How did the election swing so far to Trump? How much was voter suppression - mail-in ballots sent too late to get back, Russian bomb threats and who knows what other shenanigans? Too few polling places in Democratic areas? Suppression of student votes and other forms?
How is it that Trump, after losing the popular vote to Clinton by 3 million votes
"[Clinton] outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia."
and to Biden by 7 million votes,
"Biden’s popular vote margin over Trump tops 7 million"
now beats Harris by almost 10 million votes? There were 155 million votes in 2020 but only 145 million this time. By all accounts there was a record number of people turning out this time. It would seem some votes are missing.
The numbers we have would mean the gap between increased by 13 million and by 17 million against Biden.
It doesn't add up. I know, racism and misogyny play a role, but not that much. Especially after all the terrible things we learned about Trump after the 2020 election. They've been listed by everyone already from Jan 6 through convictions and indictments. And I'd argue that Harris ran a much better and exciting campaign than Clinton or Biden did. And it sure looked like there were lots of people voting early and on election day.
How is it possible for him to have won the popular vote by a huge margin this time when he lost it significantly the two previous races?
Alaska Totals Don't Match The US Totals
It seems even more suspicious when you look at the Alaska totals. Alaska is a red state, so the increased Trump numbers should be more exaggerated in Alaska than the US total which includes blue states and red states. But it isn't. The opposite.
Harris did better than Clinton, and not quite as well as Biden in Alaska.
Trump beat Clinton by 47,000 votes in Alaska in 2016..
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| Alaska Div of Elections |
Trump beat Biden by 36,000 votes in Alaska.
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| Alaska Div of Elections xxx |
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| Alaska Div of Elections |
I'm sure the Trump mafia are laughing at how easy it was to get Harris to concede. They knew she would play by the traditional rules that they have flouted since . . . always.
Joe Biden, you've got three months to try out your Supreme Court granted immunity. I'm not calling for you to blow up Mar-A-Lago, but I'd like to see you push some limits to find out more about the Russian Trump election interference and how the numbers got so out of whack. And it might show us that the Supreme Court has more comfort with Trump transgressions than Biden transgressions. If it does, it might be forced to put more restrictions on Trump's immunity.
Oh, and maybe look into the medical records of Trump's ear. We've essentially heard nothing. If he'd really been hit in ear, we'd have heard the doctors explaining it in detail and Trump would be showing off the scar.
Pretty simple, really. The electionn wasrigged, voter suppression via bomb threats, massive voter fraud o the part of magats and drumpf and I can prove it all using the same evidence drupf claimed he had from stolen 2020 election.
ReplyDeleteI want to let you know I will be off line for over as month after I have bypass surgery in a week or two. I can't email from my phone, but I will be keeping an eye on your blog. chow mfi
Mike, I'll be thinking about you as you go in for surgery. Sending my hopes that everything goes smoothly and up and feeling like new quickly.
DeleteHi Steve. And this may be for your first-responder above, too. (Hi)
ReplyDeleteI've been reading responsible thinkers these past two days on how this historic 'flip' could have taken place and I've calmed down a bit. Your fears for the USA are not misplaced, Steve. He's going to do as many things he possibly can get away with as he can in his next term -- maybe even to set up one of his kids to 'take over'. Who knows?
I won't go down-that-rabbit-hole, though, and with that said, I would ask you to please read accounts that are readily available now to pick apart much of what you have raised. Yes, Hitler came out of much the same sort of environment, but the religious foundation of this is quite different. That, and the strength of Libertarianism as a foundational philosophical premise for the ultra-rich now. Why have government get in the way of my acquisition of assets, they have openly stated. Trump is a businessman. They like him and so do many millions of Americans who trust their own labour over government, to 'solve their problems'?
Right?
Am I happy with the results? Do I believe 'The Donald' is trust-worthy in matters of personal virtue or fair-play? No, and I wouldn't buy a used car from his, either. I think him to be the worst kind of guy with a dick, frankly. The kind of guy who, when I was a gay kid, would have walked across the street to punch me. Maybe he's okay with it all now. My point? He needs to get over himself. I don't think he can.
So I have my beef with the guy, but something you need to know: I have lived in NYC, and he reminds me of way too many New Yorkers. Not exactly folk my midwestern grandparents would invite to dinner. It's kinda culture-clash and I don't have to like it, either. And I don't. But lots of Americans loved him in 'The Apprentice' didn't they? Don't think THAT counts for something of his allure in the 24-hour glitz-news-cycle that is US culture?
