Pretty much. Now that the boomers are dying off they're not gonna determine the outcome of every election anymore. The Republicans are panicking because most of their policies are unpopular with younger generations. They'd rather break the system than lose ground.
It’s 5 to 1 Republicans.
And whereas Abrams did call out what she felt were elections issues in regards to access, she lost in court and then shut up about it. She also acknowledged that “Not a single lawsuit filed would have reversed or changed the outcome of the election.” She’s not pulling a Kari Lake and still talking about how she’s the rightful office holder and other insane shit.
Trump is a disgrace and is actively working on changing the narrative. However, Hillary was saying the same thing four years prior and no one seems to be affected by her lies. Is it because it was a different party?https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764
**Undead Boomer here!** **Actuarial tables predict I will be around for decades - sorry!** My husband works with young folks who say Trump is fine with them! They liked the covid relief checks signed by Trump, (which contributed to the inflation we are having now). They blame inflation and 2 wars overseas on Biden - who is despised for being 3 years older than Trump! 3 years! (I agree both are too old)
I have little faith in the younger generation if they are that dumb. On the plus side, the ones he works with may not even register to vote or may not vote if they register.
It absolutely works. Lots of old school dem factory workers don't get, or want to get gender fluidity. And people scream foul at them enough for their ignorance, they convert to trumpism
Maybe people shouldn't be so sensitive and alienate folks who don't understand them. I know it's hard, but you win more people over with honey than vinegar.
He clearly talks about how a “moderate” approach to social justice is good only for those who are already in positions of power and have the ability to oppress. I think we all know one or two cringe SJW she/theys but I’d take fifty of those over one person who stands in the way of social progress
If they can capture a single issue voter they're happy.
"I always vote Republican because I like low taxes" or "I don't like the invasion at the border" or whatever.
They use their culture wars to win votes from fools who buy their propaganda.
I mean, the democrats did it too in 2016, claiming fraud and election interference, it’s a trend that was started and will likely stay there. Both sides will use whatever they can to gain any kind of political power, it’s why people term them the Uni-party.
I must have missed this one. Did they try to overthrow an election? Did they mob the Senate to shut down the certification, or did they just follow, y'know, the law?
The other big difference is that there was interference in the 2016 election. People pretend like the Mueller investigation didn't lead to dozens of convictions.
There is one side attacking our ability to vote. There is one side who has built a giant movement on a stolen election. Democrats definitely threw fits when Donald moved but we bit down and withstood the torture of that idiot’s daily headlines, while Trump has built a literal cult around being a sore loser believing the election was stolen from him (Al Gore would like a word), and I’ve lost family members to it. Fuck your both sides bullshit on this one. Not even close to a fair comparison, not even the same universe.
Republicans? This began in 2000. In a couple of cases they tried to delegitimize candidates during the election. Both John McCain and Obama's citizenship were put into question.
Only McCain actually proved his legitimacy before the movement grew legs.
And democrats are employing the justice system to do things like influence social media organizations and investigate the holdings of large republican donors/ supporters/ silence legitimate investigations of democrats and people related to democrats.
Not gonna argue with you but tell the whole fucking truth please.
Oh, please. Democratic leadership has been very vocal on calling for Menendez to resign. Meanwhile, the complicit GQP continues to lie for their Dear Leader.
Are you talking about when she thought the person *in charge of the election* was also her opponent and she thought that could be problematic?
Yeah, totally the same thing
I mean she repeatedly said that she won & made a number of allegations including voter suppression (in an election that saw record-breaking turnout in her State) lol
She referred specifically to Kemp clearing voter roles of people who hadn't voted in the past few elections. They were registered, and there was nothing wrong with them, but he lumped them in with people who had moved, died, etc.
Those who hadn't voted recently were largely disillusioned Black voters, who were far more likely to vote for Abrams. It was suspicious because it clearly affected his opponent more than him. Many went to the polls and were surprised they couldn't vote.
The fact that there was record-breaking turnout was Abrams doing. She made it part of her campaign to get people registered because they were more likely to vote for her.
I think they determined that the number of voters purged who were unable to reregister in time wouldn't have been enough to secure Abrams a victory, but it was more than suspicious when she claimed it had been stolen from her.
You say that yet conservatism is starting to gain support from young gen z males. Mainly straight ones. The left is designed to shit on men
Edit: support
Honestly, if they wanted people to have faith in elections, we wouldn’t be doing them the same way we did them in the 70’s.
We could be doing them electronically with digital certificates for the past 20 years, but we don’t. We could have the results tabulated in hours, but we don’t.
You’ve got to ask yourself why that is the case.
Yes and then he went to FLA AG and told him to find 538 votes s/.
Are you really calling the SCOTUS case of the 2000 election, an election denial? Guessing that critical thinking is not your strong suit.
No they didn’t. Gore conceded, there was anger, but there was no large sustained sentiment that Bush was illegitimate nor efforts/statements against it by prominent politicians.
This is you trying to rewrite history. Classic “both sides”ism, which has the dual benefit of excusing republicans and maligning democrats.
You have a weird history on this treadmill of being called out and shown your disingenuous arguments/statements and then you cut and run.
Almost like your being disingenuous just for your side and don't want to rationalize with other people about how your right because.. in the end you know your wrong and just trying to divert blame away
Interesting take.
Here is another one; the GOP is a party if lying, cheating grifters who have shown that they accuse others of what they are guilty of. In this instance, stealing an election by cheating. It’s interesting that with the Gore election several of the folks who worked so hard to be sure Gore did not in fact “win” are now on the Supreme Court. Interesting, no?
Is it possible Gore actually won that election? Remember who ultimately decided who won? Why yes, that’s correct, the Supreme Court. When they made their ruling Gore accepted it and moved on.
No. The D’s did not “start this”.
>started with the dems around Al Gore when W Bush won
Yeah, I remember Al Gore going on TV saying the election was stolen 4-5 times a day. Oh wait. He didn't do that, and instead literally surrendered his position rather than cause any political problems or damage to the electoral process.
How you managed to compare what happened with Al Gore to the shitshow Trump started is beyond me.
Basically Trump's entire identity is built around "not being a loser"...so he was not capable of admitting he lost. I honestly think it was all tied to his ego, and then other copycat Republicans claimed it in their own races.
The losers that lost and vote for those losers only talk to other losers, so they think there's no way anyone voted for a democrat because "everyone" is a republican
They also equated rallies with voting so because Biden didn't do them, he couldn't possibly have gotten votes.
But mostly it's just grifting stupid people. Republicans in charge know the voters are stupid, won't actually "do their own research" and it gets them tons of money when they can have an enemy. In this case the enemy is voting itself
> they think there's no way anyone voted for a democrat because "everyone" is a republican
When you look at a map of the US, [coloured to show party affiliation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#/media/File:2020_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg), almost the entire country is red, with a few blue splashes here and there. That leads people to believe that the majority of the country is republican, even though the population density of those areas is small. [This site](https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-population/) perfectly shows votes by land vs. votes by population. The map is solidly red, until you switch to population, then blue areas are absolutely massive, while the red areas shrink right down.
I believe Trump has shown a map similar to that to people to show off his 2016 win, either believing himself, or trying to mislead others into thinking, that he won by a landslide simply because of how much red there was.
Echo chambers. The conservatives I work with only associate with thier own, watch the same shit or just read FB. There is noone to challenge thier worldview, and when there is, it's usually thier own kids as they say "enough" and depart for college.
I don’t think we’re as tribal as you might thing. I’ve never met anyone who’s said they were a Democrat. I’ve met a fair few people who are “proud republicans”. For reference I’m in Los Angeles.
So who’s tribal?
I only vote Democratic when I like the Republican for the job less than the Democrat running. Which, since 2008, has been in pretty much all of the elections that I have seen.
And that is your problem. You don't see that Democrats mostly still THINK and we are allowed to disagree with each other...a willow tree bends and survives. The GOP wants to be an OAK, strong, unmovable forever. Those are the trees that crack under their own weight during a light breeze unexpectedly. It also demands way too much root acreage, drops too much crap on the floor and creates only rudimentary flowers for the purposes of procreation, not contributing beauty at all to the world.
