Some nerdy Redditors have doubts about 2024 election integrity
January 7, 2025 8:07 PM Subscribe
On two separate subreddits, data analysis and conjecture are underway about possible anomalies in the election results. Detailed charts, videos and lengthy posts can be found, including analysis of each swing state, leaked ballot data, and comparisons to the country of Georgia's election (believed to have been rigged using the "Russian Tail" vote-flipping approach). Is there any chance of validity in their research?
The swing towards Trump from 2020 to 2024 was about as uniform as you can get across states / counties. In fact, the swing was smaller in the seven key swing states than in the rest of the country, reflective of a strong campaign effort by Harris. Fraud would require a concerted and undetected effort across hundreds of irrelevant counties. Is just doesn't seem reasonable that Russian hackers would have bothered bringing New Jersey from +16 D in 2020 to +6 D in 2024...but conditional on that shift, it's not at all surprising that Trump swept the swing states.
posted by rishabguha at 8:34 PM on January 7 [48 favorites]
posted by rishabguha at 8:34 PM on January 7 [48 favorites]
No. Look, there are a lot of really smart people whose literal job it is to look at this shit, plus an enormous decentralized process with oodles of eyes on it all the way through. This type of speculation delivered by randos on the Internet is counterproductive at best and, at worst, some kind of grift.
posted by Room 101 at 8:35 PM on January 7 [64 favorites]
posted by Room 101 at 8:35 PM on January 7 [64 favorites]
Please add 'gullible' tag.
posted by kickingtheground at 8:41 PM on January 7 [17 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 8:41 PM on January 7 [17 favorites]
Trump and co stole the election fair and square.
posted by philip-random at 8:47 PM on January 7 [13 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 8:47 PM on January 7 [13 favorites]
Some concerns have been raised about the type of equipment, old operating systems, and old software that most voting precincts are using, particularly tabulator PCs, and possible vulnerabilities via USB insertion (plug-and-play exploits) or other approaches. Also there was the leak and release of voting machine software in 2020 and 2021. Some people believe that hackers may have analyzed that software and developed exploits or patches for it. Of course it's conjecture, but I guess I'm the gullible one, because as an experienced coder with security experience, it seems to me worth raising these questions. Much of what people think is secure on computer systems is less so than they realize.
posted by TreeHugger at 8:52 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]
posted by TreeHugger at 8:52 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]
I'm afraid this is just copium, but truly no judgement implied.
No judgement because it's understandable to want to deny reality. This next... phase of history is almost certainly going to be awful. Just mind bendingly awful. Our job is going to be trying to figure out how to live through it. How to preserve some sense of sanity and the values we have held dear. And that will often involve various forms of escapism. So yeah, no judgement.
That being said, it wouldn't matter even if it were true. It really wouldn't make an iota of difference. Compare it to "9/11 was an inside job." Possibly, but so what? That got away with it. War and the PATRIOT ACT and a completely changed world, and nothing is going to change any of that. This is the same.
Personally, I think it's better to focus on the positive things in our immediate lives, and start preparing ourselves for the reality that sooner rather than later, we will face the choice of how much we are willing to risk to protect vulnerable people in our communities. And of course the quite uncomfortable fact that the vulnerable people in our communities may be ourselves.
I have nothing but compassion for people who are still wrestling with all of that.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 9:11 PM on January 7 [30 favorites]
No judgement because it's understandable to want to deny reality. This next... phase of history is almost certainly going to be awful. Just mind bendingly awful. Our job is going to be trying to figure out how to live through it. How to preserve some sense of sanity and the values we have held dear. And that will often involve various forms of escapism. So yeah, no judgement.
That being said, it wouldn't matter even if it were true. It really wouldn't make an iota of difference. Compare it to "9/11 was an inside job." Possibly, but so what? That got away with it. War and the PATRIOT ACT and a completely changed world, and nothing is going to change any of that. This is the same.
Personally, I think it's better to focus on the positive things in our immediate lives, and start preparing ourselves for the reality that sooner rather than later, we will face the choice of how much we are willing to risk to protect vulnerable people in our communities. And of course the quite uncomfortable fact that the vulnerable people in our communities may be ourselves.
I have nothing but compassion for people who are still wrestling with all of that.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 9:11 PM on January 7 [30 favorites]
I think we cling to theories like this because the truth - that America is actually that racist, that sexist, that regressive, that America by the numbers, either wants this or doesn’t care enough to say otherwise - is too awful to stomach.
But here we are.
posted by mhoye at 9:15 PM on January 7 [49 favorites]
But here we are.
posted by mhoye at 9:15 PM on January 7 [49 favorites]
stole the election fair and square.
".... little Robbie Kennedy"
posted by clavdivs at 9:15 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
".... little Robbie Kennedy"
posted by clavdivs at 9:15 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
The US uses a heterogeneous mix of voting machines and methods across 50 states, thousands of polling places, and let's not forget methods (mail-in, early voting, etc. etc.). Does this sound like an environment that is amenable to "some hackers" getting together and subverting? What do you do about the places without vulnerable machines? How do you do this in a way that passes statistical and logical scrutiny? Occam's razor says it's more likely that the consistent results are the outcome of Trump just winning the election than some rube goldberg fraud/hack machine arranged things just so.
posted by axiom at 9:20 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
posted by axiom at 9:20 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
I mean, it can be both. The US has a long history of vote fuckery.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 9:46 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 9:46 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
I mean, it's hilariously unlikely that Republicans weren't committing election fraud, voter suppression, whatever, and still this country sucks enough that they just let him win the old fashioned way, through apathy and ignorance and outright malice.
posted by darksasami at 9:50 PM on January 7 [10 favorites]
posted by darksasami at 9:50 PM on January 7 [10 favorites]
Remembering when Reddit misidentified the Boston Marathon bomber.
posted by latkes at 10:14 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
posted by latkes at 10:14 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
There's been plenty of evidence of GOP election fraud (as opposed to the fictional voter fraud the GOP is always bleating about) in every national election since at least 2000. Pro-tip: there are as many ways to commit election fraud as there are ways to count votes, and it doesn't have to be universal or uniform to push past the post, you just need a minimum of a few key districts in a few key states. Nor does it have to be blatant or obvious, or affect down-ballot races, although often both things are true too, especially when you can, say, introduce an algorithm to identify anyone on the voter rolls who didn't vote and add enough of their votes to your guy's total to give him enough of a lead to avoid a recount. Voter suppression, voting roll purges, laughably vulnerable and easily hackable electronic voting and vote counting machines (access-controlled by extremely corrupt partisan GOP voting officials up to and including Secretaries of State)... there should be no doubt in anyone's mind the presidential election was stolen.
