Election 2020 Election 2020: It's (almost) over! (maybe...possibly...ahh who are we kidding, it's 2020!)

[Unhappy Anchovy]

The vast majority of those I've ever seen fall into one of the 3 categories I've mentioned above. I want to see actual Trump lies, not statements that the incestuous media industry has chosen to spin into lies.

Sure, some of those are matters of interpretation. But I submit that a lot of them are objective and verifiable.

Trump said that Biden would ban all fracking. Biden did not say that he would ban all fracking; he said that he would not expand fracking on federal land. Trump said that he appointed 'about 300' federal judges; he actually appointed 216. Trump said that Mexico will be paying for the wall; so far all funding from the wall has come from within the United States. Trump has repeatedly said that the US is turning the curve on coronavirus and that cases are declining; they're not. You get the idea.

Sure, some things are matters of interpretation, like whether the media is biased and lying, or whether Biden's a puppet of radical socialists, or the like. But some things are clear.

Because, you refuse to see.

I note again that no one in this topic has even really tried to show me evidence of fraud. The pieces of evidence for fraud that I've looked at have not been directed to me specifically, and have all been at best circumstantial.

To be blunt: I think Trump is lying or self-deluding (I don't know which; it doesn't matter much) in order to protect his own ego. Trump's self-image is that of a winner, so the narrative he tells around himself is always that he's a winner, he won, and it's only because of lies and jealousy that other people don't acknowledge it. I think that many of Trump's supporters are buying into this narrative because of a combination of groupthink, epistemic closure (re: distrust of non-Trump media sources), and motivated reasoning.

And I find this really bizarre, frankly, because this has actually been a fantastically good election for conservatives! If I were an American conservative I'd feel that this election had given me pretty much everything I could want.

 

[Rocinante]

Warren actually didn't drop out for a bit. It was mostly Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

My memory may be fuzzy, but didn't she drop right before super Tuesday, giving the edge to Biden?

Of was it Klobuchar and Buttigieg who did that?

I'm operating off memory here so I won't be surprised if I am misremembering events, I am happy to be corrected

 

[Xilizhra]

I note again that no one in this topic has even really tried to show me evidence of fraud. The pieces of evidence for fraud that I've looked at have not been directed to me specifically, and have all been at best circumstantial.

To be blunt: I think Trump is lying or self-deluding (I don't know which; it doesn't matter much) in order to protect his own ego. Trump's self-image is that of a winner, so the narrative he tells around himself is always that he's a winner, he won, and it's only because of lies and jealousy that other people don't acknowledge it. I think that many of Trump's supporters are buying into this narrative because of a combination of groupthink, epistemic closure (re: distrust of non-Trump media sources), and motivated reasoning.

And I find this really bizarre, frankly, because this has actually been a fantastically good election for conservatives! If I were an American conservative I'd feel that this election had given me pretty much everything I could want.

I think that Trump is actually more or less resigned to defeat at this point. His continuing claims of fraud are, I suspect, more to continue to pump his base than a real effort to change the outcome, so that he can continue to make money off of said base with his media properties afterward.

My memory may be fuzzy, but didn't she drop right before super Tuesday, giving the edge to Biden?

Of was it Klobuchar and Buttigieg who did that?

I'm operating off memory here so I won't be surprised if I am misremembering events, I am happy to be corrected

No, Warren didn't drop out until after ST.

 

[Rocinante]

I think that Trump is actually more or less resigned to defeat at this point. His continuing claims of fraud are, I suspect, more to continue to pump his base than a real effort to change the outcome, so that he can continue to make money off of said base with his media properties afterward.


No, Warren didn't drop out until after ST.

Well it appears I need to go do some reading to figure out what I am trying to remember lol.

I remember Bernie looking like he had a good chance until the pre ST drops gave the edge to Biden

 

[GoldRanger]

Sure, some of those are matters of interpretation. But I submit that a lot of them are objective and verifiable.

Some might as well be (equally true of Biden. Never heard of a politician who never lied), but I doubt that it's "a lot".

Trump said that Biden would ban all fracking. Biden did not say that he would ban all fracking; he said that he would not expand fracking on federal land.

I could've sworn you said something about "lying when you can see the facts with your own two eyes"?

Yeah, he walked back on that once he realized it's not a popular stance. Doesn't change the fact that he wanted to ban fracking outright.

Trump said that he appointed 'about 300' federal judges; he actually appointed 216.

3. Focus on stupid minutae that are technically untrue, but don't detract from the truthfulness of his whole message ("well, Trump said ALL Democrats, but our data clearly shows that only 99% of the democrats. See? He's lying").

