Undertoad wrote:

You sure? A major American city basically declined to intervene and gave them 6 city blocks to play with until they killed two people within a week.

Who killed the two people, specifically?

And there's this, of course.

https://www.propublica.org/article/for-election-administrators-death-threats-have-become-part-of-the-job

Flint wrote:

They let right-wing extremists occupy a federal facility for over a month, have a bloody shootout with authorities, and they got off with probation.

That's different.  For reasons which concern neither you nor I.

Dude was fired for being too big an asshole for the Houston Police Department. Just how big an asshole would you need to be?

https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5

Q is NOT a whistleblower. Q is a “plot device”. [i]Q is fictional and acts exactly like a fictional character acts. This is because the purpose of Q is not to divulge actual information, but to create fiction.[/i]

It's interesting how the constant attacks on the "lamestream media" nest very nicely with this. Even outsiders who don't go down the rabbit hole support the game by attacking journalism.

From personal experience religious people seem particularly susceptible. There seems to be a lot of seemingly disorganized events and ideas held together only in their heads, but very much labeled good vs evil. It's reaching out into more traditional conservative spaces...

I thought the doubts were about the information people had going into the polls not the outcome.

OK  3 people out of 300 odd million say it was fishy.
The Guardian was whining about exit poles. Yeah, the lottery is crooked because they didn't draw the number my fortune cookie said would win.
Personally I think the Russians and probably others like Israel, China, Nigeria, the people who want to remind you your vehicle extended warranty has expired, tried to influence the outcome, but I doubt they actually managed to tamper with ballots. But what about the 1% and corporations doing the same thing. Is that acceptable, sure it is, it's damn near tradition. That run off senate election in GA,  $800,000,000 spent on just the runoff for two seats. That's obscene, think of all the good that money could do.
The Constitution and the voting system was written by landed(rich) men who wanted to protect their interests from the rabble, and it's still working.

The Constitution and the voting system was written by landed(rich) men who wanted to protect their interests from the rabble, and it's still working.

now, my good friend flint sez the constitution is all about the common good but my good friend bruce sez the constitution is all about protectn' rich men

I'm so confused

help me, obi-wan, er, I mean, tw...you're my good friend...you won't steer me wrong

Hey UT, 

There's a lot of crosstalk here, I find it difficult to follow.  Obviously you and tw are wrasslin over stuff.  But I want to try to clarify some of the you have posted.

It seems like you're trying to compare some reports from the election in 2016 and the election in 2020, specifically around the word "illegitimate".  I read the report at the heart of the link you posted about the majority of young people feeling Trump's election was illegitimate.  The report doesn't have the word illegitimate in it anywhere, that's from the report of the poll, something that first appears in the reporting, at CNBC.    Not really a direct reflection of those polled.  And, they polled 200 people in Chicago, 57% of which said something interpreted by CNBC as "Trump is illegitimate".  That's a bit of a stretch.

And speaking of a stretch. while the election of Trump in 2016 and the election of Biden in 2020 were both legitimate, the responses by those who disbelieve was wildly disproportionate.  People who can't/won't believe the truth is one problem, but when a group of those people, for that reason attack the Capitol, that's apples and atom bombs.  Donald Trump capitalized on their ignorance and stupidity.  His actions were criminal.  Any attempt to equate them is dishonest.

Undertoad wrote:

It IS hard to follow.

This whole thing is a challenge to Griff's assertion that people who attack the media* are partly responsible for people believing in Q.

I am showing that the media* is actually responsible.  My position is that the media* became less trustworthy as a source for explanations of the state of the world, so people turned to themselves, and unofficial sources. My position is also that the status of the election is particularly a problem for the media*, because it spent two years promoting a conspiracy theory involving the legitimacy of the 2016 election. It is not ironic that the 2020 losers would come up with a conspiracy theory of their own. It is natural.

I would like to see the original GenForward report, may you please link it. If CNBC misreported the poll to make it seem like people find the 2016 election to be illegitimate, that might disprove my proof that a great number of people found the 2016 to be illegitimate in 2017. But it might also prove my point that the media* was pressing a narrative to try to de-legitimize the election.

In 2017, did YOU believe the 2016 election was legitimate?





*No, not ALL media, silly

The GenForward report, as requested:
https://genforwardsurvey.com/race-place/

I don't think it disproves your conclusion, I just think it's ... I think it's a bit of an embellishment.  Their survey had 200 participants, all from the Chicago area--hardly a big sample, hardly a widely distributed sample.  and 57% of 200 is 114.  114/200 isn't ...  it's not a landslide.  And, more confounding, I was not able to find the wording of their question, which I consider important.  So I do not challenge your statement or your citation, I just don't think it's very strong.  


I like to hear your thoughts on "the media*".  UT, you are a smart man.  That is objectively true.  You have a good command of the language, you have a well developed sense of normal human decency.  This is where the "but..." comes in.  I'm just writing this in real time.  I don't feel a "but..." coming on.  We do not have the same political worldview.  I think our values overlap a lot.  But (goddamn it) because of that difference I really want to talk with you about .. ok, here's the real "but" wtf is happening "over there" outside my own difficult to perceive and compensate for bubble.  I truly want to know what's going on in the world. I have my senses, true, but they're limited and fallible.  And limited.  I don't live where you live, I don't see what you see, I don't read (all) of what you read.  I trust you, I consider you a valuable source of information about what's happening where you are.  And I kind of like you, despite our differences.  I didn't make up "we can disagree without being disagreeable", but I'd steal it if I could. I believe in that.  I think we disagree on some things.  But I don't wish to be disagreeable.

There are a lot, no, really a LOT of sources out there in "the media*" now and discerning the wheat from the chaff has always been hard, it's harder now.  "the algorithms" I casually referenced in a recent post are a big gear in this machine, this machine that feeds us what we consume (through our "feeds", omg, some data scientist is still having LOLs from that naming convention choice).  I try to vary my diet, but a lot of people don't try super hard and stick to what's sweet and salty and pay a price.  Know what I mean?

So, I don't think that "the media*" is as actively complicit as I think you think they are (which is garbage from the jump, how the fuck do we even measure that???), but I think the pressure to generate revenue is underappreciated by whose who consume and click. ---- giant side note here ----- thank you for never monetizing the posts on the cellar back in the day.  worthy of a whole HoF thread by itself, but should be mentioned here, not overlooked.  We read what we post, not what someone has paid $$$ for my eyeballs.  so, sincerely, thank you Undertoad.


Back to clicks.  I think the pursuit of them contributed disproportionately to the coverage of all things Trump back in the day you're asking about positive and negative. and ir-fucking-relevant. Trump XYz, click.  ABC Trump, click.  you repeat shit long enough, shit becomes real, tangible.  "Many people are saying..."  Click.  I understand the motivation, money, etc. survival, competition, etc.  It doesn't make it really real, just inescapable.

To your question: 

In 2017, did YOU believe the 2016 election was legitimate?
I did think the election was legitimate, but tragically flawed.  We can talk about this if you like.

Man, that's a lot.  I'm gonna submit before I lose the content.






 

Undertoad wrote:

Are ya done? Was that it?

Good.  Post without insulting people and without posting cheapshots.  Now maybe we can have a adult discussion.