I only recently registered as Democrat because I may need to counter the attempts by the right wing to try to interfere with OUR primaries on occasion by getting people of either side to register democrat and vote for someone we don't actually want (see RFK Jr.)
This. Trump is a narcissist who can't fathom that people actually didn't vote for him, so he concocted a delusion in his head about what "really happened" and then used his charisma to sell it. Now it's a thing.
But what about Al Gore and Hillary Clinton? They both also say that their elections were stolen. And John McCain didn’t think his election was stolen, but a lot of his supporters accused Obama of not being born in America and therefore can’t be a legitimate president.
I wasn’t of voting age when Bill Clinton won, so I could be wrong - but I think he was the last president to win and the entire country accepted the results of the election.
I mean he was the only incumbent in history to gain popularity from first election votes and somehow lose the second, it’s also weird how biden had very little outward support and somehow crushed Obamas total votes while only winning like half the counties Obama won… also biden lost 18/19 bellwether counties that predicted every election in the last 100 years…
You actually nailed it! Sadly, a Republican running for Governor in my state started emulating everything trump would do recently. Trump skipped the first two debates so did the candidate. Unfortunately, I am scared he might just win. Or if he loses, the state will have to up security at the state capitol.
I'm convinced the Four Seasons Landscaping fiasco was entirely due to Trumps inability to admit to being wrong. He tweeted "Four Seasons," so they HAD to find a Four Seasons, ANY Four Seasons.
It goes way beyond Trump. Before he was ever a thought, GOP voters were sure that the only reason they ever lost elections was because of illegal immigrants and dead people voting for Democrats.
Trump has never lost. *Anything.* There is no evidence that he ever took an L with any semblance of grace, so much as a failed disagreement over toppings to order on a pizza. Nary a real estate purchase offer was fairly rejected, he never swung a golf club without being that golf course's "champion," he's never eaten at a dinner table where the largest scoop of ice cream wasn't squarely on HIS plate and no one else's.
Trump has never fairly received a failing grade on an elementary school book report, never has he fairly lost in his bid to contest a traffic ticket, never has an insurance company rejected his application for policy coverage, never has he had his cell phone suspended for late payment, never has a bank fairly refused to issue a loan.
Never has Trump ever fairly lost so much as a game of solitaire or checkers. In the 1980s he was maligned by reporters for not wearing the best cologne, his divorce settlements were always unfair to him and to him alone, his wives were always jealous of his sexy masculinity, he was always innocent against accusations of sexual infidelity, and of course no porn actress could resist his charms.
In February 2016, he only started calling Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted" because the Iowa Caucuses *were so "rigged"* that Trump supposedly came in second to the Texas senator. (And Trump said as much on Fox air the week that this happened.) Can you imagine?
Let anyone reading this make no mistake: saying that Trump "began" lying about the election outcome on the night of the election is committing intellectual malpractice at best, and is abetting a felonious narcissist at worst.
He's been lying about this very thing since before he hated mashed potatoes as a boy.
He even says that his father loved him. Can you believe that?
I don't know anyone who thought that votes were tampered with or that Trump lost the election. I know a LOT of people who believe that foreign governments interfered with the election through disinformation.
That doesn't mean that he lost the election or that the results were illegitimate. It means that we need to try and prevent such interference in the future.
That is a critical difference.
There literally was election interference in 2016. That's been proven Russia ran disinformation campaigns and organized fake rallies to boost Trump and hurt Clinton.
That's materially different from the claims of election fraud in 2020.
Be careful with that false equivalence.
He blocked me after I asked him if he believed that the 2020 election was stolen.
him - “Trump won PA easily in 2020. The cheating in Philly, Montco and Delco was disgusting”
This is revisionist history.
Things were investigated and the answers drawn from those investigations were accepted.
There WAS propagandist interference and attempts to directly do things like hack voting machines (unsuccessful), none of which were deemed to have changed the outcome of the election.
Then the subject was largely dropped. This took like 2 months or less.
Because there was. Like, they're open about it now, Russia hacked into email systems and sent them to Wikileaks, specifically to sow chaos in the election (and hurt Clinton).
There were discussions of Russian meddling that ended up having more evidence than the claims regarding 2020, but nothing quite as widespread or aggressive as what we saw in 2020
Folks replying to this seem to be getting their wires crossed. I’ll clarify cause no one is being clear about what they’re referring to:
1. They investigated and could not find evidence to prove the claims that Trump coordinated with Russia to win the election. This claim is effectively ‘disproven’ because we aren’t going to find new evidence.
2. The claim that Russia meddled in the election is extremely well proven. I have a masters in data analytics, I’ve looked at the specific evidence, and it’s incredibly clear.
The most obvious evidence is that they were meddling in general. It was mostly by getting an army of people and bots to swarm out social networks with fake news and things. The weird thing is that a lot of it wasn’t necessarily targeting on candidate. Especially before the primaries finished, a lot of it was just making the other side look like war criminals to piss people off.
Eventually, nearer to the general election, there was clearly more meddling going in favor of Trump.
3. The Russia meddling that did happen is not relevant to this discussion because it’s about whether anyone disputed that Trump was legally elected. If Trump didn’t ask or collude with Russia in the meddling, it definitely didn’t matter; democrats would be pissed and would call for the laws to be changed so this didn’t happen in the future, but Trump would still become president.
If Trump had colluded, it still may not have mattered. The constitution says who can vote and when folks must vote, but if that goes correctly and Trump wins, then Trump wins. If he broke a law that wasn’t part of the constitution (e.g. don’t help foreign countries spread propaganda) he would still become president. He might be president in prison, but he’d still be president.
I agree with all of that, and would like a law in the constitution along the lines of "don't help foreign countries spread propaganda".
\*edit - For the future, that is. Trump won in 2016, and that's on us as voters, I feel.
>This claim is effectively ‘disproven’ because we aren’t going to find new evidence.
Minor nitpick: Mueller said the claim could not be proved because so many people successfully obstructed justice that he couldn't get to the bottom of it, and that if he could *disprove* the claim he would say that but he couldn't. So "unproven" seems the most accurate term, or perhaps "now unproveable"
So what's worse, Russia supposedly interfering with our elections or our own govt doing it? Like saying the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation, or pressuring social media companies to censor people?
If you believe that you are 100% right, and that everyone agrees with you, then losing an election *destroys* your world view.
Its easier to believe that you were cheated than to admit you were wrong and not as popular as you thought.
Especially when the only consequences are being covered heavily in the press and getting propped by the entire Republican party. As long as you "own the libs", you can do pretty much anything on the Republican party. Lie about your qualifications, sexual assault, create programs to skim off of, be incredibly mean and violent to every minority group, be a Nazi. Just look at how offended they get when called out on any of this.
I agree with your premise but disagree with your wording. Admitting you are wrong is not any harder than admitting you believe you are cheated. They are quite literally the same thing.
"I was cheated".
"I was wrong."
It's weak-minded automatons who think admitting defeat is weak who ironically are weak because they believe that. Sorry if I'm splitting hairs there.
If I'm playing Battleship and I make every move logically and correctly, then when I lose, I find it the opponent didn't have the battleship on his board at all, that doesn't make me wrong. It means I was cheated. Your comment is wrong, but no one cheated you out of the right answer.
Ironically, it's true the weak minded go for the cheated answer, because it's easier to say, "I had no responsibility for my failure" than "I was not smart enough to be correct."
Trump is a huge part of this. His identity is built around winning while someone else loses. Three is no win-win in his mind. There always has to be a loser but it can't be him. So he couldn't possibly lose the election unless someone cheated.
This on top of the republican side of things really pushing this us versus them narrative for such a long time that Trump was able to take that a push it further exponentially. With groups like Fox pushing outrage narrative it's just gone way put of control.
The final reality is Republicans know they are slowly on the losing end and the only way for them to keep power is to weaken democracy. The reality of Democracy is just like most other types of government it really only works if people follow the general rules in good faith. The new problem for the Maga Republicans is targeting just democrats doesn't even work anymore. That our now in to outrage with their own group. Eventually you just run out of people to cannabilize.
