Nightwingdragon

I'm not trying to gaslight a thing.

Try telling people "Our elections are secure" while also telling them "Trump supporters changed ballot counts in voting systems across multiple states without detection."

Pick one. The two cannot exist simultaneously. If you pick the former, your investigation is irrelevant. If you pick the latter, nobody will ever believe our elections are secure again. If you try to pick both, you're the one gaslighting.

Ok, but ask yourself.....even under a best case scenario, what do you expect to realistically accomplish? Trump won, but by slightly less?

Because if you prove anything, that also comes with the side effect of proving that our elections are not secure. You just proved that __________ successfully hacked voting machines across multiple counties in several swing states without being detected. It doesn't matter who you put in that blank. Trump's cronies. Russian hackers. North Korean hackers. Chinese hackers. Killer clowns from outer space. All of the above. Doesn't matter. You've just told the entire population of the United States that their vote really doesn't matter because the election is going to be decided by whatever hacker group is most successful. Good luck trying to get any voter to believe our elections are secure ever again. No matter what happens, the losing side will always just blame "the hackers". Those lawsuits against Dominion and the other voting machine manufacturers? Yeah, they're going to be giving that money back, because you just proved that any old hacker group actually could get into them at will and change the outcome of the election. Fox News will gladly take back their 800 million. Good luck getting anyone to believe that either the 2020 or 2024 election was legitimate. Or any other election ever again, for that matter.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, then. I think we're both on the same side and ultimately want the same things. And I'm not saying your points are invalid. But at the same time, I don't see any real evidence to support it, I have absolutely no reason to believe that Trump's team of all people would have the brain capacity necessary to pull it off, and I think chasing down conspiracy theories with little tangible evidence is going to do far more harm than good.

Again, the best that we would be able to hope for is to say "Our elections are so insecure that Trump and his band of human crayon eaters was able to hack into systems nationwide without a god damned person noticing. Oh, and Kamala Harris actually won the election. Believe us!" Because you will not get any further than that with your average American voter.

The undeniable facts are this: Kamala Harris got 10+ million less voters than Joe Biden. Which means that 10+ million Biden voters stayed home. The GOP had absolutely nothing to do with that. If those 10 million democrats came out to vote, we'd have won the election in a landslide even if Trump was able to pull off that little stunt.

We lost because 10 million Democrats stayed home. What the GOP did or did not do has absolutely no impact on that fact. No investigation will change that fact.

If all she saw was them two going into a bedroom, she would not have been able to testify that she saw them have sex. They could have stepped into the bedroom for any number of reasons. Yes, we can infer what happened in that bedroom, but that inference carries no legal weight without other evidence to support it. If she saw a sexual act take place before they went into the bedroom, then she still saw a 35 year old man sexually assault a minor.

She was 17, not 7, if you were in that situation would you call, especially that you don’t know the age?

If I had reason to believe she was 18 and of sound mind, I'd have forgotten that I saw them walk into the bedroom together by the time I was done with my next drink.

Even if she found out the girl was 17 later, she still didn't call the police and say "Hey, I saw a member of the United States House of Representatives sexually assault a 17 year old!". At some point, she knew who Gaetz was, knew the girl was 17 at the time, knew what happened and did nothing.

I'm not going to go into the age of consent issue, or the "Hey she's 17, she knew what she was doing" argument, or the fact that she got into porn afterwards. A Representative in Congress trafficked a girl under the age of 18 across state lines for the purposes of sexual activity. If that were you or me, we'd be in jail right now with our names permanently etched into the sex offender registry. If a jury of his peers wants to look at the whole picture and say "meh", then so be it. But he needed to be put in front of that jury.

Would it be criminally negligent not to investigate this after Republicans told us they were going to do this and put people in place to do this.

It is not criminally negligent to ignore claims that have no basis in reality. In fact, it would be more criminally negligent to waste taxpayer money to give credibility to these claims by investigating.

Only one of these two sentences can hold true

1. Our elections are safe and secure, with multiple fali-safes in play to ensure said integrity.

2. Our elections are so insecure that people can simply drop off thousands or even millions of fake ballots across the country, mix them in with the real ones, and absolutely nobody notices. In multiple states.

Again. Think of what it would take to be able to cram tens of thousands of ballots into the ballot box without a trace in multiple states across the country. Thousands of people would be needed to print, fill out, drop off, mix in, and count these ballots. And not one person has said something? Not one person let the cat out of the bag? Not one county ended up with an anomoly where there were more votes than voters? And it still doesn't explain the 10 million or so Biden voters who just stayed home.

We lost, and these theories have no basis in reality. If they did, we'd know it by now.

Muslims: We voted for Trump because Harris supports Israel! He's not hurting the right people!!!

Trump: Oh, yes. Yes we are. Now get on the fucking plane. The in-flight meal is pork chops.

AZ - 123K+ 7.2%+ of Trump’s total vote.  Enough to reverse the outcome.

As odd as it is, you are not cramming 123,000 ballots in there without anybody noticing. It's just not going to happen. Even spread out, that's still thousands if not tens of thousands of ballots per district. Somebody would have noticed. Somebody would have said something. Some counties would have vote counts higher than the number of registered voters. There would be a giveaway. You don't cram 7.2% of Trump's total vote in a state as big as Arizona and leave no trace. That's just impossible.

