CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden's 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70%
edition.cnn.com
The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest.
The really shocking thing here is that 31% of Republicans are still aware of reality enough to understand that Biden won legitimately.
Like 70% also believe angels are real...
Apparently decades of No Child Left Behind and removing critical thinking from public education did what republicans wanted it to do
You're assuming they actually believe what they are saying and are arguing in good faith. That hasn't been in the Republican playbook since at least Nixon.
Not to defend No Child Left Behind but it was only a 2002 law, the majority of these people are too old to have been in school since its passage.
Normalize questioning random ideas about politics people toss out
But if it wasn't for that, republicans wouldn't be getting elected still...
Obviously I didn't mean the only people who believe this shit is the kids from No Child, mostly because red states were already doing it on a state level.
But there's enough of them that it's keeping republicans in office where they wouldn't be without it.
Very very few problems have a single cause, again, I thought that was so obvious it wouldn't need to be explained. But here we are...
Yes but that change affected anyone in school at the time as well. No Child Left Behind touched the schooling of people up to the age of 38. That's roughly half of Americans. You would need to remove people not of voting age, but the impact is still huge.
It was repealed & replaced in 2015 anyway so it was only in effect for 13 years and over half of states had waivers for it by then anyway. Once again not defending the state of public education or laws passed affecting it, just making sure we all know the facts.
Don't worry, they're fixing this by burning books. We'll be back to the 50's in no time!
You act like it's limited to the younger generations of Republicans.
Doesn't help that they are allowing Trump to run around the country to continue to say he was cheated and that the election was stolen. They are literally waiting until next year to even put him on trial.
Plenty of time for him to cause as much harm as possible.
Those 30% will still vote R, even after knowing that they have been lied to by the republicans.
When republicans voters call others “cucks”, you know it’s all a projection.
They've largely stopped using "cuck" as an insult since the high mark of their movement involved a guy wearin' horns.
Or they're just embarrassed to admit what they really think.
Are they capable of shame? Seems like they revel in the absolute worst behavior possible.
now do the % of repubs who think the earth is 5,000 years old. or the % that think russia is our ally.
The Republican Party has become a doctrinaire anti-American organization; wholly subservient to the international fascist movement.
Why would any loyal American patriot be a member of it?
The Republicans stand against what America actually is.
The USA is a multicultural society. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a leader in science; including the understanding of our planet's climate. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is loyal to its international allies. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is committed to freedom of speech and of the press. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a leader in technology; including the development of clean energy. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a secular society, in which people of different religions can meet as equals in the marketplace of ideas. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a capitalist economy; in which businesses may prosper without having to bend the knee to leaders' personality-cults or their ideological doctrine. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is an educated society; with free schooling for all, and with some of the best universities in the world. The Republicans are against that.
In all of these ways, the Republicans have endorsed anti-Americanism — opposition to what the USA actually is, its actual strengths and virtues.
Great response
I'm starting to put together citations to go with this list if anyone wants to contribute.
Then it's urgent that you guys find a way so that there'd be more than two big parties, or the D are going to rot in the same direction as the R have already.
There's no reason that has to be true, but a multi-party system enabled by ranked-choice or approval voting would be better
You'd need radical changes to the constitution. Good luck getting any amendments through today.
Actually there is. I'm just really lazy to write long answers for a change, and after searching for my glasses in panic for 2.5 hours even more.
Ripoblus and Dimoks (TIE Fighter is my favorite game) are both eclectic parties, so actual ideology doesn't matter much. They flatten many dimensions in such a way that people having not much in common with each other - say, those for legalizing marijuana and those for student debt subsidies, - ally with each other, and their enemies for prohibition and no subsidies respectively do the same.
There is no particular common ideological identity which would make an eclectic party not follow suit of its only competitor turning into brownshirt flatearther Christian Jihadists or whatever, and it only has to be marginally better.
EDIT: I like ranked choice too, only I want to have an option of downvote there. Other than that - sortition is cool. The former solves the problem of only the two biggest parties surviving, the latter solves the problem of the majority always trumping the minority. They are not compatible, so it's something to decide for every separate problem.
Upvote for Tie Fighter reference, I never caught that before. Is it worth a replay? I loved it when I was a kid but idk if it aged well. (X-wing Alliance aged very well fyi, especially with the XWA Upgrade.)
It's always worth a replay, the reference is from one of the missions where you bring peace and order and resolve differences by defeating both sides.