It doesn't matter though, the Dems not only aren't going to do anything about it, they actively suppress any legitimate inquiries into even the blatantly-obvious irregularities. I've often wondered why this is the case -- the glib answer is that they don't actually want to win, but I suspect the real reason is that they want to keep those avenues of vote tampering open so that they themselves can take advantage of them, even if they're obviously not as good at it as their right-wing brethren.
posted by Pedantzilla at 10:24 PM on January 7 [8 favorites]
It doesn't matter though, the Dems not only aren't going to do anything about it, they actively suppress any legitimate inquiries into even the blatantly-obvious irregularities. I've often wondered why this is the case -- the glib answer is that they don't actually want to win, but I suspect the real reason is that they want to keep those avenues of vote tampering open so that they themselves can take advantage of them, even if they're obviously not as good at it as their right-wing brethren.
posted by Pedantzilla at 10:24 PM on January 7 [8 favorites]
For years the Trumpists made it clear to everyone they were going to steal the election the old fashioned ways, so many of which need not involve a single line of code. That the Dems chose not to believe them and instead told each other how the impending gunfight was going to be won with knives of joy and hope, was an all too predictable tragedy of a strategy.
For a political party that described a 2nd Trump term an existential threat, it’s a mystery why they didn’t deploy tactics as though they believed it.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:36 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
For a political party that described a 2nd Trump term an existential threat, it’s a mystery why they didn’t deploy tactics as though they believed it.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:36 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
Even if it was true, everyone is rolling over for Trump. The installation is a fait accompli.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:53 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:53 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]
I hear all the points made above... but what the fuck was Trump winking to Mike Johnson about before the election? Some secret that Trump was excited about that would guarantee their victory? Anybody else remember this?
posted by ishmael at 11:18 PM on January 7 [9 favorites]
posted by ishmael at 11:18 PM on January 7 [9 favorites]
Is there any chance of validity in their research?
No.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:43 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
No.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:43 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
The fact that Trump apparently really cares about the polling is what made me suspicious. It’s so weird that he sued the Iowa pollster.
posted by puffinaria at 11:43 PM on January 7 [3 favorites]
posted by puffinaria at 11:43 PM on January 7 [3 favorites]
You make elections fraud resistant by making them simple and clear.
1. Pass federal legislation requiring federal elections not carry anything else on the ballot. President, Senate and Congress.
You are allowed to pass out a State/Local ballot as well to people who have finished their Federal voting at the same location.
This makes the ballot simple. Complex ballots make counting more complex and fraud easier.
2. Pass legislation requiring manual counting of ballots at each polling location. Each candidate can appoint a scruitineer. Every federal ballot is hand counted. An automated count also has to be done. The automated count is reported separately from the manual count.
3. Each polling location publicly declares its manually counted votes for each candidate. After doing so, they access and publicly announce the automated count. The ballots are then moved to a central location.
In order to engage in undetected fraud, you need to have fine-control over the automated count. Modify it only in districts you have suborned the manual counting mechanisms.
The amount of fraud you can engage in is bounded by the size of the local voting locations you can suborn.
Detecting irregular behavior at the local area by scrutineers appointed by your political opponents has to be highly effective.
If plausible and significant fraud is detected, you can take a look at the voters involved at the polling location and repeat the election(!) for those people.
But, with the above, the fact you need corrupt individuals at individual polling locations means you need a large conspiracy. And large conspiracies need huge communication networks that are implausible to keep secure.
Now, the automated cross-check isn't really needed. It just means that you need *both* to hack *and* suborn locally in synchronization.
You also record who voted at each polling location. So people worried about non-citizen voting (etc) can actually investigate it from the list of people who voted. Provisional ballots - letting someone with the proper ID vouch for someone without ID, then recording the name, address and contact information of the person lacking ID on the envelope of the provisional ballot - also works, putting them aside unless the election is close. If it is close enough, you go off and double-check that the person is eligible to vote, and if so you add it to the rolls.
I mean, it does make elections cost a bit more. But, except for the automated double check, this is how elections are run in Canada essentially.
https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-election-process/election-counting
USA's elections are in comparison utter Chaos and nonsense.
posted by NotAYakk at 11:44 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
1. Pass federal legislation requiring federal elections not carry anything else on the ballot. President, Senate and Congress.
You are allowed to pass out a State/Local ballot as well to people who have finished their Federal voting at the same location.
This makes the ballot simple. Complex ballots make counting more complex and fraud easier.
2. Pass legislation requiring manual counting of ballots at each polling location. Each candidate can appoint a scruitineer. Every federal ballot is hand counted. An automated count also has to be done. The automated count is reported separately from the manual count.
3. Each polling location publicly declares its manually counted votes for each candidate. After doing so, they access and publicly announce the automated count. The ballots are then moved to a central location.
In order to engage in undetected fraud, you need to have fine-control over the automated count. Modify it only in districts you have suborned the manual counting mechanisms.
The amount of fraud you can engage in is bounded by the size of the local voting locations you can suborn.
Detecting irregular behavior at the local area by scrutineers appointed by your political opponents has to be highly effective.
If plausible and significant fraud is detected, you can take a look at the voters involved at the polling location and repeat the election(!) for those people.
