No, not voting for Biden and voting for Cornel West is voting for Cornel West, just like not voting for Cornel West is not the equivalent of not voting for Trump — Jack Rogozhin

Do you understand the concept of a someone running as a third party splitting the vote which ends up helping the opposition to win? It's the same concept here. If I voted for Cornel West in the general election, that is a vote that could have helped Biden win against Trump. If it is close, enough votes for Cornel West (or someone else) could result in a Trump victory. That is what I mean.

Biden is a worse authoritarian than Trump.

No, Trump is worse by orders of magnitude. Trump wanted to make millions of votes for Biden not count in the 2020 election. That is Putin-level authoritarianism. What does a vote against Putin do in Russia? I feel bad for Russians. They don't have a legal means of getting Putin out of power. He's a dictator in all but name. The Russians have a veneer of democracy and hold elections, but they are a farce. You can't speak out against Putin, or criticize him. How are you supposed to run against him? Russians get imprisoned or pushed off of high buildings if they are too critical of Putin. I don't want that for the USA.

By all means, investigate the Bidens. If they're guilty of any crimes, let the evidence come out. Unlike many Trump supporters, I'm not going to deny Joe Biden is guilty of any wrongdoing without even looking at the evidence or reading the indictments. But the irony right now is that Republicans seems so concerned about family grift and Hunter allegedly making 5 million without a peep about Jared and Ivanka making 2 billion. Oh, grift and nepotism bothers you? Now, it bothers you a lot, but in 2016-2020 not so much.

I don't disagree with everything you said but come election day I may not have a choice since not voting for Biden will be equivalent to handing the election to Trump which is the worst case scenario... Far, far worse then a second Biden term. Biden isn't authoritarian in the way that Trump and his co-conspirators are, by trying to re-write reality of a loss into a win, and take away your right to have your non-Trump vote be counted. That's authoritarianism of the worst kind: "Let's do away with this pesky democratic process since we know who the best leader is."

Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be a degradation in the quality of younger generations and the politicians they produce. We're stuck with Biden, because what's the alternative? I like Andrew Yang, but I doubt many other Americans would go for him because he might be too ahead of his time and his ideas probably seem too radical to them. RFK Jr. sometimes sounds brilliant and knowledgeable, but then occasionally throws in a crackpot claim to ruin himself. I like Adam Kinzinger, but he isn't running for president. I'd say the best Republican candidate right now is Chris Christie, but he's not young at age 60... Still, compared to Biden and Trump, he's a spring chicken. Sadly, Christie isn't doing well with Republicans in spite of the fact -- or perhaps because of the fact -- that he's willing to go straight at Trump and tell the truth about him. The other Republican candidates all seem afraid to criticize Trump directly. It's a sad state the Republican party has fallen to, with the attention-grabbers and thought leaders being the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan. Ron DeSadness is an unlikeable dud who is all negative. J. D. Vance is highly intelligent, and in my opinion seems to be wearing the MAGA mantle to rise to power. Watch for him to become a future Republican presidential candidate, maybe in 2028 or 2032. As a Democrat, I feel like all Biden has to do is stay healthy and not screw up in the next year and couple months, and he should get re-elected, because Democrats and centrists will feel they don't have any other choice if he's up against Trump again who by then may be running his campaign in an orange jumpsuit in a prison cell ranting about he's going to pardon himself and bring retribution to everyone who wronged him.

The intended victims of Trump's felonies were the American voters. If you voted for Biden, and in particular if you sent a mail-in ballot that wasn't counted by election night, you were one of Trump's intended victims. He wanted to make your vote not count by throwing it out as illegitimate, even if it was. It didn't matter if you were an elderly shut-in, an invalid, if you had Covid or some other illness, or if you were simply exercising your legal right in your state to mail in your vote. Trump conspired to make your vote not count, arguing that you were part of the "steal." Defrauding the American gov't is the same as defrauding the American people. If you are an American who voted for Trump, you may think "So what? He wasn't targeting ME or MY vote!" But I would argue he was also targeting you in the sense that if he had succeeded in getting Biden votes thrown out or discounted, it would have given him a precedent for in the future. So, even if you support Trump NOW, he would be effectively be taking away your power to vote someone else into power in the future. This is why many American conservatives are supporting the installation of an authoritarian regime without even realizing it. By supporting Trump's crimes or denying they are crimes, you help erode law, the democratic process, and the rights of the American voter -- and in the long run that eventually includes you.