IMHO even X-Wing has aged just fine, TIE Fighter even more so. XWA feels not even old, even without hires textures, new models etc.
It's scary when there's an entire echochamber yelling nonsense at the top of their lungs. How is America supposed to recover with this incessant Fox News and even worse OAN propaganda?
The obvious solution is to outlaw intentionally lying in the guise of a news show. Make FOX etc., have to broadcast a banner that says, "THIS IS NOT FACTUAL NEWS THIS IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY," as they have argued in court.
In addition to this, retractions and corrections need to be more prominent. No more screaming falsehoods for hours and days and then quietly issuing a retraction as a scroll during the low viewership time block.
I mean, that might work, but what we'd get is "THIS IS NOT FACTUAL NEWS THIS IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY 😉 " and there'd be no difference to what we have now.
True, some people still believe the Weekly World News is real and it has such a disclaimer. I would like people who believe Fox News to be considered crackpots of a similar caliber. I think such a disclaimer might accomplish this. At very least it would save us from having to refute their fire-hose of bullshit, as it says right on the screen that it's bullshit, no outside citation needed.
Either that or it'll force them to improve their journalistic standards to get rid of the disclaimer. Either way, a win.
Fox would own the fuck out of that.
The left makes us put this banner on here! We know you're smart people that can make your own choices about what is and is not "entertainment"! Now, for something I don't find at all entertaining, Biden once again oversteps his authority and ....
That argument might make sense if it wasn't Fox themselves arguing in court that they aren't presenting news and can therefore lie without consequence because shows like Tucker Carlson are entertainment.
I understand completely that it makes no sense that their viewers are this stupid, but it also doesn't change the fact that they are.
Align them with the crazies. If you hold these beliefs then you think the earth is flat. Full stop.
If someone mentions this shit then they obviously believe in hollow earth, lizard people shit. Laugh at them, call them out as laughable and do not treat them as a serious person. They are talking about nonsense and they are children. Treat them as such.
Republican voters are a different breed. Even with enough evidence to prove Russia was interfering with the 2016 election, Democrats still mostly accepted the win. With even less evidence of any fraud in the 2020 election, the majority of Republicans deny Biden's legitimacy.
With ZERO evidence. Not "Even less". There was ZERO evidence of fraud by the Biden campaign and democrats.
And lots of evidence of Republicans committing fraud in 2020, and still they lost.
They take their cues from their politicians who are all cowards. Every Republican politician with even the most basic critical thinking skills understands that Trump did not win and that Trump intentionally broke the law with classified documents.
Instead of acknowledging those facts, they instead are literally willing to destroy Americans' faith in fair elections and the basic rule of law by spewing lies in an effort to prostrate themselves to Donald Trump and his supporters. They have no fundamental principles anymore. They are literally willing to burn the country down to win.
This just in: republicans are fucking insane
If you are a republican in this day and age, given ALL the shit they have done and what they stand for, you are either stupid, evil or both
They're also listening to news sources that promote the bullshit instead of relaying actual facts. It's no wonder they don't know what's going on.
But yet we still have to navigate this and them, despite their terrible brain problems.
Republican leadership is mostly both, and it is done with the idea of keeping their voting base stupid. Smart, moral people don't vote republican at least since Reagan. The only thing Republican leadership believes in is money and power, and you have to keep people pretty dumb in order to keep believing the lies that Republican policies are good for anyone but the rich. So you get a DeSantis, for example, who's stripping libraries and destroying education in his state because it's the only hope that he has in keeping power. It's why Republican talking points are all about "woke" because they don't have to define it and they can't actually point to like a single fucking thing they're doing that's bettering anyone's lives.
As a conservative, this is mind boggling to me. In my head I think it's just a far right crazy conspiracy theory, but between this and the huge amount of support trump gets, I'm just baffled. I'm on the west coast, and none of my friends or family still support Trump or are election deniers.
Maybe the mid west republicans are just 100% trumpers? It's wild.
MAGA is basically like a religion out here. They avoid any information that contradicts their belief system and gravitate towards media that reaffirms it. The constant drumbeat of whataboutism coming from trump, fox news, AM radio, etc really has poisoned their brains. Support of trump, embrace of his lies, and hatred of his "enemies", has become their entire identity.
Back when Trump was President, a friend of mine (who's a Trump supporter) was arguing with me about whether or not Trump said something.
I did what I always did and checked Google. I quickly found a video of Trump saying the thing and sent it to my friend. He replied that it was fake news.
