Big Picture American Politics

[Psy-Fi]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Blasts DNC's 'Rigged Process,' Slams Biden In New Forbes Interview

[Jwb]

I don't see what Gore actually did wrong.  That election result in Florida was an absolute mess.  He would have been an idiot to just concede at that point.  But the Supreme court effectively ruled on Dec 12th and he conceded on the 13th. I see absolutely no problem with that.  If that's what had happened with Trump,  we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

As for Clinton,  she also conceded but she was also a sore loser who was willing to blame everything from sexism to Russian interference for her loss, rather than accept what an unlikable reptilian slogan-bot she actually is. And there were other democrats willing to extend her that coverage as well.

Is that bad for democracy? Sure.  Is it anywhere even remotely in the ball park of Jan 6th? Not at all. She never actually leveraged that to try to seize power. That is the critical difference. 

Like this is the point I think your both sides rhetoric clearly misses: you can absolutely say you think the election was stolen and the president is illegitimate. Or you can spend 2 years saying the president is illegitimate because he was actually born in another country.  Which is how Trump launched his political career. These things are clearly cynical attempts at misinforming voters to scare them into voting a certain way.  But they aren't outside the bounds of the way our system actually works.  They aren't just technically legal.  There is no way to clamp down on that sort of thing without clamping down on free speech.

Even if you want to say it adds to the polarization which leads to things like Jan 6th, you can't treat these individuals like children without autonomy. The existence of inflammatory rhetoric on the other side doesn't justify a coup attempt. If that is the kind of escalating force we are going to apply then what should the dem response to Jan 6th be? Maybe they should gather up a bunch of green haired weirdos and go storm the capital with guns this time? And just start executing politicians right? I mean if they did so obviously it would be Trump's fault for laying the ground work and not their fault for actually picking up guns and trying to take over the country, right?

[Psy-Fi]

Think Things Are Bad Now? Just Wait, Says Chris Hedges

[Nimbly9]

Maybe they should gather up a bunch of green haired weirdos and go storm the capital with guns this time? And just start executing politicians right? I mean if they did so obviously it would be Trump's fault for laying the ground work and not their fault for actually picking up guns and trying to take over the country, right?

If such a thing did actually happen, you can bet your mama's britches that Trump would certainly be blamed in that particular case.

I'm not saying I have a wonderful answer to the problem that is our country's polarizations - I'm just saying that it started way earlier than Trump and even before the advent of social media.  I personally think it was wrong for Gore to say he wasn't going to concede when there was no actual proof that the results were actually wrong.  I know the whole story and it didn't need to go to the Supreme Court.  If social media had existed back then and things had been a little bit different, there's no telling what kind of rioting would have occurred.  The only reason things weren't worse back then is because everyone and their grandma couldn't get onto the digital public square and tell their people to march on the capitol to protest the Supreme Court on December 8th or w/e date you want to dream up.  It was a simpler time.

[Jwb]

That's all you got? The libs would blame Trump? Who gives a fuck. The point is he's responsible for what he did and Clinton is responsible for what she did.  And if Biden leads the green haired rebellion in 24 then he'll be responsible for that. That's how it works. You endlessly infantilize Trump and his followers yet hold the democrats inadvertently responsible for Trump's actions.  And that's centrism? What am I missing here?

[Nimbly9]

That's all you got? The libs would blame Trump? Who gives a fuck. The point is he's responsible for what he did and Clinton is responsible for what she did.  And if Biden leads the green haired rebellion in 24 then he'll be responsible for that. That's how it works. You endlessly infantilize Trump and his followers yet hold the democrats inadvertently responsible for Trump's actions.  And that's centrism? What am I missing here?

I'm saying if the Dems did blame him after they rioted, I'd totally get it cause history is always written by the victors.

Also, if you really want to be technical about it, Democrats actually are more than inadvertedly responsible.  Trump literally wouldn't have run and won if Obama hadn't tried to make an example out of him at the WH correspondents dinner.  And Clinton would have won if she had shown anything but utter disdain for both poor and middle class America.  Some people even speculate today that Bernie could have won both 2016 and 2020 (since he would have definitely run for re-election).

[Jwb]

If such a thing did actually happen, you can bet your mama's britches that Trump would certainly be blamed in that particular case.

I'm not saying I have a wonderful answer to the problem that is our country's polarizations - I'm just saying that it started way earlier than Trump and even before the advent of social media.  I personally think it was wrong for Gore to say he wasn't going to concede when there was no actual proof that the results were actually wrong.  I know the whole story and it didn't need to go to the Supreme Court.  If social media had existed back then and things had been a little bit different, there's no telling what kind of rioting would have occurred.  The only reason things weren't worse back then is because everyone and their grandma couldn't get onto the digital public square and tell their people to march on the capitol to protest the Supreme Court on December 8th or w/e date you want to dream up.  It was a simpler time.

what are you talking about? They were doing recounts which is why he retracted his concession. It wasn't clear he actually lost.  The margins were in the literally hundreds of votes.  He had every reason to try to get a recount. And when his legal options ran out,  he conceded.  That's exactly how it is supposed to work.  You're sitting here pearl clutching about someone legitimately contesting an election result while simultaneously running cover for a guy who literally tried to steal the election.