But, with the above, the fact you need corrupt individuals at individual polling locations means you need a large conspiracy. And large conspiracies need huge communication networks that are implausible to keep secure.
Now, the automated cross-check isn't really needed. It just means that you need *both* to hack *and* suborn locally in synchronization.
You also record who voted at each polling location. So people worried about non-citizen voting (etc) can actually investigate it from the list of people who voted. Provisional ballots - letting someone with the proper ID vouch for someone without ID, then recording the name, address and contact information of the person lacking ID on the envelope of the provisional ballot - also works, putting them aside unless the election is close. If it is close enough, you go off and double-check that the person is eligible to vote, and if so you add it to the rolls.
I mean, it does make elections cost a bit more. But, except for the automated double check, this is how elections are run in Canada essentially.
https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-election-process/election-counting
USA's elections are in comparison utter Chaos and nonsense.
posted by NotAYakk at 11:44 PM on January 7 [11 favorites]
Elections are run more or less like that in the UK also (minus automated counts) and we get the count done in a night.
I agree with others that the US presidential election result is highly unlikely to be the result of fraud. Trump won within the rules. Harris probably did better than Biden would have but globally we are in ousting the incumbent mood and America is not immune to that general sentiment.
posted by plonkee at 12:07 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]
I agree with others that the US presidential election result is highly unlikely to be the result of fraud. Trump won within the rules. Harris probably did better than Biden would have but globally we are in ousting the incumbent mood and America is not immune to that general sentiment.
posted by plonkee at 12:07 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]
I think we cling to theories like this because
we can, the notable failure of the US to take Tom Scott's sage advice having had exactly the consequences he said it would.
posted by flabdablet at 12:38 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
we can, the notable failure of the US to take Tom Scott's sage advice having had exactly the consequences he said it would.
posted by flabdablet at 12:38 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
I'd strongly expect the Democrats do routinely commit election fraud in New Jersey, based upon years of remarks by a friend there who volunteered for the Green Party.
America being America, I'd expect both parties commit election fraud wherever they have enough political machenery, but in many places they might target "spoiler parties" more than the other powerful guys these days.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:21 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
America being America, I'd expect both parties commit election fraud wherever they have enough political machenery, but in many places they might target "spoiler parties" more than the other powerful guys these days.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:21 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Oh yay we're doing Blue QAnon
posted by june_dodecahedron at 1:25 AM on January 8 [21 favorites]
posted by june_dodecahedron at 1:25 AM on January 8 [21 favorites]
Voter registration purges were not a secret conspiracy, they were done in the open and targeted.
Do the provisional ballots cast by purged voters get counted in your jurisdiction only if the non-provisional ballot totals are close to equal, and was the number purged greater than that number.
We also know state legislatures changed rules allowing after the fact fuckery that did not get used this time because none of those states needed to flip it to T.
Also so many election workers were harrassed and retired and were replaced by election deniers as a specific, announced by steve bannon plan.
It doesn't take a mystery to see that US elections are not secure, there is enough non-secret info for that.
That said, Democrats were always behind in polling and did better where they campaigned.
Jet fuel does in fact melt steel beams. Besides, its inmaterial, we know the democractic party would rather lose than be impolite and partisan and wouldn't do anything about having an election stolen from them, n=2. So this is a waste of fight. Trump is the legitimate president in an illegitimate system.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:56 AM on January 8 [10 favorites]
Do the provisional ballots cast by purged voters get counted in your jurisdiction only if the non-provisional ballot totals are close to equal, and was the number purged greater than that number.
We also know state legislatures changed rules allowing after the fact fuckery that did not get used this time because none of those states needed to flip it to T.
Also so many election workers were harrassed and retired and were replaced by election deniers as a specific, announced by steve bannon plan.
It doesn't take a mystery to see that US elections are not secure, there is enough non-secret info for that.
That said, Democrats were always behind in polling and did better where they campaigned.
Jet fuel does in fact melt steel beams. Besides, its inmaterial, we know the democractic party would rather lose than be impolite and partisan and wouldn't do anything about having an election stolen from them, n=2. So this is a waste of fight. Trump is the legitimate president in an illegitimate system.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:56 AM on January 8 [10 favorites]
1. federal law requiring all voting-age citizens to vote in every federal election.
2. make election day a federal holiday.
3. federal death penalty for committing voter fraud, or for candidates who incite voter fraud
posted by JohnFromGR at 3:02 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
2. make election day a federal holiday.
3. federal death penalty for committing voter fraud, or for candidates who incite voter fraud
posted by JohnFromGR at 3:02 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
I can't get behind 3.
If the US went to all paper ballots, the kinds of attacks on the electoral system that would be needed to make any hidden attempt at election rigging in any way consequential would, as Tom Scott points out, simply not scale.
If the objection to paper ballots is that the US electoral system is too diverse, complicated and cumbersome to make the use of paper ballots feasible, my response is that this reflects correctable faults in the US electoral system, not in paper ballots.
Paper ballots would obviously make no difference to blatant, obvious, public election rigging techniques like gerrymandering and bullshit voter ID requirements. Again, though, that reflects correctable faults in the system, not in paper ballots as an implementation technique.
posted by flabdablet at 3:10 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
If the US went to all paper ballots, the kinds of attacks on the electoral system that would be needed to make any hidden attempt at election rigging in any way consequential would, as Tom Scott points out, simply not scale.
If the objection to paper ballots is that the US electoral system is too diverse, complicated and cumbersome to make the use of paper ballots feasible, my response is that this reflects correctable faults in the US electoral system, not in paper ballots.
Paper ballots would obviously make no difference to blatant, obvious, public election rigging techniques like gerrymandering and bullshit voter ID requirements. Again, though, that reflects correctable faults in the system, not in paper ballots as an implementation technique.
posted by flabdablet at 3:10 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I looked at some county-by-county totals myself.
