to rig or not to rig?

Let’s suppose that someone who backs Trump agrees that he is flat out trying to steal the election. And this is perfectly okay with him. Why? Because he is a right-wing conservative and he rationalizes any and all means to keep Trump in power. Why? Because from his frame of mind Biden and the liberals are so despicable as government policy makers, nothing is not justified from keeping them out of power.

Now, let’s turn it around. Suppose it was determined that in some manner Biden and the Democrats were pursuing a campaign strategy that involved rigging the election so that Trump had no chance of ever being re-elected in a fair contest.

Would that, could that too be rationalized by some liberals/Democrats as “okay this time” to get rid of a man that they deem to be a dire threat to the country?

How about liberals here. Does the end – upending Trump – justify any and all means? Can “the stakes” get so high that a “nihilistic” approach to elections becomes the least objectionable path?

This of course revolves around the manner in which I construe objectivism in politics. For the objectivists at the radical extremes of the political spectrum [left and right] “democracy and the rule of law” becomes all that more problematic. If it comes down to “one of us” or “one of them” in regard to “ends”, how to deal with that “for all practical purposes” in regards to “means”?

It’s like those arguments that pop up from time to time regarding what is or is not appropriate to display as art in museums. Liberals have their taboo subjects, conservatives their own. Captured here for example: youtu.be/gtb2Wn8tEmM

I merely take this further and suggest that political ends themselves are really only political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=195757

Here we go…

nytimes.com/live/2020/08/16 … e=Homepage

[b]'With Joe Biden leading in many public polls, and Democrats getting ready to kick off their national convention on Monday, President Trump’s drive to create confusion and undermine confidence in the election is accelerating, as he attacks mail-in voting and praises his postmaster general despite criticism over mail service and an investigation opened by the Postal Service’s inspector general.

'In an appearance on CNN on Sunday, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, defended the president’s opposition to universal mail-in ballots, which Mr. Trump has called “the mail-in scam,” making charges without evidence that efforts by states to help people vote by mail in the pandemic would lead to widespread voter fraud — a claim that even some Republicans dispute. Mr. Trump has said that higher voter participation would hurt Republican candidates.

When CNN host Jake Tapper pushed back, saying, “there’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Mr. Meadows said, “there’s no evidence that there’s not, either.”'[/b]

Could the stakes possibly be higher? And imagine if the Democrats had managed to gain control of the Senate in 2018…

Principles and political ideals aside, it’s all about who has the actual power to create, sustain and then enforce one outcome rather than another. And, who knows, this may once again all come down to a vote in the Supreme Court.

And while all politicians, liberal and conservative, choreograph elections into staged productions, with Trump, nothing is off the table. Indeed, when it comes to bringing his own set of “facts” to the issues and doubling down on the lies, he is in a class all his own.

If I do say so myself.

Who woulda/coulda thunk it?

Op-Ed headline: “The country’s future could hinge on postal workers”

This op-ed:

washingtonpost.com/opinions … Fstory-ans

[b]'In the 1997 film “The Postman,” set in post-apocalyptic America, Kevin Costner plays a drifter trying to restore order to the United States by providing one essential service, mail delivery. In the story, hate crimes, racially motivated attacks and a plague have caused the breakdown of society as we know it. In his quest to restore order and dignity to the nation, the Postman tries to recruit other postal workers to help rebuild the U.S. government. But Costner’s character is opposed by the evil General Bethlehem, who is fighting to suppress the postal carriers so he can establish a totalitarian government. Fortunately, our hero, gaining inspiration from the motto, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” fights on against Bethlehem and saves the country.

‘Not surprisingly, the movie was panned by critics and was a financial disaster. I mean really, racial strife and a plague so bad that it threatened our society? And even if that happened, who would try to destroy the Postal Service? Where do they come up with these crazy plots?’[/b]

The Postman!

Hmm, did Trump perchance have a cameo appearance in this film? Could this be where he got the idea?

'In retrospect, maybe we should give the movie another look. Today, as we struggle with social upheaval, soaring debt, record unemployment, a runaway pandemic, and rising threats from China and Russia, President Trump is actively working to undermine every major institution in this country. He has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of many Americans that our institutions aren’t functioning properly. ’

Seeds of doubt. Indeed, given great swaths of an American electorate as utterly unsophisticated as are great swaths of Trumpworld and that is really all it might take. Just convince enough of them that it can happen and then what does in fact really happen becomes completely irrelevant.

