The legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election is among the most divisive issues we face. What is your perspective on the roots, facts, and implications of the division? Taking a page from South Africa, how can we come to a shared understanding of the truth and to reconcile our differences?
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Julie Hirshan Hart
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Does anyone else have any feedback on this thread? I'm not comfortable with a 2person, back and forth that doesn't include additional points of view.
It’s been close to a week and no response to my 3/27 contribution. I’ve reread Eric Herr’s and A Hayward’s contributions. What I’m “hearing” is that those of us that “believe” there is political bias not only in the media but the US judicial system should just shut up and “trust” the system. We should ignore past transgressions and move on.
That is not what this public square is for. The purpose is to listen to the other sides grievances and acknowledge them. Here is a simple response Eric or A Hayward could make. “Yes, I agree that President Trump was wrongly accused by the FBI based upon a false Steel dossier paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. I don’t care if this country is run by liars and cheats so long as they support the programs I support.”
At least it’s honest. The fact that both refuse to discuss the facts (truth) is because if they did, they would be obligated to act upon it. They don’t want to act so they refuse to engage.
I cut out this response from Marilyn Vos Savant when she was asked if there is a word for a person who doesn’t accept facts that challenge his or her beliefs. Her response was: “Yes, and it’s normal. The great majority of people share this trait. Especially: (1) those who were taught the beliefs by parents or teachers; and (2) those who want very much for their belief to be true no matter what. The more these beliefs define your life, the more you will spin everything your way. Prime examples are politicians. Yet, in their defense I feel they don’t realize it. To become a thinker instead of a believer, a fundamental step is to disassociate yourself from any political party.”
74 million Americans believed president Trump deserved another 4 years in the white house. The fact that 95% of the media spun everything he said, did or accomplished in a negative light is an absolute travesty in my opinion. At the same time the same media is spinning all of president Biden’s disastrous executive orders in a positive light. This is a testament to Ms. Vos Savant’s gifted insight into human nature.
Eric’s observations are clear, concise, accurate and incomplete. I also believe Biden won the 2020 election; however, it’s not the “source” of division in this country which is the topic of debate. The source is lack of trust in the media and elected officials. Had the 60 cases been heard and made transparent the issue would be settled by now. Instead, they were dismissed and those that wanted their voices heard on Jan 6th are being rounded up and prosecuted. The “shaman” is in jail awaiting his day in court along with the guy who had his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s “aids” desk. They’re incarcerated until their case comes up in May. Are they that much of a danger to society?
Democrats and the media have portrayed the riot in DC as an insurrection. Really? Who is the leader? Certainly not Donald Trump since he condemned the riot. Washington DC riots: Donald Trump condemns what happened in the Capitol building - CBBC Newsround And yet the Democrats impeached him again for “inciting” an insurrection he condemned. Does anyone see the logic in that? If so, you are probably a democrat.
The division in this country is one of “perception”. We live in with two different realities. Those that listen to the MSM and those that don’t. Truth is the only way to resolve conflict so I applaud Eric’s efforts and pray truth will prevail. It can but only if both sides not only listen but hear what is being said.
I think what I'm hearing is that because many of the court challenges were dismissed, that there was no transparent litigation and judgement of the evidence. Those petitions were publicly filed and rejected with legal justification, that was made public. There was nothing hidden. Legal standing and credible evidence is required to move forward with a case. If the campaign and its supporters can't meet that low bar, the case won't move forward. I struggle to understand why those judicial processes are not transparent.
I don’t understand how dismissing a case is the same as prosecuting it. Case in point! Hillary Clinton’s e-mail investigation was dismissed by James Comey, after she deleted 30,000 subpoenaed e-mails. Does that mean she didn’t obstruct justice? Here is an article by The Hill, Comey: 'Republican Party has to be burned to the ground' | A belief that there isn’t bias in the judicial system is naïve at best. Read the two Horowitz reports and get back to me on how bias doesn’t exist in the FBI and DOJ. Here are the links. https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991 and https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919 You will probably have to do a cut and paste or web search to find these since the public square doesn't handle hyperlinks yet. Good luck!
I'm familiar with the report that analyzed the DoJ's actions during the 2016 campaign. That is a DoJ process and not related to a court proceeding. James Comey is not a judge and the decision not to prosecute was made in consultation with DoJ prosecutors. Let's focus on what I asked in my reply. The charges of election fraud were brought to a court of law and presented to various judges, in multiple districts and states. All but 1 of those cases were dismissed because of a) lack of standing, or b) lack of credible evidence to warrant a legitimate case. Both of those must be satisfied to proceed with legal complaint in a court of law. If no lawyers are able to present to a judge that they a) have standing, and b) have a credible case based on any actual evidence of fraud (hearsay is not admissible), then that case will be dismissed by the presiding judge with a legal justification dismissing the case presented. The complaints were heard in a court of law, with an opportunity to present evidence of fraud in the full view of the public. That's why I struggle to understand why this is a controversy. I normally take my time to see discussions post and people comment. I followed this one because I am truly curious as to where our differences regarding the law, and what happened in those cases specifically, are rooted.
I’ll keep this short since it’s going nowhere. Your tactic of “ignore and redirect” is typical of the left. The division in this country is centered around truth. Hillary Clinton broke the law and was let off. She also paid for the fake Steel dossier the FBI used to investigate the Trump administration and they were caught. Read both Horowitz reports! John Durham was assigned to investigate and prosecute those infractions. We hear crickets. It’s looking like they will all get off. The FBI is now spearheading an investigation into a mostly peaceful protest that turned in a riot. They, along with the left leaning media are gaslighting this as an “insurrection”. The only murder that took place on the capital grounds on 6 Jan was perpetrated by the capital police officer that shot Ashli Babbitt. From evolving releases, it appears the cause of death for capital police officer, Brian Sicknick, who died the following day was a stroke. The lack of truth coming out of the media is disturbing to the 74 million Trump voters and it should disturb the 81 million Biden voters as well.