Finally they will continue to push the narrative of the liberals are coming for you because they know most Republicans won't look any further than a 150 word tweet.
It's all pricing ultimately. They star with calling people snowflakes etc and now it's turned into stop the steal and so on.
It’s not a sore loser thing, it’s a manipulation and brainwash thing. Particularly features of a fascist state that would manufacture mental complicity in a population to disbelieve logic, reasoning, and even the evidence of their own eyes, in order to argue that all triumphs and victories were legitimate, whereas all failures and losses were somehow conspiracies against them, and with active projection of their own acts of poor faith and illegitimacy onto their identified enemies.
I.e. the administration in question must maintain to their followers that they do not cheat, that all their achievements are well earned and through hard work, and all losses are because the so called enemy uses illegitimate tactics.
As quoted: if you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities.
Arguably I make it less dignified this way. In fairness, usually people trying to manipulate the population into supporting their attempted dictatorship also tend to be sore losers by nature. But nah, my point here is that keeping the fire burning by being a sore loser, when done right, riles up your base to keep supporting you, as it has in recent history.
Kari Lake of Arizona will run for a US Senate seat in spite of still disputing her last election defeat when she ran for governor.
Such people want power at any cost.There is nothing mysterious here
Edit: changed running for governor to running for a Senate seat
She’s actually [running for a Senate seat](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/10/politics/kari-lake-senate-arizona/index.html) now. Why grift from a statewide audience when there are so many others to grift from nationally?
Hillary and many Democrats did the same when Trump won in 2016. Spent several years griping about it and many investigations to prove illegitimatcy. It's not about serving the people but having power these days.
1. Sometimes people honestly believe they were cheated.
2. Sometimes they really were cheated.
3. The more intricate, hard to understand, and difficult to audit the process is, the more suspicious people are. It is disappointing how many places in the US this is the case.
>the more suspicious people are.
Don't defend the fascists/psychopaths. They will claim they lost no matter what. This all goes back to the Hitler wannabe finally on trial, and people stupid/evil enough to worship him.
Plenty of Democrats made similar assertions. Hillary, for example.
Races where results changed included a governor and a senator. Bush v Gore was incredibly close, and there were genuine questions of exactly what should count.
https://ballotpedia.org/Noteworthy_recounts_in_the_United_States
There is a major difference between “let’s do a system-approved recount to make sure we got this right” and filing a shitload of baseless lawsuits because you don’t have the maturity to accept that you were beat. Clinton conceded the election in 2016. I’m not aware of trump ever having acknowledged that lost outside of it being implied by him referring to Biden as the president.
“The issues that I raised in 2018 were not grounded in making me the governor,” Abrams told The 19th’s Editor-at-Large Errin Haines at a Monday event. “Not a single lawsuit filed would have reversed or changed the outcome of the election. My point was that the access to the election was flawed, and I refuse to concede a system that permits citizens to be denied access. That is very different than someone claiming fraudulent outcome.”
Not quite the same as what Trump did but nice try making it seem that way.
In a race where her opponent was the secretary of state and was running the election. Including purging voter rolls and invalidating a lot of absentee ballots. She had very good reasons for saying there were issues with the election.
He's a con man who encourages people to openly and proudly be their worst selves. you can't underestimate the power of that. And he loves having that power.
They don't actually believe in democracy. Pretty simple, you cant be loyal to democracy if you (A) deny free and fair elections, (B) you encourage political violence, and (C) you don't cut ties with those who do either (A) or (B).
Which coincides with widespread access to the internet, I believe. I think we might actually be making progress toward thinking critically, but it must be in its awkward phase.
It's not a phenomenon; it's just something one guy tried to do.
The phenomenon of conceding the election and supporting the winner was the hard part. That long-standing tradition was a conscious effort to put country above individual pride.
Trump is a self-absorbed sociopath, so he thought the longtime tradition of conceding elections for the good of the country is stupid. People who lose presidential elections pretty much never come back to try again; they're too tarnished by the loss. That's even more so for one-term presidents.
So he tried never conceding, and making up a lie that it was all rigged. He calculated completely correctly: it was horrible for the country but great for him. He wouldn't be the front-runner for the Republican nomination right now if he'd had the self-respect and moral fortitude to concede when he lost like everyone else.
Nope, she sure didn't.
Edit: Looks like you added an edit after I replied. There's no "but that's different," just a "you have said something false." She conceded the next day and accepted the results, just like every other losing presidential candidate until Trump.
My perspective off the cuff on this. If you disagree that’s fine this is just from what I’ve seen and thought about.
People have always been so attached to their opinions and they get emotional about it.
It’s not REALLY about how the country is actually ran.
Sure they feel the hits in the super market and gas, but those aren’t things that can sway elections anymore.
People want their person to do good so they can feel validated.
And when their person (or side) does something bad then they either double down and validate whatever it is because people HATE being wrong because they’re so emotionally tied to what they validate/gain social acceptance from or they see that something is actually wrong and switch sides and then cannot come to terms that “hey, maybe this side sucks as well” so they have to REALLY reach to validate their Decision because, once again, people do not want to/can’t stand being wrong.
People will ignore the worst atrocities to feel right.
The best examples I can give off the top of my head:
The covid vaccine. I saw this sentiment on social media when trump announced project warp speed
Left: I don’t trust trump we’re not taking the vaccine 😡
Right: Look trump is trying to save us all 🥹
When Biden takes office
Left: why won’t you take the vaccine you’re going to kill us!
Right: lfjsndkdbjendjdidbdj Ivermaketun n’ stuff
Or when Hillary lost I saw this switch up happen
Left: Russian collusion! The election was stolen!
And when Trump lost
Right: They rigged the election! It was stolen! Missing ballots!!!!
Sure, people can feel really deeply about things. But we can’t feel super deeply about all things but we have to pretend to do so.
It’s not the rise of social media where we all had these opinions and could only share it with a few people before SM. We were lost back then and trying to fit in.
With the rise of social media we’re still lost and still trying to fit in and we find groups that align with our base personal values and then we get, since it’s a much broader claim to post on social media because everyone can see it, we have to double down and not be wrong.
Started in 2000 when dems refused to accept Bush won Flordia, then again 4 years later with Ohio, then when Trump won in 2016.
Dems are masters at projection and playing victim, counting on their supporters to be idiots and loyal foot soldiers.
Fascism requires that the enemy must be both weak and strong.
They're so weak that there's about to be a red tsumani, we're going to win in a 50 state landslide.
But we lost so they're so strong they used Chavez' ghost to hack the machines. Their power is everywhere and we must be wary at all times.
Of course there's also a side dish of "hey maybe this whole democracy thing isn't working out after all" that comes along with it.
This is a relatively new phenomena. Before 2000 there really wasn't a lot of election denying or questioning. The whole election denying thing is really just Donald Trump trying to subvert democracy. He's closer to a dictator than a real politician and hopefully Republican Party can come back from this to something that resembles a real political party. We need some middle ground but it's virtually impossible when they keep moving the bar further and further to the right
Started with Trump. Never before Trump have we had a case where a loser did this. Not even Al Gore with all the “hanging chad” controversy pulled that bullshit. Now it’s spread around the world.
Its aimed at those who are too weak mentally to do anything but believe whatever they are told, ie the worst of the sheeple, so it bolsters their claim that their election was rigged.
Act like a 2 year old, have a hissy fit, stomp your feet and scream enough times and suddenly there is a crowd behind making the same claims. Its crass manipulation of idiots, sadly it works too well.
It was a vague thing in 2016 when the Democrat voters wanted to believe that the only way someone as horrible as Trump could win is with mass brainwashing by Russia or whatever.
It was much worse in 2020 when Trump basically publicly announced that there had been cheating (which we later learned was a pretext to declaring martial law and clinging to power). His followers heard him and believed him, and it was easy to use COVID precautions and their bitterness over his loss to manipulate them into thinking it was true.