My friend wasn't claiming that the video was actually faked or taken out of context. Instead, he was saying that it was fake news because it was hosted on CNN's servers. He didn't care what the content was, just whether it was on a right wing outlet's server or not.
You could have Trump come out and say it to him directly and he wouldn't believe it anyways. Your friend chooses to believe what they believe the way a fanatic believes in their delusions. It only serves to reaffirm their belief structure, and nothing else. If Trump pulled a 180 tomorrow, these people would simply claim that he has been brainwashed or that he's a paid imposter, or anything else.
This isn't so much a mystery, but more of a reaping of what was sown.
Right Wing media sources such as Breitbart and Fox News, have been nurturing many lines of thought, mostly in order to fire up the conservative base, versus providing useful information.
When you want your base to be an angry mob, and spend considerable resources to keep them angry, ill informed, but likely to vote, this is what you get.
This is a well trained response.
In light of seeing your fellow conservatives move farther right (and thus, kinda push the definition of the body of conservative beliefs farther right), on what grounds do you still identify as conservative? What does being a conservative mean to you?
I don't really agree with this. The republican party shifting doesn't mean the ideals of conservative ideology changes.
On the other side of the coin, just because democrats are starting to become more socialist, does that mean that liberal ideologies are changing?
I'm still a conservative because I believe in tradition, I believe in small government and a country that abides by the constitution is the best way to govern. I believe in the free market and put more emphasis on a states individuality rather than having a large federal government.
The "other side of the coin" in this instance is a fiction. The Democratic Party is in no meaningful sense of the word becoming "socialist".
As a non-american, the idea that the Democrats are becoming more socialist is hilarious. At best, they're getting closer to the centre (from the right). Lemme know when they start proposing an end to health profiteering and stronger union protections :P
This is not a hostile comment, hats off to you for being able to talk openly about your ideas and hear differening opinions 🎩
Democracies around the world really need more of that.
And socialist countries are far right to communist countries, that's why we don't compare our political parties internationally.
There are more socialists currently representing people from the democratic party than ever before, and the party is moving more socialist, those are facts. Are you arguing against that?
They love him in the southeast. I'm in VA which is purple and not even in a rural area, and he has tons of support here.
I was behind a truck the other day with a decal covering the back window stating the following:
"Me and my homies would have been stacking bodies by now. -- George Washington"
They're fucking crazy and they're everywhere around here. It makes my blood boil.
Even just north of y'all in Western MD where I recently vacated from, there are plenty of nutters. MD is seen as a pretty blue state but that's mostly just Baltimore and Montgomery County balancing out the crazy in the rest of the state. The more rural parts of the state are still full to the brim of your typical Trump wackos.
I suspect conservative people like yourself no longer identifying as Republican may be a factor.
I have a couple former republican friends who are still very conservative, but aren't trumpers and voted libertarian or independent last election.
They do still have a bit of distrust around Jan 6th and criminal allegations because, well, they avoid looking into them deeper, so don't know who to trust. But they're not foaming at the mouth.
It's not just a mid-west thing. I'm in the PNW and I've yet to meet a Never Trumper republican.
Yup,
Strangest thing to me is that I know quite a few Asians that immigrated here that are super Trumpers. I just can't even grasp how.
Also, interestingly enough, I also happen to work in a very right leaning field, and the majority of the republicans here have been very quiet since the Jan 6 incident. There was only one who was pretty outspoken about it, and he quit recently.
Just based on Queens, NY, I think the republicans in NYC capitalized on some of the things Democrats “beat around the bush” or avoided talking about. The Asian American population in NY is very anti-crime, and the dems perceived inaction on Anti-Asian Hate created an opening some I think local republicans capitalized on. Even the current mayor is a former cop.
Now, how they got to be die-hard Trumpers is not something I understand. He did, after all, cause Asian Americans a-lot of grief with his whole “China Virus” BS during the pandemic..
Might be the same reason why Mexicans vote for Republicans as well. As a Mexican I've observed that there's plenty of racism and misogyny still going about, especially among the religious and ignorant crowd.
They cross the rope bridge going over the Rio Grande and then cut the rope once they're across. The amount of hate I've seen Mexican immigrants direct at Mexicans trying to immigrate is mind blowing. So it's no wonder that they flock to the republican party.
Latinos subscribe heavily to the machismo personality = good, and that any threat against it is a threat to their existence. They are raised religious with heavy incentive on strong family structures, something that conservatives use as a weapon to curry favor.
