A review of the Trump Presidency

[Agema]

There's no "good news, bad news, balanced view" with 24/7 Trump coverage, it's always "bad news, bad person, everything bad". I cannot believe that is the truth.

I could buy this, except the same people who say this sort of thing almost inevitably then splash up plentiful information to defend their positions from YouTube cranks, partisan bullshitters on Twitter, outright propagandists, and so on considerably worse than the mainstream media.

Nothing is more effective at giving away the sheer emptiness of their arguments about "truth" and "media lies". They mostly don't like the mainstream media because it's saying things they don't want to hear, not that it's sometimes inaccurate.

 

[gorfias]

I could buy this, except the same people who say this sort of thing almost inevitably then splash up plentiful information to defend their positions from YouTube cranks, partisan bullshitters on Twitter, outright propagandists, and so on considerably worse than the mainstream media.

Nothing is more effective at giving away the sheer emptiness of their arguments about "truth" and "media lies". They mostly don't like the mainstream media because it's saying things they don't want to hear, not that it's sometimes inaccurate.

Do you think it is true that 90% of US Media is controlled by 6 corporations? And the news cannot be unbiased: the news teams are there to support their owners.

This is a thing that happened: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/06/new-york-times-front-page-headline-changed

They accidentally reported something too nice about Trump: TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM was changed to “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS”.

Trump is currently challenging our recent election. But the establishment and the media are shrieking at the top of their lungs that it is over, Biden won in the cleanest election ever! What horse hockey. https://time.com/5911518/2020-election-most-secure-history/

So if the legacy MSM is full of it, and I write, they really are, those who want to hear their narrative challenged are going to have to go to non-traditional sources, the quality of which is going to vary.

I'd rather listen to partisan that tells me they are partisan so I know where they are coming from than someone willing to create fake narratives to serve an agenda while telling me they are Mount Olympus unbiased.

 

[Houseman]

give anecote that provokes an emotional response, pivot to Obama,

Did you see the image I posted? Who was the one that brought up Obama? Who was the one who tried to play the racism angle? That's right, the writer from CNN did both of those things.

Is it only okay when they do it?

You genuinely believe that no criticism of Trump is valid or warranted, from any source.

Show me criticism of Trump that isn't from a news source that is constantly biased against him and tells both sides of the story and then I'll believe that the instance of criticism is warranted.

But you probably can't find such a thing

What do you think the purpose of news is, exactly? To tell you what to think? Who to vote for?

You are a repulsive person.

Now look who's trying to provoke an emotional response?

I do not support Trump, I simply do not trust the media. That's all there is to it.

 

[Agema]

Do you think it is true that 90% of US Media is controlled by 6 corporations? And the news cannot be unbiased: the news teams are there to support their owners.

No, I don't think it's true that 90% of US media is controlled by six corporations. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's an outright myth.

It's true that a relatively small number of companies have a disproportionate amount of media ownership - but then this is the same as any industry. There are a handful of massive players, some mid-rankers, and a host of weenies. Media consolidation, of course, was permitted due to deregulation under Reagan.

This is a thing that happened: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/06/new-york-times-front-page-headline-changed

They accidentally reported something too nice about Trump: TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM was changed to “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS”.

Right. But they changed that in response to outcry from their readers. And from this we learn something about the media: they exist to serve their customers. Rupert Murdoch could not buy the NYT and turn it into one of his usual right-wing rags: it'd lose a ton of readers and go bankrupt. Thus there is actually a lot less room for media owners to control what their media puts out than often assumed.

Hence also the disparity in Fox between its news and opinion. At some level, Fox still has a drive to be a "proper" news organisation, so the newsroom reports with at least some degree of reasonability. Then once it goes into Hannity and Carlson and so on, it's a total shift and into the Twilight Zone, because lots of their viewers are not satisfied with the news element's less biased version of reality. Hence why lots of Republicans were watching Fox quite happily, then it called Arizona and later the election for Biden, and they went out and protested. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them maybe Fox news was telling them the most reasonable version of reality. They turned on it for not being on-message with what they wanted to believe. The issue thus is not what's "true", it's what people want to believe is true.

