation that your opinion won’t be challenged.
This is not one of those places. I’m happy to have my opinion challenged.
Sometimes it gets to insults though. I’m not really ok with that. AND, that’s exactly an example of what has made it impossible for us to talk with and negotiate with each other. You don’t have to look very far to see people demonizing and casting people as “other” who don’t share our politics. The QAnon group, mentioned in the OP is primary.
And the fact that you could complain about the insults and then turn around and dish it back out is both completely normal as a human being, and also representative of a problem that we Americans are having. It needs to be fixed somehow. We need to reconstruct a “we” somehow. We could have done that around fighting Covid, but Trump decided he wanted it to be a partisan issue.
I hope to hear more from you. You are posting in good faith, I am sure. Many of the dissents we see here don’t come across that way – they seem like trolling or gotchas. So I like that.
@ Jay L Gischer @Tom Parker:
Agreed. Please stay to comment more. As you have the right to your own opinions, so do we. However a good opinion should be backed up with facts or at least be able to survive a challenge. That is the essence of debate – prove your point even if you can’t win the argument. We need folks like @Tom to come and challenge us as we challenge back.
As for not having to defend oneself from criticism…. honestly, has that ever been a thing? Maybe for the truly lucky but most of us have had to defend something about ourselves at some point in our lives. Choices are not facts so if you make an unpopular or controversial one, it’s unrealistic to not get someone wondering why you made that choice. Strength of conviction comes from defense and reaffirming the belief in the face of adversity. Getting called out for questionable decisions is part of being a grown-up and if you don’t feel it’s questionable at all, it’s up to you to convince others. After all, it’s your choice and your opinion. Nobody should be harassed or insulted; however those are subjective concepts and what’s an insult to you might be a statement of fact to another. That’s where debate comes in – we talk it out, find out where the differences are. So please stay – we need more debates to figure it all out.
@Tom Parker:
Tom, I have to agree with EddieInCa here. Trump lies about everything. Everything. And as for being self-entitled, you can’t beat Trump. He’s the champ.
@CSK:
My kingdom for an edit function.
@DrDaveT: Well you got the first vote against me but I think you are selling yourself short about your imagination.
@Sleeping Dog:
We’re just soooo slick 🙂
Seriously, in the UK it’s pretty easy.
Usually here it’s just one ballot, which is a choice between several candidates for MP; can be as few as just two.
Usually only max. of four candidates will be politically significant.
In a lot of constituencies the winner is pretty inevitable; in the safest you may not need to even count to see whose won, you can tell by the sizes of the piles.
It may be the case that if a general election is held in May (the commonest time) it can coincide with some local polls.
The 3 methods of holding elections to local councils are:
– by whole council (all of the councillors are elected every 4 years)
– by halves (half of the councillors are elected every 2 years)
– by thirds (a third of the councillors are elected every year for 3 years, with no elections in the 4th year)
Frankly gives me a headache if I try to keep track.
In all case though, the numbers elected a fairly small. MPs’, councillors; I think the theoretical maximum you could have got in the past if ALL had coincided (which I don’t think has EVER happened) would be 8 (if my sums are right) but then only in certain areas where all applied; a lot don’t, i.e. no national assembly in England, no mayors in most areas, most urban areas don’t have parish councils etc.
Often local elections are wholly separate from the general election.
(Plus EU elections now a thing of the past, obviously.)
Maximum would have been parish, district, county/borough, assembly, mayor, police commissioners, EU, MP.
There is no equivalent to the swathes of elective office holders, and local referenda, that the US has.
Divided up between 650 constituencies, they can be pretty speedy.
Usually the first results are in from 11 pm on the night; but that’s from seats where they weigh them, rather than count them.
As to European countries; they all vary enormously.
Most have some form of proportional representation instead of UK’s simple majority first-past-the-post. Except for France IIRC.
(Though our EU elections used proportional)
I couldn’t begin to tell you what their mechanics are.
But I suspect they keep local elections separate.
And like the UK have far fewer elective posts than in the US; (and also very few that are appointed by politicians either come to that).
@Jay L Gischer: I’m going to skip ahead and you get my 2nd reply. I don’t know you or your previous positions or comments but if you keep this up I suspect I’m going to like you even if I disagree with you. Thank you for a sane reasonable response. I was a building contractor for 30 years so I’ve got pretty tough skin and actually enjoy a good argument as long as we leave out most of the name calling and don’t talk about my mother cause I’m tired of stopping her from kicking somebody’s butt before she gets all the facts right. Maybe we can talk later after I see what all these other people want.
