Denying the outcome of elections has become alarmingly popular these days. In one corner, Democrats are claiming that gerrymandering has made our elections illegitimate, that the Senate is anti-Democratic and so is the Supreme Court. The White House Press Secretary has claimed that Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.
I was a little confused about this episode. You had a round table of non-republicans trying to figure out what republicans are thinking? Why don’t you ask republicans? Also, the whole table giggling at jokes about how “crazy” or “stupid” a candidate is, by extension, makes the person who voted for them feel that you also think they are both “crazy” and “stupid.” I’m neither D nor R, but I can easily see that. I don’t know why reporters can’t seem to understand why people don’t trust them. Try being kind, you never know, it might work.
There are two general categories of "stolen election" claims, and we do ourselves a disservice by conflating them.
The first is the sort advanced by Democrats in 2000: A claim that vote counting was illegitimate. People voted illegally or legal votes weren't counted, or the counters counted wrong, or ballots were confusing. Something like that.
The second is the sort advanced by Democrats in 2016: That voters were misinformed and voted contrary to how they would have voted if they were better informed.
There are a host of reasons to be concerned about both types of impropriety in 2020. Election laws were changed (often substantially) by illegal processes (not legislative action) in ways that plainly made elections less secure, and afterwards those who approved of the results copy-pasted "Most secure election ever" into their social media feeds even as downtown areas removed the boards from their windows that had been installed over fears of those same people rioting in the event of the opposite result. The thing about wrecking ballot chain-of-custody is that it creates unfalsifiability around legitimacy concerns. There is no evidence that a given ballot is legitimate and no evidence that it is illegitimate, so the question of overall legitimacy depends on who the burden of proof is placed on. Not coincidentally, in the case of the 2020 election, the party that has advanced "guilty until proven innocent" in a host of other areas has decided that "innocent until proven guilty" must still apply to election fraud allegations.
The "misinformation" concern is harder to refute, in that the same people who declared that $40,000 in Facebook ad spend by a handful of Russians swung the entire 2016 election are now insisting that there was nothing wrong with a coordinated institutional suppression of a slew of unflattering stories about Joe Biden, the most prominent of which involved his son Hunter's activities. Institutions also regularly flagrantly lied about news stories and declared true statements by the incumbent president to be lies (for example, "We'll have a vaccine by the end of the year (2020)" was regularly "fact-checked" as false for contradicting the "expert consensus" that there would be no vaccine until late 2021).
What is sad is that those complaining about illegitimate voting process changes, lack of ballot chain-of-custody, and institutional disinformation are all lumped together by Democrats with the most extreme "massive proven ballot fraud" allegations and wrapped in a "JANUARY SIXTH!!!!" bow as part of a politically-understandable but terribly immoral effort to dismiss them all completely. This is going to have serious long-term ramifications.
One would be fair to have another roundtable asking the same questions about the Democratic Party. After all, lawmakers in that party have proposed legislation to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College, and change the US Senate.
Jonah Goldberg...ugh. I've met him. He is funny, but he is an establishment Republican and an elitist. He has more in common with Democrats than he has with the modern working class that is taking over the GOP.
There is no evidence that Joe Biden would have lost the election, but there is lots of evidence that the election was not fair.
Here are the final two paragraphs from this story:
"From the perspective of Trump’s supporters, the entrenched bureaucracy and security state subverted their populist president from day one. The natural guardrails of the Fourth Estate were removed because the press was part of the operation. Election rules were changed in an unconstitutional manner that could only be challenged after the deed was done, when judges and officials would be playing chicken with a direct threat of burning cities. Political violence was legitimized and encouraged. Major newspapers and sitting presidents were banned from social media, while the opposition enjoyed free rein to promote stories that were discredited once it was too late to matter. Conservatives put these things together and concluded that, whatever happened on November 3, 2020, it was not a free and fair democratic election in any sense that would have had meaning before Donald J. Trump was a candidate.
