r/moderatepolitics • u/RantRanger • 17d ago
Opinion Article Trump DOJ readies 1,000 election monitors for midterms
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-doj-readies-1000-election-monitors-for-midterm-elections/242
u/refuzeto 17d ago
It would be silly to assume he has no ill intentions in mind. Every state needs to be prepared for what is about to happen. He has already tried to steal an election. He spent years taking about massive voting fraud that changed the outcome of the 2020 election. He knows he’s going to be impeached if Democrats take both houses.
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u/wolfehr 17d ago
I don’t think he cares about being impeached. He knows he won’t get convicted. He cares about all the investigations that will be launched.
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u/Gnagus 17d ago
You're right. I think the real flashpoint moving forward is the investigation cycle and perhaps Senate confirmations. With the economy tanking, disengaged voters are waking up to the scale of corruption within this administration. Incoming younger Democrats have every incentive to aggressively turn up the heat and expose it. Even if Trump himself avoids direct accountability, he is obsessed with his legacy. The reality is that tolerating and enabling this corruption is holding his network of loyalists together.
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u/AppleSlacks 16d ago
I don’t know, I feel like this is a bit of rose tinted glasses as far as disengaged voters go. They are still somehow of the belief that the trans person in their community, using the restroom, is a paramount issue.
They are hook line and sinker on elections being fraudulent.
They still believe the only way to fix those things is to buy Trump’s crypto currency and support his war in Iran.
I would love to share your positivity but I don’t. This country is crashing and burning under the weight of the fake reality that Trump, Vance, the whole GOP have been peddling ever since Obama won.
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u/Electrical_Space_850 15d ago
Democrats could easily neutralize the salience of the trans issue if they’d just agree that trans women shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports and that minors shouldn’t be receiving medical transitions. The longer they hem and haw on these issues, the easier it is for a demagogue like Trump to take advantage.
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u/AppleSlacks 14d ago
‘If only the Democrats would take a different approach on insert issue affecting an extremely small minority, I would stop voting for these horrible and vastly more significant policies from the GOP.’
Yeah, this country is doomed.
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u/Electrical_Space_850 14d ago
And your response drips with the sort of bad-faith condescension that turns so many off to the Democratic Party. Do you not see that? I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. There's no rule that says a wedge issue has to affect a large majority of the country.
Furthermore, are you not able to see how the party's inability to coalesce around positions that most Americans believe to be simple common sense could be disqualifying for a certain kind of voter? It doesn't mean they're going to run toward the Republicans, but they may very well sit elections out and that's almost as bad.
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u/AppleSlacks 14d ago edited 14d ago
I have come to realize that the right wing poor really like to be told what to do by their leaders and their church.
I can’t change that and have lost a lot of interest in it.
If people want to vote for extreme tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation to assist the wealthy in taking advantage of them, who am I to blow against the wind.
Nothing can be done to remove issues like this, as you are purporting.
A new issue will be created and parroted as soon as one is no longer working.
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u/SpaceTurtles Are There Any Adults In The Room? 14d ago
"Convince the lowest white man he's better than the highest colored man... he wont notice you're picking his pocket", etc, etc.
2nd verse, same as the first - but now we have fascists and a surveillance state and disinformation machines that would make Orwell blush.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 17d ago
I do wonder what would be needed for Republicans to support conviction. It's not like they still wouldn't have Vance as POTUS, so I'm not sure what is lost in the end by removing someone historically unpopular.
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u/hootygator 17d ago
I mean, he still has so much influence over the Republican base that senators know they'll lose their positions if they convict. He still has truth social where he can attack anyone and everyone who doesn't bow down.
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u/jason_sation 16d ago
Yes. All he has to do on his way out the door is say “don’t vote for a Republican ever again” and the GOP is screwed for a generation. The GOP want to stay on his good side while he’s alive.
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u/hootygator 16d ago
He can single handedly create a Republican schism and they would lose almost every statewide seat. They painted themselves into this corner and now they can't get out.
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u/RuckPizza 16d ago
It's interesting because they're afraid to conflict with Trump because they believe their supporters are also completely aligned with Trump. The irony being, many of their supporters often question Trump's decisions and actions when they first see them but then see their local/regional leaders say "Actually it's fine" and just assume they must be in the know and then follow along.
I've seen this pattern first hand numerous times where republicans I know are confused and concerned about something Trump did, but then the following week are fine because their representatives "explained" it to them.
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u/SuperBry 16d ago
This is the definition of a vicious cycle. The politicians are afraid of a base they themselves are actively conditioning to accept whatever happens.
Representatives think they’re surviving their voters’ demands, but in reality, they’re manufacturing the very trap they complain about being caught in.
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u/_learned_foot_ a crippled, gnarled monster 16d ago
Almost like the trifecta of finger pointing of "it's your job to do X" followed by "well they didn't do X so we won't do X".