@CSK: There are, alas, apparently only two WordPress plugins that provide an edit function for comments. I tried the other one and it was worse than this one. I don’t know why it’s not organic to WordPress or why the plugin we’ve been using for years doesn’t work correctly but I’m out of options.
@James Joyner:
Not your fault. Thanks for having the patience to deal with this. I’ll just have to be more careful with my proofing.
@DrDaveT:
Kind of like choosing late stage metastatic pancreatic cancer over arrhythmia because the latter can be dangerous.
@James Joyner: I was going to comment on the downsides to open architectures and then realized this was not the thread for that.
@KM: Thanks for cherry picking my metaphor. I would argue that smoke is evidence of a fire but you are right that it is not evidence of election tampering. You made the assumption that because I voted for Trump that I was infected with TDS and wouldn’t accept the results of a transparent investigation into problems that have occurred in several states and the overall vote tallies are no where near a Blue Wave that the pre election polls indicated. In fact using the reported numbers as a whole and the lower down ballot totals it appears that Biden got more votes total than other Democrats downstream. Using numbers I’ve seen Trump got more votes than Obama or Hillary did in their respective elections. I think as close as the numbers are that there are legitimate questions being asked that deserve answers if the divide in this country is going to be healed. As far as who pays for it unfortunately that falls on the taxpayers but look how much money has been wasted trying to investigate Trump and his minions. I didn’t agree to pay for that nonsense. We could have used that money on education or healthcare or infrastructure. If Joe Biden won then he should be in favor of legitimate investigations. If the numbers were reversed and Trump won by razor thin margins the arguments would be for investigations. I’ll accept the outcome and recognize the system worked. We didn’t elect a king and with the results in congress it looks like 4 more years of hatred and division. I’d personally like to see more moderates on both sides working together for what’s best for America and less of this extreme nonsense that we have had for years. Trump didn’t dig this hole it was already pretty deep. If you think things are going to be different you are going to very disappointed.
@JohnSF:
I absolutely missed the tat. My eye never saw it probably thought it was a shadow from the mic.
That is one super shitty tat. Why would you want a black outline with zero shading? Hope it was cheap cuz it’s crap. For a half-minute I thought it might be the mic shadow, but the way it ends clean above the belt line says no.
Makes his torso look unbalanced by the off-center set.
Sure looks like Mjolnir to me now I see it.
There are two main schools or camps of practitioners of heathenism / neo-paganism.
There are two camps – naturist animists, and blood and soil White Power folks at war with each other.
If you meet someone with a Mjolnir pendant there is an 80% chance you met someone who is incredibly interesting and cool, or a 20% chance you met a Nazi. Or possibly just a blacksmith.
I hate Nazis.
You mean drivel, not dribble.
@James Joyner: @CSK:
How many more times do you calculate we can we nag him about the edit functions before he starts screaming all-caps f-bombs?
@Tom Parker:
You really, really need to see this link.
@Tom Parker:
Moving past the extreme hyperbole of “a million people” this underlying claim is flat out wrong. See this analysis from the National Review (a publication that isn’t known for a liberal bias):
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-there-were-not-95000-biden-only-ballots-in-georgia/
Beyond that, people voting for only the top position on a ballot is not at all particularly irregular in elections.
Again, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Paragraph breaks are easy.
Paragraphs marshal your argument.
An unbroken blob of text is not a sure sign, but it is a strong indicator of monomania.
@MarkedMan: @MarkedMan: Yea I can get kinda wordy but I didn’t count them. Thanks I’ll try to shorten up my comments. And I like how respectful you were to me. And you got a good point about me insulting MR but I’ve seen other people doing it and I thought it was ok to do it too. I just remembered him from the last time I was commenting here and have continued to read his comments as well. But I’m new here and I understand you taking up for him. I went back and re read what I wrote about him and made sure I didn’t get to far out of line. If I hurt his feelings he’ll let me know. He can get kinda wordy too. Thanks for the advice.
@Kathy:
You beat me to it.
@de stijl:
Welllikenotusingpunctuationmarksorseparatingwordsit’sasignofnot-give-a-crapism.