Vote totals for Harris vs Biden were down very dramatically in many counties where Democrats have an ironclad control of the election apparatus. In Brooklyn, 152 thousand deficit. In Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), down 417 thousand, Los Angeles County, 611 thousand. Baltimore, Denver, King County/Seattle, Hennepin County/Minneapolis. It's extremely unlikely that some sort of outside interference would have gone unnoticed in these places.
Two places where Harris got very slightly more votes than Biden in 2020 were Fulton County/Atlanta and Wake County/Raleigh. Just a few thousand in both cases. Both of those are in southern swing states. Reasonable expectation is that vote totals will go up by a percentage point or two over four years, due to natural population growth, so these arguably still represent areas where Harris didn't get the turnout that Biden did. But they do show urban areas in swing states where the drop in Democratic votes was less.
In most large counties, the drop in Democratic votes was not matched by a gain in Republican votes. Clark County/Las Vegas and Maricopa County/Phoenix are two possible exceptions--the Trump vote did tick up in both of those. Occam's razor would say that local issues, demographic variations, and differences in how the campaigns handled those metro areas explain the shifts. Also, those two counties are more sprawling and include more suburban and exurban voters than, say, Baltimore does.
Overall, the voter turnout in 2024 feels similar to 2016, and with a very similar result. Trump barely eked out a win in 2016. Biden turned that around in 2020. In 2024, the electorate reverted back to 2016, with some regional and demographic variations in particular places.
Republicans turned out their base. A lot of Democrats stayed home.
posted by gimonca at 3:47 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
Vote totals for Harris vs Biden were down very dramatically in many counties where Democrats have an ironclad control of the election apparatus. In Brooklyn, 152 thousand deficit. In Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), down 417 thousand, Los Angeles County, 611 thousand. Baltimore, Denver, King County/Seattle, Hennepin County/Minneapolis. It's extremely unlikely that some sort of outside interference would have gone unnoticed in these places.
Two places where Harris got very slightly more votes than Biden in 2020 were Fulton County/Atlanta and Wake County/Raleigh. Just a few thousand in both cases. Both of those are in southern swing states. Reasonable expectation is that vote totals will go up by a percentage point or two over four years, due to natural population growth, so these arguably still represent areas where Harris didn't get the turnout that Biden did. But they do show urban areas in swing states where the drop in Democratic votes was less.
In most large counties, the drop in Democratic votes was not matched by a gain in Republican votes. Clark County/Las Vegas and Maricopa County/Phoenix are two possible exceptions--the Trump vote did tick up in both of those. Occam's razor would say that local issues, demographic variations, and differences in how the campaigns handled those metro areas explain the shifts. Also, those two counties are more sprawling and include more suburban and exurban voters than, say, Baltimore does.
Overall, the voter turnout in 2024 feels similar to 2016, and with a very similar result. Trump barely eked out a win in 2016. Biden turned that around in 2020. In 2024, the electorate reverted back to 2016, with some regional and demographic variations in particular places.
Republicans turned out their base. A lot of Democrats stayed home.
posted by gimonca at 3:47 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
1. federal law requiring all voting-age citizens to vote in every federal election.
2. make election day a federal holiday.
3. federal death penalty for committing voter fraud, or for candidates who incite voter fraud
4. Federal death penalty if you don't vote for the correct candidate, TBD
posted by chavenet at 4:04 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
2. make election day a federal holiday.
3. federal death penalty for committing voter fraud, or for candidates who incite voter fraud
4. Federal death penalty if you don't vote for the correct candidate, TBD
posted by chavenet at 4:04 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
Statistical inference is hard, data analysis is hard, it’s not for amateurs and very dangerous when they do so.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:18 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:18 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
Also lots of people in that Reddit thread asking “what’s r^2”? Indicating that they’ve never taken a stats 101 course or worked with data in any real capacity.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:36 AM on January 8 [11 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:36 AM on January 8 [11 favorites]
Conspiracy theories are not how we survive these years.
posted by eirias at 4:59 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
posted by eirias at 4:59 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
Let's remember Reddit's propensity for weird thinking, and their recent brain drain (no I won't let it go dammit, I'm still furious) would have only made that worse.
posted by JHarris at 5:05 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:05 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Is there a subReddit for why the American rigidly-2-party, vote-for-everything-same-day-every-4-years, electoral-college-nonsense, each-state-does-it-different electoral system perhaps isn't optimal?
posted by Artful Codger at 5:21 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by Artful Codger at 5:21 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
The stool of bias on which anomaly theories sit has several legs:
(1) not realizing that Harris was always going to lose, because institutional Democrats did not disclose the fact that their internal modeling always showed her losing
(2) not realizing how unpopular Harris was - probably because that unpopularity was pretty unfair and they suffer from a just world fallacy
(3) not realizing that Trump's serious unpopularity is capped at maybe 20% of the country, because they live in a self-reinforcing social media fishbowl
(4) not realizing a lot of people will stay home vs. vote the lesser of two evils not out of principle, but because they have better things to do that day
posted by MattD at 5:23 AM on January 8 [7 favorites]
(1) not realizing that Harris was always going to lose, because institutional Democrats did not disclose the fact that their internal modeling always showed her losing
(2) not realizing how unpopular Harris was - probably because that unpopularity was pretty unfair and they suffer from a just world fallacy
(3) not realizing that Trump's serious unpopularity is capped at maybe 20% of the country, because they live in a self-reinforcing social media fishbowl
(4) not realizing a lot of people will stay home vs. vote the lesser of two evils not out of principle, but because they have better things to do that day
posted by MattD at 5:23 AM on January 8 [7 favorites]
Mod note: Hi all. This is mod note to acknowledge that this post did get a lot of flags with notes that essentially said "this is conspiracy theory type and doesn't belong here". We're letting it stay, but have added the tags 'uspolitics' and 'politicalspeculation'. Members can choose to use My MeFi to block out posts with those tags
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:27 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:27 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I think people really don't want to accept that America asked for this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:43 AM on January 8 [22 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:43 AM on January 8 [22 favorites]
This is blatant conspiracy mongering - and quite conspicuously devoid of evidence which could be used to assess such a strong claim. That’s how these things work: as soon as you actually look at the “evidence” it falls apart but if you’re just sharing breathless claims on social media the creators are able to abuse your personal credibility to gain traction.
the Dems not only aren't going to do anything about it, they actively suppress any legitimate inquiries into even the blatantly-obvious irregularities
This election was tallied correctly: if you want to talk about unfairness, you should be talking about the billions of dollars poured into right-wing propaganda and the way social networks boost it. Similar to what you did, a lot of that works by people seeing a sentence posted by someone they trust and believing it without checking whether their friend was also suckered or willfully lying.
posted by adamsc at 6:03 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
I think people really don't want to accept that America asked for this.