And then they go looking for something more extreme: OANN, YouTube cranks, and other non-traditional sources. Stop and ask: are these right wingers disenchanted with Fox going and reading Mother Jones and Jacobin? Of course they aren't. They're almost exclusively bingeing on a diet of even more extreme right wing alternative media. They're only ever going to watch something alternative left for the purpose of mocking it, or in rarer cases to agree over some of the few common causes (like hating maintstream politicians and media). And on average this stuff is less reliable and more divorced from reality, and echo-chamber-like increasingly create a world view more divorced from reality.

So if the legacy MSM is full of it, and I write, they really are, those who want to hear their narrative challenged are going to have to go to non-traditional sources, the quality of which is going to vary.

I'd rather listen to partisan that tells me they are partisan so I know where they are coming from than someone willing to create fake narratives to serve an agenda while telling me they are Mount Olympus unbiased.

So does the MSM vary. Some organsiations are better than others in the large scale, and some stories are better than others in the smaller scale. We all know the NYT leans left and the WSJ right. They make mistakes. The compromise accuracy with the preferences of their customers, and occasionally the will of their owners. As long as this is known - and basically everyone knows - their biases can be taken into account.

 

[ObsidianJones]

Do you think it is true that 90% of US Media is controlled by 6 corporations? And the news cannot be unbiased: the news teams are there to support their owners.

This is a thing that happened: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/06/new-york-times-front-page-headline-changed

They accidentally reported something too nice about Trump: TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM was changed to “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS”.

Trump is currently challenging our recent election. But the establishment and the media are shrieking at the top of their lungs that it is over, Biden won in the cleanest election ever! What horse hockey. https://time.com/5911518/2020-election-most-secure-history/

So if the legacy MSM is full of it, and I write, they really are, those who want to hear their narrative challenged are going to have to go to non-traditional sources, the quality of which is going to vary.

I'd rather listen to partisan that tells me they are partisan so I know where they are coming from than someone willing to create fake narratives to serve an agenda while telling me they are Mount Olympus unbiased.

I'm going to be very honest here.

Although I have esteem for you, you confuse me often.

I mean we're talking about bias, but I'm not sure that you're allowing your own bias to creep in and color the situation.

Remove Trump for a minute. We'll focus on the Left. The amount of distrust and Vitriol that you normally pin on the Left is mind boggling, to be honest. And sometimes, to be frank, Projection.

You keep saying how worried you are that the Left is going to steal this election. Ok. Don't know where you're getting this data from, but fine. It's a concern of yours. But we have reports and videos and twitterfeeds of Republicans actively doing whatever they can to steal this election from the American People.

Wayne County did everything possible to block the overwhelmingly democratic (and minority) votes to from getting counted, even though the city of Livonia (95% white) had much more dubious votes counted

GOP members of Wayne County Board of Canvassers say they want to rescind votes to certify

On Tuesday, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann drew outrage when they said they initially voted not to certify Wayne County's election results.

www.freep.com

Republicans trying to frighten and stall minority voters.

Stacking the deck: How the GOP works to suppress minority voting - Berkeley News

In a historic election, Republicans are targeting communities of color with vote suppression, Berkeley scholars say

news.berkeley.edu

Florida Republicans doing efforts to prevent ease of voting by illegally trying to close down ballot boxes.

Florida Republicans Launch Last-Minute Effort to Shut Down Ballot Drop Boxes

Early voting in Florida begins Monday, but elections officials are suddenly trying to change the rules.

slate.com

Texas Republicans closed down hundreds of voting stations that will affect Minorities more.

Texas closes hundreds of polling sites, making it harder for minorities to vote

Guardian analysis finds that places where black and Latino population is growing by the largest numbers experienced the majority of closures and could benefit Republicans

www.theguardian.com

Then we go straight to just purging. Texas attempts to purge.

