The General Election

[Red Five]

More government waste

[NM11046]

This sort of half brained, ego driven action is exactly why he's gone bankrupt with multiple businesses multiple times.

[Danny Bateman]

It's almost like he's going to waste millions and millions of dollars and tons of government effort to protect his fragile ego.

 

I'm sure they'll take advantage of whatever they find to tighten up voting rights though - national voter ID law anyone? Sessions is a big fan. Anything under the guise of protecting the law to make it harder for non-R voters to vote.

[BigRedBuster]

Sober minds, like Jake Tapper in that clip I posted above, immediately realized that Trump's claim of massive voter fraud, if true, would be one of the biggest scandals in American election history. It would warrant a massive investigation to uncover the conspiracy of hundreds, if not thousands of election workers across dozens of states it would take to allow such a thing to happen.

 

Trump was more concerned with getting people to believe his lie than thinking about the ramifications of his lie - typical of liars and criminals, which is why law enforcement catches them. This is his problem: His ego trumps reason, and he fires off these tweets without thinking when his ego is damaged.

 

So, let's take a look at the ramifications of this claim. It calls into question the entire election - including his results, which hinge on a few wins in a few swing states. Trump claims there were two or three million illegal votes cast. What if any of those illegal votes were cast in Florida and Pennsylvania?

 

Trump won Florida by 112,911 votes. If the "two or three million" votes he's claiming were cast illegally, only 5% of the total alleged "illegal votes" would have had to be cast in his favor from Florida for him to have won.

Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes. Only 2% of the total alleged "illegal votes" would have had to be cast in his favor from Pennsylvania for him to have won.

 

Seven percent of the total alleged "illegal votes" being overturned are all it would take to delegitimize Trump's win. That's less than one tenth of one percent of ALL votes cast in this election.

 

This really is something Trump needs to let go. He's wrong - there is no voter fraud on a massive scale like this - and if he's somehow magically right, the scales could be tipped in a way that he won't like very, very easily.

Here's the problem we have though.

 

At least as of now, he controls the information that gets released. Heck, if he is going to control what information is released by the USDA from a research farm in Iowa about swine diseases, do you really think he is going to allow information from an investigation he ordered and potentially is going to make him look worse to be released with anything that doesn't back his claims?

[knapplc]

Those departments are going to leak like a sieve, though. He may THINK he can control what comes out of those departments, but that's only during work hours. Case in point:

 

[AR Husker Fan]

It's almost like he's going to waste millions and millions of dollars and tons of government effort to protect his fragile ego.

 

I'm sure they'll take advantage of whatever they find to tighten up voting rights though - national voter ID law anyone? Sessions is a big fan. Anything under the guise of protecting the law to make it harder for non-R voters to vote.

Perhaps. But recall that George W. Bush ordered the Justice Department to do essentially the same thing. The Justice Department found...nothing.

[BigRedBuster]

Here's the thing. I really don't have a big problem with an investigation. Our election process is important enough, that proving it is valid is extremely important.

 

However, it needs to be a completely impartial and independent investigation and all sides need to accept the findings.

 

I doubt very seriously if THAT will ever happen.

[knapplc]

Remember the good old days when Trump's team told us there was no voter fraud?

 

You know - three months ago?

 

[Enhance]

I don't think Trump will let it go regardless of the results. Excuses will be made if the facts don't fit his pre-conceived conclusion or they'll warp the facts to fit his agenda.

 

I also don't think it's much of a leap to believe he'll blame voter fraud if he loses re-election in 2020.

[Danny Bateman]

 

It's almost like he's going to waste millions and millions of dollars and tons of government effort to protect his fragile ego.

 

I'm sure they'll take advantage of whatever they find to tighten up voting rights though - national voter ID law anyone? Sessions is a big fan. Anything under the guise of protecting the law to make it harder for non-R voters to vote.

Perhaps. But recall that George W. Bush ordered the Justice Department to do essentially the same thing. The Justice Department found...nothing.

 

 

One can hope that they find the same thing again. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position where I trust Sessions or Trump to provide fair oversight of this matter.

 

If Comey, the FBI, Congress, and whoever else find the same result, I fear Sessions may pivot. He could easily shift focus from whether this cost Trump an election to the few cases they did find as evidence we need new voter ID laws.

 

Knapp makes a good point though. Hopefully if they co-opt an FBI investigation like that for their own purposes, agencies will begin to leak like a sieve.

[knapplc]

[QMany]

[QMany]

[Whistlebritches]

I like Kander a lot and hope he runs in 2020. He's young and pretty outspoken about a lot of things.

[Bigred_inSD]

 

 

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/824267216216539136

I like Kander a lot and hope he runs in 2020. He's young and pretty outspoken about a lot of things.

I'm a fan of John Hinkenlooper