I don't think it much matters what Trump believes or believed. It's like when you catch a snake oil salesman selling poison to people and telling them it is medicine. It doesn't really matter if he admits that he knows what he's doing -- what is important is that he is stopped from doing it. He's committing fraud, whether or not he admits it to others or to himself.

You'll be waiting a long, long time if you're waiting for an old fraudster like Trump to confess. You'd have to be an idiot to think he believed the election was stolen. This is a recurring strategy he uses: "If I win I'm great, if I lose it was rigged against me." It's the sore loser strategy and we all remember it from childhood -- but Trump never outgrew it. He was gearing up to use this in case he lost to Hillary in 2016. He used this for the Iowa primary in 2016. He even used this for why he didn't win an Emmy for his TV show "The Apprentice."

I've known chronic liars and the question always comes up from others who know them: "What if they really believe what they're saying?" It's a ridiculous question. They're toxic people and I want nothing to do with them. Yet we elected one to be President in 2016... and what do you know, we're still dealing with the repercussions of that toxic relationship.

Oddly enough, even a confession doesn't establish certainty. People have confessed to crimes they haven't committed.

Predictions are one thing, but conspiracies are another. I'm just wondering how you’ve come to believe that him and Trump and Stone were engaging in a criminal conspiracy. — NOS4A2

It's an inference but not that big of a stretch. It's not like they don't know each other and the best explanation is that Bannon's and Stone's predictions are simply coincidences. Bannon and Stone were both advisors to Trump in the past, they had relationships with him and each other, and they had insight into how Trump thinks. You could argue that alone is explanation enough to why they were able to accurately predict what Trump did, but I would argue that alone is enough to warrant investigating whether they conspired with Trump to come up with this plan of action for 2020 with the goal of staying in power if he lost the election. I think them talking to each other beforehand to brainstorm this course of action is more likely than them each coming up with it independently. After all, Bannon is often credited with being the mastermind behind Trump's 2016 campaign. And Roger Stone cosplays as a Bond villain... I could be wrong and if if this conspiracy isn't be proven to be true, I will admit that.

What we can say for sure is that these people are scum. The idea of declaring victory on election night before all of the votes are counted as a political strategy is corrupt and vile -- and so is anyone who would recommend or admire that.

The mantra from Trump's lawyer and supporters that I keep hearing now is "they're trying to criminalize political speech." But what if some 'political speech' is used to commit crimes? What if you use political speech to incite a riot, threaten and intimidate, try to discount people's votes, or try to defraud and overthrow the government? What is 'political speech' anyway, and how does that differ from normal speech? AFAIK there is no special or protected category of speech defined as political speech. It's just speech. And if it is used to commit a crime, it isn't protected by the First Amendment.

Trump said some things. I want to know what crime he committed, and what evidence there is that he did so corruptly. What act, which thought, and what combination of words was the crime? Who is the victim of said crimes? — NOS4A2

People should read the indictments where the charges are laid out clearly. My questions go in the opposite direction. If you are a Trump supporter, and are outraged by all of the indictments, why is that? Even if you think the motivations for going after him are "all political" how do you know he's innocent? I've never seen so many people insist that a man deserves to be pardoned if convicted of felonies. The trials haven't even happened yet. Why not let the judicial process play out, and then reach your conclusions?

Yes, Roger Stone did as well.

https://sports.yahoo.com/video-shows-roger-stone-telling-065216462.html

They continued to count votes after election day, on days when there is no election, after the election was over, and magically Biden pulled ahead. — NOS4A2

We knew prior to the election that Trump was planning to declare victory prematurely if it looked like he was ahead, and claim any subsequent votes that put Biden ahead were fraudulent. It was a plan.

https://www.axios.com/2020/11/01/trump-claim-election-victory-ballots

He said he would not concede and would contest the results if the election wasn't free or fair. — NOS4A2

That's a lot different from declaring victory on election night when he was behind and all the votes hadn't been counted yet.

