erol wrote: ↑Mon 11 Jan 2021 5:44 pm
once he has power then lays the ground work to claim that if he loses the next election it will be because of election fraud, who then when he loses launches 1000 lawsuits without any merit, pressures and bullies officials to jimmy the numbers for him and when all that fails he calls on his base to rise up and take over the legislature and all the other branches of the system that are the checks and balances against tyranny. That Trump is patently a flawed idiot for whom this could never be his actually plan is not the point is it ? We just saw 'primer' played out for any future would be tyrant, left or right, of how you do it. Or am I imaging that ?
I agree Trump was always going to pull something out of his hat if he lost and be a sore loser and be a cry baby at the very least. But I do think that the election left a lot to be desired re transparency and the subsequent investigation. You can't complain about the legal challenges on this election but happily agree to 4 years of challenges to the last election.
Yes some knuckleheads were always going to question it and some were always going to float fake news etc but there are a few things that need to be explained with more clarity.
The fact that voter fraud is a rare event doesn’t mean it is an impossible event. Tower Hamlets?
It is also an accepted fact that postal votes do give more of an opportunity for fraud and there were a hell of a lot of postal votes due to covid.
There has been an incredible amount of fake news on this which at first sight can seem suspicious but with some logical thought can soon be discounted.
Examples of that are people publishing old voting rolls and saying more people voted than were registered. The lumps of votes favouring Biden over Trump suddenly appearing. Not illogical, Biden certainly got far more postal votes than Trump and if you count them in bulk at a certain point as would seem logical then it will appear skewered.
What did come to light was the vote counting didn’t seem to be terribly secure. There did seem to be occasions of unsupervised counting. The supervising left a lot to be desired. It's like justice. Not only must it be done it must be seen to be done.
What set my alarm bells off alarms me is certain results. There were a lot of outliers here. You could show me a lot of evidence that say Brixton voted BNP at the next election but my BS detector would be going off like crazy.
States went Democrat that even the most popular charismatic Democrat candidate couldn’t historically turn.
A high amount of wards, ones that are used as an indicator of election winners like Basildon is often used in the UK, Trump won.
Let’s be honest, Biden’s biggest fan wouldn’t call him a candidate to stir the soul. This is not an Obama or even a Clinton but he polled numbers they couldn’t have dreamed of.
I agree Trump was a divisive candidate and whilst you might not vote for Biden you might very well vote against Trump. Perfectly valid argument. But also note Trump’s vote didn’t collapse here, he pulled in millions more votes than he did in 2016.
All of those concerns could be no doubt allayed but not by the investigations I have seen so far. They have been more a coronation than an investigation.
Some may say well Republicans have signed off on these results but that overlooks two things.
1. Trump was never the Republican Party’s man. I’m sure if you would have asked the Republican Party to list their preferred candidates from 2016 in order I can safely bet Trump would be at the bottom.
2. The Republicans as a party are stuck between a rock and a hard place here, Trump has the lack of self-awareness and the thick skin to be seen as a cry baby sore loser but the Republican Party can’t be seen as such. Trump would happily condemn the Republican Party into the wilderness for 50 years if it meant winning a second term. But for the Republican Party it makes sense to swallow the result and rebuild and hopefully get a more agreeable candidate for 2024. So even if there was something that smelt I'm not 100% sure they would look too deeply.
I think even a neutral might be keen not to look too deeply. I'm not saying they would cover up any wrong doing but they would certainly be keen to not find any.
I always remember Lord Denning and the Birmingham 6 appeal. He got a lot of criticism for basically saying he couldn't accept the appeal because to do so would be tantamount to admitting that the whole West Midlands police force was bent. Now the fact that it actually was doesn't necessarily negate his point. It's along the lines of better that 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man......
So you might feel so what as long as Trump’s gone and I can buy into that. Biden if he stays healthy isn’t a worry for me. The VP, more of a worry.
Let’s be honest Biden is going to do very little, he never has and now has a jet to swan around in. 4 or even 8 years of him won’t do a lot of damage. I had no real problem with Blair, hell I even voted for Kinnock and would have for John Smith but Corbyn and his ilk seriously worried me re future democracy. Trump wasn't my cup of tea but I wasn't terribly concerned about him.
I would always favour a successful businessman as a leader but Trump doesn't tick that box.
