MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2024
Then, as now, new normals: Way back in 1960, at the dawn of a new political era, it was apparently part of an array of new normals.
Theodore White wrote the book about that year's storied presidential campaign. At one point, he described the sudden arrival of "the jumpers."
To this day, White's book carries a famous title: The Making of the President 1960. At one point, White says that the jumpers arrived on the scene after that campaign's famous first TV debate:
WHITE (page 331): One remembers, of course, the jumpers. The jumpers made their appearance shortly after the first TV debate when from a politician Kennedy had become, in the mind of the bobby-sox platoons, a “thing” combining, as one Southern Senator said, “The best qualities of Elvis Presley and Franklin D. Roosevelt.” The jumpers were, in the beginning, teen-age girls who would bounce, jounce and jump as the cavalcade passed, squealing, “I seen him, I seen him.” Gradually over the days their jumping seemed to grow more rhythmic, giving a jack-inthe-box effect of ups and downs in a thoroughly sexy oscillation. Then, as the press began to comment on the phenomenon, thus stimulating more artistic jumping, the middle-aged ladies began to jump up and down too, until, in the press bus following the candidate, one would note only the oddities: the lady, say, in her bathrobe, jumping back and forth; the heavily pregnant mother, jumping; the mother with a child in her arms, jumping; the row of nuns, all jiggling under their black robes, almost (but not quite) daring to jump; and the double-jumpers—teenagers who, as the cavalcade passed, would turn to face each other and, in ecstasy, place hands on each others’ shoulders and jump up and down together as a partnership. The most endearing jumping I saw on the long campaign occurred in Florida—in Miami. One of the schools had trooped its children out onto the lawn to see the Presidential cavalcade go by, as was the custom in most communities for both candidates. By some misjudgment of logistics, the school authorities had put the older children—the seventh- and eighth-graders—in the front row while the tiny kindergartners and first-graders were drawn up several paces behind the big ones on the grass. The big girls jumped, of course, as was to be expected. But one could see behind them two files of little ones in their gay-colored jumpers and smocks, jumping up and down in their ranks as if they were colored balls being bounced by an unseen hand. The little ones could see nothing at all over the shoulders of the seventh- and eighth-graders, but they were jumping nonetheless.
Two decades earlier, bobby-soxers had reportedly squealed for Frank Sinatra too. But as part of a presidential campaign, we're willing to guess that the jumpers were part of a new normal.
Were the jumpers a figment of White's imagination? Apparently not. The oral history of the campaign includes recollections of this conduct by other people who, like White, were actually physically present. It was a bit like the Beatles before the Beatles, observers have sometimes said.
Arguably, the jumpers were part of an emerging new normal. Elvis had already hit. The Beatles would soon arrive.
In White's view, this was the first election of the emerging TV era. For the record, Candidate Kennedy was a bit of a dreamboat in the eyes of many observers. That would include our own (Boston-born) mother and older sister, assuming that memory serves.
For the record, it was a much different country then. The country had a much smaller population, and the population was much less racially and ethnically diverse. Meanwhile, our own emerging political era has been defined by the so-called "democratization of media"—by the emergence of technologies which forcing us to adopt a modernized version of Huey Long's famous bromide:
Every crackpot a king.
Every crackpot a king! This may end up as the new normal of this dangerous time.
The TV era has come and gone. The current election campaign is playing out in the era of the Internet and social media—and in the age of cable TV, with its round-the-clock imitations of TV "news."
The current election campaign is playing out in a much larger nation, but also in the era of the unfettered fruitcake. Still and all, the enthusiasm was apparently great on the final weekend of 1960, when Candidate Kennedy returned to his native New England for his last two days of campaigning.
Realities were quite different then! The Democratic candidate, John F. Kennedy, swept to victory through much of the solid South, winning North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.
(Neither candidate won Alabama or Mississippi that year. Those states were won that year by a straight segregationist ticket.)