I’m sure you could find it if pressed. But comments from Stone and Bannon don’t mean much, I’m afraid. — NOS4A2

They are evidence that there was a plan to overturn the election results if Trump was losing or lost. Stone and Bannon were both confidants and advisors of Trump, and what they said in advance was exactly what Trump did on election night. This is in addition to Trump's own words leading up to the election. No one is saying Trump didn't have the right to doubt the election results or the fairness of the process, but he clearly had a plan ahead of time to declare victory regardless of the election results.

The claims that he did so knowingly and fraudulently are without evidence and therefor bullshit. Maybe some evidence will drop in the future but here is nothing. — NOS4A2

I remember hearing audio clips from Steve Bannon and Roger Stone prior to the election that the plan was for Trump to claim the election was rigged and declare victory on election night if he was behind.

The way you frame it sounds criminal, but the alternate electors scheme has precedent in the JFK/Nixon election of 1960. The judge there seemed to think them legitimate. Would you call that scheme criminal? An effort to overthrow/subvert an election? — NOS4A2

In the 1960 election JFK got 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. Hawaii at that time was worth 3 electoral votes. In the initial count of the popular votes in Hawaii Nixon was apparently the winner, but it was by a very slim margin and so there was a recount which revealed JFK barely won Hawaii. The entire Presidential election didn't hinge on the outcome of this recount. The alternate electoral votes in that context made sense, one could argue, for the sake of efficiency to have them prepared depending on how the recount went because it was so close. Personally, I would rather that it would be illegal for alternate electoral votes to be prepared on the basis of mere speculation, but apparently it isn't. I think the standard should be to not be able to prepare the certificates until one has the popular election results in support of them... but I digress. In any case the 1960 situation is disanalogous because it couldn't have affected the overall presidential election. In the 2020 election there were enough alternate electors -- 84 -- from enough swing states to potentially do that. Also, you have to look at it in the context of the overall scheming that was going on, such as Trump pressuring the DoJ to "just say the election was corrupt" and pressuring states to "find me more votes" and in particular the pressure on Pence to not certify the election results and return the legitimate electors to the state legislatures. I would say the exception to this would be the alternate electors from Pennsylvania and New Mexico who included the caveat that their votes would only be counted if ongoing court battles went in favor of Trump.

The best analogy I've heard so far is that these attempts to hide behind the 1st amendment are equivalent to a bank robber claiming that his instructions to have the teller hand over money are covered under the 1st amendment. — EricH

I can imagine a better analogy with a relationship to the perpetrator's belief, not merely what he said in an operational sense. Consider someone who sells a medicine that is actually is a chemical that makes people sick. He is accused of fraud and tried in court. Evidence is presented that he was given data, repeatedly, demonstrating that the medicine didn't make people better but made them sick. Yet he kept selling it and advertising it as a medicinal cure. Those who worked for him and demonstrated this were fired or resigned. He sought out people to work for him who would tell him what he wanted to hear about how the medicine worked. Meanwhile, more and more people got sick from his medicine as he got wealthy from selling it. His defense in court is that he "really believed" it was medicine, and so he wasn't lying he was simply exercising his free speech by advertising what he believed was true.

Now we’re on the road to criminalizing political speech because a man dared to doubt the results of an election. — NOS4A2

This is mostly what the defense will amount to, but it won't hold up because the charges aren't about Trump doubting the election results or investigating the election or even challenging it in court. All of those things are fair game. But it is what he did subsequently to the results of the investigations and the court challenges that is relevant to this case. Trump refused to accept any evidence or conclusions that there was no widespread election fraud, and pushed forward to develop schemes to stay in power. If you were a reasonable conservative, a reasonable Republican, just a reasonable, thinking person, this is where you would finally have to break with Trump, no matter how much you liked his policies and achievements. This crosses the line from just having doubts or concerns to interfering with the peaceful transfer of power and damaging our democratic institutions, perhaps permanently. Lucky for us, it was mostly conservatives and Republicans who stood up to him and wouldn't go along with his schemes when he crossed this line. Otherwise, we'd be living in an authoritarian country with a president who remained in power by overturning the election results in his favor. Would you really want to live in that country?