And that's just it. He simply appealed to more of the kind of Americans REAL AMERICANS have come to believe in and want to be. America is a tough place in a lot of ways and maybe you don't see it, but many of us in Europe don't think too highly (they won't admit this next bit to you over here, btw) of way too many Americans feeling that THEY are 'The Greatest, The Biggest & Best contest that is never-ending where you live.
So, pick up your keyboard and type back, be a keyboard warrior of the Left. It's what you've always done, and done well. But conspiracy stuff isn't you, Steve. I know we've all had a VERY bad day, but we must build the barricades now. Americans just elected a ready-to-pop-in-the-oven Strong Man. It's not very becoming for a democratic republic, but it's what the majority of this round's voters have delivered.
I can see the results in what I read and see from over here, with that bit of distance to see things more clearly. Be well, friend.
I see, Anon, that you know all the answers. Along with lots of other pundits who are explaining the election based on their quick interpretations which are needed to fill the 24 hour news channels. If you reread my post, it was based on an anomaly: The Alaska vote totals were wildly different from national vote totals if you compared them to Trump’s previous two elections. I thought it odd. I didn't say there was hacking. I said it was suspicious. I didn't reach any conclusions, but I asked for people with better skills and resources than I have to look into it. To see if it checked out. Here's what I said:
ReplyDelete"So my dilemma is how to connect the dots in a way that makes sense. Not to make up some wild story, but to offer a plausible hypothesis or two that could be tested by people with better math skills and better data analysis skills and maybe some ability to uncover Russian (or others) tampering with out election computer systems."
I find it rich that you're attacking me about being suspicious about election results, when Trump made and makes all sorts of spurious claims. But his aren’t hypothetical. He’s dead certain of the truth. He claimed the previous election was rigged and he didn't really lose. And he got people to be fake electors. He told Georgia’s election honcho to find him 11,000 more votes. He lost about 60 court cases based on these claims.
Yet for me to see an anomaly in the Alaska voting pattern compared to the national voting pattern, is a serious problem for you. It shows my biases.
The media are coming up with all kinds of explanations, and you're right. One is that it was the economy. And I agree that what economists call the economy is not what the average person understands as economy. Like you said, prices at the store equals "economy" to non-economists. And I think and have said on this blog that economists need to factor in things like how many people live paycheck to paycheck and the wealth gap between the very rich and everyone else.
But I think "the economy," because it's got grocery prices behind it, is a good cover for racism and sexism, as any other. Because the price of poke is going to look like a bargain if Trump imposes the tariffs he's proposed. And if ACA is gutted people's access to health care is going to be much harder. And if Social Security and Medicare are drastically cut or eliminated ‘the economy’ of the average person is going to be awful. The price of poke seems like a ridiculous reason to vote for a non-stop liar, rapist, felon, who stole classified documents, and quite likely sold, traded, or gave the information in them to others. And if Trump starts deporting immigrants, the price of food is going to go up even higher because immigrants - documented and undocumented - keep US agriculture going.
We have traded American democracy away to a conman who will remake our government into his image as much as he can - lying, cheating, vulgar, hating, hurting, tearing down, and aggrandizing himself.
I hope I'm wrong, but Trump has told us what he's going to do. He’s going to set up detention camps for tens of millions of people. And Project 2025 tells us what the plans are. If you're a white Christian male, you'll be better off than people whose heritage and whose skin color and hair and features is not northern European. But even if you are a white Christian male, but not wealthy, to the tune of hundreds of millions on up to billions of dollars, your life is going to be worse than it is now.
Let's check back on this in 2026.
Jakob, I appreciate your view from across the Atlantic and you may be right that it's just a lot more Americans preferred a convicted felon, liar, rapist as president than a Black woman.
ReplyDeleteBut if the 'rabbit hole' comment was suggesting I'd become a conspiracy theorist, I think you missed the point. As I said to Anon above, I was simply identifying an anomaly in the Alaska voting pattern compared to the national voting pattern and I was asking others with more expertise and resources to look into it. I was just identifying one more anomaly that might indicate something fishy. Partly because if it doesn't happen soon, it's never going to happen.