Yep, I remember seeing my ex brother in law seem upset for half a second at his baby gender reveil party when they popped a balloon and it was pink. The wife noticed and quickly unscrolled her blue parchment saying it was a lie and it was actually a boy. He wasn't a bad dude but there was definitely machismo there.
Asians tend to be extremely conservative, particularly Chinese immigrants. They grew up in an authoritarian world, and view the progressive policies of the West as antithetical to their own. They don't care if Trump is a racist, or blames them for the Kung Flu, because he represents their views on what a government should be.
Yep, they're still flying Trump flags and hanging Trump signs in the areas of Oregon outside the larger cities.
I am pretty liberal, but I have a-lot of family members who are republican and live in the midwest and they feel like they’re in the same boat as you.
I do have to wonder where he gets all his support.
He gets his support from the belts. Bible Belt and Rust Belt.
The Bible Belt I can believe, though I am not sure about the Rust Belt. It may have been true in 2016, but I think the 2020 election paints a different picture.
When I think of the Rust Belt, I think of places like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Of those cities, it seems only Missouri is hardcore republican (despite St. Louis’s and Kansas City’s best efforts). Michigan seems to have swung pretty left (though there are definitely still red areas), Pennsylvania voted blue and Wisconsin is on the verge of undoing a-lot of republican gerrymandering. Ohio looks like a red-leaning mixed bag, but it doesn’t strike me as a republican bastion.
Granted, most of these are major battleground states with both parties in almost equal numbers, but their conservative populations don’t seem to be anymore Trump-oriented than other states.
I live in NY as does my father. He was a die hard Trump supporter until a few months ago when he switched to DeSantis - though he might have switched back to Trump. I try not to talk politics with him.
As recently as last year, he was telling me that the Republicans were going to impeach and remove Biden and Kamala and install Trump as President again. I pointed out that the House could definitely impeach, but removal would take two thirds of the Senate - a number the Republicans couldn't possibly reach. (This was before the midterms.) My father responded that the Democrats would vote along with the Republicans.
Yes, my father honestly believed that the Democrats would decide to ditch a Democratic President and Vice President so that Trump could come back to power. He was willing to make a bet that this would happen. I didn't take the bet only because I knew he'd either deny ever making the bet or would try to gaslight me what the bet actually was about.
It's baffling to me, every poll I see like this I'm just confused and sad
Yeah, it is very disheartening to see. I still remember going back and watching previous debates before Trump, and they were all so civil! Even in the most heated moments, the candidates were actually discussing ideas and policy!
I cannot wait for Trump to fade away from the political scene. It’s just so sad to see how he turns everything into a debate about him.
Maybe now. The Republicans in my family left the party after 2016. Granted, they're still on my shit list for voting against LGBT stuff but at least they've recognized the error of their ways.
Most midwest Republicans are actually populists, and populism is step one on the track to fascism. They have been used and abused by large corporations killing off local economies and greater macroeconomic forces which have determined that their labor is no longer worth a living wage. It's quite sad actually, but at this point the damage has been done. There's nothing left for reasonable people to do but get out.
Coming from the southeast, definitely still a lot of Trump banners and bumper stickers, though less so now. I expect them to be more common as the election gets closer.
Hard to call it far right anymore. Conspiracy theorists and hate are more or less the norm in conservative circles, so far as I can tell.
I don't think they're conservative. I think republicans have given up on being conservative, and just now fight culture war and spend as much if not more than the dems.
I've been trying to be diligent about not conflating republicans and conservatives anymore, they haven't been conservative in awhile. Republicans have been overwhelmingly blindly following Trump, conservatives haven't.
Stop calling them conservatives. This level of ultranationalism has fascist written all over it.
Yeah I'm telling you. There is an older crowd that it doesn't matter what you say to them, they run on hate and they've been given a lot of fuel.
Remember the 2000 election? That was a close one. One county in one state with a 500 vote difference. 2020 were 5 states with 10k votes in Arizona to 180k votes in Pennsylvania to Biden. If they pulled 13k votes for out of Trump’s ass for AZ and GA he would of still would of lost the election. They key to the White House is the rust belt. Republicans are too dumb to understand this.
500 votes in a state that was governed by the winners brother, no less.
Democrats have good reason to be suspect about 2000. Republicans are a bunch of clowns.
Yes my point is that 2000 is a valid reason to be suspicious. But you don't see Gore kicking the results back to Florida and have them overturn the election results with fake electors. That's fraud.
