The General US Politics Thread

I'm not sure how many believe it versus not caring because fascists don't need to win fairly.

Specifics aside, the fact that Republican trust in the electoral process dropped pretty significantly after the election almost certainly isn't going to help turnout in the runoff elections.

Doubly so in Georgia where Biden won despite losing states he was more favored in going into election night (NC and Florida).

It remains to be seen whether it will be enough since the Democrats need to overcome both their historical turnout disadvantage in runoff elections plus an extra point or two. But I think both of those are achievable and Trump's continued attempts to contest the election results will only further undermine the Republican Senatorial campaigns.

I don't necessarily expect it to have a super huge impact, I just think it's funny that they consider "we will stick it to the GOP by NOT voting for them, potentially allowing the people we dislike even more to gain victory" a legitimate strategy.

Another thing is, I think it's questionable whether Trump will want to do the GOP any favors going forward by say, campaigning for them in Georgia. He's probably super salty at the GOP for "failing" him.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 21st 2020 at 7:25:51 AM

I mean, it happens on the Left often enough. The Right is due for a turn.

Hey, the more Democrats are convinced to turn in for the runoffs and overwhelm the Republicans, the more it'll have effects down the line by making Republicans less likely to vote when they don't expect to win. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Edited by Resileafs on Nov 21st 2020 at 5:42:56 AM

I was listening to an interview with Biden's campaign manager and she talked about how they were laser focused on 270 votes and that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were their top priorities. Beyond that they were confident in flipping Arizona, while Florida and North Carolina were always too toss up and were thus put on a lower tier of campaign focus.

Georgia was a late addition that she was admittedly skeptical off, but it actually was given higher importance than Florida and North Carolina once Biden saw the polling.

Edited by Parable on Nov 21st 2020 at 2:46:22 AM

Allegations of rigging can motivate voters who feel the election was rigged against them, that’s part of what got Democrat turnout up this year in Georgia. Abrams refused to concede in 2018 because Kemp had rigged the whole thing, people angry about Kemp’s rigging turned out to vote in 2020 and overcame the rigging.

Now in this situation there’s obvious the big difference that the allegation is false, but the rigging allegations could motivate Republicans, I guess the key difference is going to be if the rigging allegation is phrased such that they believe the rigging can be overcome, or if it’s impossible to overcome.

This actually touches on a political philosophy conversation we had in another thread, people on the left generally see the evils in the world and believe that they can theoretically be defeated, while people on the right see the same evils and believe that they can only be redirected at others, that may mean they take it much harder when they believe the system is rigged, as their primed to believe that such unfairness can never be removed from existence.

Eh, there are different types of rigging narratives. "They're trying to rig the election" is powerful because it's something in progress and is not a forgone conclusion, that's definitely a robust motivator. But "they've already rigged the election" is the exact opposite because then there's no point in voting if they already can control the result. It saps the morale of one's base which could be lethal for them if Democratic morale is high.

I think Trump's talk of rigged elections is far more likely to fit into the latter category than the former.

Which isn't to say that it'll flip the election, I have no idea if it will or won't, but I don't see it helping them.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Nov 21st 2020 at 3:20:27 AM

Oh damn; that’s right

Imagine having to apply to be part of the staff o the Presidential Library of Donald Trump

When all those Trump staffers find they're unemployable, it'll be good to have something to fall back on.

What I personally still don't get about the "Republicans will not denounce Trump's stolen election rhetoric because they think it'll help them in Georgia" thing isn't so much whether the rhetoric alone will depress turnout. It's that it seems to me like by far one of the most powerful arguments they should have for motivating their base is "save the Senate to keep a check on President Biden!" And they're just... completely denying themselves the possibility of making it.

Another Trump lawsuit to stop the election certification in Pennsylvania has been thrown out by the judge.

That's 35 now? I think?

What about them seems like they have actual logical skills? They either run in circles or stretch things way beyond the "the governments of the world are run by a cabal of lizard people that have nefarious plans for the milk supply of the world" point.

Because if they acknowledge President Biden, Trump is all the more likely to torpedo his own side out of spite. I still think it's pretty good odds that he does it anyway when the results are finalized in December.

Edited by TheRoguePenguin on Nov 21st 2020 at 4:18:14 AM

That's probably another thing setting the narrative here. Most Republicans believe that the election was rigged and because Trump's baseless accusations are being thrown out of court, it reinforces the idea in Republicans minds that there's nothing they can do about it.

They ignore why the cases are thrown out (that there's not actual evidence of fraud) and just jump to the result to form their own conclusions.

Edited by LSBK on Nov 21st 2020 at 6:19:03 AM

I don't think they understand Trump because there's no way to softball him.

Loeffler and Perdue are trying to do both, even though it doesn't make much sense. They're campaigning on being the "firewall" in the Senate to stop Biden, and also attacking the GOP Secretary of State and saying there was fraud.

Edited by nova92 on Nov 21st 2020 at 4:25:44 AM

The Logic Bomb the GOP has to navigate that the elections are rigged but they are all democratically elected.

We've mentioned in this thread numerous times that Republicans are perfectly capable of doublethink.

I think its less doublethink in that they don't care.

To be fair, those ideas aren't inherently contradictory. They're not true but that's besides the point for Republicans at this point.

"If I win I was democratically elected but if you win it was fraud" may not precisely be doublethink but it does require a substantial investment in cognitive dissonance. It comes from the idea that Republicans are the only possible legitimate winners of elections.

This is in and of itself a form of cognitive dissonance created by the need to reject the reality that more than half of voters consistently support Democrats. Rather than accept that their ideas are unpopular, the entire concept of voting must be nullified.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 21st 2020 at 7:38:11 AM

Which is self-evident when you wholeheartedly believe that your values are objectively right and true and the Silent Majority™ are with you.

Edited by Perseus on Nov 21st 2020 at 11:40:37 PM

Given how useless it is to reason with so many of them, it could be time to try to figure out how to use their delusions against them or in favor of reason or whatever.

Oddly, I did talk someone out of believing in electoon fraud by sarcasm. I was surprised when it worked.

"Yes, Tim, I and the rest of the Democrats gathered in our secret castle of evil to rig the election against Trump but let all the other Republicans win."