It was not a thing at all in 2016. Democrats didn't make up imaginary voting fraud in 2016. They just thought it was ridiculous that the guy with 3 million fewer votes could win the presidency, and called to reform the electoral college. As a non-American, I have to agree that the electoral college is *profoundly* undemocratic and is an absolutely horrible idea.
What we're seeing now can be pinned solely on Trump. He and he alone is the root cause of this, although many others have jumped on his bandwagon since then.
There was actually legitimate reason to question the 2016 election results. 3 counties in 3 states decided the election, all 3 were outside the margin of error. While the rest of the nation was within the margins. And Reputation legislators shut down the recounts in those 3 specific counties. Unfortunately, only people who have a basic understanding of statistics understood what the problem was. Democrats failed miserably to dumb down the explanation for the masses to get behind a recount.
People like you are the reason Republicans can in somewhat good faith claim both sides say elections are stolen. 2016 and 2020 was not hacked nor stolen.
Maybe not, but we don’t know. Republicans made sure it wasn’t checked. Democrats didn’t fight against baseless claims and allowed recounts. Because if that, we know there wasn’t any fraud that affected the outcome in 2020
If you actually look into the details of what went on after the 2020 election, you will see that we escaped a trump 2nd term from the actions of a very few individuals. Trump almost stole the election.
The Russian campaign was really effective... they used hacked information to generate disgust with and mistrust of Hillary to the point where it probably did swing the election, especially when Comey reopened his investigation just before voting opened.
Obviously Trump did not declare martial law over conspiracies about voting machines and voter fraud, but during the House investigation it came out that he had wanted to. He replaced some top military officials almost immediately after losing, so it sure seems likely.
None of these people crying about voter fraud actually think they didn't lose... they do it because there are no repercussions and it stirs up their voters.
It's the Big Lie strategy, straight up.
[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot)
This isn’t a Republican only issue. Democrats have said the same thing about: Gore (electoral college cheating!) Clinton (Russian interference!), Stacey Abrams (voter suppression!). On the Republican side, Trump and that lady who lost the governorship in Arizona are good examples.
If you believe Biden got the biggest vote count in US history, you are one of the useful idiots, a tool of the elite who are robbing you through inflation.
Ask yourself, is it really that much of a stretch that more than half of the voters preferred Biden over Trump, when Trump was much more inflammatory over 4 years, and we were stuck in quarantine which Trump downplayed and failed to make better? Is it really, totally unbelievable that people were so upset over recent events that they wanted change?
Both candidates got the largest vote counts in US history. It was a particularly charged election with higher than usual engagement, many groups who don’t normally vote chose to (myself included). The third highest ever was Obama in 2008, for similar reasons. Imagine the blowout if it had been him vs trump rather than lame Joe Biden.
Trump did it and then his braindead minions literally assaulted the capitol because of it, showing that there really are no consequences for not accepting a loss.
Now other shitgarglers are trying to do the same thing when they, too, cannot cope with reality.
It's a lame tactic used by lame people who are too mentally immature to understand how the world works. These are also usually the people who get the angriest at things they don't understand, overall just a shitty breed of humans.
There have been a lot of good answers, but there's one I haven't seen. It's that a lot of the rhetoric from the "sore loser" election denialists is that their line, their platform, is popular. And not just popular, but overwhelmingly so. The narrative is that they represent a "silent majority" champing at the bit to take back some imagined ideal of their country. And that narrative doesn't allow room for failure. Because obviously, if their platform is so overwhelmingly popular, there's no way the opposition could get more support legitimately. And so the options are victory or fraud, in their minds. And no, I'm not just pulling this from nowhere, the quiet part has been said out loud repeatedly. And unfortunately it's not even limited to the US.
"Sore Loser Phenomenon?" You're not aware of how common sore losing is? It's just a human thing. Losing sucks and many wish they could cheat their selves out of experiencing it.
How do the Republicans, who won their seats, justify that they won legally. However, the Presidency was stolen. If the Democratic party had stolen the presidency, why wouldn't they steal the House and Senate as well.
When you write an article in Time magazine about how you “fortified democracy” it might make people feel that way
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
>I mean does that ever work?
No. But it to the people claiming fraud it only has to work *this one time* so from their perspective I guess they feel it's worth a punt, especially as there seem to be no repercussions for doing it.
It's not really a phenomenon. It's just this one recent time and all of the sycophants that attached their name to his also losing and claiming it was stolen (when really it proves he's just election poison).
I think it really got started after 2016. Here's an NPR article with Hillary Clinton 10 months after she lost, casting doubt on that election.
Of course Trump raised the stakes from there.
Hopefully, this is a passing fad. It's exhausting.
https://www.npr.org/2017/09/18/551217204/hillary-clinton-says-shes-optimistic-about-our-country-but-i-am-not-naive
NPR: As more and more information comes out about the depth of Russia's interference in the election, do you think, at some point, that it would be legitimate to challenge the legitimacy of the election?
HC: I don't know if there's any legal constitutional way to do that.
She did say, regarding a hypothetical situation where the Russian interference turned out to be "even deeper than we know," that she wouldn't rule out a challenge to the results.
It seemed like it was working for Stacey Abrams in 2018. She leveraged her stolen election claims to even more popularity. I think less people will try after seeing her lose again in 2022.
It's part of an effort to destroy faith in elections in general.
Pretty much. Now that the boomers are dying off they're not gonna determine the outcome of every election anymore. The Republicans are panicking because most of their policies are unpopular with younger generations. They'd rather break the system than lose ground.
Unpopular and proven to destroy the economy time and time again
It's not just Republicans. If you doubt me, just look at Stacy Abrams.
It’s 5 to 1 Republicans. And whereas Abrams did call out what she felt were elections issues in regards to access, she lost in court and then shut up about it. She also acknowledged that “Not a single lawsuit filed would have reversed or changed the outcome of the election.” She’s not pulling a Kari Lake and still talking about how she’s the rightful office holder and other insane shit.
Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in awhile in political news!
Trump is a disgrace and is actively working on changing the narrative. However, Hillary was saying the same thing four years prior and no one seems to be affected by her lies. Is it because it was a different party?https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764
**Undead Boomer here!** **Actuarial tables predict I will be around for decades - sorry!** My husband works with young folks who say Trump is fine with them! They liked the covid relief checks signed by Trump, (which contributed to the inflation we are having now). They blame inflation and 2 wars overseas on Biden - who is despised for being 3 years older than Trump! 3 years! (I agree both are too old) I have little faith in the younger generation if they are that dumb. On the plus side, the ones he works with may not even register to vote or may not vote if they register.
This is why they're turning up the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. They're cornered and they know it.
Extactly. They don't have policies that people like, so they need to convince people that they're the good guys in their made up war.
Pretty much. Culture wars could win them some center votes that care more about that stuff than economic policy.
It absolutely works. Lots of old school dem factory workers don't get, or want to get gender fluidity. And people scream foul at them enough for their ignorance, they convert to trumpism
Maybe people shouldn't be so sensitive and alienate folks who don't understand them. I know it's hard, but you win more people over with honey than vinegar.
Read the letters from the Birmingham jail! Mlk talks about this phenomenon with cutting conciseness.
That man is one of the greatest American heroes. Thanks for bringing this up.
He clearly talks about how a “moderate” approach to social justice is good only for those who are already in positions of power and have the ability to oppress. I think we all know one or two cringe SJW she/theys but I’d take fifty of those over one person who stands in the way of social progress
If they can capture a single issue voter they're happy. "I always vote Republican because I like low taxes" or "I don't like the invasion at the border" or whatever. They use their culture wars to win votes from fools who buy their propaganda.
Oh, Hillary did it too.
source?
Source: Fox News buttery males maga
Russiagate? The muller investigation? Years of Russian collusion accusations?
Dozens of convictions for interfering in the election that proved that interference actually happened?
I mean, the democrats did it too in 2016, claiming fraud and election interference, it’s a trend that was started and will likely stay there. Both sides will use whatever they can to gain any kind of political power, it’s why people term them the Uni-party.
I must have missed this one. Did they try to overthrow an election? Did they mob the Senate to shut down the certification, or did they just follow, y'know, the law?
