Felons can’t vote, you can’t carry a box cutter on an airplane, and if you incite civil war the big bad internet video company is gonna hurt your feelings.
We’re not any safer and it doesn’t make sense but I don’t plan on joining your cause first.
No one said it is wrong to question the results of the election, but trying to overturn the election through force is domestic terrorism and only one candidate is guilty of sponsoring that behavior.
I've not seen this discussed so let me ask: how was this supposed to work?
Wikipedia says:
They sought to keep Trump in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the electoral college votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden
For how long? I mean wouldn't this only delay the inevitable? How could it have actually overturned the election?
The results of every election is questionable, and should be proven to not be questionable.
Especially in the US, when it's been shown time and time again that Americans are not to be trusted by the government, via:
* TSA checks,
* clear bags at games,
* weapon bans in government buildings, even when cops carry firearms,
* required tax reporting followed by threats of audits
* police stops for driving no faster than the police
* ID requirements for voting, drinking, etc.
* disclosure of all banking and stock information
Perhaps this is warranted, or some of it is. But the government has also proven itself untrustworthy:
* congress making millions while in office from various deals, donations, and lobbying
* president assuming more authority than constitution permits
* senate not passing a budget for over a decade
* continuing resolutions that bring in tons of special interests to fund the government for a couple of weeks or months
* lack of increased members of the House, causing power concentrating in a handful of Representatives.
* abandoning US military hardware and allies in a foreign country to fend for themselves at the cost of human lives and billions of dollars
* weaponized audits by the IRS and political decisions to investigate by the FBI.
Yeah, the government deserves to be blindly trusted.
> Either it is acceptable to question the results of an election or it is not.
> the [Russian interference in 2016] has been confirmed by multiple investigations, including one by the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee
It's one thing to question the results, that is always OK. It's quite another to outright reject the factual answers that follow, when there is no credible evidence that Trump's 2nd loss of the popular vote was due to voter fraud.
It's important to distinguish claims that Trump's Presidency was "illegitimate" from claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The former is unsubstantiated, while the latter has been confirmed by multiple investigations, including one by the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee (https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea...). This video lumps the two together for sensationalism, erroneously making it seem like everyone was publicly questioning the actual election results, which was not the case. Many people referred to the entire Russian effort to interfere as "Russian hacking," even though attempted access of digital election infrastructure was only part of their activities and there's no evidence actual cyber-attacks changed the outcome.
One of the first clips used in the video includes Clinton herself referencing a "cyber 9-11". This is directly followed by an American talk show host saying "Russia hacked our election". Immediately after this, Jane Psaki, directly says "Russia, you know, of course, hacked our election." How many times do they have to have said it?
I've heard this type of revisionism before, saying that back in 2016 they were actually just talking about Russia _interference_ they used the word "hack" so many times to mean something completely different, but I can't in good faith take it seriously. I'm not an American and never will be, but up in Canada we're forced to follow American elections, and I distinctly remember waking up to be told that Trump had cheated, Russia had hacked, etc etc.
I can't help you, I'm afraid: I can only reiterate that it was common for people to call the Russian activities "hacking" collectively. It's worth noting though that there was some actual hacking, as the Intelligence Committee report I linked above confirms. I lived through the era here in the US, and I rarely heard anyone come right out and say the election was stolen. If you narrow the video down only to unambiguous references to the election being stolen or Trump being illegitimate, you're down to a handful of instances for an election that was referenced thousands of times in the public media.
With regard to Trump cheating, the same Senate report confirmed that Trump's campaign met extensively with Russian intelligence agents. While no evidence has been uncovered yet that the campaign worked with the Russians on any specific illegal act, it's still an extremely unusual situation. Given that the Russians were actively interfering in the election, it's not unreasonable to speculate that there was collusion in some of those many meetings, even if no transcripts exist. Whether any of the Russian activity actually changed the outcome is pure speculation, however.
>If you narrow the video down only to unambiguous references to the election being stolen or Trump being illegitimate, you're down to a handful of instances for an election that was referenced thousands of times in the public media.
Quite the opposite, I don't think the opposing party ever called Trump a legitimate President. You don't have to be a fan of Trump to recognize that either. In fact, much of the media treated him as illegitimate from Day 1 too. I suspect that is what led to his cult-like following.
Trump conceded too, and the video is just demonstrating the hypocrisy of many who bitched and moaned in 2016 or 2020 that the "election was illegitimate" and then demanding the other side recognize it as perfectly legitimate when their guy won.
You could find/replace the words Trump or Clinton in this video and not be able to tell the difference.
No, he didn't. After the January 6th assault on the Capitol (two full months after the election), he finally acknowledged that a new administration would be taking office. He did not concede that he had lost the election. He didn't do that until April of 2022, and even then he insisted that the election he lost was rigged.