^ This 100% ^
It really sucks to believe so many people in the US would rather have a comical rapist/felon buffoon in the White House but here we are. There can be arguments about 2024 elections until the cows come home but it won't make a lick of difference. He'll be the President.
posted by Kitteh at 6:15 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
^ This 100% ^
It really sucks to believe so many people in the US would rather have a comical rapist/felon buffoon in the White House but here we are. There can be arguments about 2024 elections until the cows come home but it won't make a lick of difference. He'll be the President.
posted by Kitteh at 6:15 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
I'd strongly expect the Democrats do routinely commit election fraud in New Jersey, based upon years of remarks by a friend there who volunteered for the Green Party.
There's never been any need for secret fraud in New Jersey. Up until this election, New Jersey primary ballots grouped candidates by the party they were part of rather than by the office they were running for. Who decides who gets which party line? Why, the county-level party committees. This has a significant effect on votes, and since New Jersey is a fairly blue state, winning a Democratic primary gives a candidate an easy lane to the general victory.
For a visual example and lots of background, see here.
posted by Bryant at 6:25 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
There's never been any need for secret fraud in New Jersey. Up until this election, New Jersey primary ballots grouped candidates by the party they were part of rather than by the office they were running for. Who decides who gets which party line? Why, the county-level party committees. This has a significant effect on votes, and since New Jersey is a fairly blue state, winning a Democratic primary gives a candidate an easy lane to the general victory.
For a visual example and lots of background, see here.
posted by Bryant at 6:25 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Lots of folks need to come to terms with the fact that Americans want this bozo for another 4 years. Jan. 21, eggs will be 99 cents a dozen and gas will be so cheap they'll not even keep track of how much you pump.
And when it's not? Well there's an out group to blame. Just pick one randomly.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:29 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]
And when it's not? Well there's an out group to blame. Just pick one randomly.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:29 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]
Given that conspiracy theories are now a mainstay tactic of fascists in America, anyone opposing fascism should be extra careful in indulging in that same mindset. Paranoia is the tool of the enemy, so even if sometimes they truly are after you, it behooves us to examine our paranoia when it arises and vet it more thoroughly. Conspiracy theories also tend to obscure the real reasons for events and sap the energy that we could be spending on dealing with reality. Voter suppression is overt, but there's no one quick fix. It requires years of electoral effort. It's easier to try to find a technical villain and technical solution than to engage in the organizing required to take back the courts and expand voting rights.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:12 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:12 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]
Obligatory link to The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter, 1964.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:14 AM on January 8
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:14 AM on January 8
The stool of bias
may require a larger sample
posted by chavenet at 7:34 AM on January 8 [11 favorites]
may require a larger sample
posted by chavenet at 7:34 AM on January 8 [11 favorites]
Once upon a time, actual ballot fraud was extremely common in the US, ranging from transporting people across precinct lines to vote twice, to losing boxes full of inconvenient ballots, to straight up murdering people of the wrong party or ethnicity who had the temerity to try to vote.
By and large, today, I'd say the actual pipeline from receiving a blank ballot to having your vote counted has as much integrity as it ever has: technology has (after we mostly moved away from the regrettable late-90s/early-2000s debacle of electronic voting without auditable paper trails) been mostly an asset here. It is very difficult to actually sneak ballots in or out of the system without throwing off mechanisms which will detect that kind of thing.
There is absolutely plenty of fuckery that goes on still to suppress "undesirable" votes: aggressive purging of voter rolls, overzealous flagging of relocated voters, understaffing and underequipping of certain precincts, other things to suppress access to the franchise. But these are easy to identify things and if you look at any given precinct it doesn't take much digging at all to figure out if that's what's going on.
But as to the question of whether the vote totals reported reflect the ballots actually cast, I'd say they do for the most part (I assume there's a nonzero amount of local fraud, because the immense patchwork of different balloting procedures means that there is often local vulnerability but widespread ballot fraud is very, very difficult to do). That's depressing, because it means that at the end of the day this is our own damn fault (collectively; I know, none of us sought this outcome), but I'd rather be clear-eyed about what we're dealing with than hide in a fantasy of dastardly conspiracies.
posted by jackbishop at 8:01 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
By and large, today, I'd say the actual pipeline from receiving a blank ballot to having your vote counted has as much integrity as it ever has: technology has (after we mostly moved away from the regrettable late-90s/early-2000s debacle of electronic voting without auditable paper trails) been mostly an asset here. It is very difficult to actually sneak ballots in or out of the system without throwing off mechanisms which will detect that kind of thing.
There is absolutely plenty of fuckery that goes on still to suppress "undesirable" votes: aggressive purging of voter rolls, overzealous flagging of relocated voters, understaffing and underequipping of certain precincts, other things to suppress access to the franchise. But these are easy to identify things and if you look at any given precinct it doesn't take much digging at all to figure out if that's what's going on.
But as to the question of whether the vote totals reported reflect the ballots actually cast, I'd say they do for the most part (I assume there's a nonzero amount of local fraud, because the immense patchwork of different balloting procedures means that there is often local vulnerability but widespread ballot fraud is very, very difficult to do). That's depressing, because it means that at the end of the day this is our own damn fault (collectively; I know, none of us sought this outcome), but I'd rather be clear-eyed about what we're dealing with than hide in a fantasy of dastardly conspiracies.
posted by jackbishop at 8:01 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
Honestly, I wish this were true. It’d be much easier to fix than the reality that the majority of Americans have been taught to blame Democrats for problems caused by Republicans and it will be incredibly difficult to change that.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 8:19 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 8:19 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Lots of people voted for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II.