Texas Supreme Court rejects Republican-led effort to throw out nearly 127,000 Harris County votes

A handful of GOP activists and candidates had asked the state's highest civil court to rule Harris County's drive-thru voting locations illegal and invalidate votes that have already been cast. The challenge has also been filed in federal court.

www.texastribune.org

Wisconsin Republicans try to purge.

Conservatives seek immediate purge of over 200,000 voters in Wisconsin

Democrats in the key 2020 state are fighting the effort to slash the registration rolls in court.

www.nbcnews.com

Pennsylvania tried to seriously Purge

Right-Wing Groups Aims to Purge 800,000 Voters in Pennsylvania

Under pressure from Judicial Watch, three states have initiated proceedings to remove close to 2 million voters from their rolls in the last two years.

theintercept.com

Georgia actually purged.

Georgia likely removed nearly 200k from voter rolls wrongfully, report says | CNN Politics

The state of Georgia has likely removed nearly 200,000 Georgia citizens from the voter rolls for wrongfully concluding that those people had moved and not changed the address on their voter registration, when in fact they never moved, according to a new report released on Wednesday.

www.cnn.com

Everyone tries to Purge

"Use It or Lose It": The Problem of Purges from the Registration Rolls of Voters Who Don't Vote Regularly

Deleting registrants from voting rolls because they have not voted in several elections or because they have not confirmed their address has resulted in hundreds of thousands not being able to vote when they go to cast their ballot.

www.americanbar.org

Think about that last one. Republicans are trying to change a constitutional right because it doesn't bode well for them. Meanwhile, a lot of them will go insane if you try to touch their guns, as IT'S IN THE CONSTITUTION AND IT IS MY RIGHT.

But back to the point, all Republican Politicians seem to do is try to steal elections and rights from everyone who isn't their party.

You have such a bias and almost hatred for the Left that you ignore what the Right is doing. You have them as such boogeymen that you're ignoring the real-life thieves going into your neighborhood's house, so petrified that the Scary Left is going to come through your closet like the demons they are.

You're afraid that the Left is going to try to steal this... But you have nothing but your dislike of the Left to believe any Malfeasance occured.

Putting it simply. If Donald won and this was happening, you would consider it the Left trying to steal the election. Biden won, Trump's teams are doing what you would consider foul play, but you still believe the Left is trying to steal the election.

Going back to Trump for the briefest of all moments, you bend over backwards to excuse his many failings. Yet you won't for the Left. It is the same bias you have for a political idea that, when extrapolated, is why people pay extra attention to me when I walk in a store or who can't believe Lil Devils X is a doctor because she has two X chromosomes.

Fully understand I'm not calling you racist or sexist. But what I'm pointing out that the constant villainy of a race or a gender that someone has to have in their head 24/7 to have prejudice over that race or that gender is the same constant villainy you have for the political party of the Left.

In your head, the Left is an evil organization from a comic book. Fairness can't ever exist if you won't give people equal footing.

 

[gorfias]

I'm going to be very honest here.

Although I have esteem for you, you confuse me often.

I mean we're talking about bias, but I'm not sure that you're allowing your own bias to creep in and color the situation.

Remove Trump for a minute. We'll focus on the Left. The amount of distrust and Vitriol that you normally pin on the Left is mind boggling, to be honest. And sometimes, to be frank, Projection.

You keep saying how worried you are that the Left is going to steal this election. Ok. Don't know where you're getting this data from, but fine. It's a concern of yours. But we have reports and videos and twitterfeeds of Republicans actively doing whatever they can to steal this election from the American People.

Wayne County did everything possible to block the overwhelmingly democratic (and minority) votes to from getting counted, even though the city of Livonia (95% white) had much more dubious votes counted

GOP members of Wayne County Board of Canvassers say they want to rescind votes to certify

On Tuesday, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann drew outrage when they said they initially voted not to certify Wayne County's election results.

www.freep.com

Republicans trying to frighten and stall minority voters.

Stacking the deck: How the GOP works to suppress minority voting - Berkeley News

In a historic election, Republicans are targeting communities of color with vote suppression, Berkeley scholars say

news.berkeley.edu

Florida Republicans doing efforts to prevent ease of voting by illegally trying to close down ballot boxes.