Trump said that Mexico will be paying for the wall; so far all funding from the wall has come from within the United States.

So a campaign promise he didn't manage to keep, because politics are sometimes like that. Truly, such a conman as this has never walked the Earth before.

Especially since he actually kept the most important part, the wall itself.

Trump has repeatedly said that the US is turning the curve on coronavirus and that cases are declining; they're not.

Sources for his claims (preferably an unedited video with a timestamp, since I won't trust quotes by the media)? Evidence that he was wrong at the time of his words, and that he knew it?

You get the idea.

Oh yes, I get the idea, all right, just not the same idea you want me to get apparently.

Sure, some things are matters of interpretation, like whether the media is biased and lying, or whether Biden's a puppet of radical socialists, or the like. But some things are clear.

You did not present even a single clear thing. Not one. If that's your best effort at showing "Trump's clear lies", then I'd say it does clarify a few things, but more about you rather than about Trump.

I note again that no one in this topic has even really tried to show me evidence of fraud. The pieces of evidence for fraud that I've looked at have not been directed to me specifically, and have all been at best circumstantial.

There is no publicly known "smoking gun" at this time. The circumstantial evidence, while probably not enough for a court, that has to decide "beyond reasonable doubt", is more than enough to convince me and millions of others. Unless thousands of people have decided to commit crime by lying on a sworn affidavit (which I find unlikely), unless statistical analysis of voting data is wrong, unless the strange occurrences on the night of the election (multiple swing states stop counting) are just a strange coincidence with some plausible explanation we haven't seen yet, unless reports of Dominion software "glitching" in multiple states, but always in Biden's favor, are just insane coincidences or prove to be insignificant in scope, it does seem like election fraud has occurred. There is reasonable doubt that it occurred, but it seems overwhelmingly likely at this point.

We'll see if Trump's campaign is still hiding some kind of secret smoking gun in the following week or two. If not, then he'll lose, but millions in America will never trust in American democracy again.

To be blunt: I think Trump is lying or self-deluding (I don't know which; it doesn't matter much) in order to protect his own ego. Trump's self-image is that of a winner, so the narrative he tells around himself is always that he's a winner, he won, and it's only because of lies and jealousy that other people don't acknowledge it. I think that many of Trump's supporters are buying into this narrative because of a combination of groupthink, epistemic closure (re: distrust of non-Trump media sources), and motivated reasoning.

To be blunt, I think the overwhelming Democratic propaganda over the past half-decade, aided by the huge media machine, the Democrat's natural ally, has scrambled your brains. You are incapable of objectively discerning between wrong and right, spin or fact anymore.

And I find this really bizarre, frankly, because this has actually been a fantastically good election for conservatives! If I were an American conservative I'd feel that this election had given me pretty much everything I could want.

If there was fraud, it doesn't matter how well the Republicans did. Hell, if the fraud favored the Republicans I would've wanted an investigation regardless.

 

[LifeisTiresome]

Bernie pushed for Biden. Bernie is as much a part of the democrats and the rest of the left and corporates. He is not an actual resistance

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Sure, some of those are matters of interpretation. But I submit that a lot of them are objective and verifiable.

Trump said that Biden would ban all fracking. Biden did not say that he would ban all fracking; he said that he would not expand fracking on federal land. Trump said that he appointed 'about 300' federal judges; he actually appointed 216. Trump said that Mexico will be paying for the wall; so far all funding from the wall has come from within the United States. Trump has repeatedly said that the US is turning the curve on coronavirus and that cases are declining; they're not. You get the idea.

Sure, some things are matters of interpretation, like whether the media is biased and lying, or whether Biden's a puppet of radical socialists, or the like. But some things are clear.



I note again that no one in this topic has even really tried to show me evidence of fraud. The pieces of evidence for fraud that I've looked at have not been directed to me specifically, and have all been at best circumstantial.

To be blunt: I think Trump is lying or self-deluding (I don't know which; it doesn't matter much) in order to protect his own ego. Trump's self-image is that of a winner, so the narrative he tells around himself is always that he's a winner, he won, and it's only because of lies and jealousy that other people don't acknowledge it. I think that many of Trump's supporters are buying into this narrative because of a combination of groupthink, epistemic closure (re: distrust of non-Trump media sources), and motivated reasoning.

And I find this really bizarre, frankly, because this has actually been a fantastically good election for conservatives! If I were an American conservative I'd feel that this election had given me pretty much everything I could want.