Candidate Kennedy reached the White House thanks to the pre-civil rights South! At the same time, the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon, won all three Pacific coast states—Washington, Oregon and California—and he took three of the six states in Kennedy's native region.
Candidate Kennedy spent the last two days campaigning right there in New England. The nation was much smaller then, but the enthusiasm in lower New England was apparently quite high. White describes what happened when Kennedy arrived at the airport in Bridgeport, Connecticut shortly after midnight on that last Saturday night:
WHITE (page 339): From the airport to Waterbury, where Kennedy was to rest that night, is only twenty-seven miles; yet it was to take two hours to drive that twenty-seven miles. Every child, every man, every woman, every grandmother and grandfather on whom [Governor] Bailey and his organization had a string of loyalty, was there in the damp to greet the returning hero. Up the Naugatuck Valley’s old Route 8 they went—through Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Beacon Falls, Naugatuck, Union City, through all the craftsmens’ villages of this seed bed of American technology. There at every crossroads, at midnight and at one and at two in the morning, they were waiting with torchlights and red flares to cheer and yell “We love you, Jack.” Outside every fire station on the route, the Bailey men had lined the fire engines, their red beacons and red winkers flashing and revolving in salute in the night...
He arrived at the Roger Smith Hotel in Waterbury, Connecticut, at three o’clock in the morning, and 30,000 people waited on the old New England green before the hotel to yell for him. He was tired; it was three o’clock in the morning; but they wanted him. So he climbed out on the balcony of the hotel, with the spotlights illuminating him from below, and from high on the balcony he spoke over the crowded green...
It was a much smaller nation then. But according to White, 30,000 people were standing there at 3 in the morning, wanting to hear Jack speak.
After three hours of sleep, the campaigning began again, in what was plainly a different political nation. Judging from appearances, the candidate felt that he even had to battle for victory in the states of lower New England—in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and in Massachusetts as well:
WHITE (footnote, page 341): All the last Sunday and Monday of the Kennedy campaign were spent in New England except for four hours touching down at rallies in Long Island and the northern New Jersey slums. The schedule, to be precise, read over the forty-eight hour period: Waterbury, Wallingford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Suffolk County, Teaneck, Jersey City, Newark, Lewiston (Maine), Providence (Rhode Island), Springfield (Massachusetts), Hartford (Connecticut), Burlington (Vermont), Manchester (New Hampshire), and Boston (Massachusetts).
Even in New Haven and Hartford, Providence and Springfield, Mass.! So it went as an array of new normals were taking shape at the start of a new political era.
That was the first election of the TV era. Ours is the era which bears this challenging banner:
Every crackpot an influencer.
We're going to learn, in the next few days, if that earlier era has fully reached its end. We're going to learn if a whole new set of normals now obtains.
Concerning one point, there can be little doubt. The inane behavior of the New York Times has been part of the current new normal.
On the front page of this morning's print editions, this "News Analysis" by Peter Baker appears above the fold. With the sirens of its fire trucks screaming, the Times has arrived at the scene of the fire comically, clownishly late:
NEWS ANALYSIS
Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds
It took just two minutes for former President Donald J. Trump to utter his first lie of the evening, claiming once again that the 2020 election had been stolen.
By four minutes into the televised interview on Thursday night, he was claiming that this time around “we’re leading by a lot” in the polls, setting up another false claim of a stolen election should he lose on Tuesday.
By five minutes into the program, he had turned to assailing his successor’s record in office and was claiming that in the last few years the country had experienced “the worst inflation we’ve ever had.”
None of that was true. And that was just the first 300 seconds. For the rest of the evening, Mr. Trump spouted one statement after another that was fanciful, misleading, distorted or wildly false. He rewrote history. He claimed accomplishments that he did not accomplish. He cited statistics at odds with the record. He described things that did not happen and denied things that did.
[...]
Truth is not always an abundant resource in the White House under any president, but never has the Oval Office been occupied by someone so detached from verifiable facts...
Never has the Oval Office been occupied by someone so detached from verifiable facts?