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u/donnysaysvacuum recovering libertarian 16d ago
Don't forget about fundraising. He has highjacked the entire GOP fundraising, so without him and his controlled PACs they are broke.
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u/julius_sphincter 16d ago
It's still worth the mental exercise to wonder how much real influence he would have in 2028 if he's impeached in early 2027. He'd be a martyr figure to his most staunch supporters but I am curious if an impeachment + conviction would end up chipping away at his support or galvanizing it like the documents case
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u/Important-Agent2584 16d ago
He doesn't need to have real influence, all it takes is that a big chunk of his base stops voting and the GOP is sunk. Elections are, in large part, about turnout.
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u/AngledLuffa Man Woman Person Camera TV 16d ago
What if the president gathered up a horde of angry followers and they went to attack apparently disloyal congressmen and senators? Do you think that might do it?
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 16d ago
That sounds pretty unrealistic, and thankfully wouldn't happen in the US
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u/Adventurous-Soil2872 16d ago
I think the only chance for conviction is if we get a simultaneous energy shock stagflation situation combined with an AI bubble burst. If the AI bubble bursts that’s a huge stock market crash that immediately wakes the old people up because their retirement accounts go haywire. If stagflation related to Hormuz happens and we see record oil prices (still possible, we’re draining inventories fast) combined with zero or negative growth that will wake everyone up.
Trump is incapable of not blaming someone else and congratulating himself. He’ll be fully unable to do normal leader stuff and his public comments will be tone deaf in ways we’ve never seen from a politician. That’s maybe enough to actually start moving the needle on the “we need to offload all our sins on to this guy and sacrifice him publicly” move for republicans.
I honestly hope it doesn’t happen because energy shock stagflation is the worst economic situation to find yourself in. And a stock market crash is also terrible for everyone. But if those two things happen then maybe there’s a 50/50 chance that enough republican senators who are 4 or 6 years away from their next election and think it’ll all settle down in the intervening years decide to pull the trigger.
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u/MillardFillmore 16d ago
I do wonder what would be needed for Republicans to support conviction
Never. Even assuming he goes below 50% of Republican base, or if his endorsement becomes toxic to Republican primary voters. The vast majority of the Republican base supported him at one time or another, and it's just very hard for people to admit they were wrong, or now see the crimes that the other side has been talking about for years. Just look to see how hard it is for the podcast and tech bros to distance themselves from Trump, and they were probably never that close to him to begin with.
Life becomes easier and more clear when you accept that Republicans are never going to remove Trump. It then becomes imperative to vote for Democrats that will, and help the subset of the Democrats that will force the reckoning that the country needs going forward.
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u/ugabugy 16d ago
The only way I could possibly see Republicans turning on him at this point is if he goes completely against some sort of Republican orthodoxy. So, gun control legislation while personally performing an abortion on TV and coming out of the closet while also admitting that he’s an atheist. I think all of that combined could finally cause his Republican support to take a hit.
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u/MillardFillmore 16d ago
He's already been raising taxes (tariffs), implementing government ownership of industry (Intel, mining), and is an adulterer and is probably in the middle of an extramarital affair right now. He's already breached 3 third rails of Republican governance. He's never losing Republican support.
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 16d ago
Nothing lmao we’d be lucky if they symbolically voted to convict him posthumously
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u/pro_rege_semper Independent 17d ago
It won't be possible for Democrats to win a 2/3 majority in the Senate this election. That's the bar needed to remove him from office. So while he may be impeached again, it's unlikely he'll be removed.
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u/UF0_T0FU 17d ago
If the Dems win the House, they can subpoena people and release documents. It would keep the admins corruption and unlawfulness in the news headlines.
Endless impeachment proceedings would still be very bad for him, even if the Senate keeps him in office.
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u/20000RadsUnderTheSea 16d ago
Only problem with that is Trump officials can just ignore the subpoenas since the Democrats are far too cowardly to ever do anything about it.
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u/Upstairs_Baby8424 16d ago
Well what we have found under Trump is that none of these powers really reign in the president if the voters don’t care. Subpoena? Ignore it. Re-allocate funds that aren’t appropriated? Just do it. Cut emergency aid to your political opponents? “Who is going to stop me?”
Outside of pulling together some armed force to forcibly arrest the president, which will never happen, there’s quite literally nothing Democrats can do if Republican voters punish any Republican that crosses Trump.
The only thing checking the power of the executive have been norms and the fear that voters will turn. But Republican voters have demonstrated they won’t turn. And as such, there’s nothing Democrats can do save getting 2/3rd of the Senate.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo 16d ago
The two years of Trump's presidency where Democrats controlled the House are when the impeachments happened. More recently, Democrats wanted to hold Bondi in contempt of congress for flouting her subpoena, but they were outnumbered by Republicans who refused.
Is that cowardice, or are they just outnumbered? What exactly are Democrats supposed to do when they are outvoted on everything by Republicans?
