This opinion peice is mostly nonsense. Take this paragraph:
"Whether Trump is an existential threat to democracy seems to hinge on his reluctance to accept the results of the 2020 election. We should all agree that his reluctance was ill-advised, but what motivated it? If you ran for re-election as President and most of the mainstream institutions in your country—from journalism to entertainment to academia—worked tirelessly to oppose you as some deranged second-coming of Hitler, would it be completely irrational to suspect some kind of election malfeasance?"
Would it be irrational to suspect election malfeasance? Yes. If all evidence led to the conclusion that there was virtually no malfeasance—as the evidence showed in the 2020 election—it would be completely irrational to claim fraud—as Trump relentlessly did (and continues to do.)
And were all "mainstream institutions" (whatever they are) working tirelessly to oppose him? I guess it needs to be pointed out that the most popular news channel in America, Fox News, worked tirelessly to support him, as did popular blogs, podcasts and Twitter accounts.
Further, weren't thoughtful people correct in opposing him? That was clear four years ago and even more clear now. Sam Harris summed it up perfectly last week on Substack:
"No one has done more to destroy civility and basic decency in our politics than Donald Trump. No one, in fact, has done more to increase the threat of political violence. Unlike any president in modern history, Trump brings out the worst in both his enemies and his friends. His influence on American life seems almost supernaturally pernicious."
Comparing Trump to Hitler is probably over the top, although J.D. Vance did it privately four years ago. On the other hand, the hypothesis that Trump is an existential threat to our traditional liberal democracy is valid and supported by the facts.
You present yourself as reasoning in good faith, but seem to not realize your screed here is mostly bilious, hyperbolic BS. I wrote an article summarizing the facts that had and still have me concerned about the 2020 POTUS election. It's based on facts that aren't in dispute, and sound reasoning. Fyi, I've left out many, many other issues that have validity and should be considered. Tell me, where am I off? Make the case, I dare you. You should also start off by realizing that many Democrats doubt the election. https://open.substack.com/pub/warforthewest/p/2020-election-integrity-there-were?r=1ri4xv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
You are not arguing the facts. When did the poll you reference become "facts that aren't in dispute"?
My opinion, on the surface, seemed to be “reasoning in good faith,” yet in the same sentence, you called it a bilious, hyperbolic screed. You’ve learned from Trump and others on the far right to accuse those you disagree with of precisely what you’re guilty of.
So you didn’t read my article - that’s where my claims about the election are. The polling data I used supported my claim that concerns about the election, concerns about voting machines and election integrity is widespread and bipartisan.
Nothing in my article is hyperbole, nor bilious. Your commentary was very light on facts and reason. I offer a reasoned, thought out analysis of my claims and you can’t even be bothered to engage substantively.
What a joke. Move along, lightweight, sentient adults are speaking.
I clicked on your link. Then I looked over your Substack. I will not be subscribing, as whatever rabbit hole you've gone down is a dark place I don't want to visit. Thanks, anyway.
What do you say to *Republicans* who have rejected claims of election fraud?
- Trump's own head of election security, Chris Krebs, who called the election "the most secure in history."
- Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr, who stated “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
- Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who, in a now famous phone call, repeatedly corrected Trump's claims of fraud and rejected attempts to "find" another 11,780 votes.
- Fox News executives and hosts, whose text messages that were disclosed in the Dominion lawsuit revealed that they did not believe the fraud claims.
- Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and many more.
there is a sort of game theory going on here, if you are a Republican, at a certain point it is better to unequivocally say there was no fraud, because it preserves the institution that you hope to control. If Big Tech hadn't conspired in the information war, would Trump have lost? If COVID origins were honestly discussed, could that have tipped the balance? Was there improper ballot harvesting? How would you know if there was?? You couldn't. I reject all the Lyn Wood, Donald Trump and Sydney Powell arguments, but ballot harvesting or filling-out mail-in ballots for somebody else is very hard to prove--it could have been done on Trump's side as well. That election was a mess and my friends in Italy could not believe the lack of election safeguards we had in-place.
All horseshit, of course. And I made my case in the article I linked. If you can’t be bothered to actually respond to the actual claims I’m making, move along, you are a waste. Otherwise read my POV and tell me where I’m off.
I read your article. You said the survey was done before the 2020 election. No wonder that Democrats were concerned about election security given Meuler's report that Bill Barr misrepresented and buried so the public wouldn't know about Russia's interference in the 2016 election in Trump's favor.
Nobody in politics pretends more than Donald Trump. He lives in a fantasy land, and it seems from the tone of your writing that you do, also.
You didn't read my entire article, I said far more than that. I used pre-2020 survey data to show that concerns about election integrity specifically with respect to digital voting machines to make the point that the concerns that arose did not come out of the blue. And of course, I presented post-election data too, which you ignore in your feckless hackdom. And of course, you are still on the Russia conspiracy theory. TDS is real, it's in the DSM now as Trump Induced Anxiety Disorder. You can get therapy and meds to help with this. Get back to us when you've regained your sanity. Move along now, lunatic.
