I agree with Xue regarding the media putting more and more spin and deception out there (or maybe I'm more cognizant to it as I didn't pay much attention to politics in my 20s). In my view some conservative-leaning media & some liberal-leaning media do tend to report relatively honestly, with their bias affecting what they choose to report on and how they present the material. Then there are some liberal media organizations that really run with things they shouldn't. E.g., the incident with the MAGA hat kid & the Native American man that was widely reported on (incorrectly) for a while. Then there is the conservative Fox News, which in my view is more blatantly biased & deceptive than the majority of liberal media. Then way out there you have things like Breitbart. I expect a certain degree of corruption, or at least shadiness, from politicians. It is inevitable. I am not saying I tolerate it, per se, but that it is unrealistic not to expect it. BUT, what I see is that the liberal base will not tolerate blatant corruption, which in general incentivizes liberal politicians to not get caught doing so (which, I would bet, significantly reduces the amount of corruption that actually happens, vs what it would be if the liberal base were as blasé about it as the conservative base). I'm sure there is still plenty of corruption among the liberal politicians, and I'm not saying this is somehow linked to liberalism itself, but rather to the attitude of the base. But with Trump, so much shadiness and corruption came out into the open and his base didn't care. Which incentivizes all the other politicians that are supported by that base to also act corruptly/shadily--it benefits them or their party personally, and there are no political consequences since their base doesn't really seem to care. I am not one of the people who will say that anyone who voted for Trump is dead to me. I wouldn't summarily end a relationship if I found out they voted Trump, though I would certainly try to convince them to act differently if a similar situation comes up again in the future. I think a good number of people who voted for Trump would much prefer to vote for a different conservative who isn't a complete disaster of a person. I imagine they feel that even with the fallout from his blunders, having a malicious idiot who passes conservative policies is still better than having a competent leader making liberal policy. I don't agree with this (personally I lean quite liberal in most areas), and feel that the bogeyman of having the other sides' policies implemented is NOT worse than having a malicious idiot who passes more preferable policies for a leader. So while I understand (sort of) where they are coming from, I don't think I'd make the same decision. Given a choice between someone like Trump, but for the Democrats, and any sort of reasonable person for the Republicans, I'll take the person who isn't a complete disaster for the country, even if they move us further from policies & governance I feel are best. At this point I don't think it is useful to say Biden hasn't "technically" won, regardless of who you were rooting for. Sure, there is a small chance Trump pulls some unfaithful elector shenanigans, or manages to produce evidence (of which there has been none so far) of voter fraud significant enough to outweigh Biden's margin of 10k+ votes in contested states... I don't really recall any widespread 'well, Trump hasn't technically won yet' in 2016 (I could easily have missed it, I wasn't following politics as closely at that time) after the election was called for Trump by various media. And I don't recall that happening in any other election years either. Anyway, it seems fairly clear at this point that, barring something extraordinary happening, Biden will be the next president. On the slim chance Trump does succeed in preventing this somehow, I imagine we Americans will have an even more chaotic time on our hands than we have had so far.
Ok, I guess I need to say something about the claim after all. Just in general. Media is just reporting on the results of the election. They always have! That is all! This spin that they are officially doing anything else is just ridiculous. It is also dangerous propaganda from a side wanting a dictatorship. They have NOT even tried to portray their reports as a "legal/ government issued" declaration. That is a straw man argument. MANY officials on the Republican side are telling us the elections in their states are fair. The courts are dismissing the many frivolous claims by Trump. There is NO evidence of widespread voter fraud. The media is doing what it always has done and the Republicans and right wing media has never had an issue with it before. They didn't have an issue with it when it was Trump being declared the winner. They aren't trying to do anything but report the vote of the people. They have done so for both sides of the political aisle for well - forever. No one is objecting to their claims of Republicans winning Senate seats or gaining seats in the House. Isn't that telling? This is a dangerous spin. I don't know how much clearer it can be. They aren't doing anything new. They aren't trying to usurp the official process- they are just reporting it. The fact that some people are trying to spin it into something else is astounding to me.