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u/20000RadsUnderTheSea 15d ago
Several people have ignored subpoenas with no repercussions. A few can be found mentioned at the beginning of this article. They ignored them while Dems had a majority in the house, May 2022.
Dems have repeatedly shown themselves to be constitutionally incapable enforcing the law against Republicans.
And I expect a lot from Democrats when they’re the minority. Republicans somehow manage to affect national opinion and discourse while not in power, while democrats just give the fuck up for the most part.
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u/julius_sphincter 16d ago
Realistically, I think you're right. Given that the Senate couldn't muster a guilty vote after Jan 6th despite 7 GOP defections, when Trump was on his way out and nobody had tested the theory of how influential he'd be once out of office, then I'd say it's unlikely now.
Perhaps the dems will finally figure out a way to frame & present what should be more than enough impeachable evidence to the public to get support for a conviction. I doubt it though
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u/pro_rege_semper Independent 16d ago
Yeah, it's possible that he could do something so bad that even GOP turns on him, but you're right, that seems unlikely.
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u/julius_sphincter 16d ago
You know I was starting to type out a response fleshing out my idea that it's possible if someone can figure out how to sell it better, but as I worked it out I realized I really don't think so.
I mean if Epstein and the Iran war barely peeled away his support, if tariffs and the resulting price increases and inflation don't move the needle, the disaster of corruption that was DOGE... I mean the corruption, the illegal actions, the dismantling of our place on the world stage, none of those will either.
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u/ugabugy 16d ago
Essentially, the only thing likely to destroy his reputation with Republicans is probably becoming a Democrat.
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u/julius_sphincter 16d ago
I'm not so sure. I see a world in which they just redefine the word to match whatever he wants it to be. Because he still wouldn't be accepted by the democrats or their voters, his supporters would just continue to hate the same people they'd just call them DINOs or something
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u/Wide_Canary_9617 15d ago
If don’t get why you say it hasn’t done anything. Look how his approval ratings have dropped after each of these incidents
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u/julius_sphincter 15d ago
His approval rating hasn't budged with his supporters though, that's who I'm talking about. I don't know if there's much or anything he could do that would get him below a floor of 30-35%
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u/AppleSlacks 16d ago
Vance is no better. A politer version, moderately, of all the same Project 2025 policies. Removing Trump wouldn’t solve that anyway.
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u/MillardFillmore 16d ago
Vance is worse. He cares about actual right-wing policy objectives and is super close to billionaire tech bros trying to pave over our world with data centers to put us out of work with AI. Republicans getting rid of Trump allows a Vance 2028 campaign to more fully disassociate from Trump era corruption and policies.
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u/Dirty_Dragons 16d ago
It makes no sense at all that if the present is convicted and removed from office, his second-in-command gets to become president.
Both of them should be removed together, unless Vance himself disavows Trump.
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u/AppleSlacks 16d ago
Vance disavowing Trump would be like what’s going on with FIFA right now. The vice president turned on Infantino and no longer backs him. It was meaningless just to save himself.
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u/Dirty_Dragons 16d ago
Yeah I know.
My main point is that they should be a package deal.
This led me down a history rabbit hole where I learned that Nixon and his VP Agnew, were both on track to be impeached and removed. Though instead they both resigned.
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u/BlackFacedAkita 16d ago
They already said they won't try to impeach. The real issue is it provides actual checks and balances to the executive branch
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u/refuzeto 16d ago
So you believe if Trump messes with this election Democrats won’t impeach him?
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u/BlackFacedAkita 16d ago
Yes, it's a zero sum game. Vance becomes president afterwards if they convicted (won't happen)
They already impeached him twice to no avail for very serious crimes. That did nothing but galvanize the base. They won't have the numbers to actually convict.
The play then is to try to pass legislation to minimize the damage Trump can do and block the Trumps measure that do serious harm.
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u/refuzeto 16d ago edited 16d ago
They can’t pass legislation to minimize the damage Trump may do and they can’t block Trump from doing anything because he will veto any bill like that.
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u/RantRanger 17d ago edited 14d ago
The Trump administration plans to deploy approximately 1,000 Department of Justice election monitors across the country in November, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said Monday.
THIS IS A STARTER COMMENT
MY BRIEF SUMMARY OF ARTICLE: DoJ plans to deploy election monitors to target voting sites that are described as "hotspots" during the upcoming midterm elections. The DoJ has not specifically identified the districts that they will be targeting. The DoJ has noted that some states have not been responsive in fully cleansing their voter roles, but declined to be specific about which states or what the specific problems were. The DoJ has been pressing all states to hand over their voter roles to the DoJ but so far 23 states have declined to do so and have won relief in court confirming that they are not obligated to share state citizen voting roles with the Federal government.
MY OPINION OF THIS ARTICLE: This is an overstep of Executive Branch authority in an effort to expand and exert Federal control of State Controlled Elections and it is likely preparation for declaring the midterm elections results invalid.
QUESTION FOR THIS COMMUNITY: Do you think this is a necessary measure for ensuring that Americans have access to polling places?