Florida Republicans Launch Last-Minute Effort to Shut Down Ballot Drop Boxes

Early voting in Florida begins Monday, but elections officials are suddenly trying to change the rules.

slate.com

Texas Republicans closed down hundreds of voting stations that will affect Minorities more.

Texas closes hundreds of polling sites, making it harder for minorities to vote

Guardian analysis finds that places where black and Latino population is growing by the largest numbers experienced the majority of closures and could benefit Republicans

www.theguardian.com

Then we go straight to just purging. Texas attempts to purge.

Texas Supreme Court rejects Republican-led effort to throw out nearly 127,000 Harris County votes

A handful of GOP activists and candidates had asked the state's highest civil court to rule Harris County's drive-thru voting locations illegal and invalidate votes that have already been cast. The challenge has also been filed in federal court.

www.texastribune.org

Wisconsin Republicans try to purge.

Conservatives seek immediate purge of over 200,000 voters in Wisconsin

Democrats in the key 2020 state are fighting the effort to slash the registration rolls in court.

www.nbcnews.com

Pennsylvania tried to seriously Purge

Right-Wing Groups Aims to Purge 800,000 Voters in Pennsylvania

Under pressure from Judicial Watch, three states have initiated proceedings to remove close to 2 million voters from their rolls in the last two years.

theintercept.com

Georgia actually purged.

Georgia likely removed nearly 200k from voter rolls wrongfully, report says | CNN Politics

The state of Georgia has likely removed nearly 200,000 Georgia citizens from the voter rolls for wrongfully concluding that those people had moved and not changed the address on their voter registration, when in fact they never moved, according to a new report released on Wednesday.

www.cnn.com

Everyone tries to Purge

"Use It or Lose It": The Problem of Purges from the Registration Rolls of Voters Who Don't Vote Regularly

Deleting registrants from voting rolls because they have not voted in several elections or because they have not confirmed their address has resulted in hundreds of thousands not being able to vote when they go to cast their ballot.

www.americanbar.org

Think about that last one. Republicans are trying to change a constitutional right because it doesn't bode well for them. Meanwhile, a lot of them will go insane if you try to touch their guns, as IT'S IN THE CONSTITUTION AND IT IS MY RIGHT.

But back to the point, all Republican Politicians seem to do is try to steal elections and rights from everyone who isn't their party.

You have such a bias and almost hatred for the Left that you ignore what the Right is doing. You have them as such boogeymen that you're ignoring the real-life thieves going into your neighborhood's house, so petrified that the Scary Left is going to come through your closet like the demons they are.

You're afraid that the Left is going to try to steal this... But you have nothing but your dislike of the Left to believe any Malfeasance occured.

Putting it simply. If Donald won and this was happening, you would consider it the Left trying to steal the election. Biden won, Trump's teams are doing what you would consider foul play, but you still believe the Left is trying to steal the election.

Going back to Trump for the briefest of all moments, you bend over backwards to excuse his many failings. Yet you won't for the Left. It is the same bias you have for a political idea that, when extrapolated, is why people pay extra attention to me when I walk in a store or who can't believe Lil Devils X is a doctor because she has two X chromosomes.

Fully understand I'm not calling you racist or sexist. But what I'm pointing out that the constant villainy of a race or a gender that someone has to have in their head 24/7 to have prejudice over that race or that gender is the same constant villainy you have for the political party of the Left.

In your head, the Left is an evil organization from a comic book. Fairness can't ever exist if you won't give people equal footing.

I got called out by a cousin that insisted I get a newsletter from https://www.theflipside.io/ . To at least try to understand the thinking of others on the other political side of things. So we have conversations were I am tasked to present the opposing side on an issue. I am trying.

I have heard of things that are unfairly done by Republicans with regards to elections. Long voter lines that discourage non-white voters. Districting.

But while I was biting my nails a lot in 2000, I never would have suggested it was wrong and inappropriate for Gore to seek legal avenues.