It isn't Baker's fault, but the New York Times has arrived on the scene comically, clownishly late. It has finally arrived at the scene of the blaze with this "News Analysis" concerning one part of what may turn out to be our flailing nation's new normal.
Later, the tragicomedy continues as Baker offers this:
“No one in American politics has ever lied on this scale,” said Bill Adair, a Duke University professor and author of “Beyond the Big Lie,” published this fall. “His impact is not just in the volume and repetition of lies that he tells but also in the way that he has affected the culture of the Republican Party. He has made it more acceptable to lie, and that’s clear when you listen to debate on the House floor and you hear his lies get repeated, or you watch Fox and you hear his lies get repeated."
Let us start by noting that neither Baker nor Adair knows if this candidate's endless wild misstatements actually qualify as "lies," or if they might the product of a wildly distorted discernment—a distorted discernment of a type the Times (and the rest of the upper-end press) has steadfastly refused to contemplate or discuss.
No one knows of those endless wild misstatements are actually "lies"—and no one has been willing to interview the kinds of (carefully selected) medical specialists who might be able to offer an informed judgment about this important possibility. To that we'll add an additional point, one we've repeatedly noted:
You watch Fox and you hear his [misstatements] get repeated?
We the people do in fact hear those wild misstatements repeated, on an hourly basis, all over the Fox News Channel. Along with the rest of its journalistic avoidance, the Times has agreed that this basic fact of modern life—this basic "new normal"—must never be reported, analyzed or discussed.
Within the realm of the New York Times, no one should ever say the names of the Fox News Channel stars! Also, no one should ever report the things they've repeatedly said and done.
The Times has agreed to disappear the existence of that new normal. For better or worse, it has also agreed to bury the sweeping possibility concerning the possible medical / psychiatric disorder which may have produced the endless wild misstatements it describes today as "lies."
Last night, on CNN, Lulu Garcia-Navarro finally said it. "It's not normal," she said, speaking of the peculiar behavior of this particular candidate on this campaign's final weekend.
We'll try to link you to tape of that exchange. At Raw Story, Kathleen Culliton describes that discussion here.
The cyberattack on the Internet Archive may mean that we won't be able to show you what Garcia-Navarro said. Sadly, that successful cyberattack may turn itself out to be one of our "new normals."
As a nation, we seem to be encountering quite a few potential "new normals" as we await the outcome of tomorrow's vote. That said, it's all over now but the waiting!
Tomorrow, we'll offer a few more notes about the respective arrays of new normals—the new normals of 1960 as opposed to the potential new normals now.
A new political era arrived on the scene in 1960. Let's borrow today from Yeats as we contemplate our own new normals. We'll let sacred Yeats frame our basic question:
To what extent is a rough beast, its hour perhaps come round at last, slouching towards our own Bethlehem, hoping to be born?
This afternoon: Semafor squeals—tattles, blows the whistle
These are important distinctions - that we are not in the era of television but are in the era of internet and social media.
ReplyDeleteCertain political tactics that worked in one don't work as well in the other.
Sacred Yeats -- another fascist admiring poet.
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for nostalgia, somerby would have nothing to write about at all, on the day before the most fraught election of our time. But Somerby is oozing over preteen girls jumping up and down for Kennedy (they aren't even voters, so why mention them?).
ReplyDeleteNothing about Trump constitutes any kind of "new normal" as Somerby pretends. Trump and Vance are just weird. And if you throw in Miller, Bannon and Carlson, these guys are creepy beyond words.
ReplyDeleteSorry Somerby, the lies told by Trump are not manifestations of mental disorder. They are just self-serving lies. The ones that don't seem to advance his personal agenda are told to stroke his fragile ego or to hurt other people, since revenge is one of his strong motives. This is what rich people are like when they are not raised like normal children. But this is not mental illness and it is an insult to the mentally ill to refer to Trump that way. He is, and always has been, a self-preoccupied spoiled asshole with no impulse control, hence a rapist, liar and crook, just as his father taught him to be. But learning wrong things at daddy's knee doesn't make someone mentally ill. It makes them a grifter and con artist and sexual deviant.
