It might be nice to think that when people are presented with some idea — e.g., that the presidential election wasn’t fair — that they would listen to the evidence and make a decision based on sound reasoning.
We all know that’s not true. People’s opinions on the fairness of the election had more to do with who they wanted to win than with any objective analysis of the facts. First of all, nobody’s objective. Second, nobody has all the facts. Or even most of them.
As people continue to sour on Biden, the idea that the presidential election might not have been fair will become more popular.
I’m not saying these two things are connected in a rational way. Biden’s bumbling, partisan, incompetent presidency doesn’t say anything about the fairness of the election. But the more people grow to dislike Biden, the more they’ll listen to arguments the election was stolen.
You’re probably right: people tend to derive positions from associations between things. And frankly, it’s understandable. There’s not often enough time or energy to spend evaluating everything, so we develop instincts and a sense of people and groups of ideas we think are reliable as a kind of proxy for the deeper consideration we can’t do. It can obviously go off the rails, but since it’s a natural feature of human thought we’d better get used to it. There are definitely people whose support of a position tells me pretty quickly the opposite is probably true, in a regular and reproducible way.
Anyway, I have a different prediction.
As it becomes increasingly obvious that 2021 Biden is challenged by world events (and memory, words, numbers, and daily life in general) his supporters will retroactively ramp up their hate for Trump even more. They will gradually work themselves from “Biden is the competent man we need to save us from the chaos of the Trump dystopia” toward the (technically) more defensible “okay, admittedly President Harris is terrible, but we had to get rid of Trump at all costs!”
Noticing this shift in rhetoric will be considered declasse, and so the ones caught doing it will mostly shout and stamp their feet. It will be mildly amusing to see at first but get boring quickly.
(I considered but ruled out predicting the emergence of a “yes, we cheated on the election, and we were right to because Trump was so dangerous!” group. I know at least one person who has come right up to the edge of admitting that’s what he thinks but hasn’t been able to bring himself over the Rubicon.)
I have wondered if some liberal somewhere would admit something along the lines of “Sure, we took authority we didn’t really have, but we had to get rid of Trump.”
Who f*cking cheated? Why haven’t the Kraken been released? How many court cases were there and how many did team orange bozo win? Basically, team bozo lawyers have said that anything they said was BS and they really didn’t mean it…that no serious person would believe it. I guess Hillary’s hit men got to team bozo and made them offers they couldn’t refuse.
States that changed voting rules without the approval of their legislatures cheated, but that’s irrelevant. The point here is not whether it’s right or wrong to say the election was rigged, or stolen, or whatever. The point is that people do not make up their minds about questions like that based on facts — since they don’t have the facts anyway, and can’t get them. They make up their minds based on other things, like “who do I trust more?” As Biden “loses his luster,” so to speak, people will become more amenable to anti-Biden theories.
QUOTE: States that changed voting rules without the approval of their legislatures cheated, but that’s irrelevant.
Indeed, it’s irrelevant…not only because it’s besides the primary point but because it isn’t valid. For instance…
* Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed SB631 into law, permitting any registered voter to cast an absentee ballot in any 2020 election, subject to a notarization requirement.
* Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed SB210 into law. The legislation permitted voters to submit copies of their identification in lieu of having the ballot notarized in the event of a state of emergency occurring within 45 days of an election.
* Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) issued an executive order authorizing voters to cite concerns over COVID-19 as a valid reasoning for voting absentee.
So, Republican officials with “legitimate”government authority made changes to cheat themselves???….NOT! Sour grape Republicans in Pennsylvania tried to make this argument about their changes (even WITH legislature input). 138 Republican House members voted in favor of this legislation. 59 Democrats voted against the legislation. Republicans were complicit in establishing the new PA legislation. As well, the courts affirmed those changes were legitimate and LEGAL.
Trump and his cronies claimed there was wide scale voter fraud during the 2020 election and even influenced a national “stop the steal” movement. Yet, after nearly a year, what have found?
-Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick established a reward paying up to a million for evidence of legitimate voter fraud. Nearly a year later, there were NO verified payable claims. Yet, as of last week, the first and only payment was made to a Democrat for reporting a Republican who was found guilty of attempting to vote twice. https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-170656112.html
Interestingly, PA Democrat Lt. Governor John Fetterman also identified a confirmed voter fraud case in PA, perpetrated by a Republican, but Patrick didn’t paid out on that one.
-Trump lawyer Sydney Powell indicated she had lots of evidence of wide scale fraud (the Kraken) and went on a nation media blitz. Yet, the Kraken was never fully released, the cases she’s presented in court have been dismissed and now she’s been sued for her claims. Incidentally, her has lawyer said in her defense… “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.”
-Over 60 cases of alleged voter fraud has gone to court and nearly all the suits were dismissed or dropped due to lack of evidence.
– Of all election audits conducted NONE has found evidence that would change the results of the election. In fact, the recent Republican-led audit in Arizona resulted in 100s LESS votes for Trump than initially reported. Interestingly, they spent 6 million dollars to come to this known conclusion.
Seems the only thing that has been widespread is the big lie about voter fraud. Yet, like a cancer it continues to inflect the minds of many…some still protesting the election results.
IOW, my prediction is right so far.
Not necessarily. Even if he was doing well, I suspect they would continue. It would be their way of trying to discredit him.
Republicans swept the races in VA this year…in a state that had a Democratic winning streak statewide since 2012 and more frequently elected a Democrat as governor in the last 40 years. Yet, the Dems have yet to claim the election was rigged, nor sought to overturn the outcomes. In fact, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate conceded the day after the election and said this about his Republican opponent…“I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family.” Imagine that?