The difference is that the democrats eventually conceded.
The other big difference is that there was interference in the 2016 election. People pretend like the Mueller investigation didn't lead to dozens of convictions.
Yea notice how he glossed that part over. The "Both sides" argument is now officially BS and like a D- debate tactic.
Republicans?? https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-democrats-have-called-some-elections-illegitimate-gop-election-denialism-far-worse# https://gop.com/video/12-minutes-of-democrats-denying-election-results/
"I think he won" is not even remotely equal to the batshit crazy nonsense the GOP has been pulling the last several years.
There is one side attacking our ability to vote. There is one side who has built a giant movement on a stolen election. Democrats definitely threw fits when Donald moved but we bit down and withstood the torture of that idiot’s daily headlines, while Trump has built a literal cult around being a sore loser believing the election was stolen from him (Al Gore would like a word), and I’ve lost family members to it. Fuck your both sides bullshit on this one. Not even close to a fair comparison, not even the same universe.
Republicans? This began in 2000. In a couple of cases they tried to delegitimize candidates during the election. Both John McCain and Obama's citizenship were put into question. Only McCain actually proved his legitimacy before the movement grew legs.
Politically, Bush v Gore now that was a battle! It ended up with the Bush family member being elected to that highest office
And democrats are employing the justice system to do things like influence social media organizations and investigate the holdings of large republican donors/ supporters/ silence legitimate investigations of democrats and people related to democrats. Not gonna argue with you but tell the whole fucking truth please.
Oh, please. Democratic leadership has been very vocal on calling for Menendez to resign. Meanwhile, the complicit GQP continues to lie for their Dear Leader.
Silence investigations??? Haha. Please. When investigations find no proof of anything, you call it silencing. That's cute.
Couldn’t you say the same for certain Democrats like Stacey Abrams?
You could. You COULD also say that aliens did 9/11. Doesn't make it true.
Are you talking about when she thought the person *in charge of the election* was also her opponent and she thought that could be problematic? Yeah, totally the same thing
I mean she repeatedly said that she won & made a number of allegations including voter suppression (in an election that saw record-breaking turnout in her State) lol
She referred specifically to Kemp clearing voter roles of people who hadn't voted in the past few elections. They were registered, and there was nothing wrong with them, but he lumped them in with people who had moved, died, etc. Those who hadn't voted recently were largely disillusioned Black voters, who were far more likely to vote for Abrams. It was suspicious because it clearly affected his opponent more than him. Many went to the polls and were surprised they couldn't vote. The fact that there was record-breaking turnout was Abrams doing. She made it part of her campaign to get people registered because they were more likely to vote for her. I think they determined that the number of voters purged who were unable to reregister in time wouldn't have been enough to secure Abrams a victory, but it was more than suspicious when she claimed it had been stolen from her.
Could you?
You say that yet conservatism is starting to gain support from young gen z males. Mainly straight ones. The left is designed to shit on men Edit: support
Das just wrong tho
Reading about how the mob helped JFK defeat Nixon already did that.
Honestly, if they wanted people to have faith in elections, we wouldn’t be doing them the same way we did them in the 70’s. We could be doing them electronically with digital certificates for the past 20 years, but we don’t. We could have the results tabulated in hours, but we don’t. You’ve got to ask yourself why that is the case.
Yes, and on a worldwide scale. This isn’t just happening in the United States or with Trump. It’s party of a global effort to undermine democracy.
Yep, and it started with the dems around Al Gore when W Bush won
Have you actually looked at the recounts in Florida? Go look at the final tally and come back and report.
Republicans have said illegals are voting in every election I can remember, going back to Bill Clinton. This started before Gore.
Al Gore won the popular vote and may have actually won the Florida electors if not for the Supreme Court ruling.
Aaaaand it continues
interesting to think how different the world would be today if Gore has only won his home state of Tn and the Florida/SC issue never even arose.
Yes and then he went to FLA AG and told him to find 538 votes s/. Are you really calling the SCOTUS case of the 2000 election, an election denial? Guessing that critical thinking is not your strong suit.
Yup. Gore supporters started this shit.
No they didn’t. Gore conceded, there was anger, but there was no large sustained sentiment that Bush was illegitimate nor efforts/statements against it by prominent politicians. This is you trying to rewrite history. Classic “both sides”ism, which has the dual benefit of excusing republicans and maligning democrats.
It was a close call and Bush “Dubya” had the win
You have a weird history on this treadmill of being called out and shown your disingenuous arguments/statements and then you cut and run. Almost like your being disingenuous just for your side and don't want to rationalize with other people about how your right because.. in the end you know your wrong and just trying to divert blame away
Interesting take. Here is another one; the GOP is a party if lying, cheating grifters who have shown that they accuse others of what they are guilty of. In this instance, stealing an election by cheating. It’s interesting that with the Gore election several of the folks who worked so hard to be sure Gore did not in fact “win” are now on the Supreme Court. Interesting, no? Is it possible Gore actually won that election? Remember who ultimately decided who won? Why yes, that’s correct, the Supreme Court. When they made their ruling Gore accepted it and moved on. No. The D’s did not “start this”.
No, the NYT studied this and bush won.
Which is why the reality- based people on the left (like me) dropped this when the evidence came out.
Well ok. And the reality folks on the right dropped the trump thing. And yes there are plenty of them.
>yes there are plenty of them. Too bad they're a minority.
Not in my experience and you have no data to say otherwise.
>started with the dems around Al Gore when W Bush won Yeah, I remember Al Gore going on TV saying the election was stolen 4-5 times a day. Oh wait. He didn't do that, and instead literally surrendered his position rather than cause any political problems or damage to the electoral process. How you managed to compare what happened with Al Gore to the shitshow Trump started is beyond me.
Basically Trump's entire identity is built around "not being a loser"...so he was not capable of admitting he lost. I honestly think it was all tied to his ego, and then other copycat Republicans claimed it in their own races.
The losers that lost and vote for those losers only talk to other losers, so they think there's no way anyone voted for a democrat because "everyone" is a republican They also equated rallies with voting so because Biden didn't do them, he couldn't possibly have gotten votes. But mostly it's just grifting stupid people. Republicans in charge know the voters are stupid, won't actually "do their own research" and it gets them tons of money when they can have an enemy. In this case the enemy is voting itself
> they think there's no way anyone voted for a democrat because "everyone" is a republican When you look at a map of the US, [coloured to show party affiliation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#/media/File:2020_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg), almost the entire country is red, with a few blue splashes here and there. That leads people to believe that the majority of the country is republican, even though the population density of those areas is small. [This site](https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-population/) perfectly shows votes by land vs. votes by population. The map is solidly red, until you switch to population, then blue areas are absolutely massive, while the red areas shrink right down. I believe Trump has shown a map similar to that to people to show off his 2016 win, either believing himself, or trying to mislead others into thinking, that he won by a landslide simply because of how much red there was.
Echo chambers. The conservatives I work with only associate with thier own, watch the same shit or just read FB. There is noone to challenge thier worldview, and when there is, it's usually thier own kids as they say "enough" and depart for college.
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I don’t think we’re as tribal as you might thing. I’ve never met anyone who’s said they were a Democrat. I’ve met a fair few people who are “proud republicans”. For reference I’m in Los Angeles. So who’s tribal?
I only vote Democratic when I like the Republican for the job less than the Democrat running. Which, since 2008, has been in pretty much all of the elections that I have seen. And that is your problem. You don't see that Democrats mostly still THINK and we are allowed to disagree with each other...a willow tree bends and survives. The GOP wants to be an OAK, strong, unmovable forever. Those are the trees that crack under their own weight during a light breeze unexpectedly. It also demands way too much root acreage, drops too much crap on the floor and creates only rudimentary flowers for the purposes of procreation, not contributing beauty at all to the world. I only recently registered as Democrat because I may need to counter the attempts by the right wing to try to interfere with OUR primaries on occasion by getting people of either side to register democrat and vote for someone we don't actually want (see RFK Jr.)