ReplyDeleteMost of us here are tired of the way Somerby tries to create excuses for Trump to absolve him of his misbehavior. How do we know his behavior does not arise from mental illness? Just look at what actual mentally ill people do. They suffer and they say/do bizarre things, but they do not rob, cheat, steal, rape women (or men), threaten other people with firing squads, and tell thousands of lies while conning a cult following out of millions of dollars. Trump behavior is abnormal for mentally ill people, not just for everyday humans. More than that, Trump has control over his behavior (as evidenced by his days in court) but just chooses not to exercise it.
But why does Somerby work so hard here every day to try to gain sympathy for Trump when he deserves none? Why does Somerby pretend to be a media critic, attacking figures in the media, but never analyzing the media? Why does Somerby only talk about a handful of his favorite literary figures, speaking in shorthand that no one here understands, with personal meanings and no relevance to any actual topic at hand? And why has Somerby never done a single thing to support Harris despite claiming he will vote for her? Why does Somerby obsess over Gutfeld and Carlson, repeating their nonsense while never rebutting their childish attacks on Democrats? And why does someone like Somerby have a cadre of fanboy trolls, despite never saying anything cogent about politics?
Perhaps when this election is over, Somerby will go away and take his trolls with him. We can only hope (and vote). Remember that no one will know how you voted, not even Somerby (or his proxys Cecelia, AC/MA, and the misogynist nazis and haters who appear in comments). This may be the last time any of us can use our franchise and our free speech rights to say what we really think.
Meanwhile, all those 14 year old girls aren't going to jump themselves, amirite?
To be fair most people haven't lifted a finger to help Harris. She's unliked and unlikable and has zilch to recommend her. Trump is Trump, most can take or leave him for a multitude of reasons but only the insane believe he threatens democracy or norms more than Democrats do, and he's fantastically entertaining to anyone with a sense of humor. Which let's face it, isn't Democrats' strong suit.
DeleteDoes feigning fellatio in public threaten any norms, or does it fall more under the category of fanstastically entertaining? - humorless Democrat
DeleteOld enough to remember Obama's jokes about Trump's dick at the Democrat convention.
Delete@10:24 Yes, Trump's fellatio breaks norms. It is inappropriate behavior for a presidential candidate. It isn't funny unless you think our nation's governance and our reputation in the world is all a big joke too. It is the equivalent of Trump wandering into meetings with world leaders in his underwear. It is an embarrassment.
DeleteA joke is funny. This is just cringe. A normal human being would adapt to the mic failure or wait for it to be fixed, not behave like a 12 year old who is too impatient to behave professionally and with the dignity the office deserves (not to mention respect for the audience).
Watching people fail in public is not entertaining unless you have no empathy.
Why was Obama's joke different? First, it didn't simulate a sex act. Second, Obama is not president and not a candidate so he can say what he wants. Third, Obama's joke involved describing Trump's own behavior, so it was true. It would have been crass for Harris or Biden to tell the same jokes given their offices. Fourth, Obama was more subtle than Trump who was blatant in his crudity. Fifth, it lacks class to stand before a crowd and blame your crew for equipment failures when they are working hard to support your efforts. Most politicians do not do that either because it looks bad.
"Obama appeared to imply Trump’s jitteriness about crowd sizes could reflect an insecurity about another measurement.
The 63-year-old laughed at Trump over his “weird obsession with crowd sizes”, moving his hands from large to small and looking down to catch what he was doing."
10:40,
Deleteagree Obama's joke was reprehensible, although still a difference between referencing an organ's size in an easily understood joke versus the sex act itself for no apparent reason other than vulgar titillation.
Obama was merely being descriptive; Trump has a tiny penis, this is well attested to.
DeleteObama was not mocking Trump for having a tiny penis, he was spreading awareness that obsessing over such petty things is unhealthy, via a gentle tease.