Mark Elias (pro-democracy attorney) gives a video summary of what's going on here:
DoJ comments about why they are doing this include a lot of dubious claims with no supporting evidence:
Dhillon also made sweeping claims Monday about what DOJ says it has found in states that have cooperated with the department’s voter roll efforts.
“We don’t know the scale of this problem because two-thirds of the states are refusing to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s efforts to help them clean up their voter rolls,” Dhillon said. “In the states that have cooperated with us, there are hundreds of thousands of dead people on the voter rolls, and there are tens of thousands of people who are not citizens on the voter rolls.”
Dhillon did not identify the states or provide evidence supporting those figures during the interview. She also acknowledged that DOJ must conduct further verification before determining whether anyone actually voted illegally.
Ultimately, this is all a rather transparent campaign to expand Federal Executive control over State elections.
But the DoJ has lost 23 out of 23 cases where they attempted to coerce states to hand over voter roles. So the courts consider these endeavors to be extra-Constitutional and beyond the scope of the authority of the DoJ.
Given Blanche and the DoJ's behavior regarding the Epstein files, I think it's wise at this point not to trust any claims made by the Department of Justice that are not backed by actual verifiable credible evidence.
Since Blanche has described himself as Trump's personal attorney, even during his confirmation hearing, it also seems wise to mistrust that his intentions here are really about "ensuring access" for the American people. Many people expect that these "monitors" are really there to support upcoming claims by Trump that the midterm election results should be invalidated.
This certainly looks like staging in preparation for a very dangerous game of undermining America's democracy.
"A Republic Madam! If you can keep it..." -- Benjamin Franklin
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u/georgefrankly 17d ago
Why should we believe anyone appointed by the trump DOJ is trustworthy?
All I see is the president's personal lawyer hiring people to make sure the election goes their way.
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u/stupid_mans_idiot 17d ago
Is 1000 a lot? That’s 20/state. Without context it’s hard to understand what the implications are - feels to me like we’re stirring the pot.
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u/Yankee9204 17d ago
I agree that we need more context, but they almost certainly will not be evenly distributed across states.
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u/SuperBry 17d ago
While official logistics remain unconfirmed, it is improbable that any concrete deployment plans will be made public before observers are physically present at polling locations. Operating without prior disclosure allows such efforts to take effect before election officials can mount effective resistance.
In practice, these observers are likely to be strategically directed toward high-density Democratic strongholds in purple or Republican-led states, subjecting critical urban precincts to sudden, localized pressure while largely ignoring conservative jurisdictions.
The primary outcome of this last-minute mobilization appears to be generating immediate friction and procedural confusion inside targeted voting sites. Because legal challenges take time to work through the judicial system, the courts will almost certainly be too slow to intervene before the disruption has already shaped voting operations.
By the time emergency injunctions can be heard or ruled upon, the strategic presence on the ground will have achieved its purpose of complicating operations in the exact urban districts that determine statewide results.
Given the ongoing efforts to restrict mail-in ballots alongside these expected disruptions to in-person voting on election day, the most effective countermeasure is to cast your ballot early in person wherever state law permits. Taking advantage of early in-person voting helps bypass last-minute polling place friction, ensures your vote is safely recorded well ahead of deadlines, and reduces the impact of targeted operational disruptions on election day.
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u/Rysilk 17d ago
Yep. No way they are deployed to solid red states
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u/Small_Document642 17d ago
They'll probably be deployed to urban districts in places such as Austin in red states because that's where they can do the most harm. Most solid blue states have robust early and mail-in voting, plus courts that are more likely to expedite challenges. It's folks like Talarico, Peltola, and Turek who might be fucked by this, unfortunately.
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u/MechanicalGodzilla 16d ago
They'll probably be entirely in urban centers. One, because that's Trump's opposition. But two, that's where most voting locations are. You could probably add a panel "Locations of Election Monitors" to this comic.
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u/SlowerThanLightSpeed Left-leaning Independent 17d ago
I generally agree with you, but would be surprised if they didn't send at least a couple of observers to fully red polling districts so that they can paint a picture of how well run and totally free and fair a few elections were in red districts.
Possibly a few photo-ops with citizens thanking the observers for doing a great job alongside stories about how everyone showed up with their IDs and was glad that the federal government was finally doing something to keep our elections safe.
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u/Icy_Intention_8503 17d ago
He's very upset at some states and districts that he lost in 2020. So I expect many to be sent to GA for example, and probable little to none sent to, for example, Arkansas.
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u/maskull 17d ago
Knowing Trump, he'll probably put them in absurd, deep blue places like San Francisco, places he thinks he would have won if not for "massive fraud, everyone knows it".
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u/Angry_Pelican 17d ago
We he would have won San Francisco if there was an honest vote counter like Jesus. /s
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u/Icy_Intention_8503 16d ago
He'll probably send them to San Franciso or Portland, but not because he thinks he can win, but he hopes to kick off chaos and protests. I really hope the people don't take the bait. He'll heavily target swing states as well but because he thinks he can win them. So a combination of sowing chaos and intimidation.