Right - now I see your reasoning. I guess my analysis would be that the ‘divine hiddenness’ and the denial of the reality of Satan would arise from different sources. The decline of belief in Satan maps against the overall decline of religion in secular culture. Likewise for the belief in sin (which I think is the most politically-incorrect term in the English language, isn’t it?) Whereas the divine hiddenness of God is due to God being altogether transcendent. — Quixodian

I would say the decline in belief in sin directly correlates to the decline of belief in God, since sin is by definition transgression of God's law. With no God, there is no sin. Sin is a religiously loaded word that goes beyond merely meaning immoral or unethical in a secular sense.

Theists may have different explanations for the hiddenness of God and the Devil, but my point is that it seems inconsistent for both God and the Devil to want their existence to be not be believed in, since it doesn't seem possible that this would favor them both. If the Devil was able to convince humanity he -- and by extension the supernatural realm -- doesn't exist by making us believe in evolution and naturalism, then that wouldn't favor God if God's intention for as many people as possible have access to salvation. Of course, this is predicated upon believing in Jesus as the only path to salvation, and that God wants as many people as possible to have access to salvation.

Terrible responses and inadequate reasoning are often part of the fundamentalist worldview, so I don't think you're going to get far with this kind of argument. The other response is likely to be - 'God has his reasons, which as mere humans we can't possibly understand. I have faith God has a plan.' This is the argument I have usually encountered when the faithful are faced with challenges.

What do they say? You can't reason a person out of ideas that weren't arrived at by reason. — Tom Storm

I understand what you are saying, but what other option is there? Using logic and reason won't work on everyone all of the time, but it must work on some people at least part of the time. Otherwise, no one would ever change their minds. One of the most useful things, in my experience, is to point out a contradiction or inconsistency in how people think. Even if they don't admit it at the time, that will get most people to reflect upon their beliefs and where their reasoning may have gone wrong.

Do you mean, it is used to dissuade them from believing in God? Do you think that such a shallow --as I have expalined-- construct would succeed in that? I believe that it would succeed in the opposite: it would rather strengthen their belief in God! — Alkis Piskas

I don't want to get bogged down defending Drange's argument since I was only presenting it for the purposes of illustration. I was more focused on a response commonly given to it and other "Divine Hiddenness" arguments -- namely the Free Will Defense: "God doesn't force us to believe He exists because He doesn't want to take away our free will," or something like that. It's a terrible response because it should be obvious that one can believe that God exists, yet still have the free will to not follow, worship, obey, or trust God (e. g. Satan, Adam & Eve, Jonah, etc.).

So, I'm interested in why you would start a thread on this topic. Is it to polish your polemical skills against Christian opponents? — Quixodian

Recently, I saw a Christian use "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled..." quote and it got me to thinking about how such a Christian will argue that both the Devil and God want to stay hidden to explain the lack of overt evidence for them. But it is odd that they would argue that both the Devil and God want the same thing since you would think hiddenness would benefit one but not both. If the point is that people not believing in the Devil or anything supernatural and becoming naturalists works in the Devil's favor then it wouldn't work in God's favor. Why would God allow the Devil to convince people that he -- the Devil -- doesn't exist and also that nothing at all supernatural -- including God -- exists? Especially if God's goal is to make salvation available to as many people as possible.

The whole construct is built on thin ice and falls easily apart ...
1) the statement "[God] wants all humans to believe God exists before they die" is totally arbitrary. I have never even heard about that.
2) ... other similar assumptions ... I skip them and come to the most important part ...
3) (2) is unfounded. It is based on the assumption that all people should believe what God wants.
4) The conclusion (4) cannot be drawn from (3). That some people do not believe that God exists doesn't not mean that he doesn't.

To summarize, the whole construct is based on the assumption that if God exists whatever he wishes should be necessarily affect all people. — Alkis Piskas

Keep in mind that argument is targeted to people with very specific beliefs about God. If you don't have those beliefs, it doesn't apply to you. For example, let's say you have a Deist conception of God where you believe God created everything but doesn't have any personal interest in human beings. This argument wouldn't be effective in disproving such a God. But if you have beliefs that are represented by the premises, the conclusion follows because this is a valid, deductive argument in the form of Modus Tollens.