Trump loves the gay anthem YMCA song, plays it all the time, and notably most of his sexual assaults did not involve his tiny penis - the exceptions being when he raped his wife, and the 13yo that reminded him of his own daughter.
Trump does not write his own material, indeed one of his funnier jokes is when he brags about not needing a teleprompter whilst standing between and reading off of two giant…teleprompters. Ha! So funny, I slap my knee. The fussing about the mic shtick he stole from Michael Parenti.
If we average people have learned anything new this past week, it’s that anonymices couldn’t describe any sort of sexual act, even if ordered at gunpoint by a frisky Mr. Soros.
DeleteGot to admit, Trump offering up his wimpy wiener to a porn star was a ballsy move.
DeleteObviously, that’s the last person you’d want leading our country, with access to our nuclear codes.
Come to think of it, that kind of misplaced bravado is probably why he went bankrupt six times, wiping out the nearly half a billion his dad left him.
Cecelia doesn't recognize the difference between talking about sex and simulating it on stage, as a presidential candidate. That's why Republicans are weird. No sense of what is appropriate behavior in specific contexts. For example, they think it is funny when Trump jokes about the press being shot, after a rally in which Trump himself suffered an ear-nick. Ha ha very funny.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:41pm, in the great American way, Trump will be down and then back up several times before he kicks the bucket. That’s why you must put him in jail.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:51am, I know anonymices have exhibited some weird imaginations born of complete ignorance. That’s nothing knew.
DeleteTrump is set to be sentenced in a few weeks, but I doubt he’s going to “jail”, he’ll probably get some type of home detention.
DeleteTrump’s days of being “up” are over, it’s downhill from here until death, which increasingly seems not far off due to his poor health and deteriorating mind.
Ironically, it does seem to be the case that Trump will contribute to making America great again, by losing the election and his various court cases.
Anonymouse 12:03pm, are you whispering to me or your randy Mr. Soros?
DeleteWith Trump in prison, it’ll be interesting to see how he navigates the dichotomy between his homophobia and his latent homosexuality since he’ll likely be the belle of the ball.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:10”9pm, go wash your hands.
DeleteRemember when the orange felon and Rubio were fighting over the size of their peckers? Fucking weirdos.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:15pm, if anonymices had a nickel for every time they mention male private parts they could buy a set.
DeleteYou don't make any sense, but you have managed to convince everyone here that you are a crude and ugly person.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:53pm, anonymices have extremely selective sensibilities. They only exercise them towards people who aren’t anonymices.
DeleteAgain, you aren't making any sense. Don't you have anything to say about Somerby's essay today?
DeleteAnonymouse 7:17pm, I made perfect sense and you understand me entirely and know I’m correct, bozo. You don’t have a fainting couch, you have a feigning couch.
Delete“ That’s why you must put him in jail.”
DeleteI’m with Bob. He belongs in a mental institution.
He belongs in an assisted living care facility that has
Deletean Alzheimer's wing he can transition into in a couple of years. If whatever it is that calls itself Cecelia doesn't recognize Trump performing with the Mic stand for what it was - getting a burst of laughter from the MAGA audience in the process - that's on it. This exhibition was apparently unpalatable enough to whatever it is that calls itself Cecelia that it pretends that Trump wasn't acting out inappropriately. It's a bad look but really no worse than bragging that he can grab women by their genitalia without impunity.
doorknob at 12:26 PM - learn how to type.
Delete14 year old girls fixate on effeminate and non-threatening male targets to practice being blossoming women. 14 year old boys fixate on athletic heroes and call each other "gay" to reinforce their blossoming manhood. They are all still children and their targets have nothing to do with politics. It is lurid when Somerby uses these pre-adolescent fixations to bolster anything adult, especially his own fantasies.
ReplyDeleteThose little girls are probably embarrassed by their former selves after growing up to learn about the real JFK and his deeply broken and corrupt family.
Delete"No one knows of [sic] those endless wild misstatements are actually "lies"."