Stay tuned…

It’s war!

Or, rather, the political equivalent of it.

nytimes.com/2020/08/17/opin … e=Homepage

[b]'This summer, a bipartisan group of former government officials, political professionals, lawyers and journalists held a series of war game exercises about how the 2020 election might go wrong. Convened by the law professor Rosa Brooks and the historian Nils Gilman, it was called the Transition Integrity Project, and the results were alarming.

'“We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape,” said a resulting report. President Trump, it said, “is likely to contest the result by both legal and extralegal means.”

'Participants in the Transition Integrity Project played out tactics the president might try if threatened with defeat, including federalizing the National Guard to stop the counting of mail-in ballots. In each scenario, the decisions of the Department of Justice, state officials and the candidates themselves proved pivotal.

'But so was the willingness of masses of people to protest. “A show of numbers in the streets — and actions in the streets — may be decisive factors in determining what the public perceives as a just and legitimate outcome,” said the report.[/b]

That’s really what it comes down. Actual flesh and blood human beings pouring over the political landscape, scouring anything that Trump might pursue, organizing to form a network [on and offline] and possessing the ability to take it to the streets when necessary.

‘So a coalition of progressive groups, as well as some anti-authoritarian conservative ones, is organizing under the rubric Protect the Results to get people into the streets if Trump tries to cheat in November. “It’s a pretty massive effort that’s underway,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, which is part of the coalition. Activists all over the country, he said, are “really gearing up for this fight.”’

The bigger the coalition here the better.

[b]Note to conservatives:

Please connect us to any reports you come across that night indicate Biden and the Democrats are no less willing to employ dirty tricks to win this thing.

But: No Kids please. And no rabid reactionaries – QAnon types – who post idiotic fulminations that have as little intelligence attached to them as one would expect.[/b]

Oh, and just a reminder:

My arguments on this thread are no less the existential embodiment of my own political prejudices. I recognize that had my birthday resulted in my not being drafted into the Army all those years ago, I could very well still be a rabid Christian, a racist, sexist, homophobe, a white working class supporter of Donald Trump.

Contingency, chance and change are no less embedded in my life than in yours.

I just recognize this now in a way that the objectivists do not.

frankly i’d love to see it happen, biggs. i almost hope trump gets re-elected or refuses to leave the white house if he doesn’t, because i believe both will result in mayhem and destruktion. that’s what i wanna see… ‘the whole shithouse go up in flames’ (mr. mojo risin).

Of course you’re just paraphrasing Joker.

Or was he just paraphrasing you? :wink:

Still, with the dow jones heading back in the general direction of 30,000, it might take longer than even he anticipated for things to fall apart. :astonished: :open_mouth:

No joker wants to turn the world into something out of a Slayer video. I, on the other hand, want to turn it to ashes so that new flowers might grow.

Of course now you’re just paraphrasing, among others, Vladimir Lenin.

Just out of curiosity, did he have elections back then to rig? :-k

Score one for democracy?

washingtonpost.com/opinions … Fstory-ans

[b]'Because the crush of President Trump’s corruption and wrongdoing has been so relentless, it often can seem like media scrutiny and congressional oversight have been reduced to nothing more than dead letters.

'But in the case of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service, the scrutiny might actually be having a real impact:

[i]"The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election — canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday.

The declaration comes as lawmakers prepared to question DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan in a Friday hearing in the Senate and at a Monday hearing in the House on those policy changes, which have caused mail slowdowns and threatened to jeopardize ballot collection during the November election."[/i]

'This is to no small degree a good development. The statement from DeJoy looks like a real climb-down, one that was brought about by relentless media and public pressure.[/b]

Of course a Trump stooge saying he is going to do something does not mean that anything will actually get done. There has to be a way to know for sure that the claims are being carried out.

Anyone here care to take on that task?

Also, anything from conservatives yet on the Biden campaign’s efforts to rig the election?

Well I pushed a radical conspiracy theory I once had about how they’re all in it together, how they put trumpf in office to destroy the west’s trust in conservatism. Trumpf is a socialist puppet and a propaganda tool. A purposeful idiot who is supposed to be a complete buffoon, ruin conservatism, and make way for the transformation into state capitalism. In the theory, I mean.

Yushimosho Shushagunyen also had a similar theory.

