BC POLITICS
Saved by @Alex1Powell

One thing people on the Right could learn from the Left: stop treating elections and court cases as either total victories or final defeats. The battle for truth, justice, and the American Way is never-ending. Never let either friends or foes convince you otherwise.

 Granted, there is far too much centralized coercive power in our system, so a lot of bad things can happen after a national election. The stakes are always high - much *too* high for a constitutional republic of sovereign citizens.
But generally speaking, the Left has long been better about using power when they have it, and redoubling their efforts to regain power after they lose it. The Right is more susceptible to all-is-lost fatalism and hopelessness born of deep (and often justified) cynicism.
Left-wing groups are more likely to see themselves as fighting endless crusades. If they lose an election, it means the voters were wrong and must be re-educated or punished, or the election was stolen by the dastardly Republicans. They never question their righteousness.
That's the level of commitment to cause that you must be ready to contend with if you're hoping conservative beliefs will prevail. In fact, even greater commitment is required, because too much of our corrupt political and media system inherently favors collectivism.
The most important thing to do after an election setback is stand tall, raise your voice, and let the vast number of people who agree with you know they're not alone. Resist the Left's efforts to make you feel marginalized and isolated. Show conviction and assert your strength.
Never let the Left and its media convince you that your beliefs and issues were permanently defeated at the ballot box, rather than a few candidates. They would NEVER accept that argument themselves, so why should you accept it from them?
It's especially important to show your determination after the bizarre 2020 election, which was turned into a straight up/down referendum on one man's personality, while the other candidate hid in his basement. Not many people voted "for" Joe Biden. Never lose sight of that.
Of course, the Left will never for a moment act as if they have some limited mandate, an asterisk next to the narrow win because of unusual circumstances and widespread reports of voting irregularities, as they would absolutely insist Republicans do under similar circumstances.
They'll act as if they have an absolute mandate to restructure American society, rewrite the Constitution, and reorder the national economy to their liking. They would act that way if they won by ten votes. Limited "mandates" are only discussed when Republicans win.
Those assertions from the Left are laughable in the face of the stealth Biden campaign, high levels of voter satisfaction with Trump's actual job performance, stunning GOP victories in Congress, the unique Covid disaster, and just about everything voters said about the issues.
Leave all the arguments about election shenanigans aside, and you still have the indisputable fact that Biden won only because some lazy voters in key states who couldn't name one of their own senators filled in one bubble on a mail-in ballot, because ORANGE MAN BAD.
It's the weakest "victory" in memory, and you can rest assured Dems will annoy the hell out of people by overplaying their hand. Speak up and stand strong on issues, on beliefs, on everything larger and deeper than a single election. You have every reason to be confident.
Demonstrating confidence, conviction, and sincerity will have immediate benefits. For starters, it will convince wavering Democrats from swing states to pump the brakes on their party's worst instincts. They don't have as many wobblies as the GOP - if only! - but they have a few.
Along the same lines, standing tall and strong will reinforce the spines of Republicans prone to caving and making deals, especially if they see a good midterm election coming over the horizon. They won't stand up for you if you don't stand up for yourself.
Also, it should be clear to everyone by now that a great deal of political power in America has shifted to mega-corporations. This is a time to raise your voice before any more corporate boardrooms start hatching plans to shove leftism down your throat.
If you want a political party that stands strong for your beliefs, you must be a constituency they want to fight for, and give them a destination they can reach. This will help the party find better candidates, and develop the best of them into national contenders.
Republicans were saddled with a string of surrender caucuses and gentleman loser candidates because they got the idea that's where their constituents were at - exhausted, demoralized, marginalized, hoping for nothing better than decent terms of surrender.
Beltway culture and the media blast that message into the skulls of every Republican candidate that gets anywhere near Washington. They see only a funhouse-mirror reflection of the people who voted for them. Your challenge is to shatter those mirrors.
Lastly, realize as the Left did long ago that groundwork is necessary for the big political battles. Fight for the local issues and candidates, fight for control of institutions outside government that nevertheless shape politics, network with each other. BUILD.
Be populist and subversive, as the Left was during its march to power, every step of the way. Call their bluffs, challenge their legitimacy, and never again let anyone trick you into thinking moral debates and social issues are "toxic." What a hideous mistake that was!
Running from moral and social issues made conservatives look insincere, like they didn't passionately believe in their causes the way win-at-all-costs, hyper-moralizing leftist crusaders do. It made conservatism look not reasonable, but passive and disconnected from daily life.
If you really treasure your beliefs, you want to share that treasure. If you really mean what you say, you don't fall silent after losing one election tussle in an endless struggle. You can't be persuasive until you seem convinced yourself. That's our challenge in new year.
The absolutely worst thing you can do is throw up your hands, exclaim that all elections are rigged forever so there's no point in even trying to compete, withdraw in despair, and hope the public rises up someday. That's what the Left wants you to do, more than anything.
It's not what THEY would do. They scream that every election they lose was stolen - but they didn't withdraw from politics to protest the "rigged system," did they? On the contrary, they went to war with renewed energy, fighting both above and below board, all in.
Yes, the rules are different for us - we don't control the media, we don't have the permanent bureaucracy on our side, we don't get to shriek about stolen elections for two years and then sit on media panels as respected experts in How Elections Cannot Possibly Be Stolen.
But you can learn a bit about motivation and determination by watching the Left and seeing how they utterly reject the notion that any electoral setback, from squeakers to landslides, means their IDEAS have been defeated forever. They get the "never-ending battle" idea. /end

