2021 American Civil War

neverdie

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I also lived through it and for me it is indelibly burned into my head. It was the moment I moved from idealist to realist. I did not vote for Clinton (or Trump), although as an Alabama resident it hardly mattered. But it still made its mark.
To compare the 2 is laughable. Again, the legitimacy was called into question not because of claims of stolen votes or stuffed ballot boxes, but because of obvious foreign interference and Comey doing shit. Also the electoral college, but that’s a different issue. Is/was Biden the perfect candidate? Hell no, but it was the best option we had.
i'm not saying that trump's base has a better claim, they don't. i'm just saying that the dems acted in such a way as to call the legitimacy of the electoral process into question. it was considered stolen by many people, not just that one person writing immediately after it. trump won because he won more votes in the states that mattered within the fptp system. not because it was stolen as clinton and many others would later say. it set the ground for claims of stolen elections in 2020. i think it was a stupid move because trump would likely have claimed it was stolen had he lost in 2016. in fact that's what all the chatter was about back then with trump indicating that he would do it. it's a bit rich for clinton to then do the same thing.
 

nimic

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more independents than republicans believe the same thing, about guns being needed and 20% of democrats believe it too. also, democrats bleated on for four years about the 2016 election being stolen when they just lost because clinton was crap and they couldn't face it. much more similar than they like to admit. i'd be curious to see what percentage of dems bought the russiagate stupidity for example. probably similar number that believes in this trump stolen election nonsense. each party is playing with democracy as institution in that country.
No idea what you're saying in the first sentence there. As for claims that the election was stolen, polls have shown that a large majority of Democrats thought the 2016 election was fair. On the other hand, a large majority of Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen. Furthermore, what did Democrats do with those allegations in 2016? Not a damn thing. What are Republicans doing with their current allegations? Well for one there was a completely unprecedented riot at the Capitol, while lawmakers were in the process of certifying the election and with the state purpose of stopping them from doing it. But it didn't stop there. Republicans are currently well in the process of nominating, electing and appointing officials who state that they believe the election was stolen, and claim they will act to stop it being stolen again in 2024. And these people are being put (or are attempting to be put) in positions with real power to do that

In other words, it's not the same.
 

nimic

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i'm not saying that trump's base has a better claim, they don't. i'm just saying that the dems acted in such a way as to call the legitimacy of the electoral process into question. it was considered stolen by many people, not just that one person writing immediately after it. trump won because he won more votes in the states that mattered within the fptp system. not because it was stolen as clinton and many others would later say. it set the ground for claims of stolen elections in 2020. i think it was a stupid move because trump would likely have claimed it was stolen had he lost in 2016. in fact that's what all the chatter was about back then with trump indicating that he would do it. it's a bit rich for clinton to then do the same thing.
It didn't, though. Trump was talking about electing rigging the entire campaign in 2016, and even when he won he claimed that the other side tried to steal it. He claimed he got millions more votes than Clinton, which is obviously not true.
 

Beachryan

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i'm not saying that trump's base has a better claim, they don't. i'm just saying that the dems acted in such a way as to call the legitimacy of the electoral process into question. it was considered stolen by many people, not just that one person writing immediately after it. trump won because he won more votes in the states that mattered within the fptp system. not because it was stolen as clinton and many others would later say. it set the ground for claims of stolen elections in 2020. i think it was a stupid move because trump would likely have claimed it was stolen had he lost in 2016. in fact that's what all the chatter was about back then with trump indicating that he would do it. it's a bit rich for clinton to then do the same thing.
For me this is both sidesing to a ludicrous degree. Like the whole 'both parties lie' or 'both sides are as bad as each other'.

Comparing the 2016 claims of an election being stolen - which as an extremely close follower of US politics I don't recall at all - to a movement where almost 3/4ers of a party say it is like saying both I and Lionel Messi can kick a football with our left feet. Technically true, but entirely missing the point.

Trump has never lost at anything in his life. Golf, bankruptcies, elections - he refuses to acknowledge reality. The only scary thing is that the GOP went along with him.

Hillary got shafted by Comey and I (and big James himself) will forever believe that if not for his hubris, we would have avoided this nightmare. But I've never heard that as it being stolen.
 