Objective and verifiable. You mean like it is objective and verifiable that the media helped run a smear campaign on Trump and has lied repeatedly about what he has said. Trump calls a gang animals, and then the media claims he called immigrants animals. Twisting his words from calling a spade a spade into something entirely different.

As Gold has pointed out, that is untrue, and the thing is that we know Biden isn't being truthful because of the agenda of his own party- all that Green New Deal watermelon nonsense. That is a Trumpian overstatement, you can't except bluster to be a 100% accurate and it would be disingenuous to expect otherwise. 300 is not too far off 216 if we are talking about overstatement. And overstatement is not lying. That was bluster for the election, I do remember that Trump made some moves and was blocked. And, I am pretty sure no one has any idea of what is going on with Coronavirus, so to hold Trump being wrong against him is unfair. So I think we have covered all of these. All your examples are faulty, and require you to be exceedingly unfair to Trump and refuse to extend him the same benefit of the doubt you would other people.

It is clear that you have a bias against Trump, and you more or less admitted it earlier. You did say that you would doubt the evident truth if it came out of Trump's mouth. You seem to think it is a virtue, when it is in fact not. I'd rather take a more balanced approach than that with those I view as liars.

We have, as per you post you discount it. We have clear cases of it, and you ignore them. And now we even have election officials being threatened into making calls and you are silent. You see the wheels of injustice turning and you don't care. You abdicate your own moral responsibility.

And I am pretty sure you are just projecting. You are the one who is deluded, you refuse to see what is in front of you, because it does not accord with your sense of reality. You turn around your blind trust of the mainstream media and make it out that our distrust of people with a proven track record of lying is somehow a flaw. They are proven liars, they literally colluded to lie about people concerned about industry corruption and sided with an abuser. Spread literal propaganda smearing right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, even though they are led by a minority. And the rest of your accusations follow. It is all you, and always has been.

There could be a literal mountain of evidence that we could present, but you'd ignore it. There is plenty of smoke, and you react to it saying "What smoke? You are crazy for seeing smoke!" It is almost like our choco rations are about to get cut.

And Gold covers it perfectly. And I am happy to have his backup.

And I don't care how well we did, we were still cheated. Fair is fair, and cheating undermines the democratic-republican system of the USA. If we lost fair and square, I would be happy. But we evidently did not. And as a man who cares about what is just, I will not let an injustice stand if I can help it. To do nothing lets evil win, and evil wins far too often in this world.

 

[Es Arcanum]

Trump is 'the resistance' he always has been.

The GOP establishment didn't want him, but the people chose him anyway.

Fox News didn't want him but the people forced them to change tack to maintain their profitability. The rest of the media has been actively at war with him and trying to destroy him since he began.

Academia hates him and has been trying to tear him down and indoctrinate the young against him. Big tech hates him and has been actively suppressing his support and covering for his opponents.

Every corporation making money in China has been trying to get rid of him because he has hurt their profitability.

All of the entertainment industry, almost every actor and 'artist' has been shilling for his adversaries and trash talking him.

The Deep state and government bureaucracy has been fighting a rearguard action against him since he was elected.

Trump and his supporters ARE basically the resistance to the globalist, neo-corporatist left that had a growing stranglehold on society. And I say this as a person who attaches no extra credit to the label of 'resistance'.

Trump's election was an aberration for them. They were not expecting it and they spent four years planning to bring him down and still would have failed if not for COVID-19 giving them their chance (I have no faith they would have handled it any better, probably worse).

Now it's up to Trump to earn the faith his supporters have placed in him by having used the resources of the position given to him to have prepared for what we are seeing now. He needs to provide the proof in the supreme Court of the election fraud that occurred.

But if he doesn't he has still had a great impact on the force of Conservatism in the USA. If he loses the office he has still left Conservatism stronger than he found it and left his opponents much weaker than they were. Any 'victory' they might glean from this tainted election has been a pyhric one for them. Especially if the re-invigorated Republicans and Trump's supporters use this opportunity to block, stymie and frustrate the left's agenda until the Conservatives can seize back total control in 2022 and 2024.

But we all hope that won't even be necessary if Trump can deliver big again this round.

 

[Unhappy Anchovy]

You did not present even a single clear thing. Not one. If that's your best effort at showing "Trump's clear lies", then I'd say it does clarify a few things, but more about you rather than about Trump.

Let's pick one example that's impossible to contest. He said 'about 300'. The number is actually 216. An obnoxiously large reaction image does not change the fact that 216 is not about 300. That's not 'stupid minutiae'. That is a clear and verifiable discrepancy between Trump's words and facts.