DeleteThis statement by Somerby is ridiculous. We, as a society, do not give a free pass to lies when told by someone who believes his statements are true. What matters is whether the info is reliable or not. We also hold that people in certain positions have a duty to make sure their statements are factually correct. That applies to journalists, but also to politicians, teachers, lawyers (who can be disbarred or jailed for untruth), advertisers of products, doctors (or pretty much anyone in a profession), and so on. Believing one's own untrue statements is not a defense.
It doesn't matter whether Trump believes his own lies or not. What matters is that a person who tells such stories is unfit to be president. Does Trump tells wild lies to Putin? I'll bet he doesn't. That suggests that he can control himself and does know the difference, but chooses to say whatever he wants to people who have no control over him.
Another example is Trump's on-again, off-again acknowledgement that he lost in 2020. That he sometimes acknowledges the truth, shows that he is choosing to lie when it suits him.
There is a phenomenon called "duper's delight" in which a person gains pleasure and a sense of control by fooling other people -- telling lies and watching others be taken in by them. I suspect that this is why Trump lies, and there would be no pleasure in it if he believed his own lies.
But the greater evidence that Trump's lies are deliberate attempts to fool people is that the entire Republican party has become a party of liars. They are all using instrumental lies to gain advantage now. JD Vance admitted that he "created" the story about Haitians eating pets in order to gain attention. These other members of MAGAdom have not all lost their sense of reality but are using lies to win, as they have been taught to do by Trump's example.
This situation makes Somerby's suggestion that Trump is lying because he cannot tell what is real more of an insult to us all. We deserve the truth, not excuses for Trump's manipulation of his followers.
That said, there is a kind of lying that goes with dementia called confabulation. This is where you make shit up when you cannot remember the facts. I am certain Trump does that when he makes up figures he is trying to quote but cannot remember. That isn't the same as calling immigrants rapists or claiming that blue cities are shitholes or that crime is up instead of down.
If Trump is so disturbed that he makes up things then he shouldn't be a candidate for president. If he is well enough to run for office, he should be held accountable for his lying. Somerby cannot have this both ways.
Once again, this is familiar ground that we have already discussed since 2015 when Trump was discovered to be a habitual liar. Somerby is still saying the same old stuff, without change, because he is not willing to engage in any kind of dialog with his commenters or with reality himself. It wastes everyone's time and makes this blog boring. But it is necessary, apparently, to continue to defend truth against Somerby's and Trump's assault on it, no matter how often these guys tell their hackneyed untruths.
10:46 - Ah, by your own humble admission, you're a brave defender of truth! We thank you for your service!
DeleteHowever, I'm confused. You say, "It doesn't matter whether Trump believes his own lies or not." But George Costanza tells me that if you believe it, it's not a lie. So, who should I believe, you or George Costanza?
Just don’t believe Trump.
DeleteSomerby keeps asking “how did we get here?”, even promised to write a book about.
ReplyDeleteThe book never happened, likely because Somerby has nothing more on offer than a small collection of cool stories; no evidence, no substantiation, and therefore no credible, coherent argument to make.
Somerby says he is “willing to guess”, but notably not about whether Trump is lying, when it’s readily apparent that Trump is lying, Somerby suddenly eschews abduction - inference to the best explanation.
Russia recently raised their interest rate to 21%, in the wake of long term high inflation. Oof.
ReplyDeleteRussia’s supply of goods and services, as well as their labor supply, is stretched thin, apparently due to Putin’s misstep dating back a couple of years.
Oils well that ends well, I’m sure.
Wannabe kings like Putin and his puppet Trump have historically been crackpots, nothing to do with the democratization of media; still scapegoats must be found to distract us from raising taxes on the rich and regulating corporations to stop colluding (the primary cause of inflation in the US) and polluting.
If, as you say, corporate collusion is the primary cause of inflation, what do you think explains the precipitous plunge in the inflation rate during the past two years? Do you think corporations have suddenly decided to stop colluding?
DeleteBiden explains it.