Trump supporters were led down some rabbit holes. But they are absolutely right that the institutions and power centers of this country have been monopolized by a Regime that believes they are beneath representation, and will observe no limits to prevent them getting it. I encourage people on the Left to recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of them. You’re not going to agree with the conservatives on everything. But if in 2004 I had told you that the majority of the GOP voter base would soon be seeing the folly of the Iraq War, becoming skeptical of state surveillance, and beginning to see the need for action to help the poor and working classes, you’d have told me such a thing would transform the country. Take the opportunity. These people are not demons, and they are ready to listen in a way they haven’t in a long, long time."
I thought this was a decent roundtable with a more left/Democrat leaning panel than I would have preferred, but thought Jonah Goldberg brought the most level-headed arguments to the table.
I personally think the most egregious contributor to the "election denial" subject is the media, and when I heard there was a reporter from the NYT on the panel, I knew there wouldn't be a fair introspection of the media's role in this whole charade. I just want to point out that the viral Twitter thread from Daryl Cooper (@martyrmade) from July 8th, 2021, captured the general feeling and mood of this whole topic, and for it not to be discussed on this panel is a little bizarre IMHO. https://twitter.com/martyrmade/status/1413165168956088321?s=20&t=i_YN2X6EobzyDmbKeDXD1A
I honestly think most people have moved on with their lives in terms of "election denial" and the only reason people are STILL talking about it is the Jan. 6th production that is dragging on and on and on. Enough already, let us move on with our lives!
Bari, I enjoyed this podcast and thought maybe i could correct a few things. I was a delegate to the Texas GOP convention and witnessed some of the things you mentioned. The "eye-patch mccain" guy was tackled by other attendees and his opinions were not at all shared by other attendees; he's just some jerk that enjoys recording himself being obnoxious around politicians - he did the same thing during Ted Cruz's speech, the audience was yelling at him to shutup and when he did, the Senator said "aren't you proud we have the first amendment?". Crenshaw is actually a nice person, a conservative, and not a RINO as obnoxious man said.
As far as the "Stop the Steal" resolution, imagine a room of 2500-3000 of the reddest of the red and someone works their way to a microphone and makes a motion to "Stop the Steal". Their friend takes the mic and says "I second the motion and move for a vote". The chairman of the convention repeats the motion and calls for voting by voice vote - "All in favor say Aye! Those opposed say "Nay" - The Ayes had it, but not by a lot. People tend to portray it as if it was legislation, but it's actually just a roomful of people venting their frustration because their opinions are generally derided and ridiculed by the professional classes.
Whether or not the 2020 election was stolen, the Dem move to institutionalize all the loose voting practices is going to be hell to pay. Every election will lack credibility, every candidate a fraud.
Courts in WI and PA just determined that the 2020 elections in their states were held in violation of state laws. The 2020 elections were administered in many districts by privately funded organizations with a vested interest in the outcome (Zuck-bucks), and there are numerous reported, ahem, irregularities in those districts: like trucks of ballots being delivered at midnight and being, ahem, counted while blocking the view of observers. The US cybersecurity office has recently announced that the voting machines, which were used in areas where, ahem, dramatic vote tally changes occurred, can be hacked. (But trust us, they haven't been hacked.)
The Russia hoax has been proven to be fraudulent and, in fact, those making accusations were involved in the behavior they accuse Trump of.
So, on one hand you have evidence and on the other hand you have claims that have been proven false.
If the 2020 elections were as secure, fair, and transparent as Dems say they are, why are the Dems pushing so damn hard for election reform ("let us count the votes, trust us").
I am honestly on the fence overall about the 2020 election. There were some things that felt strange including the projections when I went to bed late vs what was shown the next morning. Some of the practices that went on during the cycle (ballot harvesting for one) and the lack of Id requirements in some places along with same day registration lead to a lack of faith in the process. Having said that what Big Tech did (and said they would do) along with the MSM (which is an arm of the Left really) skewed the results by their actions. Hunter’s laptop from hell is just one example. News media and individuals talking about the story were banned from SM and the rest of us were told nothing to see here folks just Russian Disinformation.
The truth is that both of those groups hate Trump to his core and have for years, hated his policies and continue to hate his voters besmirching them as being racist, dumb and even fascists. Does anyone think that using such inflammatory rhetoric is a good idea when nearly half of the electorate supports him or his policies?