You presume if there’s a deity, that this deity A) has a sense of morality like humans B) that he abides by a morality that is recognizable to humans. — schopenhauer1

That's correct. I am going with the traditional interpretation of classical theism with God defined with the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipresence, eternality, aseity, etc. That's generally part of the belief system of the person who claims "the greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." To be clear, I'm not arguing that this God exists, I'm only responding to what I perceive as the popular, traditional concepts of God and the Devil in mainstream Christianity. I'm not interested in defending their God from the Euthyphro Dilemma.

For A, is there really evidence if this? Look at the world. There is immense negatives of suffering, fighting, displeasure. IF that was part of his plan, how is this justified as moral to create? You can only appeal to the idea of a higher kind of morality that suffering is necessary but then is that moral itself? It seems like gods morality resembles nothing like our our own god is an immensely cruel “dungeon master” creating a suffering stage so he could watch the action unfold like watching a tragic comedy in real time. Either way is problematic for the theist.

Agreed. I'm an atheist, myself, and I've made use of the Problem of Evil argument in debates with theists in the past.

What can you say here about Satan and what God wants from us, based on actual Biblical scholarship?

A lot of what you are referring to might well come from popular culture and certain narrow fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity. — Tom Storm

That's true, and that's why I said "most forms of Christianity." I am going by popular interpretations and doctrines. In classical theism, God is traditionally understood as having a set of attributes based on passages in the Bible such as omnibenevolence, and we can extrapolate on what his intentions are. From Psalm 100:5: “For the LORD is good; His loving kindness is everlasting And His faithfulness to all generations.”

The same applies to the Devil:

"Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8 ESV

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Matthew 16:23

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

People infer what God and Satan want based on these and other passages from the Bible. I agree with what Chomsky says about the God of the Old Testament, but that's the thing about the Bible: people tend to cherry pick the passages they like best, or favor the interpretation they believe.

In regards to Universalism, most Christians don't believe it and I am not responding to that particular belief. I don't think it will ever be the predominant form of Christianity because it undercuts the main 'selling point' which is to accept Jesus and become a Christian in order to be saved. If everyone is saved, there is no motivation to join the faith.

No, it's not that they 'don't believe in god'. How could they not, they've seen him in action? Satan has a role as a tempter and adversary. Some others ignore god's commands. Judas makes it possible for Jesus to fulfil his sacrifice so there are traditions (Gnostics) that consider him special.

If we have freewill in this space then the only way this can really work, as far as I can tell, is to know god exists and choose not to follow him anyway. If we don't believe he exists, or we have never heard of him, then we are not making a free choice not to follow him. We are unable to follow him because we think he is fictional. What you beleive in is not generally a matter of choice - you either believe in something or you do not.

Actually, I think we are in agreement here and perhaps I didn't word my thoughts as clearly as I should have. I agree that one needs to believe 'that' God exists as a prerequisite to believe 'in' God meaning to obey, follow, worship, trust, etc.

We know that Trump did try to exert influence over his own DoJ on particular issues. For example, he pressured them to “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen.”

https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-elections-donald-trump-campaigns-presidential-4e7e68e2ff57aadd96d09c873a43a317

In my opinion, the gov't branch that appoints the Attorney General shouldn't have the power to fire him. So, if the Executive branch has the power to appoint the AG, it should either be the Legislative or Judicial branch that has the power to remove the AG. That would help the AG and DoJ to act more independently.

I thought it was pretty telling that "Trump's AG" Bill Barr said there wasn't any evidence of widespread election fraud. Very shortly after that, he resigned.

I'm suspicious that the only reason Trump is running for president again is to try to avoid all of these legal challenges. I think it's why he announced his candidacy so early, as well. If Trump were not a candidate for 2024, no one would be able to make the argument that Biden's DoJ is trying to ruin his political opponent. Simply by running he effectively throws up a smoke screen of "the charges are all political" no matter what they are or who they come from or what their merits are. I'm also suspicious that Trump intends to pardon himself if he gets re-elected after being convicted of any crimes. We knows he's discussed the possibility of pardoning himself before.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pardons-idUSKBN29C2Y6

I can't think of a bigger red flag that a president or presidential candidate is corrupt than for him to entertain the possibility of pardoning himself. No one should have this power.