Hogwash….The only problem with 2020 is Trump has got his poorly educated to believe him. That is why half the electorate feel that way. They have no knowledge or proof. It’s all from the lies. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that election. He lost. He cheated and won in 2016. He cheated and lost in 2020 and 2024 won’t be any different.
Some good points, but I can't take a lot of it seriously. There is "charitable" and then there's believing in unicorns. Even if Trump had honest suspicions about the election's integrity, those doubts should have been alleviated by the outcomes of over 60 court cases that found no evidence of widespread fraud. Furthermore, several members of his own administration and party, including William Barr, Chris Krebs, Mark Meadows, Mitch McConnell, Dan Coats, etc., affirmed that the election was fair and that Trump lost. Additionally, the fake elector scheme, asking Raffensperger to find votes, and the attempt to interrupt the certification of the Electoral College votes with a mob, aiming to throw the election back to the House, demonstrate a clear intent to hold on to power and a complete disregard for democratic processes; both of which, by definition, are a threat to democracy. To imply there were no legitimate grounds to call out Trump's illiberal impulses is the definition of "pretending." True, Trump isn't Hitler, but by this logic, even Hitler could charitably be said to have just been a dedicated summer camp organizer.
but if you take the fraud with mail-in ballots, filling-in ballots for somebody else, or accepting a cash reward for a vote... how would you detect that if it happened? The episode in Mexia, Texas is when a very large operation got caught, but it would be hard to catch a lot of that going-on. I doubt it swung the 2020 election, but it was riddled with security issues that were easily exploitable given the fact that trillions were on the line and only 40,000 votes separated victory and defeat.
do you really think Trump loses if the Big Tech isn't stacked against him? It was down to 40,000 votes? Do you really think if Biden doesn't stay in the basement he loses? Do you think if they were honest about SARS-CoV-2 origins he loses? If Pfizer didn't skip-out on 2 meetings to update on the progress of the mRNA vaccine does he lose? No, he probably wouldn't. It was a conspiracy of elites that tipped the balance. Yes, it was close because he is a jerk, a blowhard, and a loser--but the elites tipped this balance. I don't like the man, never voted for him, never will--but he didn't govern with the heavy handed authoritarianism, deep deception and complete obfuscation that the Biden regime has governed. I wish there were better candidates, an ethical Republican and a strong and ethical Democrat to dismantle their corruption machine.
Where are you getting this information? Regardless if it’s true, saying that it happened here means that it could have happened elsewhere is just speculation. We also wouldn’t know if Trump did it elsewhere. In any case the courts litigated every issue and that should have been the end of it. Add to that the fake elector scheme and Jan 6, asking to find votes, and even that Trump wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and you have much more evidence that Trump was looking for any way to hold one to power and trying to sow enough doubt to do so.
we totally would not know if Trump did it elsewhere, that's a point I've made. This was a ridiculously insecure election. The plan Trump's people hatched overlapped with a plan that was detailed in a Time magazine piece about how the left was planning to handle a contested election. Both were stupid. Trump is unfit. I understand he probably lost because of Big Tech collusion. The problem is that the machine opposing Trump is unfit and more powerful, because they control institutions.
You say it was a ridiculously insecure election, yet Trumps own Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)said “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.” So everyone in Trumps cabinet and the GOP who also confirmed the election’s integrity are all in on a left-wing conspiracy? I’m curious, but are you basing you views on the movie 2000 mules?
yes, they said that. Are those people really Trump’s people, or Deep State people? Or what? Regardless, that’s the dumbest goddam thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You could mail in a ballot for no reason whatsoever, the votes could have been exchanged for cash or other considerations because one essential element of democratic processes (the secret ballot) was not ensured. There were unguarded ballot drop boxes, where ballots could be removed, there could have been intimidation at ballot drop boxes… this was the worst and least secure election any first world nation has ever run. Please give a worse example!! Our election security in that election was worse than that of Mexico. We have loads of accounts of people buying off ballots, and there is an O’Keefe video of a Ilhan Omar staffer harvesting primary ballots. Watch the video, see the lame excuse he made, decide for yourself. I don’t think O’Keefe’s a good guy, but the corruption machine in that district is impressive.
If so, how do we know? What are the "tells," the giveaways?
If not, are the people who point to it just nervous-nelly alarmists? Are they just pretending?
To qualify as sober realists, should they discount Trump's history of lying? To qualify as fair and prudent, do they need to adopt the interpretation of his behavior up to and beyond January 6 described here as "charitable"?
First, I noticed that nobody thanked God for killing Mr. Comperatore instead of Trump. Just saying.
Now, as far as the Trump/Hitler thing, it’s clear that Trump’s agenda and many of his proposed policies are listed on the Fascist checklist. And, he has used language that has been tied to Hitler. “They are poisoning the blood of our country,” he said, referring to immigrants. That comment has been tied to what Hitler said about the Jews. Gen. John Kelly, a Trump chief of staff, reported that Trump said, “Hitler had done some good things.” Then there’s Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana in a deposition during their divorce saying that The Donald used to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. And Trump hisownself has confirmed it. The Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis and other White Supremacist groups have endorsed Trump for president. No, Trump is not Hitler, and not even a Nazi. He what we might call him “Fascist-lite.”