The problem the country faces is the loss of credibility of the old media outlets (the networks, cnn, nytimes, washpost, msnbc, etc). It takes time for people to understand that most if not nearly all journalists of integrity have left the old media and are working on sites like substack, and via podcasts. It is probably already true however that 18 months later, more people are now getting their news from the new sources than from the old media. The Greenwalds and the Rogans and Kirks and Weisses and the Taibbis, are generating enormous box office, at the direct expense of the old media.
The old outlets were caught lying so often, and so flagrantly, that people have simply stopped watching them. You can't tell the country that the President is a traitor, as CNN and MSNBC did for years; or that he used foreign aid for personal reasons, while video of Biden clearly using foreign aid for personal reasons is ignored and even publicly buried; or that capital policeman Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher and then somehow not follow up on the biggest story in the world for months, only to then announce... "oh, that never occurred at all." Seriously? You couldn't find out about the biggest story on Earth? For months? "Mostly Peaceful Demonstrations" and "Let's Go Brandon" became memes of global proportions. Then censorship started around C19 and that was the last straw. These were such flagrant violations of the most bedrock, fundamental American sensibilities that yeah..... people turned off those outlets and never went back.
So when people saw the flagrant inconsistencies and unprecedented events happening before their eyes, and the same media that said "The President is a traitor," "Sicknick was bludgeoned," "Ukraine aid was an illegal act," "Smollett is innocent and so is Foxx, and you have to believe it or you're a racist,""Ritterhouse murdered innocent protestors"............... when that media said 'this is the most secure election in history" they simply were not to be believed.
People no longer believe the old media, because the old media lied in their faces for too long. Once people determine someone is a liar, the people turn away - always. And the exposed liar can never regain their standing in society.
Ratings are only one method of learning this, although they are indeed unbelievably low. Have some general conversations with people you know, not just your friends but associates, and you will find a broad shift to the new media outlets has already occurred. It will only accelerate.
No one talks about how the write in ballot affected election integrity. It is not the fact that the election was lost it was the fact that the secret ballot is non-existent when one cast a absentee ballot. In fact, the right to lie about an election choice is inherent as part of our democratic processWhen one ballot is subject to family criticism ie when a spose looking at a the ballot, that right to lie has been tampered with. How many politicians who lost elections tell you that everyone on the street voted for them when in fact no one did.
I could only stomach 45 minutes because I am desperately trying to branch out from only listening to be Shapiro.This was not a round table at all, just a collection of snobs agreeing with each other. Bogus and boring
At the 13 minute point, one speaker says that Republicans did not make any serious objections to changes in voting procedures, like the ones in PA, before the election. This is nonsense. I was reading lots of complaints about this. I was also reading how frustrated many of us on the right were at how our side was not objecting enough to these changes.
This is wrong. I will assume the speaker is just ignorant. I find it frustrating that he dismisses these complaints so easily. Screw him.
I gave Jonah over ten years of time and purchased his wonderful "Liberal Fascism" only to find out he turned on the one guy who actually did what NRO preached for decades. I am paying for Bari and refuse to give NRO, Bulwark, Dispatch a dime for a reason - she stands for something. Jonah has 20 year wars on his resume'. As someone who has been to war for this country it isn't a good thing.
Trump gained 12M votes and 'lost'. Right. Molly Ball at Time told us so. Common sense, pun intended. Doing my part becoming and election judge.
Bari - You would be better served including Michael Anton, Chris Buskirk, Roger Kimball, or Ned Ryun in discussions such as this. Respectfully.
I have yet to see any evidence that mail-in votes were verified. I think that there was massive fraud and the election was stolen. In a battle between the Party Of Evil and the Party Of Stupid the result was predictable once fraud was facilitated and not checked. America now has a President who is obviously cognitively impaired. The damage continues apace.
Denying elections is very en vogue right now. Along with referring to someone as a “science denier”. Both are done by both political parties which makes the finger pointing all the more amusing.