@de stijl:
Yep. Known quite a few neo-pagans of one sort or another. Used to be a crowd at The Plough pub in Worcester; and bloke I knew knew some of them from college.
More Celtic/wiccan types then Norse IIRC; remember one girl with really cool spiral tat upper arm 🙂
But, yeah, some mjolnir pendants also.
neo-nazis were not welcome there, to put it mildly.
Plus I’ve known wholly apolitical (and not specially pagan) bikers with Norse tats/amulets just because they rate as cool.
But all the same, mjolnir tats trigger my “cautious” switch till I know for sure.
Some very dodgy people have them.
@mattbernius: thanks for that, that was a useful article. Lying with numbers really gets my goat.
@Tom Parker:
How is it possible for Maine to continually go blue in presidential elections, yet re-electe Republican Susan Collins to the Senate for decades? Guess what – a lot of people split their ballots. In this election especially, it’s very possible that Republicans or right-leaning independents who dislike Trump voted for Biden but voted for Republicans down-ballot. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what James Joyner did. Also, a lot of people leave a lot of blanks on their ballots because they don’t always know who the candidates are. But everyone who votes typically knows who’s running for president.
Did you feel this way about all the investigations into Hillary Clinton and Bengazi? That money could have been used for education or healthcare or infrastructure too.
@Michael Reynolds: @Michael Reynolds: I just got finished replying to @MarkedMan about how I shouldn’t have insulted you. No thats just the way we talk over here I meant dribble but I know what drivel means too. I told him you could take up for yourself and your reply kinda proves both of us right.
@JohnSF: My bestie gave me a silver mjolnir pendant from Sweden back in my high school days. I wore it for years, but not anymore. Kind gave it on it when it became a standard item at Spencer’s Gifts.
@Monala: for Maine to frequently go blue.
@Dutchgirl:
Oh, heartless youth! Have you no sentiment? 🙂
For me, buying some something from Spencer’s Gifts (or UK-equivalent) would be a step up from my usual cheapo level. LOL
@Monala:
Massachusetts is the possibly the bluest state in the union, but it quite happily elects Republican governors: In the past thirty years, we’ve had Weld, Cellucci (not actually elected when he replaced Weld, but very well liked), Swift (also not elected; she replaced Cellucci), Romney, and now Baker.
Of course, as I’ve pointed out with tiresome frequency, a Massachusetts Republican is an entirely different breed of cat than is an Alabama Republican.
@mattbernius:I’m not going to split hairs here and do a research paper before I have a discussion on the internet. My questions are this do you think 95000 in Ga is an insignificant number?
If the roles were reversed would you accept 4 more years of Trump?
I’m willing to accept Biden but I think there are legitimate questions being asked by legitimate authorities and I think for Biden or Trump to claim victory and lead this country that they need to be transparently investigated.
10 State AG”s are questioning Pa results?
Federal Election Chairman raising questions about irregularities. I want answers to these concerns regardless of the outcome and you should too otherwise 70 million people are not going to accept the results of this election. If not why bother to vote just let them take turns driving the bus off a cliff while we argue.
@Tom Parker:
See, and because you couldn’t be bothered to do the reading, you are continuing to–out of apparent willful ignorance–spread a false statement. The base assumption that got to the 95,000 number is INCORRECT. That’s the problem.
So if you are so intellectually lazy to not consider any basic facts, why pray tell do you think you deserve to be taken seriously beyond the fact you are apparently an angry dude on the internet with no actual evidence beyond baseless conspiracy theories whose feel feels are apparently hurt because your candidate lost?
Why do you choose to repeat lies?
@Monala: As a matter of fact I did feel that way all the way back to Watergate, including but not limited too Bill Clinton
and all the other wasted time and resources on endless investigations since I started paying attention and nothing has ever been done of any consequence. I would support an investigation into this if I thought it would make a difference but it won’t just like the ones you mentioned and mine too.
This is not about Trump for me. I’m tired of seeing what has happened to us, this country, our citizens. I was promised a better country than the shell of what is left. Its not the Republicans Its not the Democrats, Its not Trump or any other flavor of the day. We have been driven apart and robbed while we were fighting against each other.