DeleteOver the weekend Trump let it slip that if he loses he will be in big trouble, thereby admitting his run for presidency is merely a way for him to avoid personal responsibility for his corruption and criminality.
ReplyDeleteThis, combined with also recently informing women that he would “protect” them whether they liked it or not (rape, anyone?) has so addled parts of the electorate that now even red states like Iowa are in play.
Trump’s campaigning is…interesting.
Is it? The only reason I am voting this cycle is because Trump's opponents abused power to try to remove him from the race which is the conduct of fascists. Other than that I couldn't care less.
DeleteActually Biden's AG stalled long enough to let his serial Federal law breaking be tried after the election. But on the plus side he was fined $25M for defrauding Felon U students, $90 million for buggering a woman, hundreds of millions for defrauding the state of NY, and banks. You know he is a scumbag, that is why you are voting for the pig. You want more harm and chaos to others.
DeleteAm I paranoid to question election security (as Hector accused me yesterday)? My doubt is based on three conclusions, which can be proved:
ReplyDelete1. I don't know what all the election procedures are in theory or in practice. Faith in election integrity depends on faith on many different people doing their jobs honestly and capably.
2. Many institutions that should be trustworthy have proved not to be.
3. The media cannot be relied on uncover lies. In fact, they sometimes participate
Examples illustrating #2 -
-- 51 experts saying the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation
-- Dr. Fauci saying Covid definitely did not come from the Wuhan lab
-- Kamala Harris repeatedly saying that Trump called Nazis "fine people." (This was debunked by Snopes and can be verified by just listening to what he said."
Regarding #3 - The mainstream has failed to report that Harris is lying (or wrong) about the "fine people" hoax.
Given your extreme distrust of systems, I suggest your best bet is to not vote. Just stay home.
Delete"51 experts saying the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation"
DeleteThey didn't say it was Russian disinformation. They said it appeared to be Russian disinformation, though they stated they hadn't even seen the emails involved, and did not have 'evidence of Russian involvement'.
Blue media glossed over these niceties in its reporting.
"Dr. Fauci saying Covid definitely did not come from the Wuhan lab"
It still isn't established where covid came from so I'm not certain why you include this example.
And Kamala Harris is a candidate, not an institution.
But your most illogical assumption is that only blue media can uncover election fraud. What about Fox News, Newsmax, Republicans in Congress, independent journalist/investigators on the right? Wouldn't they be licking their chops to uncover the fraud involved in the crime of the century?
But we here nothing from them. Not a peep other than the comic flailing of Rudy and Sydney Powell and a burlesque such as 2000 Mules.
You are paranoid for entertaining the doubts you do in the face of a total lack of evidence of any election malfeasance.
Did you even go to the link I provided earlier or are you content to wallow in your own lack of information?
You are not paranoid DiC. Dems want loose voting rolls because they want to have the option of cheating in close elections, and they have been doing it since 1960. Only a true racist would say Blacks and minorities are too stupid get an ID; they use it as an excuse for not having any Voter ID. Dems would also say it is already illegal for non citizens to vote – but never prosecute anyone for doing so while promiscuously signing up non citizens, and have Soros pay $100 for each illegal ballot harvested in critical states.
DeleteThanks for your response, Hector. I don't remember going to your link. Would it be convenient to post it again?
DeleteI don't know where I implied that only blue media can uncover election fraud. I don't believe that. In fact, I am not sure that anyone can uncover election fraud.
Here's a hypothetical example. Suppose someone dumped a bunch of forged ballots in the collection boxes. I don't know whether that could be uncovered. First of all, are there audit procedures that would uncovered this type of fraud? Once the ballots are separated from the envelopes, I don't see how. I don't even know whether each state retains all the envelopes or for how long.
Secondly, an organization that wanted to do such an audit would have to get permission. The audit would probably be resisted by the winner. IIRC in 2020, groups who doubted the election went to court. They got permission to do an audit in only one state.
https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/vote/elections/election-security.html#accordion-68c89328b6-item-c0746119c7
DeleteAt the above site you can find, if you're willing to put in a few minutes, answers to your concerns. I picked Pennsylvania since it is the highest profile state.