So, 69% of Republicans are traitors to the Republic. That's what I'm hearing.
How many of those 70% knows it's a lie, but went along with it. There's a reason why I support rejecting Republicans and I would go as far as not funding red states along with boycotting businesses residing from those states.
That would backfire spectacularly. We must always keep in mind that Republican policies keep their citizens in a state of disinformation and dilapidation. If your life is already miserable, denied education and resources so as to never escape what few jobs are left, you'll latch onto anyone promising salvation. That is the whole reason we saw J6ers go as far as they did.
The long road has the best chances of keeping the country in one piece. Dispelling falsehoods piece by piece, enacting programs that modernize not just infrastructure but local economies as well. Bring the success of the coasts inward to lands exploited and abandoned by corporations and their elected goons. As difficult as it sounds, we're looking at another reconstruction era for those kneecapped by decades of Republican control.
I also support the rising tides raise all boats approach. There is so much hate for these poor, white, uneducated, disenfranchised swaths of middle America. It is too easy to just say they deserve what they get, instead of dragging them (kicking and screaming I might add) into the 21st century. Even if many of them are a lost cause, we shouldn't be so keen on throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I see no realistic solution that does not include fighting Republicans for the hearts and minds of the average working class American. This is why Democrats continue to struggle even with overwhelming statistical advantages. The corporatist wing of the Democrats continue to block the kind of New Deal, Social Democracy, Keystone policies that actually win elections.
You change the material conditions of millions of people, and see how fast they jump on board. Most people cannot see the forest through the trees when they are drowning in the inevitability of automation and skilled labor killing their livelihood. We need to force the Democrats to take bold action to better the lives of the whole country, or we will suffer the consequences of political inaction. It starts with the local first. The bottom up, grassroots approach can work. It just takes time, determination, and a desire to refocus the agenda away from culture war naval gazing and onto real world solutions.
Keep fighting the good fight!
Always has been.
This doesn’t mean much when large swaths of them believe the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, slavery helped black people, etc. Asking them their opinions on reality is like asking an amoeba how it feels about NFTs. The levels of insane & stupid coming from these people just means their thoughts & opinions are irrelevant.
They may be insane, but they're insane AND active voters. They're also heavily armed.
While their thoughts and opinions are irrelevant their votes are absolutely relevant. Their susceptibility to basic, low-effort manipulation can unfortunately affect us all.
If they vote then their delusions are very much relevant.
The same people believe an imaginary being lives in the sky, that aliens are always visiting Earth, and that dinosaurs never existed.
Maybe we should start saying the dinosaurs were aliens…
So birds are aliens! Mind blown!!
https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/who-are-we
It's a variety of topics I find denial of reality to be increasing. Climate change science, including the history of how long ago people like Carl Sagan made it a widespread topic. Medical science with pandemics, nonsensical views on how vaccines work. Wild views about how windmills work and interact with the environment.
I was driving through rural Trump country not long ago and saw a billboard that had that iconic image of Man evolving from our ape-like ancestors. The billboard had a big red X through it and said No! God created!
That broke me. Literally broke me. Really helped me understand their response to covid and climate change et al. God help us when the next pandemic hits when permafrost in the arctic starts melting and releases all kind of microorganisms humans have never encountered before. Good luck fighting climate change when 40% of the country thinks evolution is a lie and god just went 'click'.
Some people hate thinking god is not constantly thinking about them and that they aren't super special
People must be kept stupid and afraid is seems. I don't know why. Power and control probably, but this is disgusting. All you can do is look out for yourself.
A brain-dead population is way easier to control. Source: greetings from Hungary!
The Republicans actually went to Hungary to learn from Orban.
What? Can you provide an article so I can read more about this?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gzvb/cpac-hungary-orban
Jesus Christ, it's like an educational field trip for fascism. Thank you for the article.
Sort of like the US Christian groups that went to Uganda and guided them until we now have a death penalty for being gay there
My neighbour denied that it was hot outside while he was outside in record heat
These people are just entitled babies. They know Trump didn't win, but it feels good feelings to pretend that he did so back to the social media that reinforces that.
We need to stop caring about their delusional indulgence in non-reality and start getting the country back on track. Never vote for a single Republican again. I don't care if you're a moderate even - there is no safe Republican candidate for a long while, if ever.
THEY KNOW TRUMP LOST
It's charitable to call them babies. They're liars.
How do they want to change elections? Are they asking for more election security? NO. They're calling to raise the voting age to 25.