BTW just to ensure my meaning in post #41 is clear: - I don't think the media announcement/calling of the election is deceptive or shady in any way; the behavior isn't different than what media does in every presidential election I can recall. My agreement with Xue regarding media putting more and more spin on things recently is a general observation. - The internet has broadened media penetration & enabled echo chambers (via algorithms that show you more of what you have indicated you already like, and less of things that you don't seem to like). - Since ~2000, media explosion from the internet + echo chambers results in people having greater access to information, but without taking care regarding echo chambers, that information is more polarized with greater probability of having incorrect or at least quite dubious 'facts' being reported on. - As the US becomes more and more politically polarized, media with any political bias has (in my opinion) similarly grown more polarized and biased in their reporting. - I feel that conservative media is more likely to have incorrect facts and deceptive reporting, but I am open to the possibility that this perception on my part is due to my bias preferring more liberal ways of thinking, and so I see the conservative media narratives/etc as deliberately dishonest, vs honest overzealousness or honest blindness that seemingly (to me) affects liberal media. I don't think this is true of all conservative media sources, but my impression is that in aggregate, conservative media pushes more blatant deception/incorrect facts/etc. - I am deeply concerned by religious fanaticism forming the base of a political party; religious fanatics seem quite good at throwing reality away and ignoring facts that disagree with their supernatural beliefs, and often seem drawn to authoritarianism (which is perhaps not surprising, since all the fanatical religious groups tend to adopt a model of 'we are in an authoritarian dictatorship ruled by God', and seemingly want to structure human society in the same way. - Further, the anti-intellectualism espoused by such groups is anathema to me. There are fanatical religious groups in the US that are quite opposed to higher education and the teaching of critical thinking skills, presumably because higher education leads to populations with less religious fanaticism.
'These are dictator moves': Defense officials alarmed as Trump installs more loyalists at the Pentagon I'm not saying this is the start of a coup, but if I were an authoritarian minded outgoing president, who had never faced failure and was thinking of a coup, this is exactly what I'd do!
Lawyers Litigating for Trump Suddenly Remember Their Licenses Are on the Line If They Lie to a Judge This is a nice insight into the law suits, the numbers they are litigating about are much much less then Bidens lead, and also stop short of claiming fraud has happened, as there is no evidence for this. Note: I have no idea if this law news website is a valid source of info, from a very brief look it looks valid, but it's not one I've ever used before. Edit: second source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ssing-rebukes-judges-over-voter-fraud-claims/
Law & Crime - Media Bias/Fact Check (lawandcrime.com was previously law-newz); according to this fact check site, it is a reputable source with a leftward lean. As to how trustworthy that fact check site is, I don't really know. The wikipedia page on them doesn't have a lot: Media Bias/Fact Check - Wikipedia It is somewhat hard these days to figure out who to trust to tell you who is trustworthy.
To be fair, we've done just as badly with Boris, America's problems seem more obvious, because other countries propaganda is always more noticeable.
To show just how ridiculous this whole "press can't call an election" claim is............ Ivanka has no problem going along with it when the AP calls the state of Alaska for her father. Only when the calls are against him. Total hypocrisy!!! So, she is happy Alaska is called, but the same source calls the entire election for Biden and that is discredited! It is about as baseless as the claims of voter fraud. Ivanka blasted as hypocrite for celebrating Alaska win but calling for investigation of states her father lost Ivanka Trump Touts AP’s Alaska Race Call As Trump Allies Dismiss Its Projection That Biden Won Yahoo is now a part of Verizon Media
I want to add that I am addressing this issue in general, not specifically aiming this at Xue. Because the Trump supporters, including the right wing media and Republicans in office, are making this argument. They are holding up the Biden transition team, they are threatening our very Democratic process with these ridiculous claims. So, it needs to be refuted wherever it pops up.