Whataboutism is not a legal defense. Both things could be true: Trump could be guilty of crimes and Hunter Biden could be guilty of crimes. Both may also be getting special treatment: Hunter may be getting a slap on the wrist, and Trump had 18 months to turn over classified documents after being repeatedly and patiently asked nicely. Honestly, the Hunter Biden discussion is a completely separate topic. It's like bringing up Jared Kushner getting paid $2 billion by the Saudis. There is probably grift and shady stuff on both sides. We can say "what about this, what about that" all day and go on these tangents... But conservatives bringing up Hunter Biden or Hilary Clinton and any alleged wrongdoing they were involved in doesn't exonerate Trump from anything he was indicted for. I don't hear a lot of conservatives arguing that Trump is innocent. The reasoning seems to be rather that Trump may be guilty but should be allowed to get away with it since Democrats (allegedly) have committed similar crimes, and/or because he's a political opponent of Joe Biden. I don't see any reason why Trump should be regarded as having some sort of invisible, legal force field around him simply because he's an ex-President and Presidential candidate for 2024.

I didn't think it was conceivable that Trump would win in 2016. He was a non-serious candidate, a reality TV star with no political experience, a real estate flim flam man with rambling speeches that were obviously never fact checked or pre-written. He seemed like the opposite of presidential. At the time, I was pretty sure he was only running to raise his brand and get attention. Yet, he won. There are enough Americans out there who make things unpredictable and you should never rule anyone or anything out, no matter how inconceivable it is at the time.

Also, never underestimate a Democrat's ability to fumble the ball right before crossing the finish line.

Meanwhile, Biden is trying to jail his political opponents.

What evidence is there to support this claim?

Biden appointed Garland, and later on Garland appointed Jack Smith, but that doesn't equate with "Biden is trying to jail his political opponents." The way it is supposed to work is that the President appoints the Attorney General who is then allowed to act independently. You can be skeptical of that... Sure. But unless you have evidence that Biden directed Garland to go after Trump or anyone else specifically for political reasons, I don't see how you can support your claim that "Biden is trying to jail his political opponents."

To me it looks like Biden has remained independent and aloof and has stayed appropriately quiet about the whole process. No one is above the law, and Trump brought all of these legal troubles on himself through his own arrogance and ignorance. The idea that Trump should be given endless free passes simply because he once was the President seems wrongheaded and unjustifiable... Unless you want to create a caste system where justice works differently for those at a certain level.

I think there is plenty of evidence that Trump has been given preferential treatment by not being in jail already. If it was anybody else handling the classified documents the way he did and refusing to give them back and obstructing that investigation, they would be in prison.

The possibility of Trump winning the election in 2024 and making all of his legal troubles go away as if by waving a magic wand is absurd.

I don't think the presidential pardon power should extend to oneself. For a president to even ask if he theoretically has this power is, in my opinion, unethical. It implies that as president one could intentionally and knowingly commit crimes and then afterward pardon himself allowing a never-ending cycle of illegal activity that can never be prosecuted. It would be legal invulnerability by taking advantage of a loophole. Constitutional scholars, the courts and Congress should close this loophole. It shouldn't be possible for a president, governor or any elected or appointed official in the USA to pardon themselves.

I can't believe we are at a point in America's history when we are even talking about this.

Contested the election on what grounds? It still goes back to needing to back up claims with arguments and evidence.

By rigging elections legally I am guessing you are not talking about gerrymandering. We know that happens.

One big tip off that claiming "the election was stolen" was a strategy and not an actual belief is how Trump declared victory on election night when we all knew all the votes couldn't possibly have been counted yet. Also, he foreshadowed doing this for months ahead of time. You can't know election results are illegitimate before the election has occurred. Yet Trump claimed that the only way he could lose was if the election was stolen. How could he possibly know that? He couldn't. It wasn't a belief, it was a strategy.

Well, the way how to handle that is with the lawsuits. Prove the election was stolen in a court of law, back up the claims with argument and evidence. I have no problem with the lawsuits as that is the proper way to challenge what one sees as an injustice. But after the lawsuits were thrown out, it was time to move on and concede for the good of the country.

There was a moral panic when Trump showed up on the scene. He was the next big dictator, compared to everyone from Mussolini, to Mugabe, to Mao. He was the harbinger of a new fascism. He was a Manchurian candidate. He was going to start world war 3 and throw us into nuclear holocaust.