For months after the election, both Clinton and Trump spoke publicly and claimed that they were the true winner and that the election had been stolen. Clinton was more pragmatic and reasonable with her claims, despite them still being a lie, but from the perspective of someone who _doesn't vote for either_, they both seemed to be playing the same tune. We're apparently supposed to accept that the Democrats adopted a new meaning of 'hack' immediately after 2016, but given the title of the site we're on now, I'm hoping we can be intellectually honest enough to say that it's a load to pretend that by 'hack' they actually meant 'used our own social media companies to promote the other team.'
Maybe watching MSNBC and reading Politifact is what I needed, but from my POV up in Canada, all I saw were two sore political losers who couldn't accept that they'd lost the vote, and a party who rallied around them to reassure their leader it was the other team (or Russia?) who cheated, and that the fault was anyone but their own. I'm aware there's some nuance to it, but try to really think about the case you're trying to make here, and the very obviously biased position you're making it from. I don't doubt you're a proud card carrying Democrat, and I'm sure on /r/politics most everyone would agree with you, but for the rest of the world who were forced to watch it out in real time, '16/'20 was truly like watching the same poorly-written American movie twice.
It is interesting that you say that the perspective of the 16/20 elections being a retelling of the same story is the case for the rest of the world.
My perspective was that, sure there were complaints from the democrats in 2016, but they mainly fell around “we won the popular vote” and “Russia interfered via targeted propaganda.” Contrast that with the structured attempt by Trump’s team to change results via finding votes, push forward false electors for the electoral college process, vilify elections workers, intimidate congress, etc.
This makes equating the two appear to be at best an incorrect account of the events. To say it was the same would be to equate a sore loser to one who refuses to be a loser.
Two things can draw similarities without being the same thing. If your prior is that we can’t make comparison between two things without them being equal, I’m not sure if that’s something I can help with. Obviously Trump was more outrageous with his claims because he’s an outrageous person, I’m surprised that even needs to be said.
In Canada though, when two people both claim to have won something that they fairly lost, instead blaming the rules, the electorate, or the competition, we just call them both sore losers. I don’t think it’s much more complicated than that.
I’ve noticed when dealing with Americans they have a hard time accepting criticism of their party without first hearing some criticism of the opposing team, so I’d like to make it crystal clear I’m defending Trump or his team here. I’d just like, for once, for the Democrat party to admit some of their hypocrisy.
The 2016 election _wasnt_ hacked, neither was the 2020, and no amount of “well actually they meant something else” will change that.
The FBI, US intelligence agencies, and the United States Senate all beg to differ with your armchair assessment. They all concluded after extensive investigation that the election _was_ hacked. Whether any of the Russian social engineering and hacking had a significant effect is unknown.
If we call any US election which was unsuccessfully interfered with by a foreign country "hacked", I think every election for the foreseeable future will be "hacked", no?
Won't Russia continue "hacking" all of your elections, given it was apparently so effective in 2016? I feel as if I'm taking crazy pills when I deal with American die-hard Democrats and their insistence to change the definition of words to make their party look better. In Canada when we say a system was hacked we mean someone had unauthorized access to it, not that they hired teenagers to make memes.
If this happened at work, your boss asking "Have we been hacked?", would you answer "Yes, it was the equivalent of our 9/11" when what had really happened was
just a lot of social media spam? If that's your definition of "hacking", I'm not going to change your mind, but just know it doesn't really match the rest of the world.
>If we call any US election which was unsuccessfully interfered with by a foreign country "hacked", I think every election for the foreseeable future will be "hacked", no?
No doubt Russia, and probably other nations, will continue to try and interfere in US elections, yes. To use the common term, they will continue to "hack" our elections. And whether they were unsuccessful in 2016 is unknown, it's premature to say they failed.
>In Canada when we say a system was hacked we mean someone had unauthorized access to it, not that they hired teenagers to make memes.
You're confusing a technical industry term with a colloquialism. And I'll bet if you look around, you'll find Canadians who have used the term "hacked" in an imprecise, non-technical way.
>...they hired teenagers to make memes
>...what had really happened was just a lot of social media spam?
This is an extremely naive way to describe a concerted, state-sponsored effort by an adversary to influence an election in its favor. It absolutely was equivalent to 9/11 in the sense that it was an attack with major national security implications that we were unprepared for. I'm not going to change your mind, but know that it doesn't really match the opinion of the US military and intelligence communities, who, as I've noted, beg to differ.
>The 11-count indictment names the Russians defendants, alleging they began cyber-attacks in March 2016 on the email accounts of staff for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Did you even read your article? If you're not going to read the things you link "there is no chance of honest debate".