I'd be willing to bet every state has something like this information at their Secretary of State's website.
Forgery: in Pennsylvania each ballot has a unique bar code that prevents double voting. Vote forgery would mean forging the barcode which I don't think is easy to do.
It would also involve submitting forged ballots only for those voters who haven't voted already. So you'd have to know who was going to vote and who wasn't, at the individual voter level.
Audits: in Pennsylvania the election process has 2 kinds of built-in audits, one of which matches samples of paper ballots to computer results. See link above.
Voting tallies are publicly available at the precinct level, but not for individual voters because of the secret ballot.
David, the basis for your doubts begins with what you admit you don't know.
Delete"1. I don't know what all the election procedures are in theory or in practice."
Election procedures are complex and extensive. They've been revised and refined by local officials, state legislators, and experts (both elected and appointed) from both parties. They are regularly challenged in court and reviewed by judges. These procedures are far from a mysterious black box--they're examined and debated and disputed until they are put into practice in an actual tabulation of votes.
If you "don't know" what the procedures are, that's on you. What you describe isn't legitimate doubt, it's willful ignorance.
Quaker— thanks very much for the info.
DeleteThanks to Hector. It was Hector's comment that had so much useful info.
DeleteThe only people who think that voting fraud is an ongoing problem this election are those who want it to be in anticipation of a loss by Trump. There is, incidentally no evidence that the random statistically miniscule number of fraudulent ballots cast in past elections favored one party. Multiple Republicans in a Florida retirement community cast more than one ballot for Trump in 2020. Their punishment? Community service. If they didn't feel inclined towards that, a cash payment. Apparently, in Florida, a red state, if you committed fraud favoring Donald Trump, it's no big deal.
DeleteRegarding the above: 4 people in 2020 from the Republican Florida stronghold , The Villages, all casting more than one vote for Donald Trump, all pleading guilty of purposefully doing so, were sentenced to probation, one receiving a 500 dollar fine.
DeleteDavid,
DeleteI did it because now that you know elections are secure and Trump has been lying, I know you'll be voting for Kamala. I thank you on her behalf.
Liz Cheney, on The View today, once again reminded the viewers that the Orange Jesus watched for three hours as over 100 capitol police were assaulted in the January 6th assault on our capitol without lifting a finger. All in the name of election fraud, which did not occur. Voting for the lying instigator of that fiasco is flat out un-American.
DeleteHector - To be fair to Fox News they did report extensively on election fraud and were fined $780M for their effort.
DeleteDavid, all three of your supposed examples of untrustworthy institutions contain inaccurate descriptions.
DeleteThe "51 experts" did not call the laptop "Russian disinformation." You can refer to tAshe text of their letter here.
As for Fauci, he has said that the Covid virus was not created or modified in the Wuhan lab--a claim that has circulated widely on the right. To date, there is no evidence that Dr Fauci is wrong on this point.
Lastly, you say that Harris has "repeatedly" said that Trump called Nazis fine people. I know of only one instance where she addressed the question--in her debate with Trump. In that instance, she very carefully avoided saying Trump was referring to Nazis--only that he said there were "fine people on both sides." There is no dispute that he said this.
David, have you ever heard the name Andrii Derkach? I bet you haven't. You should find out about him.
DeleteQuaker -- Yes, Trump said those words, but (I think) in the next sentence Trump explicitly said that the Nazis and white supremacists are not fine people. Rather, he condemned them utterly. For Harris to omit that part of what Trump said is a vicious lie IMO.
DeleteI went and read wikipedia on Andrii Derkach. Thanks for educating me.
David,
DeleteIf you were in a roomful of Nazis, white supremacists, and fine people on the Right, who were at the "Unite the Right"march, how could you tell the latter group from the other two?
Let’s let the fanboys/trolls cope on their own, no need to feed their desperate demand for attention.
ReplyDelete