@Tom Parker:
Here’s where you and I differ. I don’t think there are legitimate questions being asked by legitimate authorities. The “evidence” brought to date by the Republicans have been all but laughed out of court. What I hear are the usual liars and lunatics (and no I don’t mean you or 99% of the people who voted Republican) such as Hannity and Ingraham and Trump and his toadies like Lindsey Graham spouting nonsense, their usual whining and working the refs.
If you’ve got actual legitimate questions from legitimate sources I’d be happy to change my mind.
It does great harm to the country to say, “We must put this process on hold and cast doubt on our very system of government” just to assuage this self aggrandizing buffoon who has lied about everything his entire life and never, not once, accepted that he failed at anything. In reality he has been a failure at everything he tries. Except “The Apprentice”. I’ll give you that. As an actor in a low budget reality TV show, he did better playing a billionaire than I would have thought possible.
@Tom Parker:
I hear you there, brother.
@Tom Parker:
OK. I don’t remember you. I’m sorry, but all my life I’ve had trouble remembering names. So I don’t know whether or not I insulted you, but I think we can agree that it’s certainly a possibility.
For the record I don’t think I’m the smartest person here, this is a smart room. There are people here who know actual stuff about things. And if you think I base my ego on money you’ve read the story backward. See, the origin story I’m working is ‘rags to riches’ with an added bit of criminality to keep it from being cliché. The essence of any rags to riches story is the lesson that money does not make the man or woman. Not original to me, Mr. Dickens beat me to it.
So, no, I’m not about money though I will admit to loving the fuck out of having money in a way that only a once-poor person would understand. And I don’t think I’m the smartest person in the room, though I am clever enough to hold my own. What I am is uneducated so sometimes I’ll come at something from a tangent, and sometimes I’m surprisingly right, and other times I’m predictably wrong, but either way I walk off with a bit of knowledge.
I want the truth because yes, I can handle the truth. I want to understand things. Everything I’m capable of understanding. Long ago I won an argument I should not have won, and it stuck with me. I realized I needed people who could push back with equal skill. That’s why I come here: I come here to be proven wrong. Then I can incorporate what I learn into my work, and just as importantly, I can go toe to toe with the two uncompromisingly prosecutorial, beat-me-to-the-ground geniuses I happen to be closely related to.
@de stijl: @de stijl:
I was reading comments from the bottom up and saw this and figured you were talking about me and then I saw Kathy was taking up with MR too.
I’ll admit I had to go look up monomania and I appreciate the paragraph writing tips. I forgot how strict you all are about spelling and sentence structure but you can tell MR I don’t write in all caps or drop F bombs unless I’m standing in front of you and you got it coming.
I just had some free time today and thought I would enjoy some civilized conversation with all of you.
If I’ve got to start writing in paragraphs and do indents and go looking up references I’ve probably already over stayed my welcome. But again thank you the advice and taking time to teach me the rules.
I don’t necessarily disagree with all of you but most of the time I’ve got something better to do.
I’m really serious though about we all need to learn to get along again. I can remember when people were nice to each other and agreed to disagree without all this nonsense and battle-lines. Our country is important to all of us and we need to find solutions that everyone can live with.
@JohnSF:
I knew a guy who seemed solid and decent. Gave me some great coffee beans – he was a roaster. Preferred to go by Tyr.
He wore a shirt. The design bugged me. I had seen that somewhere before.
I searched for iconography and found it. Obscure. But undeniable.
I told him that I figured out his shirt. Your less clever than you think you are.
I got no more coffee. He got no more pints when it was my round at the local.
I hate Nazis.
@mattbernius:
Your making a lot of assumptions. I got the 95000 from your post and asked you if you thought it was insignificant. Your assuming I’m angry. For the record I’m not. You’re assuming I have DJT syndrome and think he is our salvation. I don’t think that. You’re assuming that I won’t accept Biden as President but if he ends up with the EC votes he will be the President. With the Democrats poor down ballot performance I don’t think he will accomplish much. There are a lot of angry people on both sides and I think we all deserve answers instead of bickering against each other.
Boy, am I glad I dropped out of this thread.
@Michael Reynolds:
I told that other guy taking up for you that you could get wordy. I’ve been busy defending myself from a few others that seem to like you but I’ve been reading your comments for years cause I know you’re smart but I don’t think you can pull off humble. Be careful some of those people defending you can get right nasty. They are going to think you are getting soft. They are criticizing my sentence structure and I’m running spell check twice.