If your definition of 'hacking an election' means 'unsuccessfully infiltrating the email accounts of a low level staffer' then sure, this election, along with every other one in your country's future, will be 'hacked'. This just isn't a normal or colloquial definition, and feels more like D (sorry about the slur, didn't realize it was so offensive!) goalpost shifting than anything. You see this kind of talk on reddit all the time, i.e. "if you use a definition nobody else does, it's clear that I'm right."
I'm not debating that 12 people were charged with hacking email accounts. You may be unaware, but people are charged with that almost every day. It doesn't mean an election was stolen.
I'm debating, as I have been the whole time, whether Russia hacked and influenced the results of the election itself, aka a "cyber 9-11" as Clinton was so happy to call it many times. If you think it did, let's continue, otherwise, I worry it's getting too sensitive and I'm touching the "Democratic" nerve.
>For months after the election, both Clinton and Trump spoke publicly and claimed that they were the true winner and that the election had been stolen.
This is not true. Hilary Clinton conceded on Election Night, and didn't publicly claim the 2016 election was stolen until the interview in the video, in 2019. Again, I think you're confusing statements about Russian interference (which were substantiated) with claims the election was stolen (which were not). You may also be thinking of references to her winning the popular vote (which was true) rather than winning the election, which in the US can be two different things.
33 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 85.5 ms ] threadEver, on any subject, even just once.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The only standard in existence is the double standard of "whatever I do is good, whatever they do is evil"
We’re not any safer and it doesn’t make sense but I don’t plan on joining your cause first.
FYI: that's only true in a handful of states.
Either it is acceptable to try to alter the outcome (such as through a campaign to suborn electors to cause them to be faithless) or it is not.
"It's only wrong when they do it" is not a legitimate viewpoint, and nobody espousing it is worthy of being heard.
This is actually a lie. Many have claimed this on both sides of the fence.
I've not seen this discussed so let me ask: how was this supposed to work?
Wikipedia says:
They sought to keep Trump in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the electoral college votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden
For how long? I mean wouldn't this only delay the inevitable? How could it have actually overturned the election?
Especially in the US, when it's been shown time and time again that Americans are not to be trusted by the government, via:
* TSA checks, * clear bags at games, * weapon bans in government buildings, even when cops carry firearms, * required tax reporting followed by threats of audits * police stops for driving no faster than the police * ID requirements for voting, drinking, etc. * disclosure of all banking and stock information
Perhaps this is warranted, or some of it is. But the government has also proven itself untrustworthy:
* congress making millions while in office from various deals, donations, and lobbying * president assuming more authority than constitution permits * senate not passing a budget for over a decade * continuing resolutions that bring in tons of special interests to fund the government for a couple of weeks or months * lack of increased members of the House, causing power concentrating in a handful of Representatives. * abandoning US military hardware and allies in a foreign country to fend for themselves at the cost of human lives and billions of dollars * weaponized audits by the IRS and political decisions to investigate by the FBI.
Yeah, the government deserves to be blindly trusted.
> the [Russian interference in 2016] has been confirmed by multiple investigations, including one by the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee
It's one thing to question the results, that is always OK. It's quite another to outright reject the factual answers that follow, when there is no credible evidence that Trump's 2nd loss of the popular vote was due to voter fraud.
I've heard this type of revisionism before, saying that back in 2016 they were actually just talking about Russia _interference_ they used the word "hack" so many times to mean something completely different, but I can't in good faith take it seriously. I'm not an American and never will be, but up in Canada we're forced to follow American elections, and I distinctly remember waking up to be told that Trump had cheated, Russia had hacked, etc etc.
With regard to Trump cheating, the same Senate report confirmed that Trump's campaign met extensively with Russian intelligence agents. While no evidence has been uncovered yet that the campaign worked with the Russians on any specific illegal act, it's still an extremely unusual situation. Given that the Russians were actively interfering in the election, it's not unreasonable to speculate that there was collusion in some of those many meetings, even if no transcripts exist. Whether any of the Russian activity actually changed the outcome is pure speculation, however.
Quite the opposite, I don't think the opposing party ever called Trump a legitimate President. You don't have to be a fan of Trump to recognize that either. In fact, much of the media treated him as illegitimate from Day 1 too. I suspect that is what led to his cult-like following.
Contrast this with Republicans who continue to deny the 2020 election following the lead of the former president.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/24/jody-hice/...
You could find/replace the words Trump or Clinton in this video and not be able to tell the difference.
No, he didn't. After the January 6th assault on the Capitol (two full months after the election), he finally acknowledged that a new administration would be taking office. He did not concede that he had lost the election. He didn't do that until April of 2022, and even then he insisted that the election he lost was rigged.