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No idea what you're saying in the first sentence there. As for claims that the election was stolen, polls have shown that a large majority of Democrats thought the 2016 election was fair. On the other hand, a large majority of Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen. Furthermore, what did Democrats do with those allegations in 2016? Not a damn thing. What are Republicans doing with their current allegations? Well for one there was a completely unprecedented riot at the Capitol, while lawmakers were in the process of certifying the election and with the state purpose of stopping them from doing it. But it didn't stop there. Republicans are currently well in the process of nominating, electing and appointing officials who state that they believe the election was stolen, and claim they will act to stop it being stolen again in 2024. And these people are being put (or are attempting to be put) in positions with real power to do that

In other words, it's not the same.
What @nimic said.

edit: and @Beachryan
 

neverdie

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No idea what you're saying in the first sentence there. As for claims that the election was stolen, polls have shown that a large majority of Democrats thought the 2016 election was fair. On the other hand, a large majority of Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen. Furthermore, what did Democrats do with those allegations in 2016? Not a damn thing. What are Republicans doing with their current allegations? Well for one there was a completely unprecedented riot at the Capitol, while lawmakers were in the process of certifying the election and with the state purpose of stopping them from doing it. But it didn't stop there. Republicans are currently well in the process of nominating, electing and appointing officials who state that they believe the election was stolen, and claim they will act to stop it being stolen again in 2024. And these people are being put (or are attempting to be put) in positions with real power to do that

In other words, it's not the same.
35% of independents think they'll need guns. 33% of republicans think the same. 20% of democrats.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen recently came up with an interesting finding. His poll showed that almost the exact same percentage of Americans think Hillary Clinton had the election stolen from her as think Donald Trump suffered the same fate in 2020.

So why is it that Democrats never get attacked for being seditionists?

Rasmussen (who founded but is no longer with the Rasmussen Reports polling firm) surveyed 1,200 registered voters, asking who they believe were the legitimate winners of the 2016 and 2020 elections.

What he found was that 52% of Democrats continue to believe that Clinton was the actual winner in 2016. Only 34% of Democrats believe Trump was the legitimate winner, and 14% aren’t sure.

How about the 2020 election? The poll determined that 66% of Republicans think Trump was the legitimate winner, with 25% saying Biden won fair and square, and 9% not sure.

In other words, a majority of people in both parties think their candidate had the election stolen. But does anyone remember any company canceling contracts with a Democrat for not wanting to certify the 2016 election results? Or endless articles about how Democrats undermined democracy? Or attempts to silence Democrats spewing falsehoods on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube?
https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/...-2016-election-why-arent-they-being-canceled/

https://scottrasmussen.com/just-26-...ed-winner-in-last-two-presidential-elections/

second for non partisan poll data.

would need to see evidence for the bold.
 

nimic

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35% of independents think they'll need guns. 33% of republicans think the same. 20% of democrats.



https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/...-2016-election-why-arent-they-being-canceled/

https://scottrasmussen.com/just-26-...ed-winner-in-last-two-presidential-elections/

second for non partisan poll data.

would need to see evidence for the bold.
I'll trust the second one (to a degree), but the first link is definitely not an impartial site.

I was going off this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...s-election-results-than-democrats-after-2016/
 

neverdie

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For me this is both sidesing to a ludicrous degree. Like the whole 'both parties lie' or 'both sides are as bad as each other'.

Comparing the 2016 claims of an election being stolen - which as an extremely close follower of US politics I don't recall at all - to a movement where almost 3/4ers of a party say it is like saying both I and Lionel Messi can kick a football with our left feet. Technically true, but entirely missing the point.

Trump has never lost at anything in his life. Golf, bankruptcies, elections - he refuses to acknowledge reality. The only scary thing is that the GOP went along with him.

Hillary got shafted by Comey and I (and big James himself) will forever believe that if not for his hubris, we would have avoided this nightmare. But I've never heard that as it being stolen.
clinton lost because trump was the better candidate. trump also got shafted by the fbi in a case which was as aggregious as that which clinton cites. this one being bad because it involved clinton campaign members manufacturing lies and misrepresenting facts to the fbi. maybe that's why comey did what he did? who knows.

as for both sides. they are both shit. that's true. but the gop fringe is dangerous in a way the democrats aren't. they take it further for example by putting election denialists into positions of power as nimic said but each side does do it, the whole denialist thing. maybe that's because of polarization but it's factual and borne out by the data.
 