This country has always been full of jerks and idiots.
That's the main problem.
posted by freakazoid at 8:26 AM on January 8 [7 favorites]
This country has always been full of jerks and idiots.
That's the main problem.
posted by freakazoid at 8:26 AM on January 8 [7 favorites]
It really sucks to believe so many people in the US would rather have a comical rapist/felon buffoon in the White House but here we are.
It doesn't even require belief, because that's exactly what happened.
posted by emelenjr at 8:30 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
It doesn't even require belief, because that's exactly what happened.
posted by emelenjr at 8:30 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
Add my voice to the chorus saying "nope."
The nature of the US national election process, decentralized and fragmented as it is, both enables R ratfucking by voter suppression and also provides resistance to the kind of attack that OP fantasizes about.
I'm in the camp that says no, America just really is the kind of place that would elect Trump (especially given the R ratfucking that goes on as background noise in every election these last couple of decades), and then turn around and elect him again after having had 4 years to forget how bad he was the 1st time. No conspiracy needed to produce that outcome.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on January 8 [10 favorites]
The nature of the US national election process, decentralized and fragmented as it is, both enables R ratfucking by voter suppression and also provides resistance to the kind of attack that OP fantasizes about.
I'm in the camp that says no, America just really is the kind of place that would elect Trump (especially given the R ratfucking that goes on as background noise in every election these last couple of decades), and then turn around and elect him again after having had 4 years to forget how bad he was the 1st time. No conspiracy needed to produce that outcome.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on January 8 [10 favorites]
I'd suspect these efforts are part of a flood the zone with shit/ratfuckery/electoral disillusionment conspiracy or laying groundwork for a grift before I'd believe there was wide-spread systemic fraud that stole the election. One of the biggest jokes about America is there's so much democracy, so much voting, so much freedom, but the system to exercise those rights is intentionally designed to make things so discouraging, onerous, futile, and shitty that why should you even bother.
This is copium LARPing.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:44 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
This is copium LARPing.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:44 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
The stool of bias
may require a larger sample
I should just change my user name to Will Favourite Every Poop Joke
posted by ginger.beef at 10:07 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
may require a larger sample
I should just change my user name to Will Favourite Every Poop Joke
posted by ginger.beef at 10:07 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
In addition to the wide variety of local election authorities and methods noted above, the hypothesized level of election fraud would require subverting the exit pollsters, who collect and tabulate their data completely separately from the actual ballot counting.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:24 AM on January 8
posted by mbrubeck at 10:24 AM on January 8
This kind of speculation is actively dangerous. We've spent the last 8 years defending US elections as fair and correct in the face of absolutely outrageous, unsupported Republican claims to the contrary. To now claim that this last election was crooked because it went against our team? It undermines everything past and future.
Of course vote counting should be looked at closely to make sure it's not corrupted. But professionally and responsibly, not some random people on Reddit. The broad pattern in 2024 is very clear. The election results match the pre-election polling and the exit polls. This is not a situation like in Romania, Moldova, or Georgia.
posted by Nelson at 1:28 PM on January 8 [8 favorites]
Of course vote counting should be looked at closely to make sure it's not corrupted. But professionally and responsibly, not some random people on Reddit. The broad pattern in 2024 is very clear. The election results match the pre-election polling and the exit polls. This is not a situation like in Romania, Moldova, or Georgia.
posted by Nelson at 1:28 PM on January 8 [8 favorites]
Look, I’ve said from well before the election that the numbers coming out of this cycle were weird. But I also believe that the weirdness could be explained by a whole lot of people up and down the system nervously second-guessing themselves in a system they knew is beyond the simple presumption of trustworthiness, and who knew the nail that sticks up in any direction risks getting hammered down. In hindsight perhaps the most telling sign of Trump’s impending victory was the fear of straying too far from a noncommittal coin-toss analysis. Like the rest of us, they knew this was our last chance to step back from the precipice, and that we distressingly likely not to.
Honestly, if tomorrow there were to emerge a smoking gun proving that the election were somehow a sham, I wouldn’t be even a little bit surprised, because I wouldn’t put anything past contemporary Republicans, but otherwise I highly doubt it. Most of the insinuations I’ve seen entail, for instance, a bizarre assumption that Elon Musk has some sort of magic technological voodoo power to “hack” the election. In reality I suspect that across the system people were prepared for absolutely anything except the possibility that a majority of voters would look at the chilling similarities between 2024 America and 1932 Germany and say “yeah, I’m fine with that.” The truly horrific conspiracy is not a secret one to cheat an election, but the totally transparent one that on the whole this is who we are. At this point I just hope I live long enough to see us figure out how incredibly fucked up that is.
posted by gelfin at 1:33 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Honestly, if tomorrow there were to emerge a smoking gun proving that the election were somehow a sham, I wouldn’t be even a little bit surprised, because I wouldn’t put anything past contemporary Republicans, but otherwise I highly doubt it. Most of the insinuations I’ve seen entail, for instance, a bizarre assumption that Elon Musk has some sort of magic technological voodoo power to “hack” the election. In reality I suspect that across the system people were prepared for absolutely anything except the possibility that a majority of voters would look at the chilling similarities between 2024 America and 1932 Germany and say “yeah, I’m fine with that.” The truly horrific conspiracy is not a secret one to cheat an election, but the totally transparent one that on the whole this is who we are. At this point I just hope I live long enough to see us figure out how incredibly fucked up that is.
posted by gelfin at 1:33 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Look, I’ve said from well before the election that the numbers coming out of this cycle were weird.
How so?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:31 PM on January 8
How so?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:31 PM on January 8
From, the outside, this stuff has done a lot to really settle any nagging doubts I may have had that the 2020 election was legit.