Personally I think that Trump run out of ego and a thirst for publicity. I don’t think he honestly believed he would ever win and actually have to put a shift in.
Generally Presidents are front men. They are as good or poor as their advisors. You hope that a sensible President hires the best people for the various jobs rather than his friends or son-in-law but tbh every President in history is guilty of putting their friends in positions of influence. It’s probably not only cronyism I guess you pick who you feel you can trust.
I can remember when Reagan first stood for the Republican nomination in 1976. To us in Britain it was publicised as a joke. This ex ham actor running for the job of running the free world. But he eventually won through against Carter who was a decent man but totally out of his depth. Reagan got the job and is acknowledged as a very successful President.
Let’s be honest here, Trump has had some terrible publicity and much of it deserved. In fact he has had the worst publicity of a President since Bush Jnr and it started from pretty much the minute he first stood let alone got elected.
Before that the worst publicity record was held by Reagan. Before that Nixon. Although tbf Nixon was deeply flawed. But there is an obvious pattern here. If a mixture of FDR, JFK and Mother Theresa was elected as a Republican President they are going to get an extremely rough ride from the media.
Obama though a guy I would certainly have a beer with and one of the greatest orators of the last 50 years was a decidedly mediocre President at best but was lauded in the media.
Trump no doubt appealed to the bigots but a small percentage of bigots doesn’t get you elected. I think what appealed in the main was he was an outsider. He wasn’t a professional politician spouting off the same inane sound bites while not doing much. Telling the people what they want rather than listening to what they want. The Americans in 2016 had a choice of Hilary, not the most honest lady, professional politician and not as likeable as Bill so they took a punt. Labelling a large percentage of your own people as deplorables wasn't the greatest move.
Now Trump has had his successes and failures and has said some indefensible stuff.
You may think he has made a pigs ear of covid but let’s remember when he stopped flights from China, Biden and a lot of others called it xenophobic. When he put a temporary ban on 7 countries which seemed to be most involved in terrorism it was called a Muslim ban. There are 30 Muslim majority countries and he temporarily banned flights from a few. Now it might not have been a particularly well thought out or effective policy but it wasn’t a Muslim ban imo.
Trump speaks before he engages his brain. Couple that with his pig headedness where he would ride roughshod over sensible advice he is a dream for those who wish to publicise his latest inane loopy comment.
However that didn’t seem to be enough. There are countless examples of his comments being edited, taken out of context or misquoted. There are several videos of him apparently giving an answer to a question which on inspection of a fuller video is him answering a totally different question.
So he has been victim to some pretty dirty tactics imo. That’s not to say he is the only politician that has happened too but I do believe it hit new peaks with Trump.
The thing is it was unnecessary, let him ramble on, he is dumb and inarticulate enough to bury himself anyway.
I think he has deserved much of the hatchet job that has come his way but it would be disingenuous to say had he had not deserved it that it wouldn’t have happened anyway.
This gilding the lily is a very dangerous road to go down even when it is done with the best of intentions.
Examples being the police being 100% that a person did a terrible crime but unfortunately there isn’t enough evidence to get a conviction. So they create some or bury evidence that proves innocence.
It generally works well. The person who robbed ten Nat West Banks ends up doing time for the HSBC robbery he had nothing to do with. It’s not fair but there is a sort of justice there and maybe far more justice than if he got away scot free. The problem is that is the sort of attitude that leads to miscarriages such as the Birmingham 6.
What is the danger is just ignoring people’s concerns about the vote. If it was on the level have a thorough investigation and confirm it. If they discover some wards were dodgy then publicise it or not but tighten it up. It needs it.
Don’t brush it under the carpet. Those idiots were always going to have a demonstration if they didn’t get their own way. I would also say they were probably going to do it no matter what Trump said.
Why not they have seen others do the same and get away with it?
What is of future concern is if something was fiddled once it can be fiddled again if not fixed.
Also let’s ensure those voters who quietly voted for Trump and didn’t riot when it didn’t go their way are confident their vote actually counts.
Democracy only works if you feel you had a say and that the side that loses accepts the result. Not if we win you need to accept the vote but if you win we have the right to not accept the vote.
We aren't seeing much of that these days and both sides are equally guilty of it.
The world has improved considerably over the last 100 years no matter what some say but I do think we might be at a worrying crossroads here.
My worry isn't that we have dodged a bullet with Trump it's that someone worse may come along.