Carolina Red

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Saying that you believe Russian interference affected the election results isn’t exactly the same as saying the election was stolen by a secret plot.

You can believe the vote count is legit and believe that Russian interference altered people’s voting decisions.
 

nimic

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yeah was a quick grab, wasn't looking for gop biased sites so added second primary link. i'll look through this more anyway. thanks for link
Ah, I see. Rasmussen is interesting, because he's not Rasmussen Reports. It's named after him, and it used to be him, but he left a few years ago. Since then it's basically been an extremely pro-GOP polling company, Trump loved to quote their polls in his tweets. But as far as I know Scott Rasmussen is still legit.
 

neverdie

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Saying that you believe Russian interference affected the election results isn’t exactly the same as saying the election was stolen by a secret plot.

You can believe the vote count is legit and believe that Russian interference altered people’s voting decisions.
i get that distinction but when you add caveats like i think it was fair exept that it wasn't which isn't the same as i think it was stolen you still perpetuate a lack of confidence in the electoral system.

Ah, I see. Rasmussen is interesting, because he's not Rasmussen Reports. It's named after him, and it used to be him, but he left a few years ago. Since then it's basically been an extremely pro-GOP polling company, Trump loved to quote their polls in his tweets. But as far as I know Scott Rasmussen is still legit.
the interesting part which is to be expected is that dems have high confidence in the system before 2016 and that erodes continuously post 2016. the gop has low confidence prior to 2016 and that skyrockets, obviously, post 2016. then in 2020 the dems trust it absolutely again, the biden result, and the gop is convinced its stolen. each side while not equal in their denialism basically throws a tantrum when they lose. you see the same, though this is from memory, in the brexit situation. before the referendum brexit conspiracies are everywhere about the vote being rigged. after the referendum the conspiracies change form into absolute certainty of the legitimacy of proceedings but absolute skepticism regarding the establishment and how it's going to try and overturn the "will of the people". on the other side, you have claims of no one understanding the vote and propaganda and russian interference. the no one understanding it isn't completely false but the rest absolutely is. it was right wing british propaganda that led to brexit not russian interference.

you don't see it in british GEs though. no one thought the elections in 2017 and 2019 were rigged even though most labour voters do think, with justification, that corbyn was attacked by the establishment in the leadup to 2017 and 2019. so there you have the democrat version of the "steal" only it's more pronounced in the us than in the uk. pro-corbyn people don't think votes were rigged, they just think that the country was bombarded with anti-corbyn propaganda and this led to the very real results in which corbyn lost conclusively in 2019 and came within a whisker in 2017.

i think the russian thing is shorthand for the incompetence of whichever side uses it. it's a get out jail free card. blame it all on an external baddie.
 

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i get that distinction but when you add caveats like i think it was fair exept that it wasn't which isn't the same as i think it was stolen you still perpetuate a lack of confidence in the electoral system.
This is just not true. The issues people had with 2016 (excepting the ridiculousness of the EC) had nothing to do with the electoral system. They revolves around foreign interference and Comey’s letter. Both of those are campaign issues, not electoral system issues.
 

neverdie

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This is just not true. The issues people had with 2016 (excepting the ridiculousness of the EC) had nothing to do with the electoral system. They revolves around foreign interference and Comey’s letter. Both of those are campaign issues, not electoral system issues.
right but there's no evidence for foreign interference. nothing substantial. comey's letter is a fair thing to raise. russiagate was a prolonged joke. clinton campaign people being prosecuted or narrowly escaping prosecution for trying to mislead the fbi has been the only solid outcome of all that.

and i think it is true. it's the same kind of distinction in the corbyn case. it was unfair but not stolen.
 

WI_Red

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right but there's no evidence for foreign interference. nothing substantial. comey's letter is a fair thing to raise. russiagate was a prolonged joke. clinton campaign people being prosecuted or narrowly escaping prosecution for trying to mislead the fbi has been the only solid outcome of all that.

and i think it is true. it's the same kind of distinction in the corbyn case. it was unfair but not stolen.
Are you kidding me? A joke? Did you read the Murller report or just listen to Barr’s bullshit synopsis.
 

neverdie

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Are you kidding me? A joke? Did you read the Murller report or just listen to Barr’s bullshit synopsis.
i was engaged with it at the time. can't recall anything substantial. i'll reread it though. 400 pages so ill get back to you.
 

