BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

At the risk of being tiresome, I want to say a bit more about "rigged elections". I believe this is far and away the worst thing that Trump has done, I think that it is the part that will have the most long lasting damage.

I take it as obvious to everyone that the fact many in the media are against him is not adequate reason to declare the election rigged. He then went on to talk about millions of registered voters who should not be registered. But wait.

When I move from Minnesota to Maryland in 1967 I did not inform the voter registration people. Quite possibly I was still on the rolls in Minneapolis in 1968. But I did not first vote for HHH in Maryland and then fly back to Minneapolis to vote again. Similarly, my mother died in 1963. I did not inform the voter registration people, and I doubt my father did either. We did not get someone to vote in her place in 1964.

But I think there is an even more basic aspect.

Suppose you have a lot of money and suppose you want to use it to further the chances of a candidate. And suppose, instead of simply contributing to the campaign, you want to do some direct action to increase the number of votes s/he gets. There are a lot of people out there who are fully entitled to vote but who don't do it. I would use the money to try to get out the vote of legal voters in the districts where I thought my candidate had the most support. Why on earth would I risk fines and jail to get unqualified people to vote when I have a perfectly legal and more effective way of increasing my candidate's chances? And if, for whatever reason, I wanted to commit this fraud, how could I go about it on any substantial scale? Put an ad in the paper, "Fraudulent voters needed, no experience required, good pay"?


Lacking strong supporting evidence, and it has not been even remotely produced, the claims are ridiculous. Much of what Trump says is ridiculous, but this is the one that I think is most in need of strong rejection. I will be voting once, for Clinton. I am sure, there are lawn signs, that some of my neighbors will be voting for Trump. They also will each be voting once. That's it. We count the votes, we see who wins. This fraud stuff is totally bogus.

Wallace stayed on point the best and even though it's Fox I thought the moderating was the most balanced. It's also clear that Trump liked Wallace the best and was more respectful, so the mods job was easier as a result.

Cooper loathes Donald Trump, and it came out during the debate and during the Melania interview. There was no way he was going to be able to control or steer the conversation. Given how few questions in the town hall format generated was a testament. Raddatz was a non entity.

The first interview was also poorly run - Holt was simply too passive.

kenberg, on 2016-October-20, 09:19, said:

You really think this is worse than sexually assaulting multiple women Ken? Not to mention inciting racial and religious hatred. I don't think you can place any of the election-rigging stuff in the same ballpark as these.

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-20, 14:26, said:

I can. He's denigrating the entire system he wants to lead instead of a few individuals.

Italy has a similar experience. Berlusconi, a crooked TV billionaire-turned-billionaire who constantly bragged about his sexual achievements, and who attracted lots of former left-wing voters by his racist and homophobic rants, came to dominate Italian politics for two decades: https://www.theguard...-prime-minister

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-20, 14:26, said:

Trump is a total whatever. I was not trying to rank his failings. Rather my point was that long after he is gone, this stuff about rigged elections will hang on. In January, say, nobody will say "Hey, Trump lost but I favor groping women". They might very well say "Trump lost, but he lost because the election was stolen from him". That's what I was getting at.

Similarly for the racial aspects. Again he is awful. But suggesting that his white supporters go into the "You know where I mean" neighborhoods to "monitor" the elections is more than just another racist comment. It brings to mind Alabama of, I hope and believe, another era.


Both of these (related) features are such that it should be an absolute necessity for everyone, most especially the R leadership, to condemn in the strongest possible terms.

Saying the above does not mean that I am cavalier about the groping of women. There is an awesome array of stuff to condemn. But my view matches Phil's on this. Or I think it does. Attacking the fundamental political norms of the country goes beyond being an indefensible crud.

As to Wallace as moderator, I think his bias showed in the way he framed questions. Here is a summary of the loaded questions.

Quote

I think Hillary was expecting this tactic and did a remarkable job of answering the questions without taking the poisoned bait offered by Wallace.

kenberg, on 2016-October-20, 09:19, said:

http://www.reuters.c...r-idUSKCN12L011

Quote

I think they should be on high alert for the actions of Romanian government also (since Guccifer 1.0, the guy who firstly exposed Clinton's private email server, was Romanian), they might want to interfere also, they are well known for doing that.

andrei, on 2016-October-21, 08:05, said:

Boots on the ground or drone interference? No matter, we are mostly just cogs in the corporate machine and nothing short of a total reboot could change anything significantly. Progressive dreams of utopia are just that since totalitarian oligarchies are rarely good for the general populace.

kenberg, on 2016-October-20, 15:06, said:

It's hard enough just keeping track of them. I'm sure I've already forgotten some of the stupid things he said during the primary (although the media won't let us forget about "I'm going to build a wall, and Mexico will pay for it").

andrei, on 2016-October-21, 08:05, said:

The possibility of mischief is real and I hope we address it. However, this is not what Trump is talking about at all. He did not bring up the Romanian government, he spoke of the New York Times as being part of the corrupt media that is rigging the election. We can probably agree that there is a difference between a foreign government hacking into the political process and a newspaper taking a stance on the candidates. I think HC's observation that Trump declared the Emmy process to be rigged when he didn't win is an excellent summary of what is going on here.

But yes, the threat of foreign, or domestic, hacking is something to worry about. It's a difficult world that we live in.

Brits and Europeans say they need us Americans again!

http://www.culturepu...au-vote-idiots/

Dbl post.

MrAce, on 2016-October-21, 11:26, said:

This is terrific.

There seems to be a great Hillary sentiment here. Nobody will doubt that Donald Trump is got great and many will agree with me that he was the 17th best of the Republican candidates. However, in order to vote for Hillary, I need to get a successful resolution to the following question:

Which of the following is true?

(1) She risked jail time, losing lots of votes, and her reputation for the hell of it.

(2) The reason she risked jail time, losing lots of votes, and her reputation by scrubbing clean the subpoenaed emails was that she had something so bad to hide that she could never be elected if the American public knew about it.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-21, 23:19, said:

Or (3) She used her email system normally and this included the deletion of some emails that she did not consider important enough to archive.

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-22, 00:40, said:

This. It is a unusual that she used a private email server but she can have had good reasons.

There is a discussion about this on Quora. https://www.quora.co...-personal-email

From my own experience with working for government offices in NL, UK and DK (and according to the rumors the situation in USA is no better), I would absolutely have set up my own private email server if I were in Clinton's situation. Government IT systems are slow, inconvenient and unreliable. Probably Clinton's emails are better protected against Russian hackers on her own server than on an official server.

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-22, 00:40, said:

Life in a fantasy bubble, anyone? ROFLMAO

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-21, 23:19, said:

Adroit analysis. US presidents are a cast of buffoons and crooks,(FDR and Honest Abe are exceptions to the rule.) lately mostly crooks. We could use a good buffoon right about now...

helene_t, on 2016-October-22, 03:58, said:

Your own link suggests that it is not unusual at all.