Sources for his claims (preferably an unedited video with a timestamp, since I won't trust quotes by the media)? Evidence that he was wrong at the time of his words, and that he knew it?

Trump's own Twitter, October 28. "We are rounding the turn."

Obviously I can't prove what Trump himself was thinking, inside his head. But nevertheless the statement was not true, which means that either Trump was lying, which is my point, or that he was mistaken or ignorant, in which case he must be simply incompetent. As of October 28, US covid cases were surging: you can look at CDC figures here, which show cases steadily increasing through the week ending October 31. I hope the CDC is a sufficiently reliable source? So either Trump was lying, or Trump was completely out-of-touch with the facts and engaging in wishful thinking.

To be blunt, I think the overwhelming Democratic propaganda over the past half-decade, aided by the huge media machine, the Democrat's natural ally, has scrambled your brains. You are incapable of objectively discerning between wrong and right, spin or fact anymore.

This is just another insult, not an argument. "You're brainwashed by propaganda!" isn't really an argument.

It is clear that you have a bias against Trump, and you more or less admitted it earlier. You did say that you would doubt the evident truth if it came out of Trump's mouth. You seem to think it is a virtue, when it is in fact not. I'd rather take a more balanced approach than that with those I view as liars.

I don't believe things that Trump says without first checking to verify them because he has a long and consistent record of lying. This isn't prejudice on my part: it's judice. I judge that Trump is unreliable because I have read the things he's said.

You and GoldRanger accept that it's okay, in some circumstances, to judge that a source is unreliable and take things it says with a grain of salt. After all, every time I've cited, well, anything, you've told me that it's the mainstream media and it can't be trusted because it's horribly biased. How do you know the media is biased? Presumably you looked at a lot of things the media said and concluded that they were often at variance with reality. That's the exact same method I'm using. I think Trump is unreliable because I have heard the things Trump has said.

We have, as per you post you discount it. We have clear cases of it, and you ignore them. And now we even have election officials being threatened into making calls and you are silent. You see the wheels of injustice turning and you don't care. You abdicate your own moral responsibility.

Even now you are not presenting a single example!

And I am pretty sure you are just projecting. You are the one who is deluded, you refuse to see what is in front of you, because it does not accord with your sense of reality. You turn around your blind trust of the mainstream media and make it out that our distrust of people with a proven track record of lying is somehow a flaw. They are proven liars, they literally colluded to lie about people concerned about industry corruption and sided with an abuser. Spread literal propaganda smearing right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, even though they are led by a minority. And the rest of your accusations follow. It is all you, and always has been.
There could be a literal mountain of evidence that we could present, but you'd ignore it. There is plenty of smoke, and you react to it saying "What smoke? You are crazy for seeing smoke!" It is almost like our choco rations are about to get cut.

This is, once again, just a stream of insults. Do you have anything productive to say?

 

[LifeisTiresome]

God I prefer random and his trolling compared to your fake centrism @Unhappy Anchovy . At least he was amusing.

 

[LifeisTiresome]

@random_boy232
Welcome back.

Care to post about how Trump is doomed to anger the Trump believers?

 

[Es Arcanum]

Meh, it takes all sorts to have a forum. UA has been with us from the beginning and hasn't changed as far as I can see. i.e. he seems 'genuine' enough to me.

Even if he is wrong most of the time.

 

[LifeisTiresome]

Meh, it takes all sorts to have a forum. UA has been with us from the beginning and hasn't changed as far as I can see. i.e. he seems 'genuine' enough to me.

Even if he is wrong most of the time.

I believe that most so called centrists online at any rate are not really centrists. They are left wing who either put up a false front of centrism cause they think it gives them superiority over the rest of the unwashed masses who are biased or truly believe that they are centrists but in action, they are left or pretending to be centrists for political reasons.

 

[Rocinante]

I've known UA for a while, and have had my differences with him. I've even been quite angry with him over some of his actions regarding some members who I consider friends.

That said, He pisses off both sides plenty. He's not just a typical lefty troll.

He's a genuine guy, and is typically friendly. What you see is what you get. I believe he is telling the truth as he understands it.

You guys should consider disagreeing with him politely. The guy just likes to talk and debate, even if he can be a bit verbose. He's a good addition to the site. A rational counterpoint to our right wing bias, and adds additional content to the site. I am of the opinion that he is valuable as a member. (Even if he is IRL friends with people who I believe are trolls)

I don't believe thers are any ulterior motives or bad faith on his behalf.