WI_Red

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i was engaged with it at the time. can't recall anything substantial. i'll reread it though. 400 pages so ill get back to you.
Sure you will. If you read even the published synopsis and don’t believe that the Russian government interfered via Social Media and the hacking of the DNC server then what would, in your mind, constitute interference? I’m not even bring up collusion or the second volume on obstruction, just the findings of volume 1.
 

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Pulled from Wiki, but still…

“The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee submitted the first in their five-volume 1,313-page report in July 2019 in which they concluded that the January 2017 intelligence community assessment alleging Russian interference was "coherent and well-constructed". The first volume also concluded that the assessment was "proper", learning from analysts that there was "no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions". The final and fifth volume, which was the result of three years of investigations, was released in August 2020,[6] ending one of the United States "highest-profile congressional inquiries."[7][8]The Committee report found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in favor of Trump, which included assistance from some of Trump's own advisers.[7]
 

Ekkie Thump

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35% of independents think they'll need guns. 33% of republicans think the same. 20% of democrats.



https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/...-2016-election-why-arent-they-being-canceled/

https://scottrasmussen.com/just-26-...ed-winner-in-last-two-presidential-elections/

second for non partisan poll data.

would need to see evidence for the bold.
I mean, your quote suffers from the fact that it tries to claim that two numbers which are in no way identical are, in fact, "almost exactly the same".

Anyway, here's 538's analysis using polls from the time: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...s-election-results-than-democrats-after-2016/

According to a new Monmouth University poll, about three in four Republicans now doubt the fairness of the 2020 presidential election... Monmouth isn’t the only pollster to find very high levels of distrust among Republicans, either. A YouGov/Economist poll this week found that 73 percent of Republicans had little or no confidence that the election was conducted fairly and a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 67 percent of Republicans thought that the 2020 election was either “probably” or “definitely” not free and fair.

[This compares to Morning Consult finding that 65% of Democrats were confident (28% not confident) that the count was accurate in 2016]
The worst outing for Democrats was picked up by The Federalist. A Yougov poll that found only 58% of Democrats thought Trump had won legitimately.

At any rate, at the time a clear majority of Democrats seem to have accepted the results, whereas now a clear majority of Republicans do not. It's also worth remembering that Clinton and the Democratic leadership conceded the election the night they lost. Trump failed to concede anything at all until the failed invasion of the Capitol three months later. No invasion occurred in 2016.

Also, there are indeed a great many iniquities in the American electoral system that systematically favour Republicans. These are easily verifiable and range from the gerrymandering of seats in the House of Representatives to the allocation of ballot boxes. There are also some who believe that the race for president should be carried by the popular vote rather than the electoral college. These tend to be Democratic and will no doubt have observed that Clinton carried the popular vote. In short, Democrats have more reason to believe in a rigged system than Republicans and yet it is the Republicans who are by far the more likely to believe that they were robbed.


 

neverdie

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Sure you will. If you read even the published synopsis and don’t believe that the Russian government interfered via Social Media and the hacking of the DNC server then what would, in your mind, constitute interference? I’m not even bring up collusion or the second volume on obstruction, just the findings of volume 1.
i'll read the report and get back to you. i'll then take contrary reports and see what you think. that's how this should work right?
 

neverdie

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Also, there are indeed a great many iniquities in the American electoral system that systematically favour Republicans. These are easily verifiable and range from the gerrymandering of seats in the House of Representatives to the allocation of ballot boxes. There are also some who believe that the race for president should be carried by the popular vote rather than the electoral college. These tend to be Democratic and will no doubt have observed that Clinton carried the popular vote. In short, Democrats have more reason to believe in a rigged system than Republicans and yet it is the Republicans who are by far the more likely to believe that they were robbed.
right but dems' faith in the system declines over time so that now apparently most believe 2016 was stolen. it's more pronounced on the republican side but you're not looking at two entirely different trends. they're interrelated.
 