They know they can't win a fair election. They don't want a fair election. They will throw out Democracy for power. They won't ever admit it, so they lie, and they recognize their in-group when they see other liars.
They are aggressively stupid. They would rather take the whole ship down with them, than admit they might be wrong.
It's hard to think of anything that "gets me the most" about the last 6-8 years but this is up there. If you pin them down by the ears and make them answer, most will say they would rather have King Trump than President Biden.
Ask them, what about after King Trump dies? What if a democrat manages to take the throne and get all the power he had? Watch them sputter.
It's so disturbing.
They are attracted to power. If a democrat managed to seize the throne from the Trump royal family, then that democrat is powerful and thus now respectable, as long as they maintain the monarchy.
Monarchy is the origin and the goal of conservatism. Total hierarchy, everyone in their proper place from top to bottom.
Does anybody else hope (emphasis on hope lol) they’re just saying this out of spite? Perhaps they know he lost, and are just saying this because they know it will “piss off the libs?”
Maybe it’s naive, but while I am pretty liberal a-lot of my family is (unfortunately) republican and they all admit Trump lost, fair and square. They also say they’re sick of him, wish he would drop out of the race, and allow another, younger republican to be nominated. They’ve also not been contacted by any of these pollsters.
Admittedly, this is just my experience with a very narrow slice of republicans; outside my family, I don’t really interact with too many.
Thoughts? Am I just fortunate to not have to interact with the Trump cult on a daily basis? Or is the US just screwed? lol
This is what I was thinking. It has to be partly true.
It's to galvanize part of their base. "The last one was stolen from us, don't let it happen again."
This, I think, is pretty true. But still, its incredibly foolish. They could not control Trump the first time, why on earth do they think they could control him the second time?
Unless they are banking on him being locked up with the key being tossed, and using that to galvanize the base around a candidate they can better control? Either way though, peddling these types of lies is just so, so dangerous. They are more-or-less setting up a large chunk of the nation to believe that the democrats are stealing the election and going to install a communist dictatorship (lol) and the only way to “save the country” is to violently take it back.
And if Trump actually does win again? Well, then the other half the country is correctly convinced their has been a criminal takeover of the nation’s executive branch. How does that end? What even happens if Trump is convicted after taking office?
I wish more republicans would understand that supporting Trump is going to seriously weaken the US and create instability. Even if the democrats were “unfairly targeting him” (to be clear, I believe he is guilty) there is just no way he can unify the country and make it stronger. Half the country will hate his guts, and that alone should disqualify him.
That's an insane number for something they have zero evidence for.
Makes you wonder how many are religious.
Reminder that Steve Bannon frankly confessed Trump's Start the Steal conspiracy plans to a group of Trump insiders before the election.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112138665/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
…audio from Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, surfaced from October 31st, 2020, just a few days before the Presidential election.
Let’s listen. [Begin Videotape]
STEVE BANNON: And what Trump’s going to do is declare victory, right? He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage — that’s our strategy.
He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier. Because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden’s wining, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.
It's really just insane many Republicans believe this lie still. Even if Trump goes to jail there will still be many Republicans thinking this
I wonder how many votes the republicans have cost themselves by tying their cart to this dead horse (trump)
Republicans just projecting their own "the ends always justify the means" mindset onto their enemies.
They just refuse to understand that they're the ones willing to sacrifice any and all values in the name of pyrrhic victory, and that not everyone is as morally bankrupt as them.
A lack of empathy will do that.
This is how/why they do things, so it must also be the same for everyone else.
Same reason they think everything is "virtue signaling."
They're conditioned now to think any win by a member of the Democratic party is illegitimate. It's going to be decades before we get back to anything resembling normal.
A big "if" that is...
The rational Republicans left the party ages ago. Pretty sure George Will closed the door behind him on the way out.
When was that? 2016?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will#:~:text=In%20June%202016%2C%20citing%20his,registered%20as%20an%20unaffiliated%20voter.
Troll farms wouldn't be a thing if they weren't effective. Social media has poisoned a lot of minds. I am in my mid-40s and grew up in NE Texas which is part of the "Deep South" (assign to that what you will) and in my lifetime I've seen things that would just not be possible if it were not for the internet.
"Back in my day..." Reading the newspaper was more than sufficient. There were no (edit: few and/or less easily manifest beyond a 'google search') collective hive minds and echo chambers so you had to actually express and own an opinion. I was taught that "this is what Science tells us how God put into motion the universe" We didn't need concealed or open carry to feel safe.