I mean it looked legit. Biden was popular, the count seemed well-administered, there was no clear vector along which foul play could have happened. But so many people on the internet seemed to feel something was up, and could there really be smoke without fire? That much smoke?
But no. It turns out that there really doesn't have to be anything there. It turns out that people always do this nonsense.
posted by wattle at 3:01 PM on January 8
I mean it looked legit. Biden was popular, the count seemed well-administered, there was no clear vector along which foul play could have happened. But so many people on the internet seemed to feel something was up, and could there really be smoke without fire? That much smoke?
But no. It turns out that there really doesn't have to be anything there. It turns out that people always do this nonsense.
posted by wattle at 3:01 PM on January 8
Trump and the Republicans are almost legendarily stupid and incompetent. Dude needs a manservant to open a can of Diet Coke. Thinking that gang could pull off stealing an election, even with Putin's help, is preposterous.
posted by Doug Holland at 6:18 PM on January 8
posted by Doug Holland at 6:18 PM on January 8
Assuming the mods approve it, I have created a related MetaTalk.
posted by Violet Blue at 7:29 PM on January 8
posted by Violet Blue at 7:29 PM on January 8
I'm entirely in the JB Murdoch - It was a global anti-incumbent swing -camp on this. It had very little to do with the actual candidates, in fact Kamala Harris out performed the anti-incumbent trend. It was about the pandemic and post-pandemic global chaos emotional hangover.
This is also why Trudeau is polling badly in Canada.
The fuckery in US elections isn't around ballots or counting. It's at the state government and supreme court level where they gerrymander and wipe their asses with the Constitution's amendments.
posted by srboisvert at 4:29 AM on January 9 [7 favorites]
This is also why Trudeau is polling badly in Canada.
The fuckery in US elections isn't around ballots or counting. It's at the state government and supreme court level where they gerrymander and wipe their asses with the Constitution's amendments.
posted by srboisvert at 4:29 AM on January 9 [7 favorites]
I should just change my user name to Will Favourite Every Poop Joke
That could put you well along the way to becoming the suppository of all wisdom.
posted by flabdablet at 5:05 AM on January 9
That could put you well along the way to becoming the suppository of all wisdom.
posted by flabdablet at 5:05 AM on January 9
I'm entirely in the JB Murdoch - It was a global anti-incumbent swing -camp on this.
Watching the FT and similar highfalutin propaganda rags correctly identify the problem and then bounce hard off the only genuine solution is kind of amazing and disheartening. The feeling is akin to that engendered by US's characteristically helpless throwing up of its collective hands in response to the mass shootings that it now allows to happen more than once per day on average.
Sensible restrictions on gun ownership will fix the latter. Assets taxes on wealthy families will fix the former. Neither is fucking rocket science.
posted by flabdablet at 5:21 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
Watching the FT and similar highfalutin propaganda rags correctly identify the problem and then bounce hard off the only genuine solution is kind of amazing and disheartening. The feeling is akin to that engendered by US's characteristically helpless throwing up of its collective hands in response to the mass shootings that it now allows to happen more than once per day on average.
Sensible restrictions on gun ownership will fix the latter. Assets taxes on wealthy families will fix the former. Neither is fucking rocket science.
posted by flabdablet at 5:21 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
I sorta sympathize with something about this idea. Trump and the republicans seem to have made hay with conspiracies theories and big lies. Lots of democratic electoral setbacks seem to have come at the hands of republican lies and smear campaigns - Kerry’s military record, Birtherism, etc. Trump whipped up a violent mob on J6 on the basis of lies about the 2020 election, and it seems that his ability to wield lies to whip up violent mobs deters accountability for that and other crimes! Conspiracy theories also serve as a useful all-purpose excuse for political failings - Oh we would have done all the good things we promised but hidden deep state bureaucrats led by uh, who’s that guy you hate? Obama? Sure, led by Obama - oh did I mention they are satanic pedophiles? - yeah anyway that’s why eggs are $7. Not because we deported half the agricultural workers and defunded the government agency that fights bird flu.
So republicans have showed that lying and conspiracy theories work. They appear to be a powerful tool that delivers results. Can you blame people for asking, why are we not using that tool, if it’s powerful enough to get a convicted felon and treasonous bastard like Trump elected President?
posted by rustcrumb at 6:01 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]
So republicans have showed that lying and conspiracy theories work. They appear to be a powerful tool that delivers results. Can you blame people for asking, why are we not using that tool, if it’s powerful enough to get a convicted felon and treasonous bastard like Trump elected President?
posted by rustcrumb at 6:01 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]
Is this just a tempest jn a teapot? Maybe every election has a few folks who say "that was BS" but we have a heightened surveilance for this non-sense because of the 2020 coup attempt. Like when you buy a lime green car and suddenely see them everywhere.
Or did a bunch of internet addicts see how viral this type stuff was in 2020 and think - oh boy a rocketship ticket to popularity in our tech distopia? A false-flag counter narrative op by reptile aliens trying to discredit the democrats and both-sides the issue?
Once we depart from evidence and indulge in speculation, whatever we want becomes plausible and dangerous.
Off all the things about Trump we should fight (his nominees, his policies, his crimes, the christian and fascist and oligarch social movements that empower him, all those things we should fight. But the 2016, and 2024 election results, those battles are over. Beleive what you want but don't keep fighting over hamburger hill.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 6:06 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Or did a bunch of internet addicts see how viral this type stuff was in 2020 and think - oh boy a rocketship ticket to popularity in our tech distopia? A false-flag counter narrative op by reptile aliens trying to discredit the democrats and both-sides the issue?
Once we depart from evidence and indulge in speculation, whatever we want becomes plausible and dangerous.
Off all the things about Trump we should fight (his nominees, his policies, his crimes, the christian and fascist and oligarch social movements that empower him, all those things we should fight. But the 2016, and 2024 election results, those battles are over. Beleive what you want but don't keep fighting over hamburger hill.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 6:06 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I'm entirely in the JB Murdoch - It was a global anti-incumbent swing -camp on this.