WI_Red

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i'll read the report and get back to you. i'll then take contrary reports and see what you think. that's how this should work right?
I am fine if you take a look at Muellers summary report (much shorter). In all fairness that’s all I read.

What contrary reports are you referring to as I will take a look. I was not aware of another governmental organization with subpoena and investigative powers that performed a second investigation.
 

neverdie

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I am fine if you take a look at Muellers summary report (much shorter). In all fairness that’s all I read.

What contrary reports are you referring to as I will take a look. I was not aware of another governmental organization with subpoena and investigative powers that performed a second investigation.
i'll skim the main report unless it gets so arbitrary that i have to bow out and go for the summary. i'm familiar with the summary mostly anyway but i have massive misgivings about the process.

this would be more suited to the assange thread? but the complete lack of proof surrounding direct russian links to wikileaks, and assange specifically, is one that is always ignored. i'll come back to you with detailed analyses which will be non partisan. mostly ngos and investigative reporting from both sides.

The GOP led Senate committee even admitted that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in favor of Trump.
and this comes down to the idea of hacking attempts at the dnc and social media campaigns. on the hacking attempts, the podesta one particularly, i don't buy that. not that they and other states wouldn't want to or did try to hack but that that was the source for assange's material.

it begins by saying there's no evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. then goes onto say that there's evidence of russian interference on behalf of trump. it's the second one i want to clarify but better to let me reread the report and consider it before we continue because i'm doing a lot of this from memory right now.


In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign
government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy
advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign
government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that
it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July
31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign
were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.
for example that's in the first few pages. but we know now, thanks to further fbi activity, that this was all a clinton campaign op. so while i'd be amazed if there was no russian interference i have a lot of clarifications regarding this report. will get back to you all.
 
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WI_Red

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i'll skim the main report unless it gets so arbitrary that i have to bow out and go for the summary. i'm familiar with the summary mostly anyway but i have massive misgivings about the process.

this would be more suited to the assange thread? but the complete lack of proof surrounding direct russian links to wikileaks, and assange specifically, is one that is always ignored. i'll come back to you with detailed analyses which will be non partisan. mostly ngos and investigative reporting from both sides.


and this comes down to the idea of hacking attempts at the dnc and social media campaigns. on the hacking attempts, the podesta one particularly, i don't buy that. not that they and other states wouldn't want to or did try to hack but that that was the source for assange's material.

it begins by saying there's no evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. then goes onto say that there's evidence of russian interference on behalf of trump. it's the second one i want to clarify but better to let me reread the report and consider it before we continue because i'm doing a lot of this from memory right now.
Fair enough, but if I am weighing the Mueller reports findings vs @neverdie ‘s gut not buying it I am going to lean on the report. Also, collusion is not a legal term and therefore the report was never going to find it, but in my mind it does not matter if Trump was working with them or not, the main issue is if the Russian government interfered In the 2016 election and the answer there is an absolute yes.
 

neverdie

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Fair enough, but if I am weighing the Mueller reports findings vs @neverdie ‘s gut not buying it I am going to lean on the report. Also, collusion is not a legal term and therefore the report was never going to find it, but in my mind it does not matter if Trump was working with them or not, the main issue is if the Russian government interfered In the 2016 election and the answer there is an absolute yes.
i'll contrast it with the usual counterpoints and see where it lands. it'll be various journalists who do this for a living not my gut feeling but not acting in bad faith either way.
 

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right but dems' faith in the system declines over time so that now apparently most believe 2016 was stolen. it's more pronounced on the republican side but you're not looking at two entirely different trends. they're interrelated.
I don't think you've enough evidence to indicate the extent to which they're interrelated or not. I'm sure some is based on a general rising disaffection with state institutions. At any rate the scale, intensity and demonstrable consequence of the opposition to the election results is night and day. When the Dems lost a majority of their voters peacefully accepted the results and Clinton conceded the election the night she lost. When the Republicans lost a majority of their voters rejected the results, Trump refused to concede and his supporters stormed the Capitol.
 

edcunited1878

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Trump won the 2016 presidential elections for a variety of factors, including the fact that Hillary had a terrible campaign and alienated so many female voters. To that, it was the first presidential campaign where there was a social media strategy aimed at the swing states and undecided voters...which is the introduction to Cambridge Analytica, or whatever it was called. The rise of false narrative FB pages, which is the dominant social platform for the voters within the key demographics as a swing state voter or undecided, played a deciding role in the electoral election. Steve Bannon was so deep into this strategy and enabled outside influence (i.e. Russia) and other countries to own and run a FB page, for an election thousands of miles away. and gather so much data insights that pushed a significant number of voters to Trump. It informed messaging, positioning, tone, and reinforced lies. It was fake news on steroids and it was bite sized for the undecided.