The wife had network news on last night as the news people were scoffing at POTUS doing the same, saying this election is over. Biden won and Trump should move on. I begged her to change the channel which she did. (Went to the Food Network).

This should be over by mid December one way or another. Can't come soon enough.

 

[Asita]

But while I was biting my nails a lot in 2000, I never would have suggested it was wrong and inappropriate for Gore to seek legal avenues.

The wife had network news on last night as the news people were scoffing at POTUS doing the same, saying this election is over. Biden won and Trump should move on. I begged her to change the channel which she did. (Went to the Food Network).

Respectfully, Gorf, there's a lot of equivocation in that. In the 2000 election the results came down to the wire, with Florida being the deciding factor and coming down to a very small margin of votes. To make this perfectly clear, let's take Florida's 25 electoral college votes out of the picture just to illustrate how close it was. With Florida still in the air, the results were 246 to 266. Neither candidate has 270+ votes without Florida, but both would pass that threshold if they won Florida (and ended 271 to 266). The final tally had Bush leading Gore by 1,784 votes. Per Florida Election Code 102.141, this meant that a recount was mandated by law, and ended up seeing the margin reduced to 537 votes.

Contrast this with this election, wherein the Electoral College results are 306 to 232. Trump would have to overturn the results of at least three battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and any other state) to get Biden below the 270 threshold. In Pennsylvania, Biden is 81,951 votes ahead of Trump. In Michigan, Biden is 115,629 votes ahead of Trump. Wisconsin? 20,608 votes. Georgia? 12,670 votes. And that's after Georgia's hand recount.

Never mind that the 2000 recount was about double-checking numbers that, under law, were small enough to warrant double-checking as a matter of course. What we're seeing in 2020 is not only the extraordinary claim of unprecedented nationwide voter fraud, but that - and I quote Ms. Sidney Powell herself here - "The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump", which is a very different animal. They're brazenly seeking not to verify the results but to overturn or ignore them.

 

[gorfias]

Respectfully, Gorf, there's a lot of equivocation in that. In the 2000 election the results came down to the wire, with Florida being the deciding factor and coming down to a very small margin of votes. To make this perfectly clear, let's take Florida's 25 electoral college votes out of the picture just to illustrate how close it was. With Florida still in the air, the results were 246 to 266. Neither candidate has 270+ votes without Florida, but both would pass that threshold if they won Florida (and ended 271 to 266). The final tally had Bush leading Gore by 1,784 votes. Per Florida Election Code 102.141, this meant that a recount was mandated by law, and ended up seeing the margin reduced to 537 votes.

Contrast this with this election, wherein the Electoral College results are 306 to 232. Trump would have to overturn the results of at least three battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and any other state) to get Biden below the 270 threshold. In Pennsylvania, Biden is 81,951 votes ahead of Trump. In Michigan, Biden is 115,629 votes ahead of Trump. Wisconsin? 20,608 votes. Georgia? 12,670 votes. And that's after Georgia's hand recount.

Never mind that the 2000 recount was about double-checking numbers that, under law, were small enough to warrant double-checking as a matter of course. What we're seeing in 2020 is not only the extraordinary claim of unprecedented nationwide voter fraud, but that - and I quote Ms. Sidney Powell herself here - "The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump", which is a very different animal. They're brazenly seeking not to verify the results but to overturn or ignore them.

This election seems unprecedented. Mail in ballots, requested or not (In PA, you did have to initially ask for one but after that, they just auto-send it). Dominion. Georgia: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2600-uncounted-ballots-found-recount-efforts-georgia I think Trump has a decent Equal Protection argument.

I confess to ... confirmation bias? I'd heard Hillary stole votes too... just not enough. Someone said she did not sue for a recount anywhere, it was posited, because if anyone looked too closely, she would have lost even the "popular" vote.
Then I saw what a terrible candidate Biden is. I asked myself how he could expect to win. And then I thought, he has no intention of winning. He'll see how many votes Trump gets and then using mail in ballots, simply steal as much as he knows he is behind by. And in PA, Biden didn't make the law, but mail in ballots are counted after the other votes. No matter what, I think we're in for a long 4 years.