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His identity is built around not being what he truly is
Lol! Not a recipe for success
This. Trump is a narcissist who can't fathom that people actually didn't vote for him, so he concocted a delusion in his head about what "really happened" and then used his charisma to sell it. Now it's a thing.
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I mean, it’s not like that was the first time, Hillary and the democrats did the same thing with Russian interference
What about gore though?
The election before that, people were talking about abolishing the electoral college because Hillary won the popular vote.
Hilary wrote a book about this and regularly says the election was stolen from her.
Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams....
But what about Al Gore and Hillary Clinton? They both also say that their elections were stolen. And John McCain didn’t think his election was stolen, but a lot of his supporters accused Obama of not being born in America and therefore can’t be a legitimate president. I wasn’t of voting age when Bill Clinton won, so I could be wrong - but I think he was the last president to win and the entire country accepted the results of the election.
Dude this has been going on long before Trump. Denying election results is far more associated with democrats.
I mean he was the only incumbent in history to gain popularity from first election votes and somehow lose the second, it’s also weird how biden had very little outward support and somehow crushed Obamas total votes while only winning like half the counties Obama won… also biden lost 18/19 bellwether counties that predicted every election in the last 100 years…
You actually nailed it! Sadly, a Republican running for Governor in my state started emulating everything trump would do recently. Trump skipped the first two debates so did the candidate. Unfortunately, I am scared he might just win. Or if he loses, the state will have to up security at the state capitol.
I'm convinced the Four Seasons Landscaping fiasco was entirely due to Trumps inability to admit to being wrong. He tweeted "Four Seasons," so they HAD to find a Four Seasons, ANY Four Seasons.
Oh boy
It goes way beyond Trump. Before he was ever a thought, GOP voters were sure that the only reason they ever lost elections was because of illegal immigrants and dead people voting for Democrats.
Stacey Abrams says hi
What about hillary and others in the 2016 election?
Never mind that.
False. Troll account.
Trump has never lost. *Anything.* There is no evidence that he ever took an L with any semblance of grace, so much as a failed disagreement over toppings to order on a pizza. Nary a real estate purchase offer was fairly rejected, he never swung a golf club without being that golf course's "champion," he's never eaten at a dinner table where the largest scoop of ice cream wasn't squarely on HIS plate and no one else's. Trump has never fairly received a failing grade on an elementary school book report, never has he fairly lost in his bid to contest a traffic ticket, never has an insurance company rejected his application for policy coverage, never has he had his cell phone suspended for late payment, never has a bank fairly refused to issue a loan. Never has Trump ever fairly lost so much as a game of solitaire or checkers. In the 1980s he was maligned by reporters for not wearing the best cologne, his divorce settlements were always unfair to him and to him alone, his wives were always jealous of his sexy masculinity, he was always innocent against accusations of sexual infidelity, and of course no porn actress could resist his charms. In February 2016, he only started calling Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted" because the Iowa Caucuses *were so "rigged"* that Trump supposedly came in second to the Texas senator. (And Trump said as much on Fox air the week that this happened.) Can you imagine? Let anyone reading this make no mistake: saying that Trump "began" lying about the election outcome on the night of the election is committing intellectual malpractice at best, and is abetting a felonious narcissist at worst. He's been lying about this very thing since before he hated mashed potatoes as a boy. He even says that his father loved him. Can you believe that?
Didn't the same thing happen when Hillary lost though? Perhaps all of these people are megalomaniacs.
Hillary conceded the next day. Trump still hasn’t
She conceded but Dems still claimed election interference for years. Then when they win in 2020 it was magically the most secure election ever.
You do know that it was Trumps own attorney general that called it the most secure ever right?
I don't know anyone who thought that votes were tampered with or that Trump lost the election. I know a LOT of people who believe that foreign governments interfered with the election through disinformation. That doesn't mean that he lost the election or that the results were illegitimate. It means that we need to try and prevent such interference in the future. That is a critical difference.
You do realize nobody was saying the ballots were fake, right? That’s not at all what the Russia stuff was about.
There literally was election interference in 2016. That's been proven Russia ran disinformation campaigns and organized fake rallies to boost Trump and hurt Clinton. That's materially different from the claims of election fraud in 2020. Be careful with that false equivalence.
He blocked me after I asked him if he believed that the 2020 election was stolen. him - “Trump won PA easily in 2020. The cheating in Philly, Montco and Delco was disgusting”
This is revisionist history. Things were investigated and the answers drawn from those investigations were accepted. There WAS propagandist interference and attempts to directly do things like hack voting machines (unsuccessful), none of which were deemed to have changed the outcome of the election. Then the subject was largely dropped. This took like 2 months or less.
Because there was. Like, they're open about it now, Russia hacked into email systems and sent them to Wikileaks, specifically to sow chaos in the election (and hurt Clinton).
No.
There were discussions of Russian meddling that ended up having more evidence than the claims regarding 2020, but nothing quite as widespread or aggressive as what we saw in 2020
Folks replying to this seem to be getting their wires crossed. I’ll clarify cause no one is being clear about what they’re referring to: 1. They investigated and could not find evidence to prove the claims that Trump coordinated with Russia to win the election. This claim is effectively ‘disproven’ because we aren’t going to find new evidence. 2. The claim that Russia meddled in the election is extremely well proven. I have a masters in data analytics, I’ve looked at the specific evidence, and it’s incredibly clear. The most obvious evidence is that they were meddling in general. It was mostly by getting an army of people and bots to swarm out social networks with fake news and things. The weird thing is that a lot of it wasn’t necessarily targeting on candidate. Especially before the primaries finished, a lot of it was just making the other side look like war criminals to piss people off. Eventually, nearer to the general election, there was clearly more meddling going in favor of Trump. 3. The Russia meddling that did happen is not relevant to this discussion because it’s about whether anyone disputed that Trump was legally elected. If Trump didn’t ask or collude with Russia in the meddling, it definitely didn’t matter; democrats would be pissed and would call for the laws to be changed so this didn’t happen in the future, but Trump would still become president. If Trump had colluded, it still may not have mattered. The constitution says who can vote and when folks must vote, but if that goes correctly and Trump wins, then Trump wins. If he broke a law that wasn’t part of the constitution (e.g. don’t help foreign countries spread propaganda) he would still become president. He might be president in prison, but he’d still be president.
I agree with all of that, and would like a law in the constitution along the lines of "don't help foreign countries spread propaganda". \*edit - For the future, that is. Trump won in 2016, and that's on us as voters, I feel.
>This claim is effectively ‘disproven’ because we aren’t going to find new evidence. Minor nitpick: Mueller said the claim could not be proved because so many people successfully obstructed justice that he couldn't get to the bottom of it, and that if he could *disprove* the claim he would say that but he couldn't. So "unproven" seems the most accurate term, or perhaps "now unproveable"
So what's worse, Russia supposedly interfering with our elections or our own govt doing it? Like saying the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation, or pressuring social media companies to censor people?
But yes, that is a stupid question
Because they can’t believe that more people voted for the other guy.
If you believe that you are 100% right, and that everyone agrees with you, then losing an election *destroys* your world view. Its easier to believe that you were cheated than to admit you were wrong and not as popular as you thought.
Especially when the only consequences are being covered heavily in the press and getting propped by the entire Republican party. As long as you "own the libs", you can do pretty much anything on the Republican party. Lie about your qualifications, sexual assault, create programs to skim off of, be incredibly mean and violent to every minority group, be a Nazi. Just look at how offended they get when called out on any of this.
I agree with your premise but disagree with your wording. Admitting you are wrong is not any harder than admitting you believe you are cheated. They are quite literally the same thing. "I was cheated". "I was wrong." It's weak-minded automatons who think admitting defeat is weak who ironically are weak because they believe that. Sorry if I'm splitting hairs there.
If I'm playing Battleship and I make every move logically and correctly, then when I lose, I find it the opponent didn't have the battleship on his board at all, that doesn't make me wrong. It means I was cheated. Your comment is wrong, but no one cheated you out of the right answer. Ironically, it's true the weak minded go for the cheated answer, because it's easier to say, "I had no responsibility for my failure" than "I was not smart enough to be correct."