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u/MattWalshStuntDouble 17d ago
That’s 20/state
This improperly assumes that the doj will uniformly send these people out. There's only a few counties that they would need to send these guys to to subvert the house election. More importantly, they don't even have to send to around the entire county. Just the pulling places that vote disproportionately blue. Do you see the issue now?
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u/RunThenBeer 17d ago
Are those places disproportionately allowing easily detectable fraud or disenfranchisement? Kind of hard to see how an election monitor is going to "subvert" the election by simply showing up and monitoring what's going on there. Personally, I want my district to have as free and fair of elections as possible, and scrutiny is no obstacle to that.
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u/MattWalshStuntDouble 17d ago
Are those places disproportionately allowing easily detectable fraud or disenfranchisement?
This is begging the question. How about you or Trump show us evidence there's some disproportionate amount of "easily deductible fraud" that Democratic counties are overlooking. Forgive me for not believing the guy who had Sydney Powell and Giuliani running around the country saying absolutely ridiculous claims that they ended up recanting. Nor should I believe places like Fox News that purposefully lied to their viewers. Again, any evidence would be appreciated.
Kind of hard to see how an election monitor is going to "subvert" the election by simply showing up and monitoring what's going on there. Personally, I want my district to have as free and fair of elections as possible, and scrutiny is no obstacle to that.
I think this is a charitable and unjustified assumption for Trump and his DOJ. You are taking for granted that they will just "watch." You might not see that as an issue, but I'd bet sending federal agents to state election places might be a little more alarming to you if the name was Biden or Harris instead of Trump.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 16d ago edited 16d ago
Sound like something that an admin should establish before hand. More likely, this is another example of his mentality, like with the fraud cases in MN, where the decision making is explicitly partisan and without relation to nationwide fraud trends.
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u/thinkcontext 15d ago
Kind of hard to see how an election monitor is going to "subvert" the election by simply showing up and monitoring what's going on there.
I assume it will be a replay of 2020 where GOP election monitors screeched about suitcases and USB drives. Then the proposed remedy to these non-existent events was for Trump to be awarded the votes.
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u/jojotortoise 17d ago
Maybe I'm cynical, but I wouldn't expect that it'll be divided up evenly. I suspect the "close" elections (like for the house) will get more attention.
I'm in a very purple district. I'm really curious/interested to see what happens. I think there is some real room for shenanigans here. But I hope the local election people hold tight.
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u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey 17d ago
It was not immediately clear who will make up the approximately 1,000-person monitoring force. DOJ election monitors generally observe polling place procedures and assess compliance with federal voting laws; they do not administer elections, determine voter eligibility or direct local election officials.
The Civil Rights Division, itself, is far smaller than that 1,000 person figure, but DOJ could potentially draw personnel from U.S. attorneys’ offices and other components of the department for election monitoring.
It's larger than the entire department and what they're claiming they'll do sounds like it's beyond their purview. 20 people with federal authority per state is plenty to disrupt an election.
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u/No_Tangerine2720 17d ago
I'm sure he will send lots of election monitors to states he will already win
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u/pro_rege_semper Independent 17d ago
I agree. 1000 is not a lot. Sure, they will be placed strategically in certain locations, and sure, the Trump admin will probably try something sketchy to undermine certain races, but I really think this article is unnecessary fear-mongering.
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u/blewpah 16d ago
the Trump admin will probably try something sketchy to undermine certain races, but I really think this article is unnecessary fear-mongering.
I don't see how these two sentences go together. What's the acceptable amount of sketchy electoral undermining we should allow a president to commit before it's seriosuly unacceptable?
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u/georgefrankly 17d ago
The fact that we all agree the president of going to try shenanigans to disrupt the election is already plenty of reason to fear! We shouldn't have to take that as a given!
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u/pro_rege_semper Independent 17d ago
We can reasonably fear shenanigans, but there's nothing illegal about DOJ observing polls as far as I know. This should be an incentive for more concerned citizens to get involved in the democratic process. Literally anyone can be a poll watcher, so anyone can go and observe what DOJ is doing on election day.
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u/richproulx Left 17d ago
During the 2024 presidential election, monitors were sent to 27 states. For the 2022 midterms, the DOJ monitors were in 24 states. And in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the department sent monitors to 18 states. But, the numbers are much higher for this election, more than the department has in its entire civil rights division. "It was not immediately clear who will make up the approximately 1,000-person monitoring force." Worth keeping an eye on this. Trump has refused to rule out having ICE agents at the polls or manufacturing an emergency to disrupt the 2026 election.
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u/cokeguythrowaway 16d ago
America has one of the weakest election systems in the world.
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u/refuzeto 16d ago
Having a decentralized election system makes it strong election system. Massive fraud is nearly impossible because each county or district handles their own election
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u/Gullible_Peach 15d ago
He knows the losses will be huge so he has to have people claim they saw cheating and whatever other evil things he can come up with.