EDIT: People are saying these were digital counts that were manipulated. The argument still stands, though. For that argument to be valid, that would mean that our elections are so insecure that Trump and the brainworm crew were able to hack into voting systems nationwide, en masse, and without anybody noticing. Thousands of people would still have to be involved. There would be a digital trace showing something happened, even if we couldn't figure out exactly what or by whom. Someone would have made a human error that would stick out like a sore thumb. Digitally or physically, you are not pulling that kind of stunt at that level without anybody noticing, particularly not those lead paint eaters.

Here's the problem:

• After spending 4 years saying that our elections are secure, how do you start a serious investigation into this without sounding like whining hypocrites at best?
• Even if you prove to be 100% in the right, do you honestly think that you're going to get people to believe it?
• Even if you prove to be 100% in the right, doesn't that also just prove that our elections really aren't secure and can be manipulated pathetically easily?
• The number of people needed to pull a stunt like this off would be in the thousands. Yet, not a single person has come forward and talked? Not a single election worker saying "Hey, I opened up a box of ballots to count, and all of them were just votes for Trump and nobody else." Not a single worker tasked with tracking the shipment of these ballots reporting any anomalies? Remember. Every state went redder. You don't think that in blue states like California or even purple states like Wisconsin, that if there were any anomalies they wouldn't be screaming about it on social media before they were done unpacking the damn box?
• Wouldn't this have just lead to several anomalies in the voting count in at least some cities? Bulk cramming votes by the tens or even hundreds of thousands would surely lead to the number of votes cast in some states or counties being higher than the number of registered voters.
• How do you prove that it wasn't just a bunch of low-information Trump voters showing up just to support him, not caring about the other downballot races?

Personally, I'd rather stick with the narrative that our elections are safe and secure, and the US voters simply voted against their own interests. The best we could hope for beyond that is the GOP saying that the election was stolen in 2020, the Democrats saying it was stolen in 2024, and nobody believing our elections are secure at all heading into 2026 and 2028.

And even if you want to put all of that aside. A stunt like this would make Mission Impossible seem like Sesame Street by comparison. Think of the work it would take on a national level to pull this off with absolutely nobody talking and without a trace. Now look at the people Trump has leading the charge. What in the name of Jesus's favorite camel makes you think that any of those fuckwits have the mental capacity to pull that off?

These claims have little to no basis in reality and should be immediately disregarded just like Trump's claims of 2020. The fact of the matter is that we lost.

EDIT: People are saying these were digital counts that were manipulated. The argument still stands, though. For that argument to be valid, that would mean that our elections are so insecure that Trump and the brainworm crew were able to hack into voting systems nationwide, en masse, and without anybody noticing. Thousands of people would still have to be involved. There would be a digital trace showing something happened, even if we couldn’t figure out exactly what or by whom. Someone would have made a human error that would stick out like a sore thumb. Digitally or physically, you are not pulling that kind of stunt at that level without anybody noticing, particularly not those lead paint eaters.

Right. 65% of voters. With a turnout far higher than the national average.

And they basically voted 2:1 in favor of Trump.

"Woman told House Ethics Committee she saw Gaetz have sex with minor, her lawyer says"

First, watched? I have several dozen questions....

Second.....you didn't immediately call the police to report a child was being raped?

Given that over 60% of voters in the county voted for Trump, they can't be all that concerned.

And if you voted for Trump and are suddenly concerned, you did this to yourself.

You don’t need to concede to their belief and subsequent policies if they aren’t grounded in reality, like on immigration. You provide a counter narrative grounded in reality that actually address their needs and concerns, real or perceived.

The Republican narrative on immigration is that immigrants are criminals, bringing crime and drugs into our country to kill our citizens, steal jobs, and exploit welfare, so we need mass deportations. None of that is based on reality.

Here's where your argument begins to fall apart. The above statement is true. However, to those who feel this way, the only acceptable solution is "Get rid of them all".

US citizens are responsible for smuggling in drugs. Immigrants are responsible for less crime per capita than US citizens, use much less welfare than citizens, and contribute far more than they use. The underlying fear is cost of living and safety.

Just sayin'......trying to tell US citizens that they're the real bad guys is probably not going to go the way you think it does.

So a counter narrative that both points out the realities of mass deportation, aka concentration camps, and provides real solutions to the problems, would absolutely capture those voters and fracture the Republican base.

Harris tried countering bullshit with reality. Voters voted for the bullshit.

Those real solutions would include legalization of illegal immigrants

This will never, ever, ever, ever happen. If you believe that any candidate could ever win an election campaigning for full legalization and just opening up the floodgates, you are living in a bigger fantasy world than Trump is. Every state in the US went redder. US voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of "get rid of 'em all". And you think that they'd vote for a policy that not only legalizes the ones that are already here, but rolling out the red carpet for even more of them, I have beachfront property to sell you. On Mars.

In fact, many progressive policies are popular across the board, including Republicans and independents.

How many elections does Trump have to win before you realize these polls don't mean shit? If there is anything to learn from Trump's time in office, it's that people will gladly tell pollsters something completely different from what they actually end up voting for, if they bother voting at all.

The only poll that matters is the one that happened on November 5th. About 150 million or so participated, and the voted overwhelmingly against these things.

I mean sure, you could try to put up a candidate who believes this in 2028. But then you'll be sitting there during Don Jr.'s inauguration speech wondering why we're having the exact same conversation.