The real “insurrection” was after the 2016 election. If you want to debate that, I’m game! There are over 1000 pages of facts from the Inspector General reports we can sift through. We can also review the indictments filed by the Mueller team that were all for process crimes (i.e. lying to the FBI) or unrelated charges. Not a single American was ever indicted for actual collusion, whatever that means. The MSM is complicit in this hoax and it needs to be exposed along with the FBI before things get any worse in this country. I look forward to a spirited debate.
In his post of March 20th, Mr. Jenket ascribes the divisions in the public square to a "lack of trust in media and elected officials" and that "We live in two different realities." He goes on to suggest a remedy "had the 60 cases been heard and made transparent the issue would be settled by now".
Bu the Founding Fathers did not assume that the media and elected officials would be unbiased, independent, and act with unblemished objectivity and insight or that we would all be aligned. And neither should we. Rather, via the Constitution, they crafted a government that paired separation of powers and of checks and balances so that, as Madison wrote in Federalist 51 "ambition must be made to counter ambition".
Should we abandon the twin legal hurdles of standing and of credible evidence for trial, allowing Trump's claims of election fraud to proceed to trial without clearing those hurdles? If "yes", is this to be a special privilege for Trump, for all Presidents, for the powerful, or for all of us? Should we choose to lose the protection of privacy and with it of reputation normally afforded in this first state by going to trial even with inadequate, credible evidence?
And what of the "biased" media? Should we look to the government to sort out and expose bias and fake news, starting us down the slippery slope to censorship? Or is media bias a feature of an independent media searching for audience niches?
In the end, does not responsibility for critically consuming information from all sources and for electing officials to serve the common good rest with an informed, engaged citizenry? Yes, we have different perceptions of reality and a variety of interests, objectives, and understandings. But before we craft special privileges for the Chief Executive or trample government separation of powers and checks and balances, we need to work to better understand our difference and search for common ground.
The effects of the post-presidential election division impact the country in countless ways, from questions about the legitimacy of the Biden Presidency to the role and obligations of the media, the proper view of and response to the events of January 6th, what are appropriate constitutional challenges to elections, and voting laws. Each topic is worthy of dialogue. But I think the foundation of any reconciliation must be a better understanding of opposing views on the voting results on November 3rd. To that end, let me share my thinking.
First, another set of data is consistent with a Trump loss. Going back to Truman, incumbents running for reelection with a significant adverse spread in polls on job approval-disapproval rating lost their reelection bids. Across all polls, in early September, Trump's negative spread was 8.8 percentage points. In early October, it was 9.9 percentage points. And on November 1st, it is 8.5 percentage points. Second, down-ballot Republicans tended to do pretty well. House republicans gained significantly. Senate Republicans lost ground, but 2 seats flipped in the Georgia runoff, and 23 Republican seats were up for election vs. only 12 Democratic seats.
Trump's top-line rhetoric on the election results was 1) that he won by a landslide and 2) "tremendous voter fraud and irregularities" cost him the election. Suppose he had won by 7 million votes, not Biden. That's a change in almost 1 in every 20 votes cast. It should be relatively easy to find 1 out of every 20 votes cast to prove fraud or irregularities. Yet the courts found no credible prove presented. The most often cited "proof" by Trump was the effect of "dumping" all those absentee ballots long after polling stations closed...I went to bed and was up by a lot and got up and found I was losing. But absentee voting was more prevalent among Democrats than Republicans. Where absentee ballots were counted early, e.g., Florida, Democrats held an early lead, but then in-person voting swung the results to Trump. In states where absentee ballots were counted late, vote tallies often swung to Biden.
Trump's Attorney General, William Barr, with the role and resources to monitor the election, told the AP that US attorneys and FBI agents had been working to follow up specific complaints and relevant information but that "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."
Still, the Trump campaign and its supporters filed some 5 dozen lawsuits contesting the election results. They prevailed in only 1, reducing the time to cure absentee ballot errors from 9 days to 6 in a PA case. Others were dismissed for procedural bases. And many were dismissed, some by Trump-appointed judges, with opinions expressing a lack of any substantive proof presented despite the campaign offering financial rewards for evidence of fraud and irregularities.
Trump has a history of claiming his election losses are a sham. In 2016, for example, when he ran in Republican primaries, he said of his loss to Ted Cruz, "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa. He stole it."
Trump has long had a tenuous relationship with the truth. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said that it would soon just go away. And before the election, he claimed that the US was at a COVID turning point. He was right, but it wasn't for the better. Trump's rhetoric is always self-serving. Why should his post-election rhetoric be any different.
The US election system has built-in protections to ensure their integrity. Think about the processes in our own elections: supervisors of the check lists confirming voters and observers from both parties. In many states, recounts are automatic if the margin of victory is below defined thresholds. And candidates have the right to petition for recounts.
No doubt that with 155 million votes cast and counted there were errors. But to my mind, there has been no proof statement that those errors and deliberate fraud and irregularities swung the election from Trump to Biden. But I am always open to facts!
Social media and media in general will need to be overhauled too often radical extremist spread their propaganda without being held accountable which leads to more division. I know we have to balance it with freedom of speech. Also we need to hold more community events where people of both sides get together with a common purpose to serve community
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