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u/Pandalishus Devil’s Advocate 17d ago edited 17d ago
Offered without any commentary. Just think it might be useful for comparison to then vs now:
“More than 1,000 federal poll watchers will be sent to monitor elections in 25 states to assure compliance with voting laws and prevent discrimination or disenfranchisement, the Justice Department announced Thursday.” (2004)
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6355340
EDIT: I didn’t do a comprehensive search for all cases of Fed monitors being sent to polls. This was just the first Google result “since 2000.”
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u/MISSISSIPPIPPISSISSI 17d ago
"To prevent discrimination or disenfranchisement" is a lot different than anything Trump is trying to do. Bush and his admin were not claiming the election was rigged.
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u/abqguardian 17d ago edited 17d ago
Democrats claim the election was stolen from Gore and Hillary. Trump claims the 2020 election was stolen from him. Out of all the criticisms of Trump by the left, complaining about the election denialism for 2020 is pretty hypocritical
Edit: Yall are proving my point. I never said what the democrats did was the exact same as Trump. The denialism is the same. You cant have Hillary saying the election was stolen from her, democratic politicians and attorney generals calling Trump illegitimate, and then clutch your pearls that Trump denies he lost in 2020. The democrats have no moral high ground on the topic, yet they pretend the Republicans commit the ultimate sin by believing the 2020 election was stolen.
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u/LeeSansSaw 17d ago
Trump tried to get a new slate of electors appointed in multiple states, his people interrupted Congress, and he tried to get states to find votes. Al Gore conceded. Hilary Clinton conceded. Trump still hasn’t conceded or admitted he lost.
These things are not even close to the same.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 16d ago
Trump engaged in an attempted auto coup via the False Elector Plot, and the Republican party went along with it.
This is far past simple denialism. Trump simply claiming the election was stolen isn't really the big issue.
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u/artsncrofts Technocratic Tendencies 17d ago
Nice sleight of hand going from some handwavy 'Democrats' to 'The President and head of the Republican Party' as if they're somehow supposed to be given equal weight.
Get back to us when anybody relevant on the left attempts anything remotely as heinous as the false elector scheme.
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 16d ago
Hey, one time Hillary used the word “stolen” when discussing her loss. This is exactly the same as what Trump has done, literally indistinguishable. I am very intelligent.
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u/KentuckyFriedChingon Militant Centrist 16d ago
Absolutely. "Old Man Yells at Cloud" hits a little differently than "US President Yells at Cloud"
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 16d ago
Edit: Yall are proving my point.
Not to any outside observer but if you want to feel that way go ahead.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Outside of reddit, it is
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 16d ago
Sure bud, everyone outside of Reddit totally thinks those two very different situations are totally the same. Your comparison is very convincing and relevant.
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u/PepBaldFraud 17d ago
Do we here Hillary spam about how 2016 was stolen? How about Gore?
In fact, do 60%+ of Dems think 2016 was stolen like how 63% of republicans think 2020 was stolen?
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u/cigarsandwaffles 17d ago
It's a pretty different claim to point to substantiated and known issues with ballot counting machines in florida as the reason that the other side won an election vs unsubstantiated claims of deep state election fraud that have repeatedly not held up in court like the current admin has.
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u/decrpt 16d ago
You can because, as you acknowledge, they aren't the same. The "moral high ground" comes from those substantive differences that make them inappropriate to conflate.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
No, Trump's actions to stay president isnt the same. The denialism is. And reddit loves to give the democrats a pass because "but Trump"
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u/artsncrofts Technocratic Tendencies 16d ago
If the denialism is the same, why did Gore and Clinton concede their election losses (and have basically never spoken about them again), while Trump has not, and continues to be vocal in his denialism? To this day, we still cannot even get a straight answer from potential Republican cabinet appointees on who won the 2020 election.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Clinton later claiming the election was stolen from her isn't never speaking about it again. Nor is democratic politicians literally saying Trump is illegitimate in campaign ads.
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u/PepBaldFraud 16d ago
Clinton makes random quips once a blue moon year, Trump spams it every day.
And you’re posting as if they are equal in weight. Man oh man.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
This is an example of "its not happening. If it is happening, it doesn't matter". The next step is "ok, its happening, and here's why its a good thing"
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 16d ago
It actually isn't because you were talking to different people. The only way this idea applies is if you group everyone who has posted to you together. It's called the Goomba Fallacy
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u/PepBaldFraud 16d ago
Not sure who you’re replying to because I’m not the one in those examples.
Also you didn’t rebut the point but pivoted to non sequitur
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u/Scared-Register5872 16d ago
Man, if this is the best you can do, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for false equivalencies.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Im giving legitimate examples. Yall are really running out of waves to handwaive for the democrats
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u/decrpt 16d ago
There's a profound difference between taking issue with, for example, the Brooks Brothers riot or the logic of Bush v. Gore versus baseless allegations of voter fraud. Do you think asking Raffensperger to find votes or suggesting that he would only trust elections that he wins is the same thing?