[Nimbly9]

what are you talking about? They were doing recounts which is why he retracted his concession. It wasn't clear he actually lost.  The margins were in the literally hundreds of votes.  He had every reason to try to get a recount. And when his legal options ran out,  he conceded.  That's exactly how it is supposed to work.  You're sitting here pearl clutching about someone legitimately contesting an election result while simultaneously running cover for a guy who literally tried to steal the election.

I thought we already established that Trump had no way to actually steal an election? Him yelling on social media for months about rigged elections and then riling people up is well within the bounds of free speech, no?  Clinton published a book whining about how bad and illegitimate he was - is that future election interference?

The best case you can make against Trump is the fake electors scheme thing, so if that's their boat I'd tell them to keep rowing in it.  It's literally their best shot besides the 14th Amendment argument.

[Jwb]

If that's what you thought we established then I would say you are not comprehending much of what I am saying, my friend.


We established that he didn't succeed at stealing the election. I laid out why I thought he did at the very least try to do so in a lengthy post and you responded to me with a tangent about AI. So yeah.

[Nimbly9]

If that's what you thought we established then I would say you are not comprehending much of what I am saying, my friend.


We established that he didn't succeed at stealing the election. I laid out why I thought he did at the very least try to do so in a lengthy post and you responded to me with a tangent about AI. So yeah.

Lol we talked about it in multiple posts after that.

[Jwb]

I've consistently said I thought he tried to steal the election.

[Nimbly9]

Well as far as Gore goes, I was curious so I asked an AI what critics thought about it at the time. 

critics argue that Gore's decision to retract his concession prolonged the uncertainty and exacerbated divisions in the country. They contend that he should have accepted the initial results and respected the democratic process, even if he had concerns about the accuracy of the vote count.

So there ya go.  And you know what? We've had trouble with every modern election cycle since then.  Although they didn't get a lot of traction at the time, there were people who tried to contest Obama's 2012 win too. Will all this kinda stuff go away once Trump goes to jail? One can only hope.

[Jwb]

Bruh really? Critics being the Republicans lol.  What do you honestly think Bush or anyone else would have done in the same position? That seems like such a reach for you to appeal to an AI saying "exacerbated divisions." I don't even disagree that it did, but so does every fuckin political controversy ever.

Honestly I don't know how long you've been in this country or if you remember being around in this era but in the aftermath of the gore vs bush thing,  after the election happened,  everyone moved the fuck on shortly afterwards. And then 9/11 happened and for a short period we were more united than ever.  Eventually the war in Iraq is what lead to the unpopularity of Bush on the left.  Far more so than the election which democrats did occasionally trot out as a talking point but it was far from the main grievances people had against the Bush administration

And tbh people were even more animated over Obama and then even more animated over Trump.  But there are a lot of reasons for that.  Virtually every relevant political force has been pushing things that way, it's not even restricted to people not trusting the elections.  They don't trust anything.  Facts are no longer that relevant.  Online propaganda from every direction has people swamped with more legit information and more misinformation than they can ever hope to sift through.  So that's a big part of why I think our institutions are falling apart.  We underestimated the extent to which they relied on a corporate media structure with the kind of  establishment Overton window that makes washington comfortable.  The internet has destroyed that stability.

[Nimbly9]

Bruh really? Critics being the Republicans lol.  What do you honestly think Bush or anyone else would have done in the same position? That seems like such a reach for you to appeal to an AI saying "exacerbated divisions." I don't even disagree that it did, but so does every fuckin political controversy ever.

Honestly I don't know how long you've been in this country or if you remember being around in this era but in the aftermath of the gore vs bush thing,  after the election happened,  everyone moved the fuck on shortly afterwards. And then 9/11 happened and for a short period we were more united than ever.  Eventually the war in Iraq is what lead to the unpopularity of Bush on the left.  Far more so than the election which democrats did occasionally trot out as a talking point but it was far from the main grievances people had against the Bush administration

And tbh people were even more animated over Obama and then even more animated over Trump.  But there are a lot of reasons for that.  Virtually every relevant political force has been pushing things that way, it's not even restricted to people not trusting the elections.  They don't trust anything.  Facts are no longer that relevant.  Online propaganda from every direction has people swamped with more legit information and more misinformation than they can ever hope to sift through.  So that's a big part of why I think our institutions are falling apart.  We underestimated the extent to which they relied on a corporate media structure with the kind of  establishment Overton window that makes washington comfortable.  The internet has destroyed that stability.

I don't disagree with any of that. Question is, what is it going to take to rebuild people's trust in institutions? Taxing the rich and redistributing that wealth to Americans is something that comes up a lot, but that's just a big Band-Aid.

[Jwb]

I don't have an answer to that question. In my mind there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.  But that could be a lack of imagination on my part.  But I think we are headed to a dark place.