None of this would turn out to be true <snip> — NOS4A2

I think it did come true in the sense of Trump trying to stay in power illegitimately. That is what would-be dictators do and it is very scary. It was disturbing when even before the election Trump was undermining the validity of mail in voting -- even though he himself had used mail in voting. It was disturbing how even before the election he claimed the only way he could lose if it was rigged. And then, on election night, surprise, surprise, he claimed he did win even though we all knew all the votes hadn't been counted yet. And then after that, he tried a multi-pronged attempt to retain power. He filed lawsuits. He pressured the DoJ to say the election was corrupt. He conspired with Republican members of Congress and others in the "Green Bay Sweep" plan involving fake electors and returning real electors to Republican-controlled state legislatures. He pressured local election officials in swing states like Georgia to "find more votes." He pressured Mike Pence to not certify the election results. And on January 6th, he unleased a mob onto the Capitol in an attempt to intimidate Mike Pence and Congress on the day they were supposed to be certifying a new president.

But it is a fact that Russia did interfere with the 2016 election. The Mueller Report did not exonerate Trump.

I suppose in science there is also a psychological angle but science is different in that it has some built-in self-correcting mechanisms (peer review, the concept that theories are falsifiable but not verifiable, focus on observation and testing, experiments that are repeatable by anyone, etc.). Some things in science do seem crazy but often may be place-holders until better explanations come along, as you said. And they are hypotheses. I wouldn't equate those things with conspiracy theories... To me, the better analogy there would be pseudoscience such as homeopathy.

Another example of what I'm talking about is how Mike Pence has to tell people over and over again that he didn't have the power to overturn the election. But Trump said he did, so people believe it. They believe it even though it has been explained over and over again that the VP doesn't have the power to do this.

Lately, I've been thinking about what I call the "reality warping" effect of Trump -- and not just Trump personally, but any charismatic demagogue that people become loyal to in a political sense. Of course, I'm not suggesting he actually warps reality in a physical way like a black hole. What I mean is that people who support Trump tend to try living in their own version of reality, with their own facts, like a sort of bubble that insulates itself from facts that are inconvenient. What is going on here, philosophically? For example, if you are a Trump supporter, can you simply say Trump lost the 2020 election and state that is a fact? Or, do you have to dance around that when in the presence of Trump himself or his other supporters? Is it a kind of loyalty test one fails if one doesn't adhere to the alt-facts that are accepted in the Trump reality bubble? Is this similar to religion in the sense that you have a list of things you accept as true, and if you diverge from any of them you are considered a heretic and cast out (called a RINO, etc.)? An example of a specific situation would be that if you are Trump supporter and you are in Trump's presence, would you tell him something you believe is a fact if you knew he disagrees and would be infuriated by you contradicting him?

I like Joe Biden and I think he's done a good job, but I really wish he would acknowledge his age and that the most prudent thing to do is to announce he won't be running for another term and allow other Democratic candidates time to campaign for 2024. We need to separate the concept of arbitrary age discrimination from the physical reality of getting older and how that can affect one's ability to perform what may be the hardest and most stressful job in the world.

It is interesting to me to see how the various Republican candidates are challenging Trump. The strategy of DeSantis seems to be to court the conservative base by portraying himself as even more conservative than Trump... But that isn't appealing in a general election. I think Pence would like to portray himself as a traditional conservative and return to normalcy. Based on the interviews I've heard, I could live with a Pence presidency as I think he'd be boring and after Trump craziness that would be great, actually. The ones who aren't directly insulting Trump -- such as Kari Lake -- may be wanting to position themselves as possible VP candidates. Chris Christie's entire platform thus far as been a non-stop attack on Trump, to attack his record, to attack his character. Can Christie win on that? Probably not, but he probably has the best chance of getting through to Republican voters on the things Trump fails at or is weak on... They aren't going to listen to criticisms from liberals, but may from a Republican. So, Christie may have the most effect on this race, even if he doesn't win. It amazes me that anyone who seems normal and level headed in the Republican party doesn't even seem to have a chance in hell of winning the nomination. It's s testament to how crazy things are now that I would be thrilled to have Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger or even Liz Cheney be the next president!

As a Democrat, what I'm hoping for from the Republican candidate is (1) who will do the least harm and (2) who will respect the Constitution the most.