 

[Satinavian]

Do you think it is true that 90% of US Media is controlled by 6 corporations? And the news cannot be unbiased: the news teams are there to support their owners.

This is an international forum. Most of us don't even use US media that much (because indeed, unless it is US interna of local scale, there are better offerings around)

But comparing US mainstream media with youtube hacks offering differrent opinions, well, the first is way more accurate whenever someone bothers checking. Nearly without fault.


As for election fraud ... are you aware that you actually had international observers as well (though less than planned because Covid) ? And that those did not find any fraud or suspicious behavior ?

I'd heard Hillary stole votes too... just not enough. Someone said she did not sue for a recount anywhere, it was posited, because if anyone looked too closely, she would have lost even the "popular" vote.

"someone said"

Honestly, Trump really really wanted to throw her in jail. If she had stolen votes and there was any proof, he would have done so.

Then I saw what a terrible candidate Biden is. I asked myself how he could expect to win.

That is a question i always ask myself about Trump. Who might actually be the worst major politition alive.

But Biden seems indeed a terrible candidate. That he still won, is testament how much people hate Trump and want him gone.

 

[Shadyside]

So any word from Qanon? Seems like people gave up with it.

 

[Agema]

I got called out by a cousin that insisted I get a newsletter from https://www.theflipside.io/ . To at least try to understand the thinking of others on the other political side of things. So we have conversations were I am tasked to present the opposing side on an issue. I am trying.

I think that's the key thing. The mainstream media peddle a sort of mild left to mild right, usually pro-establishment, mishmash. If you want to find out some interesting stuff and perspectives - libertarianism, communism, etc. - you have to look further afield to alternative media. But broadly, alternative media (left or right) is genuinely terrifying if that's your only news diet.

My personal preference these days is usually finding blogs of various professionals, usually of good repute in their field and focused on their field. Because their aim is usually to tell you about their profession and they're not meeting an editorial line, they tend to miss out the worst of the political stupidity. Anyone looking for money - the entirety of YouTube (which is inherently about monetisable content) or patreon requests - are inherently suspect because these are the people looking for an audience and probably more likely to cater to that audience than tell us what the score it. And Twitter is pretty much useless, too. It's a service for people with zero attention span or interest in detail, almost like it's been custom designed for people to tell bullshit to morons.

 

[Avnger]

So any word from Qanon? Seems like people gave up with it.

I think they've hopped aboard some type of Germany/China/"Globalists"(aka Jews) working with Biden and subverting the entire election apparatus through a single electronic voting machine company to the point where even hand-counting the ballots won't produce accurate results. Essentially their usual enemies + Germany + continually expanding scope of fraud because Trump losing (even with Reps picking up seats overall in Congress) is literally impossible.

Hell OANN recently ran a news story claiming Trump would have received 350-400 electoral votes without cheating...

 

[Asita]

This election seems unprecedented. Mail in ballots, requested or not (In PA, you did have to initially ask for one but after that, they just auto-send it). Dominion. Georgia: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2600-uncounted-ballots-found-recount-efforts-georgia I think Trump has a decent Equal Protection argument.

Well for starters, it's worth noting that the Equal Protection argument is both incredibly tortured and completely nonsensical. The argument is that by allowing for mail-in voting, the states that swung Biden violated the 14th Amendment by turning mail-in voters into a preferred class. To get the obvious flaws out of the way, mail-in voting was a generally available option rather than an option only available to specific demographics (thereby disqualifying it as a separate class of people), and the case also relies in large part on a fundamental misrepresentation of mail-in ballots as allowing people to cast their votes after Election Day. To quote the courts themselves on the matter:

The District Court’s analysis suffers from several flaws. First, the Deadline Extension and Presumption of Timeliness apply to all voters, not just a subset of “preferred” voters. It is an individual voter’s choice whether to vote by mail or in person, and thus whether to become a part of the so-called “preferred class” that the District Court identified. Whether to join the “preferred class” of mail-in voters was entirely up to the Voter Plaintiffs.