Mr. McCaffree comes off as a Trump apologist in this article. He should be reminded of what those who know him best have said about him. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has called him a “threat to democracy.” Former national security adviser John Bolton has declared him “unfit to be president.” Trump's eldest sister, a former federal judge, has said her brother is a liar who "has no principles." Trump’s niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a whole book on her uncle called “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man” – the dangerous man being her uncle Donald Trump.
And Trump is also anti-democracy. That’s not a good attribute for a leader of a democratic country. His efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and refusal to make a peaceful transfer of power and continued instance on “the Big Steal” shows how much he disrespects the constitution and the very fundamental values this country is supposed to cherish.
I could go on, but I think the point is made. To me, Mr. McCaffree post is an insult to our political system and to those of us who want to keep America great by keeping Trump out of the White House.
Wow, when you write " debunked endlessly" and include a Snopes article, maybe read the whole thing. Trump equated white supremacists and non on equal moral ground, it's in the Snopes Editors notes. . Your debunk has been Debunked Mike! Only after Trump realized what he said was politically disastrous, he added that white supremecist need condemning. He even met and helped out the social media presence of a white supremecist! Did he push back against white supremacy there.. NO
Is it possible that Donald Trump's own rhetoric as to what he will do as president that has enabled his rivals to label him authoritarian? The Supreme Court’s new presidential immunity rule, announced in Trump v. United States, appears designed to help Mr. Trump further his goals with impunity. If someone tells the truth as he/she believes it to be and that truth is labelled "inflammatory," does this mean the truth should not be told because someone may behave badly in response to it? The one responsible for anti-social behavior is the person who behaves in an anti-social manner and that person alone is solely responsible for his/her actions.
I agree with the consensus here. The “pretending” is that you must think what you said is in anyway enlightening. You are devoid of intellectual sobriety.
Trump lies about facts constantly. He lies when the truth would do. His lies about the migrant “crime wave” hasn’t caused any problems, has it. I guess that doesn’t fit with the bullet points you laid out.
"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H.L. Mencken
Considering the article is about political pretending it is confounding that you insist in using this tired and demonstrably false trope
“the election was fair and Trump legitimately lost”. That is just another of the lies of the last 40 years.
I hear all of the former leftist journalists use it who have had the scales fall from their eyes, but only because the system turned on them, not because they were suddenly enlightened and acknowledged what was plainly visible to so many, for so long.
For my part, when I encounter that line I just categorize that journalist as another dim foot soldier of the left.
But the Trump administration WAS building concentration camps. In 2019 (when the statement was made) there were 917K southern border crossings compared to an average rate of 384K over the previous five years. Trump had run under a promise to end the flow of illegal immigrants into the US across the southern border. And now there were more than twice as many people coming in than had been when he took office.
Previously, immigrants would be temporarily detained at the border and then either released into the country with a future court date or returned. The sudden increase overwhelmed the system. The detention facilities filled up and they were probably releasing more people into the country, or at least that could have been what Trump's advisors thought might happen. So, what do you do if you ran on an anti-illegal immigration platform? Build camps to put these people in, don't release them.
These are concentration camps by definition. A concentration camp is a place where you place categories of people who don't want "contaminating" your country. You concentrate them in one place, so it is easier to watch and control them until you decide what to do with them. The Nazis built many concentration camps where they placed undesirables. Now what do you do with them? The Nazi's final solution was just to kill them all and burn the bodies. This approach is a death camp, but the camps still functioned as concentration camps, they simply now had infinite capacity.
America built concentration camps during WW II where they placed Japanese Americans. There were not that many, so it was not too expensive to put all of them in camps and hold them there. There was no need for a final solution, they continued to be concentration camps and nothing more until the end of the war when the prisoners were simply released.
But there is something like 11 million illegals in the US. Trump still talks about removing them. He will need to build concentration camps for this purpose, should he actually pursue it. Once he has several hundred thousand people in the camps, then what? They are going to need a final solution. Presumably he will try to deport them. Suppose the countries he wants to dump them in don't want them any more than he does, after all nobody wanted the Jews.
You could say they are citizens of those other countries; they HAVE to take them back. Some of those people haven't lived in their countries of origin for decades, the countries can say they are your problem now, not ours. So, are you going to go to war to force them?
Having said all this, Cortez's use of term concentration camp (which was technically correct) was intended to paint Trump as Hitler. This was actually a great gift to Trump, because it might it look like Trump was doing nasty things to illegals, which should play very well with his base. And I am sure it did since he is even more popular with them today than he was in 2016.
For starters, mass arrests, confinements & deportations of millions of humans are quintessential Hitler, Stalin, Mao & Pol Pot ambitions.
The major problem with giving Trump a break because"he condemned white supremacists over thirty times in his presidency" is that Trump has always been an inveterate liar for advantage. It's only in this 2024 campaign that he is operating with less constraints on his desire to speak openly, although Trump's (and his thugs', low & high) freedom to engage in unrestrained activities against exposed victims doesn't equal the Nazis' _yet_.