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John Hayward
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Excellent analysis! One of our biggest problems is that people think "democracy," all by itself, is a sufficient check on power. I frankly don't understand how anyone can still believe that, but of course they probably won't be taught otherwise in school.


The disturbing flip side of thinking democracy is a magic talisman against tyranny is the belief that democracy sanctifies power - the essence of majoritarianism. "They can't be dictators if we can vote them out of office!" is one of the most dangerous ideas in the world.

The restraints placed on power are MORE important than the process of choosing who gets to wield it. You would be more free under a tightly restrained hereditary monarch than in a "democracy" with totalitarian centralized power.

The human race learned, fairly recently, that elected government is the approach most likely to maximize liberty and human rights, but where on Earth did we get the notion that it's perfect and sufficient all by itself? The world is full of tyrannies that hold elections.

"Democracy" would be the worst of all worlds - tyranny by mob rule, with the oppressors claiming their every fancy was fully and completely sanctified because they won a vote, and why should we let a stubborn minority thwart The Will of the People?
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
The worldwide movement toward "limited authoritarianism," already well under way but dramatically accelerated by the coronavirus, is driven by the elite consensus that ordinary people cannot be trusted with so much freedom.

"Limited authoritarianism" is the best phrase for what the elite have in mind. They have decided that a growing list of topics are simply off the table. Consensus has been reached, and no further input from voters will be permitted on those topics.

This is a natural consequence of the progressive ideology, which is inherently authoritarian, although it peddles itself in the early stage with lots of jibber-jabber freedom and liberty. Progressives by definition believe that the growth of the State can never be reversed.

Every time the State grows - taking more money from the private sector, issuing regulations, criminalizing activities that used to be free - it is declaring that the people can no longer be trusted to make certain decisions. This is the inescapable logic of statism.

You can't be trusted to spend that dollar wisely, so the State will take it from you. You can't be trusted to make those decisions about your health care, so the State will make them for you. You can't be trusted to sell your own labor, so the State will control employment.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
The coming year will see Biden Democrats walking slowly through a vast field of small businesses exhausted by the battle with the coronavirus, shooting any who can still move. Big Tech will hold a pillow over the faces of those who cry out too loudly.

The destruction of the independent American middle class is one of the highest policy goals of the hard Left. It is finally at hand, thanks to the coronavirus and its political aftershocks. A year ago, they could not have dreamed they would get such a perfect kill shot.

A true middle class has economic interests that run counter to command economics, confiscatory taxation, centralized power, and other features of socialism. It also has the numbers to protect those interests at the ballot box. Of COURSE the Left hates it and wants to subdue it.

Small business is the vital engine of middle class prosperity, and the specific enemy the Left hates the most. Small business owners - and their sharpest, most ambitious employees - place a high value on capitalist freedom and competitiveness. They know the value of a dollar.

The small business experience is defined by the atmosphere of competitiveness that statism and socialism are sworn to destroy. Local enterprises appear quickly in response to demand that cannot easily be seen by distant central planners. Entrepreneurship requires agility.
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John Hayward
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@Doc_0
One reason the Left hates Rush so much is that he was so effective at skewering their pretensions to moral and intellectual superiority. He made it okay to laugh at them, to judge the failure of their policies without ritually celebrating their alleged good intentions.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Time once again to emphasize the differences between totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism. They're often used as synonyms but they are different, although they do tend to lead to each other. Order one, and the other two are usually delivered soon enough.

Totalitarianism is best understood as the politicization of everything. Every facet of life is infused with political meaning... and subjected to political control. There is little room for privacy or individualism. Every word and deed is seen as a political action.

Totalitarianism does *not* require authoritarian government, although it usually leads to such. You can be totalitarian without having any real government power at all, enforcing your political will through mob actions and corporate power. Examples from recent history abound.

Totalitarianism is the easiest of the three deadly "isms" to slide into, because it can easily be disguised with claims of its good intentions. Totalitarians usually claim to be motivated by the Greater Good. They claim to represent the interests of sympathetic victims.