As the memes say: "this election has had widespread fraud, except in the states where Trump won, those are fine"
Also, if Democrats had actually used a mountain of fake ballots, you think they would have done better in Congressional races. The fact that Republicans did quite well in the contested congressional races, but just lost the presidency, is much much much more consistent with a portion of moderate Republicans breaking from Trump (but not leaving their party otherwise) instead of widespread ballot fraud.
Right? Also interesting that the Right Wingers have no issues with the press calling the projected Republican Winners for House and Senate seats. Like people faked part of a ballot, but the other part is fine?
No voting system deleted or lost votes in U.S. election: security groups Incase anyone was in any doubt!
Just for some context for our American friends: your media and government is a cancer on the rest of the world, especially your ally in the special relationship. We're bombarded with English language films of the might and righteousness of the US military and government so it's really unfair to not expect us to weigh in or believe we have a stake in the outcome of your elections and political process. Our arts industries have been crashed by the USA, we lose our best talent to the obscene funding of the USA (largely from government and corporate interests). People here know more about the American political system and American racial history than our own (in part due to our government suppressing it). Heck even after Brexit we're relying on trade deals with the US (that havent materialised) for agriculture so we dont starve. We're entirely dependent on you guys sorting yourselves out. Heck if there were other English speaking superpower democracies globally, we'd probably ally with them but we cant (oh wait there are, India for one... but I mean largely white democracies that we havent soured our relationship with).
Hindutva - Wikipedia To be completely fair to India, its more along the Nazi racist path then America is so far. I'm sure Boris will love them.
The conservative party has been flirting with hindu nationalists a lot recently but India is a pretty diverse multi party democracy, there are a lot of devolved powers and too many diverse language groups, so hindutva and the RSS have a pretty long road ahead to seize power (not to mention the plurality inherent in hinduism). The biggest problem is cults of personality that form there. But yeah, it does frustrate me that the UK pays so much attention to US when our recent former colonies (that still has most of our systems and geographically assigned regions, are 2 nuclear super powers, one of which is the worlds largest democracy and make up a substantial proportion of our population) is ignored.
Isn't the BJP in power? And isn't Modi a card carrying member of one of those hindutva groups? " Savitri Devi herself is almost forgotten in India now, but the Hindu nationalism she espoused and helped to promote is in the ascendant, much to the concern of her nephew, the veteran left-wing journalist Sumanta Banerjee. "In her book A Warning to the Hindus, which came out in 1939, she advised the Hindus to cultivate a 'spirit of organised resistance throughout Hindudom,'" he says. "The targets of this resistance were the Muslims, who were a threat, according to her, to the Hindus. And this is the same fear that is being echoed today." Hindutva is the official ideology of Prime Minster Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party" Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right
Yeah Modi is a member of the RSS (the Indian spin off of the brown shirts) and the BJP but the BJP have a very narrow absolute majority and keeping losing allies because of issues like language dominance and and pushing their own specific agenda (a certain type of Hinduism) The problem is weak opposition. But on the ground level - India isnt scared of far left activity or communism. Plenty of states have democratically elected Communist leaders and in other parts of India, theres been an ongoing civil war with naxalites (Maoist insurgents) since the 50s, where the naxalites have often filled the role of the state of tribal groups. My worry is that many an Indian is on board with greater state intervention if it improves their own quality of life so they're willing to see increasing persecution of muslims and lower castes as long as it improves their own standing.
That's a great point, and the issue with any authoritarian isn't it, acting together for the common good, opens up the possibility of acting together for the common (or minority) bad, whereas letting everything stay the same (being conservative shall we say) can sometimes feel safer, especially in the short term, and most people lives are just lots of short terms strung together. It will be interesting what happens once we're a post scarcity civilization, so far signs are it won't be a smooth transition to the utopia is should be.