I was a little confused about this episode. You had a round table of non-republicans trying to figure out what republicans are thinking? Why don’t you ask republicans? Also, the whole table giggling at jokes about how “crazy” or “stupid” a candidate is, by extension, makes the person who voted for them feel that you also think they are both “crazy” and “stupid.” I’m neither D nor R, but I can easily see that. I don’t know why reporters can’t seem to understand why people don’t trust them. Try being kind, you never know, it might work.
There are two general categories of "stolen election" claims, and we do ourselves a disservice by conflating them.
The first is the sort advanced by Democrats in 2000: A claim that vote counting was illegitimate. People voted illegally or legal votes weren't counted, or the counters counted wrong, or ballots were confusing. Something like that.
The second is the sort advanced by Democrats in 2016: That voters were misinformed and voted contrary to how they would have voted if they were better informed.
There are a host of reasons to be concerned about both types of impropriety in 2020. Election laws were changed (often substantially) by illegal processes (not legislative action) in ways that plainly made elections less secure, and afterwards those who approved of the results copy-pasted "Most secure election ever" into their social media feeds even as downtown areas removed the boards from their windows that had been installed over fears of those same people rioting in the event of the opposite result. The thing about wrecking ballot chain-of-custody is that it creates unfalsifiability around legitimacy concerns. There is no evidence that a given ballot is legitimate and no evidence that it is illegitimate, so the question of overall legitimacy depends on who the burden of proof is placed on. Not coincidentally, in the case of the 2020 election, the party that has advanced "guilty until proven innocent" in a host of other areas has decided that "innocent until proven guilty" must still apply to election fraud allegations.
The "misinformation" concern is harder to refute, in that the same people who declared that $40,000 in Facebook ad spend by a handful of Russians swung the entire 2016 election are now insisting that there was nothing wrong with a coordinated institutional suppression of a slew of unflattering stories about Joe Biden, the most prominent of which involved his son Hunter's activities. Institutions also regularly flagrantly lied about news stories and declared true statements by the incumbent president to be lies (for example, "We'll have a vaccine by the end of the year (2020)" was regularly "fact-checked" as false for contradicting the "expert consensus" that there would be no vaccine until late 2021).
What is sad is that those complaining about illegitimate voting process changes, lack of ballot chain-of-custody, and institutional disinformation are all lumped together by Democrats with the most extreme "massive proven ballot fraud" allegations and wrapped in a "JANUARY SIXTH!!!!" bow as part of a politically-understandable but terribly immoral effort to dismiss them all completely. This is going to have serious long-term ramifications.
One would be fair to have another roundtable asking the same questions about the Democratic Party. After all, lawmakers in that party have proposed legislation to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College, and change the US Senate.
Jonah Goldberg...ugh. I've met him. He is funny, but he is an establishment Republican and an elitist. He has more in common with Democrats than he has with the modern working class that is taking over the GOP.
There is no evidence that Joe Biden would have lost the election, but there is lots of evidence that the election was not fair.
https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/author-of-the-mega-viral-thread-on
Here are the final two paragraphs from this story:
"From the perspective of Trump’s supporters, the entrenched bureaucracy and security state subverted their populist president from day one. The natural guardrails of the Fourth Estate were removed because the press was part of the operation. Election rules were changed in an unconstitutional manner that could only be challenged after the deed was done, when judges and officials would be playing chicken with a direct threat of burning cities. Political violence was legitimized and encouraged. Major newspapers and sitting presidents were banned from social media, while the opposition enjoyed free rein to promote stories that were discredited once it was too late to matter. Conservatives put these things together and concluded that, whatever happened on November 3, 2020, it was not a free and fair democratic election in any sense that would have had meaning before Donald J. Trump was a candidate.
Trump supporters were led down some rabbit holes. But they are absolutely right that the institutions and power centers of this country have been monopolized by a Regime that believes they are beneath representation, and will observe no limits to prevent them getting it. I encourage people on the Left to recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of them. You’re not going to agree with the conservatives on everything. But if in 2004 I had told you that the majority of the GOP voter base would soon be seeing the folly of the Iraq War, becoming skeptical of state surveillance, and beginning to see the need for action to help the poor and working classes, you’d have told me such a thing would transform the country. Take the opportunity. These people are not demons, and they are ready to listen in a way they haven’t in a long, long time."