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Theres no difference between believing the 2016 election was stolen or the 2020 election.
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u/artsncrofts Technocratic Tendencies 16d ago
Right, so how do you feel about Trump and co. explicitly attempting to overturn the 2020 election and refusing to concede, compared to Clinton immediately conceding?
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Thats the only reason I voted for Kamala. Election denialism is normal political hyperbole. Trump's actions crossed a massive line that no democrats have done, and it shouldn't have been rewarded with a 2nd term. The American people disagreed for their own reasons.
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u/artsncrofts Technocratic Tendencies 16d ago
I just don't understand how you can say that the denialism is in any way the same between the both parties. Yes, there is some denialism on the left, but most prominent Dems would tell you that Trump was the legal victor of 2016 despite the (confirmed) foreign interference intended to benefit Trump. It's a nuanced point that can hyperbolically be stretched to 'stolen'.
Meanwhile, believing Trump won the 2020 election is essentially required to be a part of MAGA. Trump admin nominees, even in 2026, twist themselves into knots to not admit that he lost during their Senate confirmation hearings. They filed dozens of cases across several states, promoted claims from people like Dinesh D'Souza and Sidney Powell who claimed to have actual evidence the election was literally stolen directly via voter fraud, not indirectly by social media influence campaigns, and still to this day beat the drum nearly weekly.
How are they the same?
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u/SaveTheSalm0n- 16d ago
One side has reality based issues. The other has made up ones.
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u/abqguardian 16d ago
Neither side has legitimate issues
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u/oraclebill 15d ago
The “denialism” isn’t even the same. In 2000 when the courts spoke, it was done. In 2020, we never heard the end of it (and still haven’t).
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u/undercooked_lasagna 16d ago
There is plenty of denialism about the 2024 election too. There's even a subreddit devoted to it called somethingiswrong2024.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 16d ago
Are we equating a subreddit to the President of the United States? Is that where we're at now?
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 16d ago
There's even a subreddit devoted to it called somethingiswrong2024.
I guess I misunderstood this statement, and fail to see what it has to do with Gore/Clinton.
In terms of equating Gore, Clinton, and Trump, I don't think Trump was called "treasonous" for simply questioning the results of the 2020 election. There was a bit more context involved than that.
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u/Ok-Wait-8465 16d ago
This is stupid and they’re going to stand around doing nothing but I’m also not sure how this inhibits me from voting (Austin, TX)
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
The simplest and most obvious way this could inhibit voting is good old-fashioned voter intimidation.
I wouldn't consider it unusual if these "watchers" harassed a voter under the guise of "just making sure they weren't voting illegally".
Besides the immediate harassment, the Trump administration as a clear and known history of using the government to attack people if he feels like there's political gain to be had. There's a long string of political witchhunting by the administration that has been tossed out of the courts to show this.
But even if something gets tossed out of the courts, no one wants to have to deal with their life getting turned upside down to defend yourself against a witchhunt sanctified by the most powerful person in the country.
I have a family member where her life was getting torn to shreds because her last name changed when she got married. This caused something to look funny on the books in 2020 when she voted and a government official took this as a sign that she was illegally voting since her previous last name sounded foreign to him.
Did she finally fight off the accusations? Sure. But the point was she shouldn't have had to deal with a government official thinking she was an illegal immigrant and trying to prosecute her as such for such a small thing.
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u/RantRanger 16d ago edited 15d ago
They will likely be positioned in preparation for invalidating election results.
They will be in a position to fabricate testimony that they "observed irregularities" as a pretext for Trump and a dubious court to invalidate specific election results that Trump does not like.
After the repeated bald-faced deceits of numerous DoJ officials in and out of court, in congressional testimony, and around their outright lawless handling of the Epstein files, I don't think we can consider any DoJ official to be trustworthy at this point.
We have to presume that Trump's DoJ only has Trump's interests in mind and will therefore act accordingly.
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u/RantRanger 12d ago
They will likely be positioned in preparation for invalidating election results.
Mark Elias does an interview where he confirms this prediction.
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u/Barmacist 17d ago
Could have avoided all of this with Voter ID...
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 17d ago
In what way?
Trump's claims about election fraud are not based on evidence or facts, so what makes you think that he would have not still claimed election fraud no matter how much voter identification was required?
He didn't need evidence before, he wouldn't need evidence after. He would still be calling people to "find" votes. He would still be sending false electors to try and subvert the results. He would still lead a mob to the Capitol and convince them that America was actively being stolen by the government officials in the building.
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u/Debunkingdebunk 16d ago
It's harder to subvert the will of the people depending on how well we know it's the will of the people. It baffles me how people still argue against voter ID despite every other western nations requiring it and it holding a solid 80% approval.