IMO this is just finding patterns in clouds- there was no 'anti-incumbent' swing across the vast majority of the US states. I guess those elections don't count? Then you just have a few data points that you are tieing together with the same red string.
I guess you could make the case that the head incumbents all followed roughly the same policy to make the case that they are being voted out -at least that would be a reason. Not sure I'd agree with that.
I guess I'd make the case that the incumbents are being pushed around by the minority parties, with no specific visions of their own communicated, just reacting to the minority party demands and maybe that is driving anti-incumbent results. In that case, taxing policy is not going to change anything.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:09 AM on January 9
IMO this is just finding patterns in clouds- there was no 'anti-incumbent' swing across the vast majority of the US states. I guess those elections don't count? Then you just have a few data points that you are tieing together with the same red string.
I guess you could make the case that the head incumbents all followed roughly the same policy to make the case that they are being voted out -at least that would be a reason. Not sure I'd agree with that.
I guess I'd make the case that the incumbents are being pushed around by the minority parties, with no specific visions of their own communicated, just reacting to the minority party demands and maybe that is driving anti-incumbent results. In that case, taxing policy is not going to change anything.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:09 AM on January 9
There was global inflation and voters blame the head of state not governors/local reps for that.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:55 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:55 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
Here's an interesting take:
Democrats have become the party of war. Americans are tired of it.
Democrats have become the party of war. Americans are tired of it.
In foreign policy as elsewhere, Democrats positioned themselves as defenders of a set of ideas and assumptions that most Americans no longer trust.posted by Artful Codger at 12:43 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this is dumb. The idea that the Republicans seekwitly stole the vote and etc. They worked really hard to limit the vote to only include the voters they wanted (purging roles/ gerrymandering) and then dumped one fuck-ton (thanks Elon, you policy-failure you) of money into specific races and got enough votes to 'win' at least in the Electoral College. (Still no majority of popular votes, but hey, not the issue.)
Which sucks.
But what are you going to do? Get rid of gerrymandering? Get rid of black-money superPacs? Impose a nationwide standard for how national-level votes should be conducted? Take other steps to insure voting is transparent and etc?
As mentioned upthread, America is wildly stupid when it comes to common-sense implementations.
(At the start of the COVID madness, at a parent assembly for my kids' class, one of the mom's simply could not believe the virus was that bad and that all these cautions were necessary. Over the next couple of months she slid right off the deep end: and all of it, judging from her tone in those assemblies, was motivated by fear, by terror - that such a virulent disease could be on the loose, making so many so sick, was beyond her ability to accept without feeling that her world was collapsing. So she looked for other explanations, no matter how wildly bonkers. It sucked hardest for her kid who had to bear the actual repercussions of being 'that' kid who got 'special' treatment because... because. Thankfully her kid never got sick, physically, but she suffered in all the other ways. )
posted by From Bklyn at 3:56 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Which sucks.
But what are you going to do? Get rid of gerrymandering? Get rid of black-money superPacs? Impose a nationwide standard for how national-level votes should be conducted? Take other steps to insure voting is transparent and etc?
As mentioned upthread, America is wildly stupid when it comes to common-sense implementations.
(At the start of the COVID madness, at a parent assembly for my kids' class, one of the mom's simply could not believe the virus was that bad and that all these cautions were necessary. Over the next couple of months she slid right off the deep end: and all of it, judging from her tone in those assemblies, was motivated by fear, by terror - that such a virulent disease could be on the loose, making so many so sick, was beyond her ability to accept without feeling that her world was collapsing. So she looked for other explanations, no matter how wildly bonkers. It sucked hardest for her kid who had to bear the actual repercussions of being 'that' kid who got 'special' treatment because... because. Thankfully her kid never got sick, physically, but she suffered in all the other ways. )
posted by From Bklyn at 3:56 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Any thoughts from MeFi on what Trump said yesterday about the voting machines in reference to Elon Musk? It sounds like an admission:
"He journeyed to Pennsylvania, where he spent a month and a half campaigning for me in Pennsylvania, and he's a popular guy. He was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty good, pretty good. So thank you to Elon."
posted by TreeHugger at 8:44 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]
"He journeyed to Pennsylvania, where he spent a month and a half campaigning for me in Pennsylvania, and he's a popular guy. He was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty good, pretty good. So thank you to Elon."
posted by TreeHugger at 8:44 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]
TreeHugger: this falls into the same pitfall as the 2020 hoaxes. Pennsylvania was inline with the polls and other states results so we’re either talking a massive yet perfectly hermetic multi-state conspiracy which apparently had to include Democratic officials and the voting machine vendors he’s been in lawsuits with, or it’s just another ramble from an old man experiencing cognitive decline who has a history of describing things which never happened.
posted by adamsc at 9:29 AM on January 20 [2 favorites]
posted by adamsc at 9:29 AM on January 20 [2 favorites]
It sounds like an admission
As a wannabe dictator, TFG doesn't actually care who believes that US election results are untrustworthy, only that more people believe that they are.
He's a master grifter whose only real skill is persuading other people to act as if the horseshit that regularly tumbles from that puckered face-anus has some kind of discernible relationship with reality. Whatever he appears to be admitting to is never any more than chaff to distract from something else that he or his idiot family is up to, which will always be ten times more crass and venal.
posted by flabdablet at 2:35 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]
As a wannabe dictator, TFG doesn't actually care who believes that US election results are untrustworthy, only that more people believe that they are.
He's a master grifter whose only real skill is persuading other people to act as if the horseshit that regularly tumbles from that puckered face-anus has some kind of discernible relationship with reality. Whatever he appears to be admitting to is never any more than chaff to distract from something else that he or his idiot family is up to, which will always be ten times more crass and venal.
posted by flabdablet at 2:35 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]
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posted by TreeHugger at 8:10 PM on January 7