I'm not really that old. I honestly think most of this crap is 9/11. The terrorists actually won. Fear. There is a culture of fear pervading the USA and international troll farms took root and we continue to deal with the fallout today. Not to get too deep into the weeds .. dwindling middle class but .. who gives a shit .. capitalism. When you can't provide for your family on a base wage .. shit is going to go sideways.
Giving a voice to everyone via the internet may have looked good on paper but in reality it has shown that too many people shouldn't have a voice.
Fear isn't new though. Everyone thought everyone else was a Soviet spy or secretly a communist in the 50s.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily that too many people shouldn't have a voice. Just that too many of the people who shouldn't have much of a voice or any at all are the ones who really want to have one, often times.
The squeaky wheel effect.
For Millennial's it's wild to have had our parents tell us "TV will rot your brain" and "don't just trust anything you see online" to them now where cable news has turned their brains to goo and anything posted by some guy in a truck wearing sun glasses on Facebook Reels must be reality.
Lesson learned always block your parents router of alt right content and TV ahead of time including on the Roku
Sounds like censorship to me
The thoughts of a conservative should be treated the same way the thoughts of a five year old child are treated.
Discussing any topic with a conservative is a waste of time for both parties. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception, manipulation or innacurate. Nothing good comes from interacting with them. Nothing at all. They should be disregarded and shunned from polite society.
So not exactly like a 5 year old. You can teach most 5 year olds.
True. And five year olds are innocent. Conservatives are not.
I was thinking like ChatGPT: no actual cognition, just producing the kind of output they've been trained to produce. OTOH I think that comparison is a little unfair to ChatGPT.
Don't believe polling on either side, get out and vote.
That Russian propaganda really coming back strong. They need Trump back in to get some kind of upper hand in Ukraine.
Propaganda works on stupid people. There's a whole lotta stupid in this country.
How about we do something about the big propaganda networks and 24x7 "news" channels that are more interested in ratings and entertainment than simply reporting. No more talking heads.
Education in America is absolute dog shit
It is, but I don't know why. We have the most public funding per full time student in the world....that money's getting lost somewhere, I assume the administration level of schools.
Funding is drastically different from area to area. You go to a rich white area and the schools are top notch.
You go to a poor area with lots of minorities and there is hardly any funding.
The schools that need funding don’t get it. Inequality like most things in America is the reason. It’s by design to keep the poor in their seats.
Their logic: My guy loses, "the election was rigged!", my guy wins, "power to the people!"
"Ah spoke to everybody at mah church and they all voted Trump! This must be rigged!"
I don't know if that's really a thought process separated by party lines.
Ehhh, in 2016 there was a lot of talk about election interference (which was corroborated by most, if not all, intelligence agencies) but not much about the election being illegitimate. It's a subtle but very important distinction.
It's the difference between saying "the refs weren't calling it our way at all" and "the refs conspired against us!"
What was Robert mueller investigating?
Election interference, collusion with Russia and subsequent obstruction of justice.
You can believe trump should have been impeached for those crimes but again, that's very different from saying the election itself was illegitimate. At no point in that investigation did Mueller (or, as far as I know any Democrat) argue that the votes were manipulated or altered once cast.
When Nixon was basically impeached (he resigned before that could happen as back then Republicans had integrity and would put party over country) it did not mean that the election itself was illegitimate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
https://nypost.com/2022/01/10/harris-comms-chief-called-bush-43-illegitimate-president/amp/
You'll note that neither of those articles has anyone saying the election was illegitimate.
In fact, the second one goes out of the way to say thay despite her disagreement with the call (Supreme court halting recounts strictly along party lines) the comms chief still respected the outcome, which is precisely the opposite of what trump did.
Two possibilities: Either more people are buying into conspiracy theories or more people are declining to identify as Republicans which makes the percentage go up. I'm hopeful it's the latter but fearful it's the latter.
That's about 70 million Americans who think Biden's victory was illegitimate.
That is a terrifyingly large percent of people.
Republicans are (sore) losers. They love "news" that fuels their hate. They cling to their lies, even as those lies fall apart in front of them. Pathetic.
I choose to believe this means 30% of them are dead now.
Exactly. Also helps me to think gen Z is coming up and replacing all those dead Republicans.
There's no way CNN's poll is accurate.. I hope
Republicans are brainwashed reality deniers. GOP/Trump/Russia keeps them insulated from learning.