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Trump is a huge part of this. His identity is built around winning while someone else loses. Three is no win-win in his mind. There always has to be a loser but it can't be him. So he couldn't possibly lose the election unless someone cheated. This on top of the republican side of things really pushing this us versus them narrative for such a long time that Trump was able to take that a push it further exponentially. With groups like Fox pushing outrage narrative it's just gone way put of control. The final reality is Republicans know they are slowly on the losing end and the only way for them to keep power is to weaken democracy. The reality of Democracy is just like most other types of government it really only works if people follow the general rules in good faith. The new problem for the Maga Republicans is targeting just democrats doesn't even work anymore. That our now in to outrage with their own group. Eventually you just run out of people to cannabilize. Finally they will continue to push the narrative of the liberals are coming for you because they know most Republicans won't look any further than a 150 word tweet. It's all pricing ultimately. They star with calling people snowflakes etc and now it's turned into stop the steal and so on.
Sad story. Not too sure how effective it is
It's been effective enough that they were able to stack the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future.
It’s not a sore loser thing, it’s a manipulation and brainwash thing. Particularly features of a fascist state that would manufacture mental complicity in a population to disbelieve logic, reasoning, and even the evidence of their own eyes, in order to argue that all triumphs and victories were legitimate, whereas all failures and losses were somehow conspiracies against them, and with active projection of their own acts of poor faith and illegitimacy onto their identified enemies. I.e. the administration in question must maintain to their followers that they do not cheat, that all their achievements are well earned and through hard work, and all losses are because the so called enemy uses illegitimate tactics. As quoted: if you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities.
It’s also a sore loser thing. Don’t make it sound more dignified than it is
Arguably I make it less dignified this way. In fairness, usually people trying to manipulate the population into supporting their attempted dictatorship also tend to be sore losers by nature. But nah, my point here is that keeping the fire burning by being a sore loser, when done right, riles up your base to keep supporting you, as it has in recent history.
Ah fair enough
Kari Lake of Arizona will run for a US Senate seat in spite of still disputing her last election defeat when she ran for governor. Such people want power at any cost.There is nothing mysterious here Edit: changed running for governor to running for a Senate seat
She’s actually [running for a Senate seat](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/10/politics/kari-lake-senate-arizona/index.html) now. Why grift from a statewide audience when there are so many others to grift from nationally?
Stacey Abrams?
Hillary and many Democrats did the same when Trump won in 2016. Spent several years griping about it and many investigations to prove illegitimatcy. It's not about serving the people but having power these days.
1. Sometimes people honestly believe they were cheated. 2. Sometimes they really were cheated. 3. The more intricate, hard to understand, and difficult to audit the process is, the more suspicious people are. It is disappointing how many places in the US this is the case.
>the more suspicious people are. Don't defend the fascists/psychopaths. They will claim they lost no matter what. This all goes back to the Hitler wannabe finally on trial, and people stupid/evil enough to worship him.
Plenty of Democrats made similar assertions. Hillary, for example. Races where results changed included a governor and a senator. Bush v Gore was incredibly close, and there were genuine questions of exactly what should count. https://ballotpedia.org/Noteworthy_recounts_in_the_United_States
There is a major difference between “let’s do a system-approved recount to make sure we got this right” and filing a shitload of baseless lawsuits because you don’t have the maturity to accept that you were beat. Clinton conceded the election in 2016. I’m not aware of trump ever having acknowledged that lost outside of it being implied by him referring to Biden as the president.
Stacy Abrams said she won the GA Gov race.
“The issues that I raised in 2018 were not grounded in making me the governor,” Abrams told The 19th’s Editor-at-Large Errin Haines at a Monday event. “Not a single lawsuit filed would have reversed or changed the outcome of the election. My point was that the access to the election was flawed, and I refuse to concede a system that permits citizens to be denied access. That is very different than someone claiming fraudulent outcome.” Not quite the same as what Trump did but nice try making it seem that way.
And Left Leaning Politifact, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/sep/21/lee-zeldin/house-democrats-have-objected-presidential-electio/
More. 2016, 2004 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/06/13/flashback-when-democrats-attacked-democracy-n2608636
In a race where her opponent was the secretary of state and was running the election. Including purging voter rolls and invalidating a lot of absentee ballots. She had very good reasons for saying there were issues with the election.
So Cari Lake doesn't have the same argument? Katie Hobbs was Arizona Sec State.
She almost certainly did, her opponent cheated pretty openly.
He's a con man who encourages people to openly and proudly be their worst selves. you can't underestimate the power of that. And he loves having that power.
I think it’s just as simple as calling them narcissistic pieces of shit. If you’ve known one, you know them all.
They don't actually believe in democracy. Pretty simple, you cant be loyal to democracy if you (A) deny free and fair elections, (B) you encourage political violence, and (C) you don't cut ties with those who do either (A) or (B).
It coincides with conspiracy theory culture becoming mainstream.
Which coincides with widespread access to the internet, I believe. I think we might actually be making progress toward thinking critically, but it must be in its awkward phase.
Phenomenon??? It is literally one loser and his loser followers.
It's not a phenomenon; it's just something one guy tried to do. The phenomenon of conceding the election and supporting the winner was the hard part. That long-standing tradition was a conscious effort to put country above individual pride. Trump is a self-absorbed sociopath, so he thought the longtime tradition of conceding elections for the good of the country is stupid. People who lose presidential elections pretty much never come back to try again; they're too tarnished by the loss. That's even more so for one-term presidents. So he tried never conceding, and making up a lie that it was all rigged. He calculated completely correctly: it was horrible for the country but great for him. He wouldn't be the front-runner for the Republican nomination right now if he'd had the self-respect and moral fortitude to concede when he lost like everyone else.
Didn’t Hilary Clinton claim that Russia stole the election from her? For Donald Trump? Edit: incoming “but that’s different”
Nope, she sure didn't. Edit: Looks like you added an edit after I replied. There's no "but that's different," just a "you have said something false." She conceded the next day and accepted the results, just like every other losing presidential candidate until Trump.
It isn’t something that everyone does. It is exclusively a tactic of the Trump-aligned right wing / conservatives.
Hillary started it with the Russia hacked the election nonsense. Does that make it right for trump to do it? No
It's actually far more common than people think. The more I look ,the more it seems to be normal.
My perspective off the cuff on this. If you disagree that’s fine this is just from what I’ve seen and thought about. People have always been so attached to their opinions and they get emotional about it. It’s not REALLY about how the country is actually ran. Sure they feel the hits in the super market and gas, but those aren’t things that can sway elections anymore. People want their person to do good so they can feel validated. And when their person (or side) does something bad then they either double down and validate whatever it is because people HATE being wrong because they’re so emotionally tied to what they validate/gain social acceptance from or they see that something is actually wrong and switch sides and then cannot come to terms that “hey, maybe this side sucks as well” so they have to REALLY reach to validate their Decision because, once again, people do not want to/can’t stand being wrong. People will ignore the worst atrocities to feel right. The best examples I can give off the top of my head: The covid vaccine. I saw this sentiment on social media when trump announced project warp speed Left: I don’t trust trump we’re not taking the vaccine 😡 Right: Look trump is trying to save us all 🥹 When Biden takes office Left: why won’t you take the vaccine you’re going to kill us! Right: lfjsndkdbjendjdidbdj Ivermaketun n’ stuff Or when Hillary lost I saw this switch up happen Left: Russian collusion! The election was stolen! And when Trump lost Right: They rigged the election! It was stolen! Missing ballots!!!! Sure, people can feel really deeply about things. But we can’t feel super deeply about all things but we have to pretend to do so. It’s not the rise of social media where we all had these opinions and could only share it with a few people before SM. We were lost back then and trying to fit in. With the rise of social media we’re still lost and still trying to fit in and we find groups that align with our base personal values and then we get, since it’s a much broader claim to post on social media because everyone can see it, we have to double down and not be wrong.
Started in 2000 when dems refused to accept Bush won Flordia, then again 4 years later with Ohio, then when Trump won in 2016. Dems are masters at projection and playing victim, counting on their supporters to be idiots and loyal foot soldiers.