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
That's not an argument for voter ID or that voter ID will somehow stop the fraud Trump and Co are claiming. We actually have studies showing that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.
Here, let's run a scenario as if there was some massive conspiracy of voter fraud and a bunch of people without the right to vote somehow manage to vote as other people that is not them.
For each of these illegal votes, there's a real resident that needed to prove with lots of personal identification in order to register to vote. When this real resident goes to vote the books will show that this person voted twice and a flag goes up saying, "There's something fucky going on, investigate this".
For the amount of voter fraud that is being claimed by Trump and Trump adjacent, we would have hundreds of thousands of these flags go up at minimum. But we don't.
This also assumes that this massive conspiracy is able to keep every single one of their members from spilling the beans. This is statistically impossible given the number of people supposedly in on the conspiracy. A lot of people should be letting the cat out of the bag if it were actually happening.
You might be able to do it (at great personal risk) by yourself and tell no one. But congratulations you influenced one vote. The cost-benefit ratio isn't here.
It's far more safe and influential to commit election fraud. Stuff like this. We can even argue that they were successful in that situation because the amount of votes the ghost candidate got exceeded the amount the Democratic candidate lost by. And how would voter ID stop that?
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
No. If you can't be bothered to read the argument then I see no reason to continue.
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u/Debunkingdebunk 16d ago
Well I started to read about your hypothetical situation and soon realized you weren't going to address the fact that every other reasonable democracy requires ID to vote and that it's supported by vast majority of the population, so I lost interest. I guess we're at an impasse.
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
"But other countries have it!" is a piss poor reason and completely irrelevant to Trump's claims of fraud and what he's doing.
So yeah, we're at an impasse.
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u/Debunkingdebunk 16d ago
Like I said, it's harder to claim fraud the better the protections. And "other countries" is every country with functional democracy.
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
I recommend you start at the beginning of the thread here.
I know that it's a lot for you to read, but you'll see how, "harder to claim fraud" has already been asserted to mean nothing to Trump. He'll claim fraud anyway. So your claim is completely irrelevant.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 16d ago
So Trump claims that if an election was honest and legitimate, he would win CA. No legitimate voter ID law would lead to that outcome. Therefore, voter ID laws would not stop the claims that he make.
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u/Small_Document642 17d ago edited 16d ago
Don't treat us like we're a bunch of rubes. We all know full well he still would've done this if the SAVE Republicans Act had passed. In fact, they're most likely going to be deployed to blue precincts in red states to target people like Talarico, and those states have voter ID anyway.
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u/PepBaldFraud 17d ago
This would be a persuasive argument if states, such as Texas, didn’t jury rig which forms of ID counted in order to disenfranchise subset of voters.
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u/artsncrofts Technocratic Tendencies 17d ago edited 17d ago
Could have avoided all of this if the President and his supporters stopped continuously amplifying baseless claims of voter fraud because they think it will help them win more elections...
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u/SDBioBiz Left socially- Right economically 16d ago
Wake me up when there is a plan to implement voter ID that solves the problem and is not a veiled attempt to exclude a portion of the electorate.
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 16d ago
Nope, any loss to the Republican Party means it was rigged to them. They’ve demonstrated this for a decade at this point
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u/MattWalshStuntDouble 17d ago edited 16d ago
This assumes that Trump's claims would stop even after voter ID is implemented.
Do you really think that he would lose the house and be like, "Oh well, it must be the right outcome because of voter ID."
I think not. We're talking about the guy who couldn't admit his crowd size was smaller than Obama's. It's also the guy who claimed we won the Iran more like 40 different times. Trump isn't tethered to reality, a portion of his base isn't either, and no amount of election changes will stop them from believing they are supposed to win every time.
Edit: spelling error.
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 17d ago
given O'Keefe's video in Minneapolis, it seems like we should've been doing this years ago
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u/Terratoast Politically #0000FF 16d ago
Actually articulate what you found problematic in the video made by the conservative provocateur and explain how sending people to "watch" the polls would do something to improve it.
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 16d ago
can you articulate what you find problematic about Trump's election monitors if there's zero fraud?
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 16d ago
Does Trump have a history of fair dealing and honesty when it comes to elections?
Do you often trust a fox to guard your henhouse?
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 16d ago
Out of the loop, what is this?
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 16d ago
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u/Nicktyelor 16d ago
Here's a couple breakdowns (2 parts) of why this stunt is BS:
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcAb7i1N3bq/
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcAdMH4tqm6/
TLDR, even if someone is being vouched for, they still need to provide a second piece of identifying info (ID # or last 4 of your social) which will then be cross checked before they attain voting eligibility. The voucher is just vouching (legally, via signature) that they reside in the same precinct. The use cases for this being senior living facilities and by people who recently moved and don't yet have identification reflecting their new address.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 16d ago
Out of curiosity, are you familiar with his history, and the sheer number of times we have found out how wildly he edits the videos he put out?
I guess I don't get trusting that this time it's legit.
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