ProfJerry's Weblog

It’s obvious that many Americans believe that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” marred by “massive fraud,” and was stolen from Donald Trump, who “clearly” was the true winner.

It’s also obvious that numerous Americans believe all this despite the absence of any evidence. Trump and his allies initiated some 60 lawsuits trying to overturn the results of the election. Of those some 60 lawsuits only one was successful, and it was only successful on a procedural issue.

So why do so many Americans believe the election was stolen despite being unable to provide any evidence to support that belief beyond “everyone knows” or “there are so many allegations, it must be true”? And why do so many continue to believe and protest a “stolen election” despite the findings, confirmations, and certifications to the contrary? In some contested states the results were counted two and three times with no change in the outcome.

The answer is relatively simple: they were presented with the “Big Lie” by the President: he had actually won the election, but it was stolen. And his supporters believed him.

Having once accepted the “Big Lie,” they became increasingly trapped in and consumed by a whirlpool of self-fulfilling but flawed reasoning based on “all those allegations.” “All those allegations” arose from the initial lie which led to further allegations which led to the “but all the allegations, it must be true” argument.

As others have pointed out, it is reminiscent of the old joke about the young man who murdered his parents and then pleaded for mercy because he was an orphan.

Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, points to what others have called our “epistemic crisis”:

The “Big Lie” to which [Fiona] Hill refers – that the 2020 election was stolen through rampant voter fraud – is one of many in the post-truth world that right-wingers have propagated to gin up their base and promote a sense of panic and grievance. In this world, masks don’t work and Ukraine has the DNC server. White evangelicals tell their flocks there is a war on Christians. Radio talk-show hosts tell us there are terrorists among refugees fleeing violence in Central America. There is a whole industry – extending to issue-oriented advocacy groups and think tanks – designed to con the mob and infuriate them.

If we can’t find a way back to the foundational principle that there is in fact (no pun intended) a set of realities that we must try as best we can to truthfully describe, then we are indeed in a deep and fearsome hole .

Opinion | We must end the post-truth society – The Washington Post

Years ago I taught a course in “business ethics.” In that course, the students and I reviewed various cases in which business executives were faced with decisions that involved potential conflicts among maximizing profits, ethical concerns, and social consequences. Almost always the executives chose maximizing profits.

So the back and forth between supporting Trump and worrying about his actions and choosing the former over the latter doesn’t surprise me at all. At least some of them are now realizing and acknowledging the social costs that policy creates

”This is what happens when we subordinate our moral principles for what we perceive to be business interests,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a board member at Square and Ralph Lauren. “It is ultimately bad for business and bad for society.”

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The President simply cannot accept that he lost the election and continues to inflict damage to our democracy.

Will this never end?

Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas ruled that Republican lawmakers, led by Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, lacked the proper standing to sue Mr. Pence in the matter. The lawsuit challenged the more than century-old law that governs the Electoral College process, in an attempt to expand an otherwise ceremonial role into one with the power to reject electoral votes that were cast for Mr. Biden.

…

The president was unhappy when he learned that the Justice Department was representing Mr. Pence in a suit that his supporters had filed, and he reached out to the vice president on Friday morning to discuss it, three people briefed on the discussion said.

In their conversation, Mr. Trump expressed surprise about the development, even though the Justice Department followed proper procedure because Mr. Pence was being sued in his official capacity, according to one of the people briefed on the discussion. Mr. Trump was more vocal to advisers than to Mr. Pence about his frustrations over the Justice Department’s involvement.

Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress are mounting a doomed, last-minute effort to subvert the results of the election by objecting to the certification of key states’ electoral results when Congress meets to certify them, the final procedural step in affirming Mr. Biden’s victory. Their effort, led by Mr. Gohmert in the House and Josh Hawley of Missouri in the Senate, will force each chamber to debate the objections for up to two hours, followed by a vote on Mr. Biden’s victory.

With a majority of Republicans in the Senate expected to certify the election and with the House controlled by Democrats, the bid is destined to fail. But the process could ultimately put Mr. Pence in the agonizing position of declaring that Mr. Trump has lost the election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/us/politics/mike-pence-louie-gohmert-lawsuit.html

It appears that a significant number of our fellow Americans have gone ‘round the bend.

A spate of surveys shows a significant majority of Americans (maybe 60 percent, a couple of polls report) thinks President-elect Joe Biden won the election. (This is akin to “What color is George Washington’s white horse?”) That means 40 percent or so of Americans are utterly deluded. And with a new appreciation for the inexactitude of polling, it’s possible the portion of Americans who accept Biden’s victory is anywhere from 70 percent to only 50. (Republicans could simply be out to annoy pollsters; on the other hand, pollsters have proved themselves ineffective at sampling enough of the MAGA crowd.)

Regardless, the answer to “How many Americans believe in a baseless conspiracy that the election was stolen?” is “Too many.” In all likelihood, millions upon millions of people believe in something as silly as the idea that UFOs are stored at Area 51. (How far is this from “the DNC server is still in Ukraine”?)

Opinion | Too many Americans believe utter rubbish – The Washington Post

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Thank goodness there are some leaders in the GOP who have the intelligence and guts to do what’s right.

The governor emphasized the importance of facial coverings in preventing the spread of the virus.

“For those who are just out there doing the opposite just to make some ridiculous political point, it is horribly wrong,” Sununu said. “Please use your heads. Don’t act like a bunch of children, frankly.”

GOP Guv. Slams Other Republicans For Refusing To Wear Masks: ‘Don’t Act Like A Bunch Of Children’

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Some good suggestions for the mass media to begin the work to reestablishing a common reality which was so terribly shredded during the last several years are provided by Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post

Allowing a voter to claim that election officials keep “finding” ballots in heavily Democratic areas without extensively debunking the assertion, without devoting even a single sentence refuting that person, is misleading to viewers and undermines truth and the democratic process.

Mainstream media needs to do a much better job denying a platform to irrational voices who operate in a fact-free world. Republicans need to police not only their own fellow Republicans but also the right-wing media that helps to radicalize their base and makes its viewers paranoid, ill-informed and angry. And Fox News needs to decide if it wants to be a news organization with opinion shows or a disinformation machine that tears at the fabric of our democracy.

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Paul Musgrave writing in The Washington Post has identified one of Donald Trump’s favorite tactics.

… the battle over TikTok and WeChat is part of a now-familiar story. The president or his loyalists threaten to upend some policy, institution or norm they know others will fight to defend. Issuing the challenge can be easy: a speech, a leak, a tweet or two, about immigration rules or education regulations or cutting taxes on the rich. In response, Trump’s opponents must invest substantial time, money and effort to resist the proposal — otherwise, Trump wins by default.

Essentially, the administration has weaponized wasting everyone else’s time.

What would happen if the news media and Trump’s opponents just ignored him when he makes these outlandish threats? Maybe being ignored would so disconcert Trump that his head would explode.

Trump has weaponized wasting his opponents’ time — The Washington Post

And a big thank-you to SCOTUS for reminding us (including the President) that no one (including the President) is above the law.

“Supreme Court Rules Trump Cannot Block Release of Financial Records” – The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for prosecutors in New York to see President Trump’s financial records, a stunning defeat for Mr. Trump but a decision that probably means the records will be shielded from public scrutiny under grand jury secrecy rules until after the election, and perhaps indefinitely.

In a separate decision, the court ruled that Congress could not, at least for now, see many of the same records. The vote in both cases was 7 to 2. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote both majority opinions.

In the case concerning the prosecutors’ subpoena, he wrote that “no citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.” He added that Mr. Trump may still raise objections to the scope and relevance of the subpoena.

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