Second, it is not clear that the mere creation of so-called “classes” of voters constitutes an injury in fact. An injury in fact requires the “invasion of a legally protected interest.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at560. We doubt that the mere existence of groupings of voters qualifies as an injury per se. “An equal protection claim will not lie by ‘conflating all persons not injured into a preferred class receiving better treatment’ than the plaintiff.” Thornton v. City of St. Helens, 425 F.3d 1158, 1167 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting Joyce v. Mavromatis, 783 F.2d 56, 57 (6th Cir. 1986)); see also, e.g., Batra v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Neb., 79 F.3d 717, 721 (8th Cir. 1996) (“[T]he relevant prerequisite is unlawful discrimination, not whether plaintiff is part of a victimized class.”). More importantly, the Voter Plaintiffs have shown no disadvantage to themselves that arises simply by being separated into groupings. For instance, there is no argument that it is inappropriate that some voters will vote in person and others will vote by mail. The existence of these two groups of voters, without more, simply does not constitute an injury in fact to in-person voters.

Plaintiffs may believe that injury arises because of a preference shown for one class over another. But what, precisely, is the preference of which Plaintiffs complain? In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court held that a State may not engage in arbitrary and disparate treatment that results in the valuation of one person’s vote over that of another. 531 U.S. at 104–05. Thus, “the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.” Id. at 105 (quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at555) (emphasis added). As we have already discussed, vote dilution is not an injury in fact here. What about the risk that some ballots placed in the mail after Election Day may still be counted? Recall that no voter—whether in person or by mail—is permitted to vote after Election Day. Under Plaintiffs’ argument, it might theoretically be easier for one group of voters—mail-in voters—to illegally cast late votes than it is for another group of voters—in-person voters. But even if that is the case, no group of voters has the right to vote after the deadline. We remember that “a private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another.” Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973) (citations omitted). And “a plaintiff lacks standing to complain about his inability to commit crimes because no one has a right to commit a crime.” Citizen Ctr.v. Gessler, 770 F.3d 900, 910 (10th Cir. 2014). Withouta showing of discrimination or other intentionally unlawful conduct, or at least some burden on Plaintiffs’ own voting rights, we discern no basis on which they have standing to challenge the slim opportunity the Presumption of Timeliness conceivably affords wrongdoers to violate election law. Cf. Minn.Voters Alliance v. Ritchie, 720 F.3d 1029, 1033 (8th Cir. 2013) (affirming dismissal of claims “premised on potential harm in the form of vote dilution caused by insufficient pre-election verification of [election day registrants’] voting eligibility and the absence of post-election ballot rescission procedures”).

To be perfectly frank, Team Trump is basically just pulling a bog-standard Gish Gallop. They're throwing out a lot of serious sounding allegations that are easily spread and can reliably be expected to sound compelling to those unfamiliar with the subject matter (or otherwise don't follow up on the claims), but are otherwise easily recognizable as misrepresentative if not divorced from reality.

 

[Houseman]

To get the obvious flaws out of the way, mail-in voting was a generally available option rather than an option only available to specific demographics (thereby disqualifying it as a separate class of people)

The argument against voter ID is that it'll disproportionately impact the poorest of people who happen to be democrats, and is thus, voter suppression.
Shouldn't the opposite also be true, that if there is a mechanism that disproportionately, and favorably, impacts the democratic vote, shouldn't that be bad too?

 

[Asita]

The argument against voter ID is that it'll disproportionately impact the poorest of people who happen to be democrats, and is thus, voter suppression.
Shouldn't the opposite also be true, that if there is a mechanism that disproportionately, and favorably, impacts the democratic vote, shouldn't that be bad too?

The argument against voter ID has nothing to do with anyone's political affiliation, but that the mechanics behind acquiring Voter ID turn poor people into a disadvantaged class. IDs, even nominally free ones, cost money due to the underlying cost in acquiring the requisite documents, travel costs (especially in areas without reliable access to public transportation), and lost wages due to the time costs of travel and acquisition of both the requisite documents and the identification itself and how they often conflict with work times. These are costs that the impoverished cannot necessarily afford, especially when the nearest place to acquire a voter ID can literally be over a hundred miles away. Moreover, minority citizens disproportionately lack government issued photo ID, turning them into a similarly disadvantaged class, albeit one that doesn't necessarily have the same degree of barrier to entry.