I thought this was a decent roundtable with a more left/Democrat leaning panel than I would have preferred, but thought Jonah Goldberg brought the most level-headed arguments to the table.
I personally think the most egregious contributor to the "election denial" subject is the media, and when I heard there was a reporter from the NYT on the panel, I knew there wouldn't be a fair introspection of the media's role in this whole charade. I just want to point out that the viral Twitter thread from Daryl Cooper (@martyrmade) from July 8th, 2021, captured the general feeling and mood of this whole topic, and for it not to be discussed on this panel is a little bizarre IMHO. https://twitter.com/martyrmade/status/1413165168956088321?s=20&t=i_YN2X6EobzyDmbKeDXD1A
I honestly think most people have moved on with their lives in terms of "election denial" and the only reason people are STILL talking about it is the Jan. 6th production that is dragging on and on and on. Enough already, let us move on with our lives!
Bari, I enjoyed this podcast and thought maybe i could correct a few things. I was a delegate to the Texas GOP convention and witnessed some of the things you mentioned. The "eye-patch mccain" guy was tackled by other attendees and his opinions were not at all shared by other attendees; he's just some jerk that enjoys recording himself being obnoxious around politicians - he did the same thing during Ted Cruz's speech, the audience was yelling at him to shutup and when he did, the Senator said "aren't you proud we have the first amendment?". Crenshaw is actually a nice person, a conservative, and not a RINO as obnoxious man said.
As far as the "Stop the Steal" resolution, imagine a room of 2500-3000 of the reddest of the red and someone works their way to a microphone and makes a motion to "Stop the Steal". Their friend takes the mic and says "I second the motion and move for a vote". The chairman of the convention repeats the motion and calls for voting by voice vote - "All in favor say Aye! Those opposed say "Nay" - The Ayes had it, but not by a lot. People tend to portray it as if it was legislation, but it's actually just a roomful of people venting their frustration because their opinions are generally derided and ridiculed by the professional classes.
Whether or not the 2020 election was stolen, the Dem move to institutionalize all the loose voting practices is going to be hell to pay. Every election will lack credibility, every candidate a fraud.
Disappointing episode.
The wrong panel to honestly probe this topic.
Mischaracterizations of positions and actual falsehoods.
Perhaps if there were only a single person that actually believed the election was sus.
This was Bari vs the “balanced” panel.
Courts in WI and PA just determined that the 2020 elections in their states were held in violation of state laws. The 2020 elections were administered in many districts by privately funded organizations with a vested interest in the outcome (Zuck-bucks), and there are numerous reported, ahem, irregularities in those districts: like trucks of ballots being delivered at midnight and being, ahem, counted while blocking the view of observers. The US cybersecurity office has recently announced that the voting machines, which were used in areas where, ahem, dramatic vote tally changes occurred, can be hacked. (But trust us, they haven't been hacked.)
The Russia hoax has been proven to be fraudulent and, in fact, those making accusations were involved in the behavior they accuse Trump of.
So, on one hand you have evidence and on the other hand you have claims that have been proven false.
If the 2020 elections were as secure, fair, and transparent as Dems say they are, why are the Dems pushing so damn hard for election reform ("let us count the votes, trust us").
I no longer trust election integrity.
I am honestly on the fence overall about the 2020 election. There were some things that felt strange including the projections when I went to bed late vs what was shown the next morning. Some of the practices that went on during the cycle (ballot harvesting for one) and the lack of Id requirements in some places along with same day registration lead to a lack of faith in the process. Having said that what Big Tech did (and said they would do) along with the MSM (which is an arm of the Left really) skewed the results by their actions. Hunter’s laptop from hell is just one example. News media and individuals talking about the story were banned from SM and the rest of us were told nothing to see here folks just Russian Disinformation.