Here's what I wrote in a 2022 blog post:
" (I object to indiscriminate use of the term 'conspiracy theory' because conspiracies do exist - when people work together behind the scenes to commit crimes. Using the term 'conspiracy theory' to mean crazy makes people exposing actually conspiracies seem crazy too.)"
Given we know Trump has had ties to Putin, MSB, and other deep pocketed foreigners and to US billionaires with tech expertise who strongly believe Trump will be a president who will benefit their interests, I don't think it's beyond reasonable to ask that our voting machines and voting practices be checked for problems. The fox is about to reenter the henhouse and it ain't gonna be pretty.
Good morning, Steve.
ReplyDeleteNo, simply this: The appearance of rationality is now as important as being rational. Your point on corruption is not lost on me, but it's utterance can be seen as 'sore loser' to far too many now. Internet 'snap-judgements' are ruthless in tossing people away for reader offence. I think of so many keyboard 'warriors' at work, on both the right & the left. It is truly tiring. Hail Trump, King of Offence! and one can see how this world of word-combat has become normalised.
So many -- RIGHT and LEFT -- are willing to righteously throw perceived 'wrong-thinkers' into their trash.
Be well, friend. We need each other. And yes, there are dim views held toward America and Americans among Europeans, I'm afraid (there are likely more who are afraid of you). It's been that way since well before Ezra Lazarus immortalised what so many of us (whose ancestors left to America) wrote of Americans in her appeal:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
---
I rest my case.
From Field Negro Blog..... All of the explanations for Trump’s victory and Harris’ loss come straight from the cynical, democracy-skeptical HL Mencken, from a century ago. Perhaps he wasn’t correct about the hopelessness of democracy as a general proposition, but under the impossible conditions of the warped, diseased, toxified news/disinformation ecosystem of America in 2024? I’d have to say he’s right on the money.
ReplyDelete“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
— H. L. Mencken
“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
“There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
— H. L. Mencken
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
— H. L. Mencken
5:27 AM
‘I see, Anon, that you know all the answers. Along with lots of other pundits who are explaining the election based on their quick interpretations which are needed to fill the 24 hour news channels.’
ReplyDeleteNo I get my information from NPR, PBS, Slate and Politico Shoot the messenger not the message right Steve.
I think I made important points about the election and I got a delusional rant in return. You really addressed none of my points.
Did the DNC failure to get Biden to drop out until three months before the election hurt Harris?
It took the Obama’s three days to endorse her. Please address that.
Was the economy the deciding factor in the election? This is from the right wing leaning CNN
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/politics/2020-2016-exit-polls-2024-dg/
Please address that without using racism and sexism as a cover.
Was Harris’s failure to distance herself Biden and focus on attacking Trump a mistake? Was her failure to condemn Isreal’s genocide a factor? It lost her Michigan for sure. Please address that.
But I think "the economy," because it's got grocery prices behind it, is a good cover for racism and sexism. Who would have thought me paying 4 bucks more for cat food was racist. Thanks for enlightening me.
‘What makes sense to me is someone tinkered with computers. Or the ballots. That's not that far fetched.” I am waiting for you to put that evidence on the table. Who knows you could start a go fund me account to check it out. You could call it ‘Stop the Steal’
From Bill Maher’s podcast ‘“My message to the losers: losers look in the mirror,” Maher said during his “Real Time” monologue on HBO Friday night. “No? Well, maybe you should. Sorry. Well, that’s my feeling. Losers look in the mirror.”
Anon, I'm not ignoring this, but it feels like we're having two (or more) different conversations that don't really intersect. As much as I'd like to be able to sit with you and rationally discuss this, I don't think I have the time or patience at the moment. I'm trying not to despair at this point. Voting for Trump, "because of the economy" assumes that Trump is going to improve the economy, because . . . he's . . . I don't want to list all the things he's said and done, each of which would have disqualified any other politician. Not to mention the whole collection of outrages. And, Anon, since I don't know who you are or anything about you, my general comments are not aimed at you. But do you think that there aren't a lot of people supporting Trump who like his racist and misogynist policies? Some of whom say so unabashedly, and others not quite so bold that they use the economy as a cover? But look, I don't want to get into this discussion. Saying things like, "Biden should have stepped aside sooner" or "Biden shouldn't have picked her to be VP in the first place" - those all miss the bigger picture. Fox News has been feeding propaganda - lies and distortions that attack Democrats and promote conservatives - to the extent that their regular viewers have a completely warped reality. And other media - including NPR and PBS - have had trouble figuring out how to adapt their belief in "objective" news reporting to the new political reality of Trump. They kept presenting them like two normal candidates, when in fact, one was radically not normal.