That is the maga problem that his Ohlendorf-like troops who've devised the unabashed illegal but legalistic Project 25 have evinced the willingness to resolve.
In any case, it certainly can't be called alarmist to say as I do, keep an eye open for new, unfamiliar uniforms on our streets.
What a tremendously bad article. First, one can believe that Trump (or anyone for that matter) is a direct threat to democracy, but also believe that they should be beaten at the ballot box, not with violence. Then there are flagrantly bad lines like:
“Whether Trump is an existential threat to democracy seems to hinge on his reluctance to accept the results of the 2020 election. We should all agree that his reluctance was ill-advised, but what motivated it? If you ran for re-election as President and most of the mainstream institutions in your country—from journalism to entertainment to academia—worked tirelessly to oppose you as some deranged second-coming of Hitler, would it be completely irrational to suspect some kind of election malfeasance.”
Yes. Yes, it would be completely irrational. When everyone around you is telling you that you’re the problem, maybe you are, in fact, the problem.
Let’s use an apolitical example of the same logic.
Ted Bundy spent over 15 years swearing that the media and court system had plotted against him. He swore they were just trying to clear out old cases and were railroading him for crimes he didn’t commit. Instead of reflecting on this professed belief, wondering if it was logical to believe, he continually doubled down until he was finally executed for murder in the electric chair.
Were the media and the courts calling Bundy every single thing under the sun short of a murderer? Absolutely. He was OJ before OJ (his was the first nationally televised trial). By this logic, Bundy would have been “rational” in this belief, even thought he was obviously guilty. That’s nonsense.
Rationality is supposed to listen to outside evidence and it’s supposed to approach that evidence critically, not only hearing what we want to hear, even at the expense of our self-interest. Neither Bundy nor Trump proved particularly capable of that. This isn’t a subtle dig, a way to say Trump is the problem. We can contrast Trump and Bundy with Biden, whatever you may think of the latter, who just last week listened to the suggestions of those around him when they said, “You’re not likely to win this race, you need to step down.” That’s rational behavior.
Everyone has issues and liabilities, weaknesses, and when we can’t acknowledge them objectively, it’s a sign of a flaw in the reasoning. In fact, it’s precisely this refusal to acknowledge outside points of view that warranted claims that Trump was “dictatorial” in the first place. Only narcissists, sociopaths, and other delusional types are so sure of themselves that they persist in their delusions despite a chorus of voices around them shouting the opposite.
I’m glad you posted this Michael. Although it seems dismissive of Trump’s core nature, it gives us a brief insight into the idea of Thomas Nagel’s “what it’s like to be a bat” narrative.
That Trump is uniquely unqualified to hold the most powerful office on Earth seems uncontroversial. Yet getting a glimpse as to how he might think may be a key to understanding his supporters.
I highly recommend "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, "The Authoritarian Specter" by Robert Altemeyer, "The Authoritarian Dynamic" by Karen Stenner and "The Cambridge Handbook of Social Psychology," Osborne and Sibley eds., especially Chapter 13, Duckitt's chapter on Authoritarianism.
It is important to understand that one can be (really should be) concerned about one person killing another but at the same time, claim with all validity that the target of an assassination attempt truly is an existential threat to our liberal democracy. It's not right to kill people and it is appropriate to offer condolences and wishes for a speecy recovery to someone who has been injured. But It is also important to understand that, particularly in Trump's case, he is a sociopath with no conscience and will say whatever he thinks he needs to say in any given situation.
With Trump, the truth is what he wants it to be at the time and he is a husker who is aggressive at fleecing the very people who he wants to vote for him. Trump is not pretending. He is intentionally using every psychological trick available to him to create a sense of threat in his followers. He is dead serious. Just as Hitler was dead serious. And his followers are dead serious. Read Altemeyer's book.
I’m not sure how much is “pretend”….the fact that they exist in a bubble of academics, Washington elites, etc…in my opinion makes them delusional…while I think you’re right about many of them being cynical enough to “pretend”, I think there’s a huge percentage that are delusional and ignorant of history, reasoned argument….but then we’re in the “post truth” era….
This opinion peice is mostly nonsense. Take this paragraph:
"Whether Trump is an existential threat to democracy seems to hinge on his reluctance to accept the results of the 2020 election. We should all agree that his reluctance was ill-advised, but what motivated it? If you ran for re-election as President and most of the mainstream institutions in your country—from journalism to entertainment to academia—worked tirelessly to oppose you as some deranged second-coming of Hitler, would it be completely irrational to suspect some kind of election malfeasance?"
Would it be irrational to suspect election malfeasance? Yes. If all evidence led to the conclusion that there was virtually no malfeasance—as the evidence showed in the 2020 election—it would be completely irrational to claim fraud—as Trump relentlessly did (and continues to do.)
And were all "mainstream institutions" (whatever they are) working tirelessly to oppose him? I guess it needs to be pointed out that the most popular news channel in America, Fox News, worked tirelessly to support him, as did popular blogs, podcasts and Twitter accounts.
