POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Idaho]

Don't conflate the liberal and democratic parts of liberal democracy. The liberal part has been brief, but as far as the structure is concerned voters have voted in elections between opposing parties which have transferred power peacefully with only two notable exceptions (1860, 2020).

We had "peaceful transfers" throughout the 18th and 19th century, with voting and elections, but the UK wasn't a credible democracy until the 1920s.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Who knew?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LedDTrWGWeg

“Unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount, and we’re still fighting with Carrots,” he said. “I will tell you we’ve come to a conclusion. Carrots, I’m sorry to tell you the result did not change.” "This was a fair election… unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount."

[a completely inoffensive name]

We had "peaceful transfers" throughout the 18th and 19th century, with voting and elections, but the UK wasn't a credible democracy until the 1920s.

What are you defining as a democracy? If it's the inclusion of universal suffrage, congrats, you did the exact thing I just said not to do.

[Idaho]

What are you defining as a democracy? If it's the inclusion of universal suffrage, congrats, you did the exact thing I just said not to do.

Yes universal suffrage is non negotiable as a tenet of democracy. Without it, you have oligarchy/plutocracy.

[Pannonian]

Yes universal suffrage is non negotiable as a tenet of democracy. Without it, you have oligarchy/plutocracy.

So Athens was not a democracy. BTW are we currently living in a democracy? Scots have a more universal vote than we do, as 16 year olds have the vote.

[ReluctantSamurai]

NEWS FLASH! GIULIANI MAKES CLAIM THAT OBELISK IS PART OF PLOT TO STEAL THE 2020 ELECTION:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e-part-of-utah

A mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah,, after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter. The structure, estimated at between 10ft and 12ft high (about 3 metres), appeared to be planted in the ground. It was made from some sort of metal, its shine in sharp contrast to the enormous red rocks which surrounded it. [...] the object looked man made and appeared to have been firmly planted in the ground, not dropped from the sky.

And in related news, Sidney Powell now claims that it seems more likely that Stanley Kubrick is the true architect behind the mysterious disappearance of Trump votes rather than Hugo Chavez...

The monolith and its setting resembled a famous scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, in which a group of apes encounter a giant slab.

Supporters of QAnon are now flocking to the remote desert location in the hopes of obtaining answers to the true identity of Q......

[all tongue-in-cheek, of course]

[rory_20_uk]

"Pure" democracy is a dreadful idea. Should we let children vote? If not then there is an age where some just get to vote and others have to wait an additional 5 years.

Then who gets to be enfranchised? There are all sorts of differing ways of excluding people and some reasons are better than others (criminals / those who are demented / otherwise incapable of comprehending / those below a certain age / those below a certain wealth / citizenship / presence in the company).

California is a good case study why unfettered democracy has risks - generally taxes are lowered, and spending is increased.

I would argue that more important than who votes is what system of voting is used - or perhaps to put it better, it is more easy to see when the system is being rigged by disenfranchising voters but harder when choosing a system that facilitates this.

[Idaho]

So Athens was not a democracy. BTW are we currently living in a democracy? Scots have a more universal vote than we do, as 16 year olds have the vote.

In the modern sense, Athens was not a democracy, no.

We are living in a democracy with some flaws and inconsistencies - if you think that's the same as denying half the population the vote, or tolerating slavery, then you have issues.

[Pannonian]

In the modern sense, Athens was not a democracy, no.

We are living in a democracy with some flaws and inconsistencies - if you think that's the same as denying half the population the vote, or tolerating slavery, then you have issues.

We are living in a modern democracy. Before that, we were living in a not so modern democracy. And so on. A large chunk of my history lessons at school covered the evolution of our modern democracy into what it is. I learned that there wasn't a specific cut off point between democracy and not democracy.

What do you think of the House of Lords? Do you think it needs to be democratised?

[ReluctantSamurai]

A well written piece, IMHO, on the recent vote certification fiasco here in Michigan:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...mocracy-440475

A bit exaggerated on the Van Langevelde hero worship perhaps, but spot on for the skullduggery that now seems to pervade the Republican Party. I also don't buy in that Trump never asked that Michigan's GOP-dominated legislature just ignore the vote and send in the electors votes for him:

As a Republican, his mandate for Monday’s hearing—handed down from the state party chair, the national party chair and the president himself—was straightforward. They wanted Michigan’s board of canvassers to delay certification of Biden’s victory. Never mind that Trump lost by more than 154,000 votes, or that results were already certified in all 83 counties. The plan was to drag things out, to further muddy the election waters and delegitimize the process, to force the courts to take unprecedented actions that would forever taint Michigan’s process of certifying elections. Not because it was going to help Trump win but because it was going to help Trump cope with a loss. The president was not accepting defeat. That meant no Republican with career ambitions could accept it, either.

[...] Trump’s allies in Michigan proved to be more career-obsessed, and therefore more servile to his whims, than GOP officials in any other state he has cultivated during his presidency, willing to indulge his conspiratorial fantasies in ways other Republicans weren’t.

[...] the essential difference between Michigan and other states. However sloppy Trump’s team was in contesting the results in places like Georgia and Wisconsin, where the margins were fractional, there was at least some plausible justification of a legal challenge. The same could never be said for Michigan. Strangely liberated by his deficit of 154,000 votes, the president’s efforts here were aimed not at overturning the results, but rather at testing voters’ faith in the ballot box and Republicans’ loyalty to him.