To that, I hate bringing sexism and race into this, but American conservatives were no way ready to have a female woman like Hillary be the next president of the country after Obama. Trump and the republican base attacked Obama (birth certificate, not American, etc) and was able to dismiss sexual assult allegations against him (Trump, grab her by the p***y, etc), which further undermineded the credibility and power of a woman, especially one who is running for president. Hillary ran a highly flawed campaign and she took it for granted. America wanted change and what change it made. The divide in the country continues to deepen every single month. It's fecking wild.
 

neverdie

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I don't think you've enough evidence to indicate the extent to which they're interrelated or not. I'm sure some is based on a general rising disaffection with state institutions
i think that's fair. i've only just begun turning it over so it seems interrelated for the reasons you state. push and pull between the two parties, over time, which is six years of bitterness now, or ten if you include obama's second term, and mutual resentments that come from that. but it's hardly empirically verified on my part.

as to the rest. the gop perception from what i can tell is that trump's presidency was obstructed for four years over charges of direct collusion with russia and that none of that was ever substantiated. the part which says trump himself or his team directly colluded with russian attempts has never been substantiated imo but i'm now rereading that entire report and will get back to this once i've digested it all. anyway, the militant part of the gop base feels entitled to obstruct the dem agenda and even the result itself in part because of the 2016 result and whole russiagate thing whatever you or i or anyone else thinks about that. it's a massive breeding ground for mutual hatred really.

Trump won the 2016 presidential elections for a variety of factors, including the fact that Hillary had a terrible campaign and alienated so many female voters. To that, it was the first presidential campaign where there was a social media strategy aimed at the swing states and undecided voters...which is the introduction to Cambridge Analytica, or whatever it was called. The rise of false narrative FB pages, which is the dominant social platform for the voters within the key demographics as a swing state voter or undecided, played a deciding role in the electoral election. Steve Bannon was so deep into this strategy and enabled outside influence (i.e. Russia) and other countries to own and run a FB page, for an election thousands of miles away. and gather so much data insights that pushed a significant number of voters to Trump. It informed messaging, positioning, tone, and reinforced lies. It was fake news on steroids and it was bite sized for the undecided.

To that, I hate bringing sexism and race into this, but American conservatives were no way ready to have a female woman like Hillary be the next president of the country after Obama. Trump and the republican base attacked Obama (birth certificate, not American, etc) and was able to dismiss sexual assult allegations against him (Trump, grab her by the p***y, etc), which further undermineded the credibility and power of a woman, especially one who is running for president. Hillary ran a highly flawed campaign and she took it for granted. America wanted change and what change it made. The divide in the country continues to deepen every single month. It's fecking wild.
i think there's a lot of sense in that but the data by itself only tells you that people are open to voting for trump. it's not a gateway to a manchurian candidate scenario. which brings it back to your second paragraph. i think what ultimately decided that election was the same thing that decided brexit in which cambrige analytica was also implicated but by itself was also just a bunch of data which said "these people might agree with us" or "these people also hate the establishment". it's more economic than anything else imo and the divisions between coastal cities in the us and the flyover states and the cities in the uk, particularly london but also some up north and in scotland, and those who feel left behind. it's also generational. there are a lot of legitimate reasons for what most of us would consider two bad electoral results, or four if you count 2017 + 2019, but these reasons are less sensational than foreign intrigue, even if there is a small element of that in each case.
 

edcunited1878

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i think that's fair. i've only just begun turning it over so it seems interrelated for the reasons you state. push and pull between the two parties, over time, which is six years of bitterness now, or ten if you include obama's second term, and mutual resentments that come from that. but it's hardly empirically verified on my part.