 

[Es Arcanum]

Anyway, let's get back to the election... of doom! Which has been in overtime now for like a couple weeks.

So all those cases that Trump's legal teams were going to file, what's happening with them?

I'm particularly interested in the one being put forward by that Sidney lady whose last name I forget.

 

[LifeisTiresome]

I've known UA for a while, and have had my differences with him. I've even been quite angry with him over some of his actions regarding some members who I consider friends.

That said, He pisses off both sides plenty. He's not just a typical lefty troll.

He's a genuine guy, and is typically friendly. What you see is what you get. I believe he is telling the truth as he understands it.

You guys should consider disagreeing with him politely. The guy just likes to talk and debate, even if he can be a bit verbose. He's a good addition to the site. A rational counterpoint to our right wing bias, and adds additional content to the site. I am of the opinion that he is valuable as a member. (Even if he is IRL friends with people who I believe are trolls)

I don't believe thers are any ulterior motives or bad faith on his behalf.

My apologies. I'm not saying ban him or anything. I just find all this argument boring.

 

[GoldRanger]

Let's pick one example that's impossible to contest. He said 'about 300'. The number is actually 216. An obnoxiously large reaction image does not change the fact that 216 is not about 300. That's not 'stupid minutiae'. That is a clear and verifiable discrepancy between Trump's words and facts.

No. That's stupid minutae. The man remembered something mildly inaccurately, and it didn't actually affect any point he was trying to make. Yet the media was all over it. Yeah, it's technically him being incorrect. It's a completely benign example though. It proves nothing other than he doesn't have a superhuman memory and he doesn't bother being super-accurate with his numbers when it doesn't matter in the slightest. It doesn't prove he's a conman, a liar, a cheater or any of the things you accuse him of being.

Trump's own Twitter, October 28. "We are rounding the turn."

Obviously I can't prove what Trump himself was thinking, inside his head. But nevertheless the statement was not true, which means that either Trump was lying, which is my point, or that he was mistaken or ignorant, in which case he must be simply incompetent.

As of October 28,

October 28? Trump's tweet was on October 27, as your link attests. You are clearly a lying conman, since your statement clearly doesn't fit the facts. That's totally important and not inconsequential minutae at all.

US covid cases were surging: you can look at CDC figures here, which show cases steadily increasing through the week ending October 31. I hope the CDC is a sufficiently reliable source?

I didn't actually calculate it, but to the unaided eye the incline of the increase between June to August seems steeper than from August to November, meaning that while the number of infected was increasing, the rate was indeed slowing down (until about the start of November, after Trump's tweet). That can definitely be interpreted as "rounding the turn", for example.

So either Trump was lying, or Trump was completely out-of-touch with the facts and engaging in wishful thinking.

Or maybe my above interpretation is the correct one. Or he was aware of an attempt or a planned attempt to reduce infection numbers, ones that either did not pan out or should've taken much longer than a week's timeframe to take effect. Or he may have meant a decreasing number of dead, or infected that have not been hospitalized, or any of a million things the CDC graph you provided doesn't show.

My point is that my benefit of the doubt goes to him rather than the interpretations of the media that has demonstrably lied and spun every single word out of his mouth for the past 4 years.

There are many ways Trump's vague statement can be taken. "He was lying" is just one of them, and not a particularly likely one at that.

This is just another insult, not an argument. "You're brainwashed by propaganda!" isn't really an argument.

I replied to a non-argument with a non-argument. I was just being blunt. I don't see an issue with that.

 

[Duke Nukem]

 

[DarthOne]

I think that Trump is actually more or less resigned to defeat at this point. His continuing claims of fraud are, I suspect, more to continue to pump his base than a real effort to change the outcome, so that he can continue to make money off of said base with his media properties afterward.

 

[Reap the Whirlwind]

And I find this really bizarre, frankly, because this has actually been a fantastically good election for conservatives! If I were an American conservative I'd feel that this election had given me pretty much everything I could want.

I know right!

The conservatives’ message works. Keep fracking ( and before you say it UA, Biden totally said he wanted to end the gas industry), pro-gun, pro-jobs, pro-life, anti-China, anti-socialist, anti-teachers unions, anti-lockdown, end to occupation in Afghanistan, that works! And it also works with a huge and growing number of minorities, especially Latinos.

If Republicans can get a better messenger, say a Ron Desantis or a Tim Scott, then they will clean up in 2024. Trump has shown a way forward for American conservatism, as long as the Republicans don’t let him become a millstone around their necks.