After 24 hours of letting the democratic process work, Republicans around the country—watching Trump’s second term slipping through their fingers—began crying foul and screaming conspiracy. No state cornered the hysteria market quite like Michigan.

When Trump addressed the nation from the White House on Thursday night, insisting the election had been “stolen” from him, he returned time and again to alleged misconduct in Michigan’s biggest city. Detroit, he smirked, “I wouldn’t say has the best reputation for election integrity.” He said the city “had hours of unexplained delay” in counting ballots, and when the late batches arrived, “nobody knew where they came from.” He alleged that Republicans had been “denied access to observe any counting in Detroit” and that the windows had been covered because “they didn’t want anybody seeing the counting.”

All of this was a lie. Republicans here—from Ronna Romney McDaniel to Laura Cox to federal and local lawmakers—knew it was a lie. But they didn’t lift a finger in protest as the president disparaged Michigan and subverted America’s democratic norms. Why?

In the days following Trump's shameful address to the nation, two realities became inescapable to Michigan’s GOP elite. First, there was zero evidence to substantiate widespread voter fraud. Second, they could not afford to admit it publicly.

Honesty and decency have not been hallmarks of Republicanism during Trump’s presidency. They certainly are not priorities now. With Trump entering the anguished twilight of his presidency, all that appears to matter for someone like McDaniel—or Cox, the state party chair, who faces an upcoming election of her own—is unconditional fidelity to the president.

“The unfortunate reality within the party today is that Trump retains a hold that is forcing party leaders to continue down the path of executing his fantasy of overturning the outcome—at their own expense,” said Jason Cabel Roe, a Michigan-based GOP strategist who once worked as a vendor for McDaniel, and whose family goes back generations with hers. “But if they want a future within the party, it is required of them to demonstrate continued fealty. Principled conservatives who respect the rule of law and speak out suddenly find themselves outcasts in a party that is no longer about conservativism but Trumpism. Just ask once-conservative heroes like Jeff Flake, Justin Amash and Mark Sanford.”

As much as anything else, Trump's mark on the GOP is to resort to, not only spreading mis-information, but bullying:

Within minutes of Van Langevelde’s vote for certification—and of Shinkle’s abstention, which guaranteed his colleague would bear the brunt of the party’s fury alone—the fires of retaliation raged. In GOP circles, there were immediate calls for Van Langevelde to lose his seat on the board; to lose his job in the House of Representatives; to be censured on the floor of the Legislature and exiled from the party forever. Actionable threats against him and his family began to be reported. The Michigan State Police worked with local law enforcement to arrange a security detail.

The name Van Langevelde is already so infamous in Michigan Republican lore that those associated with him are at risk of being branded turncoats, too.

And what the GOP has devolved into:

That contours of that identity—what it means to be a Trump Republican—have gained clarity over time. The default embrace of nationalism. The indifference to ideas as a vision for governing. The disregard for institutional norms. The aversion to etiquette and the bottomless appetite for cultural conflict. Now there is another cornerstone of that identity: The subversion of our basic democratic process.

More than any policy enacted or court vacancy filled, Trump’s legacy will be his unprecedented assault on the legitimacy of the ballot box. And it will not be considered in isolation. Future iterations of the GOP will make casual insinuations of voter fraud central to the party’s brand. The next generation of Republicans will have learned how to sow doubts about election integrity in one breath and in the next breath bemoan the nation’s lack of faith in our elections, creating a self-perpetuating justification to cast suspicion on a process that by raw numbers does not appear conducive to keeping them in power.

And a conclusion that nearly 74 million Americans do not share:

“The people of this country really need to wake up and start thinking for themselves and looking for facts—not conspiracy theories being peddled by people who are supposed to be responsible leaders, but facts,” Thomas said. “If they’re not going to be responsible leaders, people need to seek out the truth for themselves. If people don’t do that—if they no longer trust how we elect the president of the United States—we’re going to be in real trouble.”

And perhaps a glimmer of hope in Georgia, as the GOP demonstrates that the Dems aren't the only party with ongoing infighting:

https://www.vox.com/2020/11/24/21612...eorgia-runoffs

[a completely inoffensive name]

In the modern sense, Athens was not a democracy, no.

We are living in a democracy with some flaws and inconsistencies - if you think that's the same as denying half the population the vote, or tolerating slavery, then you have issues.

So you deny the existence of any 'illiberal democracies'? It's all or nothing? FYI, you live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a democracy ya dum dum (your logic, not mine).

[Idaho]

So you deny the existence of any 'illiberal democracies'? It's all or nothing? FYI, you live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a democracy ya dum dum (your logic, not mine).

The significant element of a democracy is that the public are consulted. If you exclude significant parts of that public, it ceases to be legitimate consultation. The existence of some old lady with the job of rubber stamping laws makes no significant difference to this. Consultation of the public is key.

So Israel is a democracy in it's borders, but in the land it occupies, it is not a democracy, but a military dictatorship.

1910s England was not a democracy because it entirely excluded women from public consultation. 1930s England was a democracy, with plenty of issues and flaws, but a democracy none the less.

1950s America didn't allow black people to vote in much of the country. That is, by any reckoning, undemocratic. 1830s America didn't even allow them basic human rights. It's a simple point, but Americans struggle with it.