as to the rest. the gop perception from what i can tell is that trump's presidency was obstructed for four years over charges of direct collusion with russia and that none of that was ever substantiated. the part which says trump himself or his team directly colluded with russian attempts has never been substantiated imo but i'm now rereading that entire report and will get back to this once i've digested it all. anyway, the militant part of the gop base feels entitled to obstruct the dem agenda and even the result itself in part because of the 2016 result and whole russiagate thing whatever you or i or anyone else thinks about that. it's a massive breeding ground for mutual hatred really.


i think there's a lot of sense in that but the data by itself only tells you that people are open to voting for trump. it's not a gateway to a manchurian candidate scenario. which brings it back to your second paragraph. i think what ultimately decided that election was the same thing that decided brexit in which cambrige analytica was also implicated but by itself was also just a bunch of data which said "these people might agree with us" or "these people also hate the establishment". it's more economic than anything else imo and the divisions between coastal cities in the us and the flyover states and the cities in the uk, particularly london but also some up north and in scotland, and those who feel left behind. it's also generational. there are a lot of legitimate reasons for what most of us would consider two bad electoral results, or four if you count 2017 + 2019, but these reasons are less sensational than foreign intrigue, even if there is a small element of that in each case.
The foreign interference was significant and it was done by faceless people. The fact that foreign states were able to infiltrate mass voters with propaganda for a historic presidential election was unheard of before in the US. That was shocking and on the other hand, changed political strategy and data implementation forever. Bannon's strategy was clear and there was a huge soft spot that they exploited the shit out of. The recognition and immediate resources and funding was unheard of and unfortunately impressive. The geotargeting of the significant population that flipped counties and therefore states was staggering.

That's exactly what undecided voters and swing states are decided by...fine margins and rhetoric that was constantly bombarded into their minds. Which then created a massive ground swell we see today that is amplified by Twitter, Discord, and the far right media. And it culminated with the Jan 6th insurrection.
 

nimic

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The foreign interference was significant and it was done by faceless people. The fact that foreign states were able to infiltrate mass voters with propaganda for a historic presidential election was unheard of before in the US. That was shocking and on the other hand, changed political strategy and data implementation forever. Bannon's strategy was clear and there was a huge soft spot that they exploited the shit out of. The recognition and immediate resources and funding was unheard of and unfortunately impressive. The geotargeting of the significant population that flipped counties and therefore states was staggering.

That's exactly what undecided voters and swing states are decided by...fine margins and rhetoric that was constantly bombarded into their minds. Which then created a massive ground swell we see today that is amplified by Twitter, Discord, and the far right media. And it culminated with the Jan 6th insurrection.

I'm sadly convinced it hasn't culminated in anything yet. The worst is still to come.
 

neverdie

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The foreign interference was significant and it was done by faceless people.
reading the report you can conclude that there were russian attempts made to amplify pro-trump content but the extent of its influence is as of yet unknown. i'm making my way through it. not much new to me so far except the minute details behind things i already understood. they can only target people who are liable to vote that way in the first place. that's not nothing but it's not what won the election imo. i think that's a massive overreach. if the report goes into more detail about the translation from propaganda to voter intent, which i don't see how it can because it has to demonstrate that the people affected otherwise would have done differently, i'll revise my opinion. anyway, it's interesting reading.

but yes, it makes a compelling case for russian interference. it then comes down to how much weight you want to give that. the report as of yet is itself inconclusive. would most likely require a much different kind of report probably impossible to compile now six years after the fact to understand the value you should place on this stuff. would have to be a kind of very laser focused content analysis. i've seen attempts but they aren't good enough.

my point was never that russia didn't interfere btw it was that russiagate was a complete misdirection and largely a distraction. what should have been a bipartisan inquest into national security breaches became a partisan trial when no evidence ever existed of direct collusion between any of trump's immediate campaign staff and russia. so you have to filter out the issue of direct collusion which derailed public debate for three years from direct interference which i don't think anyone, except maybe trump and even he won't believe it, denies.