DeleteThere's been a massive Russian interference in this election. Just like the US CIA has interfered in the elections of countries like Iran, Chile, Congo, Angola, Serbia and on and on. [Please don't respond that I'm being conspiracist here - just look it up, there's plenty of documentation out there on different ways Russia has worked to get Trump elected in 2016 and this time.]
But the real difference in our interchange here is you seem to be discussion why it was rational for US voters to pick Trump. And I see the choice between Trump and Harris as absolutely no choice at all. One is a complete disaster for the US and the world and the other was a competent and intelligent candidate. We really are at great risk of the United States - the oldest continuous democracy in the world - becoming an authoritarian state with the Constitution, if not simply thrown out, then so ridiculously interpreted that it might as well be.
I don't think David Sedaris' comment is inaccurate:
On Undecided Voters: "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”
― David Sedaris
Hi Steve. ANON has now given his counter-statement. He scores some points from me as have you. But I must say, because I know you (I have had dinner with you, read some of your professional work and many of your posts over the years, I know ANON attacks something you not). You are a man who knows the real horror of what these moments in a country’s history could very well dish up again for another.
ReplyDeleteI know you care VERY deeply about this result and the United States. You are a friend, a man of intellect, someone who has spoken for the deep study of human conditioning and bias that comes with our very nationality, our first language, our heath & home, our intellectual gifts and the generation in which we take up our lives.
You are the one who has gone on to post-doctoral work in public policy; who has lived overseas. You are a friend who asks the critical questions, who cares about and acts toward correcting wrongs you see around you. Always has; always will.
But this is what I see in how this very American election has gone as it did: There are more people on America’s current ‘Right’ now (as I’ll call it loosely) than there are on its ‘Left’. Further, in an increasingly multi- (a) racial (b) ethnic (c) religious (d) gender (e) ETC nation, it is bound to get confusing as to which identity we adhere to at any given time for polling label purposes. Maybe it simply matters less than we thought it did.
Whatever, it is a BIG THING moment when Trump’s scrambled-egg, message-omelette matters more than the 5 characteristics I listed above. I understand how you may not (or won't) see it that way, but it is what I read from many reasonable political thinkers, let alone the many, MANY thinkers of the economic right (think Libertarian). In the UK, some are calling this election as 'Turkeys voting for Christmas' (Turkey being the main dish in our Christmas here).
Perhaps. But from what I can tell looking from my distance, voters who voted for Trump would disagree. And this is exactly where I think 'ANON" has it right: America voted for what majorities, again & again, decided was the BEST of two options:
1. BIG CHANGE, or
2. MORE OF SAME
Are Americans the kind of people who want things as they are? When I try to explain (defend) WHY Americans are the way they are to folk here, it so often comes down to this European truism:
In Europe, one works to live.
In the United States, one lives to work.
I used to laugh; know I understand. Let me give a go at explaining:
Work here is what you do. Work in the USA is who you can be. So how does this relate to the Great Divide between 'miserables' here and ‘working stiffs’ in the States? It might be found in what can be called ‘aspiration’. The work hustle is practiced MUCH more in the States now than it is here. Britain had its Victorian Era. You are living in America’s Century.
Britain has learned empire has costs. So I'll leave both of you with this today: How different is Cecil Rhodes of Britain's 19th century from Elon Musk in America's 21st? Just as there were lads’ magazines touting Britain’s power then, how different is the American blogosphere now?
In my view, empire necessitates predictable behaviours as its self-regarding response to opportunity. America has long acted as an empire (masked as it is) – and now, it seems electoral majorities are set for its reveal.
So, ok, you guys. You all have to live with each other. Work it out. As for me, I’ve got troubles, too. Can’t say anything better or wiser than that to end my message to America today. Peace.
In the USA, are you certain of that?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/millions-of-missing-votes-2024-election/
ReplyDeleteWaaaayyy off topic knee slapper...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/onion-wins-alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-auction-rcna179936
Alex Jones has a new conspiracy website up and running at X.
ReplyDelete