Further, weren't thoughtful people correct in opposing him? That was clear four years ago and even more clear now. Sam Harris summed it up perfectly last week on Substack:
"No one has done more to destroy civility and basic decency in our politics than Donald Trump. No one, in fact, has done more to increase the threat of political violence. Unlike any president in modern history, Trump brings out the worst in both his enemies and his friends. His influence on American life seems almost supernaturally pernicious."
Comparing Trump to Hitler is probably over the top, although J.D. Vance did it privately four years ago. On the other hand, the hypothesis that Trump is an existential threat to our traditional liberal democracy is valid and supported by the facts.
You present yourself as reasoning in good faith, but seem to not realize your screed here is mostly bilious, hyperbolic BS. I wrote an article summarizing the facts that had and still have me concerned about the 2020 POTUS election. It's based on facts that aren't in dispute, and sound reasoning. Fyi, I've left out many, many other issues that have validity and should be considered. Tell me, where am I off? Make the case, I dare you. You should also start off by realizing that many Democrats doubt the election. https://open.substack.com/pub/warforthewest/p/2020-election-integrity-there-were?r=1ri4xv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
You are not arguing the facts. When did the poll you reference become "facts that aren't in dispute"?
My opinion, on the surface, seemed to be “reasoning in good faith,” yet in the same sentence, you called it a bilious, hyperbolic screed. You’ve learned from Trump and others on the far right to accuse those you disagree with of precisely what you’re guilty of.
So you didn’t read my article - that’s where my claims about the election are. The polling data I used supported my claim that concerns about the election, concerns about voting machines and election integrity is widespread and bipartisan.
Nothing in my article is hyperbole, nor bilious. Your commentary was very light on facts and reason. I offer a reasoned, thought out analysis of my claims and you can’t even be bothered to engage substantively.
What a joke. Move along, lightweight, sentient adults are speaking.
I clicked on your link. Then I looked over your Substack. I will not be subscribing, as whatever rabbit hole you've gone down is a dark place I don't want to visit. Thanks, anyway.
So it's a rabbit hole? That's a nice dodge.
What do you say to *Republicans* who have rejected claims of election fraud?
- Trump's own head of election security, Chris Krebs, who called the election "the most secure in history."
- Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr, who stated “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
- Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who, in a now famous phone call, repeatedly corrected Trump's claims of fraud and rejected attempts to "find" another 11,780 votes.
- Fox News executives and hosts, whose text messages that were disclosed in the Dominion lawsuit revealed that they did not believe the fraud claims.
- Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and many more.
there is a sort of game theory going on here, if you are a Republican, at a certain point it is better to unequivocally say there was no fraud, because it preserves the institution that you hope to control. If Big Tech hadn't conspired in the information war, would Trump have lost? If COVID origins were honestly discussed, could that have tipped the balance? Was there improper ballot harvesting? How would you know if there was?? You couldn't. I reject all the Lyn Wood, Donald Trump and Sydney Powell arguments, but ballot harvesting or filling-out mail-in ballots for somebody else is very hard to prove--it could have been done on Trump's side as well. That election was a mess and my friends in Italy could not believe the lack of election safeguards we had in-place.
All horseshit, of course. And I made my case in the article I linked. If you can’t be bothered to actually respond to the actual claims I’m making, move along, you are a waste. Otherwise read my POV and tell me where I’m off.
People have told you where you’re off.
You don’t want to listen.
Why should anyone else waste their time on you?
Nothing of the sort occurred. You lied in another comment as well, what’s wrong with you? Are you drunk or something?
In the first place, I've never messaged you before, I'm just scrolling through.
In the second place, multiple times here people have called out your nonsense specifically, so your accusation is false, and mine is entirely correct.
In the third place, what "other comment" are you talking about? Judging from your 'history', you're just making that up as well.
I read your article. You said the survey was done before the 2020 election. No wonder that Democrats were concerned about election security given Meuler's report that Bill Barr misrepresented and buried so the public wouldn't know about Russia's interference in the 2016 election in Trump's favor.
Nobody in politics pretends more than Donald Trump. He lives in a fantasy land, and it seems from the tone of your writing that you do, also.
You didn't read my entire article, I said far more than that. I used pre-2020 survey data to show that concerns about election integrity specifically with respect to digital voting machines to make the point that the concerns that arose did not come out of the blue. And of course, I presented post-election data too, which you ignore in your feckless hackdom. And of course, you are still on the Russia conspiracy theory. TDS is real, it's in the DSM now as Trump Induced Anxiety Disorder. You can get therapy and meds to help with this. Get back to us when you've regained your sanity. Move along now, lunatic.
Hogwash….The only problem with 2020 is Trump has got his poorly educated to believe him. That is why half the electorate feel that way. They have no knowledge or proof. It’s all from the lies. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that election. He lost. He cheated and won in 2016. He cheated and lost in 2020 and 2024 won’t be any different.