One of them give me homework and told me to go do research before I came back and I was just quoting a number in his comment. If you think you can piss people off I beat you to it today and I’ve been trying to be nice.
@Tom Parker:
Oh, dude, I’m not remotely humble – again, the rags to riches thing – and would never pretend to be. I’m honest.
@Michael Reynolds: I worked with a guy for a few years who, for some reason, couldn’t pronounce “drivel.” He always said “dribble” and used to write it that way, too.
My comment was no more germane to the discussion than yours, but it made an interesting story that might explain the usage beyond the parameters of “gotcha, spelling error guy; I win!”
@MarkedMan:
Now see thats what I’m talking about. You expressed yourself well without calling me names or trying insult me. Again you made the assumption that I think Trump is the answer or has the answers because I don’t. This countries problems didn’t start with Trump and I don’t think Biden can solve them either. If you’re looking for a politician that doesn’t lie tell me when you find him and I’ll come get you and drive you to the polls and we can both vote for him or her as the case may be. As far as legitimate questions I think if you are asking questions or I am asking them they are legitimate questions but we don’t have the power to get answers. The sources you mentioned have the power to be heard but have an agenda that it not necessarily in our best interest. The reason Trump won and Hillary lost is the same. Members of there own party have been in power to long and neither party has groomed younger candidates that represent the interest of the american voter. Hillary was long past her sell by date and so is Biden. Trump picked off the 17 best candidates that the Republicans had to offer before they realized he was a threat to the status quo. I voted for him because I didn’t like Hillary but I didn’t expect him to win not that I would changed my vote. I don’t think Trump expected to win but honestly it takes somebody like him to kick over the apple cart to get meaningful change. And it might take somebody like Biden to get everyone to care. He won’t unite us but maybe next time the Republicans will pick a better candidate that is moderate and the Democrats will do the same. In the meantime 4 more years of stupidity and fighting.
@OzarkHillbilly: Me, too. 😀
@Tom Parker: How do you explain the fact that Trump got 83 million more votes than Biden in Texas but there’s only 46 million people in the whole state? Numbers don’t lie my friend. Sure sounds fishy to me.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Jeez, me three.
“It’ll be a better day, tomorrow…”
@de stijl:
True. I’ve seen better quality prison tats.
@Scott O:
I don’t know where you got your numbers from but Texas only has a little under 17 million registered voters.
Trump got 5,866,019
Biden got 5,218,943
I expect your just messing with me cause you think I’m some ignorant xxxx, but it wouldn’t matter if I was. I still have a right to vote for who I want and why I want. That’s the problem I’m talking about everyone has an opinion and thinks everyone else is ignorant or wrong because they don’t agree. Well guess what.
The politicians figured it out and while we are fighting over which one can save us the politicians are stealing from all of us by cutting deals that enrich theirself. I’m not looking to prove you wrong or blame you or your preferred candidate. I didn’t come on here to insult anyone or have someone make fun of me because I misspelled a word or didn’t use paragraphs. If I screw up call me out but don’t put numbers in my mouth and laugh at me.
@Michael Reynolds:
I went back and reread the comments from yesterday and I guess I owe you an apology for calling you names and complaining about people calling me names. When you got all humble on me I got to feeling bad and realized you might not be such a bad guy after all. So I’m going to say I’m sorry for calling you names and hope we can let it go. You got a lot a people on here that like you and now they making fun of me and think I ain’t smart enough to know who they talking about. It doesn’t mater how smart I am cause I got a right to vote and express my opinion the same as them and if they don’t want to be respectful I don’t have to be but either. But I’m not going to be like that. I’m going to be nice because I’m preaching harmony. You got rags to riches and Im happy for you. Sense nobody else is using it I’m going to take Harmony and getting along. Or Hell I might go fishing on this golf course out back. Pisses the golfers off but I told them I bought a house on hole #2 cause it was close to the pond. I put a bunch of big ass fish in there and now I just catch and release.
@Tom Parker:
As far as I’m concerned whatever beef we had is over and done with.
Virtual handshake.
@Kathy:
Ok I took your advice and followed your link and read all of it including the History and the References.
It was an informative description of proper writing but was lacking examples.
My phone won’t let me do indentations. It keeps taking them out. Probably a setting but I don’t know how to change it. Maybe you do?