The truth is that both of those groups hate Trump to his core and have for years, hated his policies and continue to hate his voters besmirching them as being racist, dumb and even fascists. Does anyone think that using such inflammatory rhetoric is a good idea when nearly half of the electorate supports him or his policies?
The problem the country faces is the loss of credibility of the old media outlets (the networks, cnn, nytimes, washpost, msnbc, etc). It takes time for people to understand that most if not nearly all journalists of integrity have left the old media and are working on sites like substack, and via podcasts. It is probably already true however that 18 months later, more people are now getting their news from the new sources than from the old media. The Greenwalds and the Rogans and Kirks and Weisses and the Taibbis, are generating enormous box office, at the direct expense of the old media.
The old outlets were caught lying so often, and so flagrantly, that people have simply stopped watching them. You can't tell the country that the President is a traitor, as CNN and MSNBC did for years; or that he used foreign aid for personal reasons, while video of Biden clearly using foreign aid for personal reasons is ignored and even publicly buried; or that capital policeman Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher and then somehow not follow up on the biggest story in the world for months, only to then announce... "oh, that never occurred at all." Seriously? You couldn't find out about the biggest story on Earth? For months? "Mostly Peaceful Demonstrations" and "Let's Go Brandon" became memes of global proportions. Then censorship started around C19 and that was the last straw. These were such flagrant violations of the most bedrock, fundamental American sensibilities that yeah..... people turned off those outlets and never went back.
So when people saw the flagrant inconsistencies and unprecedented events happening before their eyes, and the same media that said "The President is a traitor," "Sicknick was bludgeoned," "Ukraine aid was an illegal act," "Smollett is innocent and so is Foxx, and you have to believe it or you're a racist,""Ritterhouse murdered innocent protestors"............... when that media said 'this is the most secure election in history" they simply were not to be believed.
People no longer believe the old media, because the old media lied in their faces for too long. Once people determine someone is a liar, the people turn away - always. And the exposed liar can never regain their standing in society.
Ratings are only one method of learning this, although they are indeed unbelievably low. Have some general conversations with people you know, not just your friends but associates, and you will find a broad shift to the new media outlets has already occurred. It will only accelerate.
No one talks about how the write in ballot affected election integrity. It is not the fact that the election was lost it was the fact that the secret ballot is non-existent when one cast a absentee ballot. In fact, the right to lie about an election choice is inherent as part of our democratic processWhen one ballot is subject to family criticism ie when a spose looking at a the ballot, that right to lie has been tampered with. How many politicians who lost elections tell you that everyone on the street voted for them when in fact no one did.
I could only stomach 45 minutes because I am desperately trying to branch out from only listening to be Shapiro.This was not a round table at all, just a collection of snobs agreeing with each other. Bogus and boring
Why bother
At the 13 minute point, one speaker says that Republicans did not make any serious objections to changes in voting procedures, like the ones in PA, before the election. This is nonsense. I was reading lots of complaints about this. I was also reading how frustrated many of us on the right were at how our side was not objecting enough to these changes.
This is wrong. I will assume the speaker is just ignorant. I find it frustrating that he dismisses these complaints so easily. Screw him.
I gave Jonah over ten years of time and purchased his wonderful "Liberal Fascism" only to find out he turned on the one guy who actually did what NRO preached for decades. I am paying for Bari and refuse to give NRO, Bulwark, Dispatch a dime for a reason - she stands for something. Jonah has 20 year wars on his resume'. As someone who has been to war for this country it isn't a good thing.
Trump gained 12M votes and 'lost'. Right. Molly Ball at Time told us so. Common sense, pun intended. Doing my part becoming and election judge.
Bari - You would be better served including Michael Anton, Chris Buskirk, Roger Kimball, or Ned Ryun in discussions such as this. Respectfully.
I have yet to see any evidence that mail-in votes were verified. I think that there was massive fraud and the election was stolen. In a battle between the Party Of Evil and the Party Of Stupid the result was predictable once fraud was facilitated and not checked. America now has a President who is obviously cognitively impaired. The damage continues apace.
Denying elections is very en vogue right now. Along with referring to someone as a “science denier”. Both are done by both political parties which makes the finger pointing all the more amusing.