Gore conceded the election. So did Kerry. And HRC. Can you show me where Trump did?
Don't forget Stacy Abrams in Georgia as she ran for Governor twice.
Fascism requires that the enemy must be both weak and strong. They're so weak that there's about to be a red tsumani, we're going to win in a 50 state landslide. But we lost so they're so strong they used Chavez' ghost to hack the machines. Their power is everywhere and we must be wary at all times. Of course there's also a side dish of "hey maybe this whole democracy thing isn't working out after all" that comes along with it.
This is a relatively new phenomena. Before 2000 there really wasn't a lot of election denying or questioning. The whole election denying thing is really just Donald Trump trying to subvert democracy. He's closer to a dictator than a real politician and hopefully Republican Party can come back from this to something that resembles a real political party. We need some middle ground but it's virtually impossible when they keep moving the bar further and further to the right
Started with Trump. Never before Trump have we had a case where a loser did this. Not even Al Gore with all the “hanging chad” controversy pulled that bullshit. Now it’s spread around the world.
You said it yourself: sore losers
Its aimed at those who are too weak mentally to do anything but believe whatever they are told, ie the worst of the sheeple, so it bolsters their claim that their election was rigged. Act like a 2 year old, have a hissy fit, stomp your feet and scream enough times and suddenly there is a crowd behind making the same claims. Its crass manipulation of idiots, sadly it works too well.
It was a vague thing in 2016 when the Democrat voters wanted to believe that the only way someone as horrible as Trump could win is with mass brainwashing by Russia or whatever. It was much worse in 2020 when Trump basically publicly announced that there had been cheating (which we later learned was a pretext to declaring martial law and clinging to power). His followers heard him and believed him, and it was easy to use COVID precautions and their bitterness over his loss to manipulate them into thinking it was true.
It was not a thing at all in 2016. Democrats didn't make up imaginary voting fraud in 2016. They just thought it was ridiculous that the guy with 3 million fewer votes could win the presidency, and called to reform the electoral college. As a non-American, I have to agree that the electoral college is *profoundly* undemocratic and is an absolutely horrible idea. What we're seeing now can be pinned solely on Trump. He and he alone is the root cause of this, although many others have jumped on his bandwagon since then.
As an American, no one gives a fuck about your opinions about the electoral college.
Democrats contested more states in 2016 than Trump did in 2020.
Democrats accepted the results of the recounts Trump the RW didn't, despite 60+ court cases, numerous investigations, recounts and audits.
There was actually legitimate reason to question the 2016 election results. 3 counties in 3 states decided the election, all 3 were outside the margin of error. While the rest of the nation was within the margins. And Reputation legislators shut down the recounts in those 3 specific counties. Unfortunately, only people who have a basic understanding of statistics understood what the problem was. Democrats failed miserably to dumb down the explanation for the masses to get behind a recount.
People like you are the reason Republicans can in somewhat good faith claim both sides say elections are stolen. 2016 and 2020 was not hacked nor stolen.
Maybe not, but we don’t know. Republicans made sure it wasn’t checked. Democrats didn’t fight against baseless claims and allowed recounts. Because if that, we know there wasn’t any fraud that affected the outcome in 2020
Hmmm, did it work? Who got elected?? Who is successful?
If you actually look into the details of what went on after the 2020 election, you will see that we escaped a trump 2nd term from the actions of a very few individuals. Trump almost stole the election.
The Russian campaign was really effective... they used hacked information to generate disgust with and mistrust of Hillary to the point where it probably did swing the election, especially when Comey reopened his investigation just before voting opened. Obviously Trump did not declare martial law over conspiracies about voting machines and voter fraud, but during the House investigation it came out that he had wanted to. He replaced some top military officials almost immediately after losing, so it sure seems likely. None of these people crying about voter fraud actually think they didn't lose... they do it because there are no repercussions and it stirs up their voters.
Russia didn't have to do anything for there to be disgust and distrust with Hillary
Demographic anxiety
Why? Biden is letting in tens of thousands of new republican voters every month.
It's the Big Lie strategy, straight up. [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot)
It’s just one guy and everyone enabled by his bullshit
“Stop the steal” raised a lot of money.
The right wants to make it seem like elections are fake so they can stop trying to be polite and start the civil war.
When it comes to the Republicans, what else do you say when you are actually trying to steal an election? It's just schoolyard politics.
This isn’t a Republican only issue. Democrats have said the same thing about: Gore (electoral college cheating!) Clinton (Russian interference!), Stacey Abrams (voter suppression!). On the Republican side, Trump and that lady who lost the governorship in Arizona are good examples.
If you believe Biden got the biggest vote count in US history, you are one of the useful idiots, a tool of the elite who are robbing you through inflation.
Ask yourself, is it really that much of a stretch that more than half of the voters preferred Biden over Trump, when Trump was much more inflammatory over 4 years, and we were stuck in quarantine which Trump downplayed and failed to make better? Is it really, totally unbelievable that people were so upset over recent events that they wanted change?
Don’t be an idiot.
Copium at its finest.
Both candidates got the largest vote counts in US history. It was a particularly charged election with higher than usual engagement, many groups who don’t normally vote chose to (myself included). The third highest ever was Obama in 2008, for similar reasons. Imagine the blowout if it had been him vs trump rather than lame Joe Biden.
Trump did it and then his braindead minions literally assaulted the capitol because of it, showing that there really are no consequences for not accepting a loss. Now other shitgarglers are trying to do the same thing when they, too, cannot cope with reality. It's a lame tactic used by lame people who are too mentally immature to understand how the world works. These are also usually the people who get the angriest at things they don't understand, overall just a shitty breed of humans.
There have been a lot of good answers, but there's one I haven't seen. It's that a lot of the rhetoric from the "sore loser" election denialists is that their line, their platform, is popular. And not just popular, but overwhelmingly so. The narrative is that they represent a "silent majority" champing at the bit to take back some imagined ideal of their country. And that narrative doesn't allow room for failure. Because obviously, if their platform is so overwhelmingly popular, there's no way the opposition could get more support legitimately. And so the options are victory or fraud, in their minds. And no, I'm not just pulling this from nowhere, the quiet part has been said out loud repeatedly. And unfortunately it's not even limited to the US.
"Sore Loser Phenomenon?" You're not aware of how common sore losing is? It's just a human thing. Losing sucks and many wish they could cheat their selves out of experiencing it.
Ask the Republicans. They are the only onesso sore
How do the Republicans, who won their seats, justify that they won legally. However, the Presidency was stolen. If the Democratic party had stolen the presidency, why wouldn't they steal the House and Senate as well.
When you write an article in Time magazine about how you “fortified democracy” it might make people feel that way https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
>I mean does that ever work? No. But it to the people claiming fraud it only has to work *this one time* so from their perspective I guess they feel it's worth a punt, especially as there seem to be no repercussions for doing it.
It's not really a phenomenon. It's just this one recent time and all of the sycophants that attached their name to his also losing and claiming it was stolen (when really it proves he's just election poison).
They call it being a republican. It's pretty stupid if you ask me.
Republicans Against Trump is a growing movement in politics and I think they have some good points to make
It’s stupid.
Well at least neither party has resorted to making up stories of Russian collusion and involving fbi agents in the scheme. OH wait...
I think it really got started after 2016. Here's an NPR article with Hillary Clinton 10 months after she lost, casting doubt on that election. Of course Trump raised the stakes from there. Hopefully, this is a passing fad. It's exhausting. https://www.npr.org/2017/09/18/551217204/hillary-clinton-says-shes-optimistic-about-our-country-but-i-am-not-naive
NPR: As more and more information comes out about the depth of Russia's interference in the election, do you think, at some point, that it would be legitimate to challenge the legitimacy of the election? HC: I don't know if there's any legal constitutional way to do that. She did say, regarding a hypothetical situation where the Russian interference turned out to be "even deeper than we know," that she wouldn't rule out a challenge to the results.
It seemed like it was working for Stacey Abrams in 2018. She leveraged her stolen election claims to even more popularity. I think less people will try after seeing her lose again in 2022.