I caught on to your trick about skipping a line and if that is acceptable I will try to remember to do it that way.
I really appreciate the advice and I like the links you put in. Maybe you can teach me how to do that too.
I really enjoyed commenting with all of you yesterday and met a couple of people that were real nice and tolerant and have given me advice about the rules and what is acceptable.
I went back and apologized to MR for insulting him and I think we are all good now thanks to @MarkedMan for pointing out my contridictions.
If I can come back and talk politics with all of you
(I would prefer to say ya’ll but I understand the rules about grammer) I will try to abide by the rules and I appreciate the tips and giving me time to get up to speed. Tell that other fellow I doing the homework he give me but its going to take a little while. I’m falling behind on my regular news reading and the wife has control of the tv. She doesn’t like talking politics thats why I came here.
@Michael Reynolds:
That’s good to hear. I’ve apologized to you, made up with @markedman, read the link @Kathy sent me, and I’m working on the homework @mattbernius gave me before I come back to talk to him.
I just sent my wife to the dollar store to get me a notebook. Between all the rules and I can’t remember names either unless you owe me money I got to start writing this stuff down.
Maybe since we made up you can take up for me until I get up to speed.
I’ll give you “rags to riches” if I can have “Harmony and lets all get along”. But damn I may regret that with all the rules and research just to have a little conversation
@Michael Reynolds:
Hey I got a quick question. My wife says I shouldn’t be calling women “girls” and “that lady” just sounds to formal to me.
But I understand people have gotten particular over that kind of terminology. What is the rule over here about women?
I don’t want to offend anyone and want to show proper respect. Thanks
@MarkedMan:
You mentioned Lindsey Graham. I think he is a little light in the loafers.
He’s always barking and theatening to bite but nothing ever comes of it. How does he still keep getting elected? Talk about say one thing then do nothing.
@Tom Parker: Thanks for the polite reply. I have my facts and you have alternate facts. I think we can both agree that 87 million is a pretty big number.
I’m just a simple working guy, not a wealthy building contractor like you and Donald. I can’t even afford a gold plated toilet so I had to use gold spray paint on mine just like my Dad did when I was a kid. My brothers and I didn’t even know we were poor when we were growing up. Everyone in our neighborhood had to spray paint their toilet gold. That’s just the way things were back then then, people worked hard and got by. Now everyone wants to sit on their keister and wait for the Soros check to arrive.
I want to thank you for not calling me a moron even when I say moronic things. I’m not afraid to admit that I could be wrong. If you think Trump got only 5,866,019 illegal votes in Texas I respect your opinion.
@Scott O:
Hey Scott sorry to hear about your hard upbringing and I think you are jerking my chain but I’ll play along cause you was the only one that wanted to talk to me while I’m learning the rules over here.
Yea I’ll agree 87 million is a big number especially if its in dollars. But I sure hope you don’t think Trump got that many votes. I got the numbers I quoted from a google state data base search. I wont swear to their accuracy in court but they are close enough for this discussion and I’ll be happy to go look at yours if you’ll provide a link like that nice lady@Kathy did for me on how to use paragraphs to make it easier to read these long posts.
And for the record I don’t think Donald Trump or Joe Biden got 5,866,019 illegal votes but I think its safe to say that both of them did get some number of questionable votes and the american voters deserve honest answers about this election. If Biden won I will accept him as my President
and give him a fair chance to run this country. If he does a fair job(I don’t even require good) I’ll say I like him. If not I hope there is someone I like better in 2024. Right now I think Pence is a fairly decent possibly. I voted for Obama and didn’t like him but thought he was better than McCain or Romney. I still don’t like Obama but thats a different discussion.
As far as growing up poor (and I think your being a smartass and it diminishes your argument)my moma grew up in a house with no plumbing and paid her own way thru college by driving a school bus and working
2nd shift in the mill while she was in high school.
I spent summers at my grandmothers and got my ass whipped with a hickory branch for peeing off the back porch cause I was afraid to walk all the way to the outhouse with a flashlight at night. And I wasn’t scared of no bogeyman I was afraid of a critter like a black bear or that damn 30lb raccoon that kept getting the chickens and the eggs. And if you think I’m lying Iyll send you a picture of the outhouse and I think my Cousin killed that raccoon and mounted it. I’ll check and get back too you on that one. He’s killed a lot of critters and might not remember but I do.