Maybe watching MSNBC and reading Politifact is what I needed, but from my POV up in Canada, all I saw were two sore political losers who couldn't accept that they'd lost the vote, and a party who rallied around them to reassure their leader it was the other team (or Russia?) who cheated, and that the fault was anyone but their own. I'm aware there's some nuance to it, but try to really think about the case you're trying to make here, and the very obviously biased position you're making it from. I don't doubt you're a proud card carrying Democrat, and I'm sure on /r/politics most everyone would agree with you, but for the rest of the world who were forced to watch it out in real time, '16/'20 was truly like watching the same poorly-written American movie twice.
My perspective was that, sure there were complaints from the democrats in 2016, but they mainly fell around “we won the popular vote” and “Russia interfered via targeted propaganda.” Contrast that with the structured attempt by Trump’s team to change results via finding votes, push forward false electors for the electoral college process, vilify elections workers, intimidate congress, etc.
This makes equating the two appear to be at best an incorrect account of the events. To say it was the same would be to equate a sore loser to one who refuses to be a loser.
In Canada though, when two people both claim to have won something that they fairly lost, instead blaming the rules, the electorate, or the competition, we just call them both sore losers. I don’t think it’s much more complicated than that.
I’ve noticed when dealing with Americans they have a hard time accepting criticism of their party without first hearing some criticism of the opposing team, so I’d like to make it crystal clear I’m defending Trump or his team here. I’d just like, for once, for the Democrat party to admit some of their hypocrisy.
The 2016 election _wasnt_ hacked, neither was the 2020, and no amount of “well actually they meant something else” will change that.
The FBI, US intelligence agencies, and the United States Senate all beg to differ with your armchair assessment. They all concluded after extensive investigation that the election _was_ hacked. Whether any of the Russian social engineering and hacking had a significant effect is unknown.
Won't Russia continue "hacking" all of your elections, given it was apparently so effective in 2016? I feel as if I'm taking crazy pills when I deal with American die-hard Democrats and their insistence to change the definition of words to make their party look better. In Canada when we say a system was hacked we mean someone had unauthorized access to it, not that they hired teenagers to make memes.
If this happened at work, your boss asking "Have we been hacked?", would you answer "Yes, it was the equivalent of our 9/11" when what had really happened was just a lot of social media spam? If that's your definition of "hacking", I'm not going to change your mind, but just know it doesn't really match the rest of the world.
No doubt Russia, and probably other nations, will continue to try and interfere in US elections, yes. To use the common term, they will continue to "hack" our elections. And whether they were unsuccessful in 2016 is unknown, it's premature to say they failed.
>In Canada when we say a system was hacked we mean someone had unauthorized access to it, not that they hired teenagers to make memes.
You're confusing a technical industry term with a colloquialism. And I'll bet if you look around, you'll find Canadians who have used the term "hacked" in an imprecise, non-technical way.
>...they hired teenagers to make memes
>...what had really happened was just a lot of social media spam?
This is an extremely naive way to describe a concerted, state-sponsored effort by an adversary to influence an election in its favor. It absolutely was equivalent to 9/11 in the sense that it was an attack with major national security implications that we were unprepared for. I'm not going to change your mind, but know that it doesn't really match the opinion of the US military and intelligence communities, who, as I've noted, beg to differ.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3165452/hacking-the-2016-e...
Specific examples:
Twelve Russians charged with US 2016 election hack https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44825345
If you are disputing these facts, there is no chance of honest debate.
You should know that the term, “Democrat party” is usually meant as insult and is used by Republicans:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
I’m sure it was just a typo, but you mentioned being from Canada so I wanted to let you know.
Did you even read your article? If you're not going to read the things you link "there is no chance of honest debate".
If your definition of 'hacking an election' means 'unsuccessfully infiltrating the email accounts of a low level staffer' then sure, this election, along with every other one in your country's future, will be 'hacked'. This just isn't a normal or colloquial definition, and feels more like D (sorry about the slur, didn't realize it was so offensive!) goalpost shifting than anything. You see this kind of talk on reddit all the time, i.e. "if you use a definition nobody else does, it's clear that I'm right."
I'm not debating that 12 people were charged with hacking email accounts. You may be unaware, but people are charged with that almost every day. It doesn't mean an election was stolen.
I'm debating, as I have been the whole time, whether Russia hacked and influenced the results of the election itself, aka a "cyber 9-11" as Clinton was so happy to call it many times. If you think it did, let's continue, otherwise, I worry it's getting too sensitive and I'm touching the "Democratic" nerve.
This is not true. Hilary Clinton conceded on Election Night, and didn't publicly claim the 2016 election was stolen until the interview in the video, in 2019. Again, I think you're confusing statements about Russian interference (which were substantiated) with claims the election was stolen (which were not). You may also be thinking of references to her winning the popular vote (which was true) rather than winning the election, which in the US can be two different things.