I took the time to write my POV up carefully in this article. I think responding to specific claims is best, let me know which of the claims I make in the article isn’t rational or reasonable. https://open.substack.com/pub/warforthewest/p/2020-election-integrity-there-were?r=1ri4xv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
That is the problem. He’s been telling us whining for decades and most of these people just dont get it.
Of course he’s the second Hitler. Or worse.
Some good points, but I can't take a lot of it seriously. There is "charitable" and then there's believing in unicorns. Even if Trump had honest suspicions about the election's integrity, those doubts should have been alleviated by the outcomes of over 60 court cases that found no evidence of widespread fraud. Furthermore, several members of his own administration and party, including William Barr, Chris Krebs, Mark Meadows, Mitch McConnell, Dan Coats, etc., affirmed that the election was fair and that Trump lost. Additionally, the fake elector scheme, asking Raffensperger to find votes, and the attempt to interrupt the certification of the Electoral College votes with a mob, aiming to throw the election back to the House, demonstrate a clear intent to hold on to power and a complete disregard for democratic processes; both of which, by definition, are a threat to democracy. To imply there were no legitimate grounds to call out Trump's illiberal impulses is the definition of "pretending." True, Trump isn't Hitler, but by this logic, even Hitler could charitably be said to have just been a dedicated summer camp organizer.
Exactly.
but if you take the fraud with mail-in ballots, filling-in ballots for somebody else, or accepting a cash reward for a vote... how would you detect that if it happened? The episode in Mexia, Texas is when a very large operation got caught, but it would be hard to catch a lot of that going-on. I doubt it swung the 2020 election, but it was riddled with security issues that were easily exploitable given the fact that trillions were on the line and only 40,000 votes separated victory and defeat.
Omg. Give it a rest. You people are unbelievable. He lost because he’s a jerk and a loser and thou keep looking for reasons He’s a criminal A
Jerk and felon a fraud and a Con. Is that not enough. He will
Do the exact same
Thing to another fair election. My god.
do you really think Trump loses if the Big Tech isn't stacked against him? It was down to 40,000 votes? Do you really think if Biden doesn't stay in the basement he loses? Do you think if they were honest about SARS-CoV-2 origins he loses? If Pfizer didn't skip-out on 2 meetings to update on the progress of the mRNA vaccine does he lose? No, he probably wouldn't. It was a conspiracy of elites that tipped the balance. Yes, it was close because he is a jerk, a blowhard, and a loser--but the elites tipped this balance. I don't like the man, never voted for him, never will--but he didn't govern with the heavy handed authoritarianism, deep deception and complete obfuscation that the Biden regime has governed. I wish there were better candidates, an ethical Republican and a strong and ethical Democrat to dismantle their corruption machine.
Where are you getting this information? Regardless if it’s true, saying that it happened here means that it could have happened elsewhere is just speculation. We also wouldn’t know if Trump did it elsewhere. In any case the courts litigated every issue and that should have been the end of it. Add to that the fake elector scheme and Jan 6, asking to find votes, and even that Trump wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and you have much more evidence that Trump was looking for any way to hold one to power and trying to sow enough doubt to do so.
we totally would not know if Trump did it elsewhere, that's a point I've made. This was a ridiculously insecure election. The plan Trump's people hatched overlapped with a plan that was detailed in a Time magazine piece about how the left was planning to handle a contested election. Both were stupid. Trump is unfit. I understand he probably lost because of Big Tech collusion. The problem is that the machine opposing Trump is unfit and more powerful, because they control institutions.
You say it was a ridiculously insecure election, yet Trumps own Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)said “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.” So everyone in Trumps cabinet and the GOP who also confirmed the election’s integrity are all in on a left-wing conspiracy? I’m curious, but are you basing you views on the movie 2000 mules?
yes, they said that. Are those people really Trump’s people, or Deep State people? Or what? Regardless, that’s the dumbest goddam thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You could mail in a ballot for no reason whatsoever, the votes could have been exchanged for cash or other considerations because one essential element of democratic processes (the secret ballot) was not ensured. There were unguarded ballot drop boxes, where ballots could be removed, there could have been intimidation at ballot drop boxes… this was the worst and least secure election any first world nation has ever run. Please give a worse example!! Our election security in that election was worse than that of Mexico. We have loads of accounts of people buying off ballots, and there is an O’Keefe video of a Ilhan Omar staffer harvesting primary ballots. Watch the video, see the lame excuse he made, decide for yourself. I don’t think O’Keefe’s a good guy, but the corruption machine in that district is impressive.
Are the authors of Project 2025 just pretending?
If so, how do we know? What are the "tells," the giveaways?
If not, are the people who point to it just nervous-nelly alarmists? Are they just pretending?
To qualify as sober realists, should they discount Trump's history of lying? To qualify as fair and prudent, do they need to adopt the interpretation of his behavior up to and beyond January 6 described here as "charitable"?
First, I noticed that nobody thanked God for killing Mr. Comperatore instead of Trump. Just saying.