Totalitarians claim that society is unjust and must be corrected by force. Before they gain the power to become authoritarians, they often assert the right to use force outside of the law because the government is corrupt or serves the interests of their ideological enemies.
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Pretending that voting for Trump or denying climate change or suggesting the solution to every problem is more guns is a legitimate point of view, worthy of respect is not "how America works." It is how it dies.

People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.

But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.

We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.

Somewhere, somehow, judgments must be made. Some behaviors are wrong and must be condemned. Someone must challenge lies and demand facts. Coddling people who embrace idiocies does not help them no matter how loudly they demand to be coddled.
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Again, at such a key moment in UK and at such high political levels, evidence of deep misunderstanding of EU: The PM is under pressure in some quarters to delay #Brexit vote to allow her first to “improve” deal in Brussels BUT EU is determined not to budge at this stage

2) All EU leaders watching tomorrow’s vote. Of course they want to avoid a no deal #Brexit BUT they feel the deal - so painfully negotiated between EU and UK - is too fresh to re-open. Clarifications, yes but fundamental renegotiations, no.

3) The EU’s international reputation as a tough deal-maker is at stake here too. If Brussels now suddenly “gives in” to U.K. on EU red lines (eg backstop) then that would weaken the EU’s reputation in future trade negotiations with other non EU countries

4) Also on backstop the EU is unlikely to cave in to favour a relationship with a leaving member state (UK) against the explicit wishes and ignoring the deep concerns of a continuing member: Ireland.

5) Both the EU and the PM signed up to a guarantee to protect the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. If either the U.K. or EU can leave the backstop unilaterally then this clearly is no longer a guarantee.
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TRUMP'S COUP TIMELINE

* This thread will use military time and EST time zone for any times provided.

November 7, 2020 - The press calls the 2020 presidential election for now President-elect Joe Biden, 4 days after the election.

November 9, 2020

After meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and in violation of standing Department of Justice policy not to interfere in elections, US Attorney General Bill Barr authorizes federal prosecutors to investigate claims of electoral fraud.

Richard Pilger, the head of the DoJ’s Election Crimes Branch, resigns in response to Barr’s memo.

Trump fires Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. In response, Esper says, “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

Trump immediately names Christopher Miller Acting Secretary of Defense.

Trump follows Esper’s firing with firing the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, constituting a “near total decapitation of civilian leadership” at the Pentagon.
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Julia Azari
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@julia_azari
This idea - that elections should translate into policy - is not wrong at all. But political science can help explain why it's not working this way. There are three main explanations: 1. mandates are constructed, not automatic, 2. party asymmetry, 3. partisan conpetition 1/


First, party/policy mandates from elections are far from self-executing in our system. Work on mandates from Dahl to Ellis and Kirk on the history of the mandate to mine on its role in post-Nixon politics, to Peterson Grossback and Stimson all emphasize that this link is... 2/

Created deliberately and isn't always persuasive. Others have to convinced that the election meant a particular thing for it to work in a legislative context. I theorized in the immediate period of after the 2020 election that this was part of why Repubs signed on to ...3/

Trump's demonstrably false fraud nonsense - it derailed an emerging mandate news cycle. Winners of elections get what they get - institutional control - but can't expect much beyond that unless the perception of an election mandate takes hold. And it didn't. 4/

Let's turn to the legislation element of this. There's just an asymmetry in terms of passing a relief bill. Republicans are presumably less motivated to get some kind of deal passed. Democrats are more likely to want to do *something.* 5/
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Robert Saunders
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"3 million people are estimated not to have official photo ID, with ethnic minorities more at risk". They will "have to contact their council to confirm their ID if they want to vote"

This is shameful legislation, that does nothing to tackle the problems with UK elections.THREAD


There is no evidence in-person voter fraud is a problem, and it wd be near-impossible to organise on an effective scale. Campaign finance violations, digital disinformation & manipulation of postal voting are bigger issues, but these are crimes of the powerful, not the powerless.

In a democracy, anything that makes it harder to vote - in particular, anything that disadvantages one group of voters - should face an extremely high bar. Compulsory voter ID takes a hammer to 3 million legitimate voters (disproportionately poor & BAME) to crack an imaginary nut

If the government is concerned about the purity of elections, it should reflect on its own conduct. In 2019 it circulated doctored news footage of an opponent, disguised its twitter feed as a fake fact-checking site, and ran adverts so dishonest that even Facebook took them down.

Britain's electoral law largely predates the internet. There is little serious regulation of online campaigning or the cash that pays for it. That allows unscrupulous campaigners to ignore much of the legal framework erected since the C19th to guard against electoral misconduct.
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