But frankly, I'm not interested in going down the whataboutism rabbithole because of another of your puerile attempts at a "gotcha". There's a reason that I quoted official court opinion on the matter. You want to argue this point? Take it up with the courts.

 

[Houseman]

I'm not interested

How convenient.

 

[Hades]

Then I saw what a terrible candidate Biden is. I asked myself how he could expect to win. And then I thought, he has no intention of winning. He'll see how many votes Trump gets and then using mail in ballots, simply steal as much as he knows he is behind by. And in PA, Biden didn't make the law, but mail in ballots are counted after the other votes. No matter what, I think we're in for a long 4 years.

I think the argument that Biden was a terrible candidate needs to be reevaluated, and I suspected it will be dismissed entirely when we look back on this period. I would agree that on paper Biden is a fairly weak candidate. He's a rather milquetoast politician, a centrist in a time where that has become a dirty word and not a candidate that creates much excitement. However I think Biden was a weak candidate only on paper and not in practice.

The Trump campaign trying so desperately to promote all sorts of narratives about Biden and none of it sticking suggest the general public at least sees something in Biden. Other politicians who are relentlessly slandered are damaged but Biden weathered that storm very easily. Biden might not be inspiring but he's also not controversial either, and it turns out it was incredibly hard to make Biden controversial. The Trump campaign tried desperately and they failed. Considering how much Trump's campaign relies on mud slinging its actually a very significant advantage when he can't turn you into a controversial figure.

There are some things that might have made Biden a perfect counter for Trump's usual tactics and an appealing contrast to Trump's flaws.

-Biden isn't charismatic but he's certainly affable and has a history of showing a lot of empathy to other people. This makes it much harder for Trump to paint Biden as a cold elitist who detests the common man like he managed to do with Clinton
- Biden is a centrist politicians and if he's anywhere on the political spectrum he's likely to be found at the center right. He also has a long history of working with Republicans. This made it far harder for Trump to paint him as a radical socialist. Though it should be noted that slandering Biden as a socialist seems to have worked in Florida to some extend.
-Biden is a relatively clean politician. He has some scandals but only minor things. This made it much harder to paint Biden as a corrupt member of the deep state. That the Trump campaign had to resort to some gibberish about a blind computer repair man randomly meeting Hunter in his store and stealing his laptop makes it clear they just couldn't find any dirt on Biden himself.
-Biden was a member of the much admired Obama administration which means he can borrow Obama's still relatively high popularity. And while its too much to claim the black commit feels much loyalty or kinship towards Biden their voting behavior suggest at least some affinity for him. This made Biden much more likely to gain parts of the minority vote that Clinton failed to get.
-Biden being milquetoast might actually have worked in his favor. While the president of the Unites States behaved like a toddler Biden promised the country the idea of a president who is actually sane.
- And the big elephant in the room. Biden is an old, straight white guy. Its the sort of politician that people expect to see in power. The sort of man most Americans likely want to be in power. He was not the ''radical'' or ''controversial'' promise of a woman or a minority becoming president. This ensured it was much harder to stir up resentment against Biden then it was against Clinton or Obama.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Shouldn't the opposite also be true, that if there is a mechanism that disproportionately, and favorably, impacts the democratic vote, shouldn't that be bad too?

This is like saying "if we ban cheating in sports, doesn't that unfairly impact the teams who win through cheating?".

 

[Houseman]

This is like saying "if we ban cheating in sports, doesn't that unfairly impact the teams who win through cheating?".

Are you saying that the democrats are cheating?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Are you saying that the democrats are cheating?

Exactly the opposite. Republicans have been cheating minorities out of their right to vote in every way they've been able to for decades. Now you're coming along with the argument "Well, if we let them vote, and they vote for Democrats, isn't that unfair to Republicans?".