would also add this:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/17/politics/michael-sussman-john-durham-trial/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html

the entire trump-russia thing was literally clinton campaign propaganda. there are better breakdowns of it but the main point is that clinton's campaign fabricated a story about a server in trump tower and paid steele to write a sensationalist report. both have been absolutely discredited since. point being then that it was clinton who set the agenda for stolen election conspiracy theories. trump obviously and happily followed her in 2020. and it's not even recent really. there have been conspiracies about stolen elections since 2000 except that one very probably was stolen. after that the conspiracies were less about votes and more about side issues like obama's birth certificate, which trump jumped on too. then clinton's russia propaganda. then trump's general "rigged" conspiracy. the us now spends the four years it has after election discussing the ins and outs of the previous result. it's still happening.

or think about trump's quid pro quo. he was accused of witholding aid to zelensky iirc in return for dirt on biden. the funny thing is that trump probably did do exactly that but also that there was or is enormous corruption implied in the biden-ukraine relationship. don't want to discuss this here because it's probably more in line with the civil war thread but the takeaway for me is that the american political system is corrupt beyond all imagination. each side swims in outright lies and propaganda and revels in twisting the law to crush the other side. it's almost accepted at this point. where this gets complicated is when federal agencies are forced to get involved. they're supposed to be apolitical so any involvement for or against either side is a massive taboo. the fbi obviously feels aggrieved with the clinton campaign, or did, because they've let it be known publicly that the campaign misled them consistently and withheld their own hand in supposedly solid "tips". might not have been a problem if clinton actually won the election but became a fairly big problem when trump won because the fbi now had to deal with a president which they and he both knew had been targetted by the fbi on the premise of false information. just an enormously corrupt electoral system imo and i often wonder if comey didn't intervene in the end to try and balance the scales as there was nothing in the clinton investigation he announced either which means it was most likely designed for public opinion effect. the specifics will have to be left to guesswork for reasons frosty pointed out but the general picture is easy enough to put together years after the fact, with the comey thing being a mix of resentment toward the clinton campaign for infringing on the independence of the fbi.
on the distinction between direct collusion and indirect interference. the clinton campaign's manuplation of the fbi is almost never addressed despite it being an enormous breach of every ethical standard you would expect of trump. i get people don't like the extremists in the gop and neither do i but i'll never understand the inabiltiy to criticize the democrats when they clearly merit it. this is one example, their legal dirty tricks to eliminate a legitimate green party candidate very recently, which i linked to but was predictably ignored, is another example. anyway, i'll post something tomorrow or day after having read report completely and gone over it.
 
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WI_Red

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reading the report you can conclude that there were russian attempts made to amplify pro-trump content but the extent of its influence is as of yet unknown. i'm making my way through it. not much new to me so far except the minute details behind things i already understood. they can only target people who are liable to vote that way in the first place. that's not nothing but it's not what won the election imo. i think that's a massive overreach. if the report goes into more detail about the translation from propaganda to voter intent, which i don't see how it can because it has to demonstrate that the people affected otherwise would have done differently, i'll revise my opinion. anyway, it's interesting reading.

but yes, it makes a compelling case for russian interference. it then comes down to how much weight you want to give that. the report as of yet is itself inconclusive. would most likely require a much different kind of report probably impossible to compile now six years after the fact to understand the value you should place on this stuff. would have to be a kind of very laser focused content analysis. i've seen attempts but they aren't good enough.

my point was never that russia didn't interfere btw it was that russiagate was a complete misdirection and largely a distraction. what should have been a bipartisan inquest into national security breaches became a partisan trial when no evidence ever existed of direct collusion between any of trump's immediate campaign staff and russia. so you have to filter out the issue of direct collusion which derailed public debate for three years from direct interference which i don't think anyone, except maybe trump and even he won't believe it, denies.

would also add this:


on the distinction between direct collusion and indirect interference. the clinton campaign's manuplation of the fbi is almost never addressed despite it being an enormous breach of every ethical standard you would expect of trump. i get people don't like the extremists in the gop and neither do i but i'll never understand the inabiltiy to criticize the democrats when they clearly merit it. this is one example, their legal dirty tricks to eliminate a legitimate green party candidate very recently, which i linked to but was predictably ignored, is another example. anyway, i'll post something tomorrow or day after having read report completely and gone over it.
Partisan trial? What trial?

Ohhhh, I see the problem, we are discussing separate things. You were talking about the Durham investigation and I was talking about Mueller.