Fringe republicans, they've probably lost the sensible ones to independent voters
That’s because Repuglicans are self selecting. People need to stop seeing them as half of the population. They are not.
The brain worms have stirred awake in the summer heat
Knowing them, not much of a shock.
The damage that Fox News and Trump have done to these people's brains is incalculable.
If a fraction of the remaining 30 percent of Republicans vote for Biden or does not vote, Biden will win in a landslide in a rematch with Trump.
Trump's gonna be in a cell and probably disqualifies from running for public office.
Never would have believed it until the latest charged dropped. Now I really think so
Wish we had a Remind Me! bot over here 😁
Sadly it's not actually against the rules to run for president from jail or even prison technically. There's even historical precident, although nobody running from jail has ever actually won.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
He very well could be barred from running based on the latest indictment.
They could (and probably will) argue that even if he's being tried for insurrection he hasn't been convicted yet and therefore is eligible to run. If he does win it's questionable what would happen. I'm sure he would argue as a sitting president he was immune from prosecution and therefore that the case has to be dropped. Assuming that doesn't work he could try to pardon himself, but that's much shakier ground. Technically if you accept a pardon you're admitting guilt, so he would be barred from office, but if he's already in office what then?
I've posted this multiple times before, but I will post it again. It would take a completely novel interpretation of the 14th Ammendment to bar him from office based on the existing charges that have been filled in the Washington DC indictment. He was not charged with:
Therefore, he can and will continue to run for office regardless of whether he is convicted and imprisoned. This is wishful thinking that does not bare up to scrutiny based on any credible legal interpretations that I have seen. If you have evidence to the contrary I am certainly open to the idea, but nothing I have personally seen suggests this would be the case.
Is it likely that the cases will progress that quickly? I was under the impression that he wouldn't likely have a trial until next year, and wouldn't be convicted/sentenced until after the election
The administration really needs to bring back fireside chats. These people are living in a different reality and have no trust in institutions. Only through a concerted effort to educate them can we combat the disinformation. Or bring back the fairness doctrine.
It goes a lot deeper than that. Education is a really, really huge issue in America. And sadly these idiots don't just exist, they are created and cultivated by those who seek to use them - and use them they do.
I keep seeing you post, are you really a Boomer? Not trying to be pedantic, I'm honestly curious. Either way, I've enjoyed a lot of your commentary, hope to see you around more!
My son calls me a boomer, so I own it. As for my posting. I only post to create engagement so the Fediverse can continue to grow. Unlike our government, I’ll pass the torch once this place gets more people.
Well, I hope you stick around even if the fediverse does take off expeditiously.
Thanks, you too.
what's croc of shit. Trump was surrounded by Russian stooges who were convicted in court of law.
70% is shocking for something so absurd. It's like hearing that 70% of X group believe that the earth is flat.
What most of these statistics don't show is that the republican party is shrinking.
If I have a 10,000 people in a room, and remove 6,000 of them from the room, then sample the remainder and tell you that 70% of those people believe that aliens built the pyramid, you'd be shocked, but what I didn't tell you is that the 6,000 who were removed, left because they thought my claim was BS.
So even though the statistic is high, I imagine the MAGA base is shrinking as more evidence comes out. Maybe not by strides, but by slices.
I hope this is right, but it's still a TON of people.
I finally found that hot garbage dumpster fire smell I was so familiar with on Reddit. Just had to randomly bump into a post about politics.
Y'know, I downvoted you at first then I read further down the thread and took my downvote back.
Yeah, I probably should have specified the comments section.
I don't mind the politics post, but the quality of the comments. That's were the real smell comes from
Election denial isn't specifically a republican thing.
Oh fuck off with your lies so obvious only a Republican could believe them.
Remember: 70% of Republicans is only 25ish% of the nation. Plenty of people in reserves to keep those dirt bags out.
While I still have some sympathy left for the few sane people in this once great nation, I'm at a point now where it is hard to really sympathize with you as a people. The political system is corrupted beyond recognition, toxicity and hate run rampant due to the allmighty "free speech" amendment and yet nobody seems to actually care if they are not personally affected in horrible ways.
By now it's really easy to say "you get the government that you deserve". And yet I dont fully believe it or want to say it because that would express the same apathy that you folks display when it comes to being governed.
So.. maybe get your shit together collectively?!
We're trying, but you can't reason with hate-fueled chaos. They'll die off eventually and history won't paint them as the patriots they imagine themselves. Sanity will return, but it will take time.