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Why Write to Discredit Critics of the 2020 Election Now?
Let me say first that I am not writing this to debate the legitimacy of the 2020 election. I’m writing this piece because I was intrigued by the AP article that was just written and appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, ridiculing those who support “conspiracy theories” about the aforementioned election. The article claims conferences that feed the conspiracy narrative through providing information about the election are misguided.
We are now in September 2022; why would she be writing this article now? I found a number of revealing hints about her possible motives, the multiple subtle attacks that characterize Republicans as deluded, and how her writing may further alienate non-Republicans from Republicans today.
Since we may have become inured to the attacks on us, I think it’s important to realize that there is a multitude of examples of discrediting us; these are important to be able to identify, not just to raise our ire even further, but to realize that the overwhelming number of attacks add up to an increasingly unfair and distorted image of Republicans as a whole. These kinds of attacks can lead to additional fear and rejection of Republicans and Conservatives and our agendas, suggesting we are even crazier and outside the mainstream than Democrats assume. What do those subtle attacks look like? Here are several examples of quotations from the article. (Quotations are italicized):
Some panelists called on those attending to join what they framed as a battle between good and evil. We are being characterized as religious extremists.
Nearly two years after that election, no evidence has emerged to suggest that widespread fraud or manipulation occurred while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won. The illegitimacy of the election doesn’t require “widespread fraud,” whatever that means. State after state may have reviewed their results, but in March, for example, a new study stated that at least 255,00 excess votes were cast in six battleground states.
Even so, the attacks and falsehoods have made an impact: An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from 2021 found that about two-thirds of Republicans say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected.
People don’t have to agree with these conclusions, but in a free society, people are allowed to question the results and not have them called “attacks and falsehoods.”
Numerous official reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump challenged his loss have upheld the validity of the results. Judges — including some appointed by Trump — dismissed lawsuits making various claims of fraud and wrongdoing. See the comment above on the six battleground states. Also, several lawsuits were dismissed on technical issues.
That any technology is vulnerable, including voting machines, is not in dispute. State and local election officials throughout the U.S. have been focused on improving their security defenses with help from the federal government. But Byrne and some of the other speakers said they believe government has been corrupted and can’t be trusted. I guess we should feel reassured that the states acknowledge the voting machines were/are vulnerable and are focusing on improving their security defenses [now] with the help of the federal government.
* * * *
So, why should we care about these biased attacks now? You can be assured that over the next two years, efforts to discredit, demonize and ridicule the Republicans will ramp up even more. They are trying to discourage those Republicans who are not satisfied with the reports and who want to continue to pursue additional information. Some of those attacks will be blatant, easily brushed off by some of us. But the number of subtle and offensive attacks will increase, creating an even more polarized and hostile environment.
If we are going to try to address these attacks (at least when we have the opportunity), we need to know what the enemy is saying and doing.
We must fight back.
[photo by Rebecca S. Gratz, Associated Press]
Published in Politics
To quote the author, above:
Presumably that would also include your post linking to your favorite “analysis,” above.
As I understand the point of the thread, the question is why have the attacks on those who question the election been elevated recently. The obvious answer is that Biden voters have given us an Administration that is indefensible on matters of policy, necessitating a series of “Look, a squirrel” substitutes as the election nears.
It’s a straw man fallacy to take everyone with concerns about the 2020 election and imply that they all think the same thing about “widespread fraud or manipulation.”
Reviews in MI indicated 30k votes with a bad chain of custody. Fact-checks misrepresented and then mostly confirmed 50k votes with a bad chain of custody in PA. The Commonwealth Court of PA and the Supreme Court of WI confirmed about 1.1 million illegally cast Biden votes in PA and about 54k illegally counted votes in WI. The government of GA, from what I’ve heard, has done nothing at all with Mark Davis’ 50k votes illegally cast outside of jurisdiction, but the bums still managed to verify many thousands of votes with a bad chain of custody in Fulton Co.
These reporters don’t know anything.
I saw your extensive analysis of the election, St. A, and it was very impressive! So I appreciate your weighing in here. As I’m saying, their motives are suspect, at the very least, and are likely intended to be destructive to Republicans. The reporters not only don’t know anything, they do know they want to destroy us. That’s pretty straightforward. We need to pay attention and not give them a pass.
It seems to me that they are prepping for a more egregiously and obviously stolen election in 2022 or 2024 and are preemptively saying we are crazy insurrectionists.
Coincidentally, the last comment I read before this one was about gaslighting.
https://ricochet.com/1309087/labor-day-observations/#comment-6415530
This is what I find ‘odd’.
Many Americans believe that votes are not being counted in accordance with law and that there is cheating going on.
In fact, pretty much all Americans believe that there is cheating going on. But they tell themselves it’s mostly the other side doing it.
Probably normal bias there, but none of that changes the facts which are: we don’t know for sure how much cheating there is, and our government isn’t especially interested in finding out.
So when I hear people saying ‘gosh, those guys are a bunch of nuts’ instead of, ‘we really need to ensure the legitimacy of our elections because that is our right as citizens,“ [I am so annoyed I accidentally write a sentence fragment is what happens!]
Which side gets screwed is beside the point.
The point is, the screwing has got to stop.
The GOPe might have wanted to keep Trump from being the nominee in 2016, but they didn’t have pre-positioned cheats waiting to be used, such as the “super-delegates” the Dims used to give it to Hillary instead of Bernie.
It could very easily be that the GOPe prefers being in the minority, because they can fundraise, they don’t have to do anything, and they aren’t accountable for anything.
They know which side their bread is buttered on.
Conservative Daily podcast did a lot of reports on the primaries looking shady. I haven’t had time and mental capacity to look at it carefully.
It sure is plausible.
I’m listening to the Powerline podcast, and Steve Hayward was discussing Stephen Douglas’ attack on “Black Republicans” and what Douglas was trying to achieve. I found it enlightening for the conversation we are having here. (It’s pretty early in the podcast.)
More like this. On national television. Buy the ad time.
Because we’re right, they did it, and they intend to continue doing it.
But the point, too, is that their persistence continues to degrade and misrepresent the Republicans. And they are happy to do that.
I think that it is one thing to say “I have some questions about the 2020 election.” While I disagree with it, I can respect that statement.
But it is disqualifying in my mind to say, “I know that Donald Trump is the rightful President.”
Do you know that Joe Biden is the rightful President?
He claims he does, Because Certified and such. Not realizing that “certified” really doesn’t prove any more than “notarized” does. Which you’d think a lawyer would know.
Isn’t it bad enough that we don’t know that Biden is?
I can top that. I even have a few answers.
These attacks are just to prepare the battle space so when folks notice they are cheating again this year they can say “there they go again with the denial stuff.”