Peter writes:
One reason many conservatives are inclined to suspect something amiss in the election is that virtually every indicator, including the way things looked on election night, showed Trump would win. This is not to say he must have won, but only that if he didn't, a lot of very, very strange things would have had to have happened.
I comment:
And these have been very very strange years.
Peter writes:
To give just one example out of many, there are 19 bellwether counties in the U.S. that have voted with the winner in every election since 1980. 18 of those 19 favored Trump in this election. Possible that he lost anyway? Of course. But definitely weird if he did.
I comment:
See above. You don’t think these are weird times? Just because something has been true since 1980 means nothing in a time like ours.
Peter writes:
His favorability rating on election day, the percentage of people who say they are better than they were four years ago, economic indicators-- a lot of things with long, proven track records of picking the winner seemed to indicate that what was happening mid evening on election day-- Trump repeating his 2016 showing and perhaps improving on it slightly-- is what we should have expected to have been happening.
I comment:
“Expectations” are often dashed in troubled times. Or are you referring to the “polls,” the infamous “polls.” Pollsters today are admitting the ways they messed up. And could it be (I know this is hard for you but…), could it be that even when people say they are “better off”, they still fault the president for mishandling the virus, maybe they don’t like his lies and maybe they are tired of all the chaos he has brought on.
Peter writes:
Then everything stopped, and Wednesday morning whole lot had changed. Again, it could all be on the up and up. But it doesn't have that vibe.
I comment:
Vibe? Vibe? You’re throwing hard data, statistics and actually counted ballots into the dumpster because of a vibe? I’m shocked. I’m shocked that you, Peter, would go so far just to raise doubts about the failures of your guy.
Could it be that some conspiracy against the president was so vast, so gigantic that it included secretaries of state in three dozen states, some of them Republican, tens of thousands of poll workers, and who knows how many balloting machines, so many that it would probably take a battalion of hackers to throw them off the straight and narrow. And the people in charge of our national cyber security, who were on the watch for foreign interference, said this was the safest election ever.
Have you read about the timing of counting absentee and mail-in ballots? Most of those totals came late in the whole process.
Of course, I have my own view on how things went and why. A lot of people are tired of Trump. They are tired of the chaos. And the bungled response to the virus was, I think, the deal-breaker. Some Trumpers are fanatically loyal nevertheless.
But he got so many votes? Yes. I also believe there are those who, though they probably despise Trump as a man as much as I do, will not ever vote for a Democrat or Progressive.
Bottom line: He lost. The election was not taken from him. He lost. There was no massive voter fraud or rigging. He lost. I happen to think that Biden won, but maybe he will be president not because he “won” (although he did receive the proper number of votes and worked hard for those votes), but that Trump lost. People are tired of him. And he has nothing to offer us on the critical issues of the virus and domestic peace. His leadership was a disaster; and he added to civil unrest rather than helped to heal it.