Now, as far as the Trump/Hitler thing, it’s clear that Trump’s agenda and many of his proposed policies are listed on the Fascist checklist. And, he has used language that has been tied to Hitler. “They are poisoning the blood of our country,” he said, referring to immigrants. That comment has been tied to what Hitler said about the Jews. Gen. John Kelly, a Trump chief of staff, reported that Trump said, “Hitler had done some good things.” Then there’s Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana in a deposition during their divorce saying that The Donald used to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. And Trump hisownself has confirmed it. The Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis and other White Supremacist groups have endorsed Trump for president. No, Trump is not Hitler, and not even a Nazi. He what we might call him “Fascist-lite.”
Mr. McCaffree comes off as a Trump apologist in this article. He should be reminded of what those who know him best have said about him. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has called him a “threat to democracy.” Former national security adviser John Bolton has declared him “unfit to be president.” Trump's eldest sister, a former federal judge, has said her brother is a liar who "has no principles." Trump’s niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a whole book on her uncle called “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man” – the dangerous man being her uncle Donald Trump.
And Trump is also anti-democracy. That’s not a good attribute for a leader of a democratic country. His efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and refusal to make a peaceful transfer of power and continued instance on “the Big Steal” shows how much he disrespects the constitution and the very fundamental values this country is supposed to cherish.
I could go on, but I think the point is made. To me, Mr. McCaffree post is an insult to our political system and to those of us who want to keep America great by keeping Trump out of the White House.
Wow, when you write " debunked endlessly" and include a Snopes article, maybe read the whole thing. Trump equated white supremacists and non on equal moral ground, it's in the Snopes Editors notes. . Your debunk has been Debunked Mike! Only after Trump realized what he said was politically disastrous, he added that white supremecist need condemning. He even met and helped out the social media presence of a white supremecist! Did he push back against white supremacy there.. NO
he was talking about the statues, clearly. He is a wacko, but not that kind of wacko.
He’s a whacked out whacko. Wackier then any whacko I have met.
yeah, he's up there... and he was talking about people on both sides of the statues issue, not the "Unite the Right" riot. Read the transcript.
Is it possible that Donald Trump's own rhetoric as to what he will do as president that has enabled his rivals to label him authoritarian? The Supreme Court’s new presidential immunity rule, announced in Trump v. United States, appears designed to help Mr. Trump further his goals with impunity. If someone tells the truth as he/she believes it to be and that truth is labelled "inflammatory," does this mean the truth should not be told because someone may behave badly in response to it? The one responsible for anti-social behavior is the person who behaves in an anti-social manner and that person alone is solely responsible for his/her actions.
it seems that all is not yet lost in sociology
I agree with the consensus here. The “pretending” is that you must think what you said is in anyway enlightening. You are devoid of intellectual sobriety.
Trump lies about facts constantly. He lies when the truth would do. His lies about the migrant “crime wave” hasn’t caused any problems, has it. I guess that doesn’t fit with the bullet points you laid out.
"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H.L. Mencken
Considering the article is about political pretending it is confounding that you insist in using this tired and demonstrably false trope
“the election was fair and Trump legitimately lost”. That is just another of the lies of the last 40 years.
I hear all of the former leftist journalists use it who have had the scales fall from their eyes, but only because the system turned on them, not because they were suddenly enlightened and acknowledged what was plainly visible to so many, for so long.
For my part, when I encounter that line I just categorize that journalist as another dim foot soldier of the left.
You trump lost and still a felon a fraud and a con. Losing since 2016. Lost it all for you. Dumber then a sack of rocks.
But the Trump administration WAS building concentration camps. In 2019 (when the statement was made) there were 917K southern border crossings compared to an average rate of 384K over the previous five years. Trump had run under a promise to end the flow of illegal immigrants into the US across the southern border. And now there were more than twice as many people coming in than had been when he took office.
Previously, immigrants would be temporarily detained at the border and then either released into the country with a future court date or returned. The sudden increase overwhelmed the system. The detention facilities filled up and they were probably releasing more people into the country, or at least that could have been what Trump's advisors thought might happen. So, what do you do if you ran on an anti-illegal immigration platform? Build camps to put these people in, don't release them.
These are concentration camps by definition. A concentration camp is a place where you place categories of people who don't want "contaminating" your country. You concentrate them in one place, so it is easier to watch and control them until you decide what to do with them. The Nazis built many concentration camps where they placed undesirables. Now what do you do with them? The Nazi's final solution was just to kill them all and burn the bodies. This approach is a death camp, but the camps still functioned as concentration camps, they simply now had infinite capacity.
America built concentration camps during WW II where they placed Japanese Americans. There were not that many, so it was not too expensive to put all of them in camps and hold them there. There was no need for a final solution, they continued to be concentration camps and nothing more until the end of the war when the prisoners were simply released.
But there is something like 11 million illegals in the US. Trump still talks about removing them. He will need to build concentration camps for this purpose, should he actually pursue it. Once he has several hundred thousand people in the camps, then what? They are going to need a final solution. Presumably he will try to deport them. Suppose the countries he wants to dump them in don't want them any more than he does, after all nobody wanted the Jews.