K: ok, where is the evidence that anyone pushed IQ45 into being a “socialist puppet”
when in fact, it is quite clear he is a radical conservative who has bitten into
the various conspiracy theories that the right wing live on…

Kropotkin

I dont have any evidence, pete. That’s why its called a radical conspiracy theory. Duh!

K: one of my many failings is sometimes I take things very, very literal…

I often find myself in trouble because I quite often take statements as a literal
statement…my bad…

Kropotkin

No you’re good. I just tried to make a funny.

You might be a highly functioning autistic though. Senses of humor are very difficult for those folks.

… or I could just be a terrible comedian.

Buh dumb tshirt

Damn auto correct.

Buh dum tshh

(See like that)

K: I have been told I am, in person, funny enough to have become
a standup comedian… that is my story and I’m sticking to it…

Kropotkin

The postal predicament.

nytimes.com/2020/08/19/opin … e=Homepage

[b]'The threat to the 2020 election’s legitimacy finally broke through into everyday conversation last week. People who pay little attention to politics started talking about whether President Trump was looking to mess with the United States Postal Service to slow down the receipt of mail-in ballots.

‘Mr. Trump was not shy about it. He told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network last Thursday that he was pushing back against Democrats’ demand for further U.S.P.S. funding in the latest Covid-19 relief bill: “Now they need that money in order to have the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots …. But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”’[/b]

In some respects, there are those who insist that this is precisely the sort of thing that attracts them to Trump. He cuts through all the ludicrous high school civics text idealism…all the talking head bullshit…and notes how power actually does manifest itself re the Washington/Wall Street nexus. And, sure, there’s that cynical part of me that can appreciate this too. But my own political prejudices still yank me in the direction of wanting him to fail here. So, once again, drawn and quartered.

Then this part:

‘The end game here is a bit curious because Republicans traditionally have relied on mail-in balloting to get out the vote, and there are already signs that Republican turnout might be hurt by his rantings. How else to explain the president seeking to distinguish between good “absentee” voting and bad “mail-in” balloting and urging Floridians to vote by mail? And how else to explain the president not only repeatedly voting by mail but using a third person — what Mr. Trump refers to as “ballot harvesting” — to deliver his own ballot to election officials in the Florida primary on Tuesday?’

That’s the thing with political idealism: it always comes down to context. Who knows, one day it might be to the Democrats advantage to slow down the mail around an election.

It’s like liberals bitching about the Electoral College. Then one day down the road it’s a Democrat who loses the popular vote but wins in the EC.

In other words, it is ever and always about political power. And doing whatever it takes to win.

Or, perhaps:

‘If Mr. Trump is not really concerned about fraud, what’s the real end game? His unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud may be aimed at sowing chaos during the election and depressing turnout to help his side win election. Worse, it could be calculated to delegitimize the election results, which could allow Mr. Trump to contest a close election or weaken a Biden presidency.’

Here then it revolves around how events regarding the coronavirus and economy play out between now an November. If they make the election a close one, Trump is far more able to, say, suggest endless recounts, or to re-do the election, or to take the squabble to the Supreme Court.

The “worst case scenario” scenario…

nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opin … e=Homepage

[b]'Here is a sentence I never in a million years thought that I would ever write or read: This November, for the first time in our history, the United States of America may not be able to conduct a free and fair election and, should President Trump be defeated by Joe Biden, have a legitimate and peaceful transfer of power.

'Because if half the country thinks their votes were not fully counted due to deliberate sabotaging of the U.S. Postal Service by this administration, and if the other half are made to believe by the president that any mail-in vote for Biden was fraudulent, that would not result in just a disputed election — not another Bush v. Gore for the Supreme Court to sort out — that would be the end of American democracy as we know it. It also isn’t hyperbole to say it could sow the seeds of another Civil War.

The threat is real.'[/b]

Uh, define “civil war”?

But point taken.

For some, the thing about mail-in ballots is that it is just easier to imagine the possibility of fraud…of things being “rigged”. Especially given the reality of the coronavirus. After all, suppose the dreaded “second wave” hits well before the election. Spurring people in droves to opt for the mail. All Trump need do then is to make enough people believe in the possibility of fraud to make his argument stick.

I see IQ45 as being the boy who cried wolf… far too
many times before…You sort of learn to tune him out…

Kropotkin