You could say they are citizens of those other countries; they HAVE to take them back. Some of those people haven't lived in their countries of origin for decades, the countries can say they are your problem now, not ours. So, are you going to go to war to force them?
Having said all this, Cortez's use of term concentration camp (which was technically correct) was intended to paint Trump as Hitler. This was actually a great gift to Trump, because it might it look like Trump was doing nasty things to illegals, which should play very well with his base. And I am sure it did since he is even more popular with them today than he was in 2016.
For starters, mass arrests, confinements & deportations of millions of humans are quintessential Hitler, Stalin, Mao & Pol Pot ambitions.
The major problem with giving Trump a break because"he condemned white supremacists over thirty times in his presidency" is that Trump has always been an inveterate liar for advantage. It's only in this 2024 campaign that he is operating with less constraints on his desire to speak openly, although Trump's (and his thugs', low & high) freedom to engage in unrestrained activities against exposed victims doesn't equal the Nazis' _yet_.
That is the maga problem that his Ohlendorf-like troops who've devised the unabashed illegal but legalistic Project 25 have evinced the willingness to resolve.
In any case, it certainly can't be called alarmist to say as I do, keep an eye open for new, unfamiliar uniforms on our streets.
What a tremendously bad article. First, one can believe that Trump (or anyone for that matter) is a direct threat to democracy, but also believe that they should be beaten at the ballot box, not with violence. Then there are flagrantly bad lines like:
“Whether Trump is an existential threat to democracy seems to hinge on his reluctance to accept the results of the 2020 election. We should all agree that his reluctance was ill-advised, but what motivated it? If you ran for re-election as President and most of the mainstream institutions in your country—from journalism to entertainment to academia—worked tirelessly to oppose you as some deranged second-coming of Hitler, would it be completely irrational to suspect some kind of election malfeasance.”
Yes. Yes, it would be completely irrational. When everyone around you is telling you that you’re the problem, maybe you are, in fact, the problem.
Let’s use an apolitical example of the same logic.
Ted Bundy spent over 15 years swearing that the media and court system had plotted against him. He swore they were just trying to clear out old cases and were railroading him for crimes he didn’t commit. Instead of reflecting on this professed belief, wondering if it was logical to believe, he continually doubled down until he was finally executed for murder in the electric chair.
Were the media and the courts calling Bundy every single thing under the sun short of a murderer? Absolutely. He was OJ before OJ (his was the first nationally televised trial). By this logic, Bundy would have been “rational” in this belief, even thought he was obviously guilty. That’s nonsense.
Rationality is supposed to listen to outside evidence and it’s supposed to approach that evidence critically, not only hearing what we want to hear, even at the expense of our self-interest. Neither Bundy nor Trump proved particularly capable of that. This isn’t a subtle dig, a way to say Trump is the problem. We can contrast Trump and Bundy with Biden, whatever you may think of the latter, who just last week listened to the suggestions of those around him when they said, “You’re not likely to win this race, you need to step down.” That’s rational behavior.
Everyone has issues and liabilities, weaknesses, and when we can’t acknowledge them objectively, it’s a sign of a flaw in the reasoning. In fact, it’s precisely this refusal to acknowledge outside points of view that warranted claims that Trump was “dictatorial” in the first place. Only narcissists, sociopaths, and other delusional types are so sure of themselves that they persist in their delusions despite a chorus of voices around them shouting the opposite.
My BS meter is flashing.
I’m glad you posted this Michael. Although it seems dismissive of Trump’s core nature, it gives us a brief insight into the idea of Thomas Nagel’s “what it’s like to be a bat” narrative.
That Trump is uniquely unqualified to hold the most powerful office on Earth seems uncontroversial. Yet getting a glimpse as to how he might think may be a key to understanding his supporters.
I highly recommend "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, "The Authoritarian Specter" by Robert Altemeyer, "The Authoritarian Dynamic" by Karen Stenner and "The Cambridge Handbook of Social Psychology," Osborne and Sibley eds., especially Chapter 13, Duckitt's chapter on Authoritarianism.
It is important to understand that one can be (really should be) concerned about one person killing another but at the same time, claim with all validity that the target of an assassination attempt truly is an existential threat to our liberal democracy. It's not right to kill people and it is appropriate to offer condolences and wishes for a speecy recovery to someone who has been injured. But It is also important to understand that, particularly in Trump's case, he is a sociopath with no conscience and will say whatever he thinks he needs to say in any given situation.
With Trump, the truth is what he wants it to be at the time and he is a husker who is aggressive at fleecing the very people who he wants to vote for him. Trump is not pretending. He is intentionally using every psychological trick available to him to create a sense of threat in his followers. He is dead serious. Just as Hitler was dead serious. And his followers are dead serious. Read Altemeyer's book.
I’m not sure how much is “pretend”….the fact that they exist in a bubble of academics, Washington elites, etc…in my opinion makes them delusional…while I think you’re right about many of them being cynical enough to “pretend”, I think there’s a huge percentage that are delusional and ignorant of history, reasoned argument….but then we’re in the “post truth” era….