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Is it pronounced “nitch matcher”, “nish masher” or “neekh makher”?
A potential problem with the invention is that once you put randomilia away, you will eventually forget you had it, and then what good will it be if and when you need it. Stuff needs to be out and visible so that you’re constantly reminded of its in-between status so that when a doorknob falls off, for example, you think aha, that was what that long screw went to. But if you put it away in a storage device of whatever name, you’ll stand there with doorknob in hand with a vague feeling you almost have a solution to this critical conundrum, but it will forever be just out of reach. I would therefore suggest that the niche macher be transparent and/or open on all sides, unlike the file cabinet or shoe box “solutions” cluelessly suggested by others, preferably made to be situated in a prominent place in the home, so that you are constantly reminded of all the ambiguous stuff in life.
“Sorry, but herring is not part of our “Mesorah” simply because it was a poor man’s “fish” in parts of the alte heim.”
It goes back much further than that.
זָכַ֨רְנוּ֙ אֶת־הַדָּגָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַ֥ל בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם חִנָּ֑ם
The only free fish worth waxing nostalgic over is the herring served at a kiddush. Of course, there are other free fishes in Jewish life (e.g., lox at a bris, tuna salad at shalosh seudos) but they’re either not nostalgia inducing or are too infrequently enjoyed free to make sense in context. Granted someone makes or sponsors a kiddush so the herring isn’t really free, but it is free to eat, and that is what the complainers remembered. Careful reading of the pasuk shows that they remembered that the eating was free, not that the fish itself was free.
Memo, generally true, unless it’s an aveira to listen to Ben Shapiro. To avoid sfaikos, Ben Shapiro should tell his kids to listen to Ben Shapiro’s wife. Then they have to listen to him.
Speaking of niggling points, I have a niggling feeling that Health is a parody account.
@commonsaychel
First of all I think you missed the joke. Second, I didn’t say anything about mesirah; I said I wouldn’t daven with people who even had a tzad that it was ok to daven with possible/potential murderers. Third, what counts as a moser is not that simple. If you believe that maskless indoor shuls are/were possible/potential murderers, then it isn’t at all obvious that mesirah applies. Fourth, an argument can be made that maskless indoor shulgoers are/were themselves enemies of Hashem’s people. That said, I don’t pray for anyone specifically to “extirpated.”“But yes, if millions of democrats demanded an audit in those states, I’d welcome it.”
Sure you would. That fact that democrats don’t, and didn’t in 2016, is because for all their shortcomings, they don’t spin conspiracy theories that undermine the electoral process and then demand an “audit” to “restore” faith in the democratic process all the while further eroding faith in democracy. (And don’t say Russia hoax. every investigation confirmed Russian interference; the question that remained was whether the interference was solicited or merely welcomed). Truth is, the only ones getting hurt by this is the Republican Party. Democrats could care less about the results of the audit itself which is meaningless as far as 2020 goes, but are rather concerned that its supposed findings will be used as a pretext to limit voting rights. The inevitable “shocking” results of the audit and the airtime in the trump echo chamber will cause Republicans to lose faith in voting. It’s what happened in the Georgia runoff. If you keep lying that elections are rigged, your team will start believing you.
“but maybe even decreased for the sin of associating with such people”
I wouldn’t even daven with someone who thought that was merely a maybe.
Have they found any bamboo in the ballots? Has forensics turned up any traces of soy sauce? If anyone finds a hummus stain, we’ll know sabra infiltrated the arizona department of state.
What are the results of the great hunt for nonexistent watermarks on ballots that voted for Biden? A scheme so duplicitous, they somehow also removed the watermarks from the trump ballots so they could fit in.
I have to admit, I am having some doubts about the Texas, Florida and North Carolina presidential election results. I hope the republican legislatures in those states also conduct full audits to satisfy my personal sense of certitude that Biden won those states.
I know two people who committed election fraud in 2020. One lives in a blue state and voted in a swing state they left years ago. The other was not registered to vote, but attempted to vote to prove how easy it is to vote if you don’t have to show ID. Person A voted, Person B was unsuccessful. Both bigly into trump. Based on my personal knowledge, about 100% of election fraud was committed by trump supporters with a 50% success rate. I can sign an afterdavit to that effect. A noderized afterdavit. That is written proof that translates to millions, maybe tens of millions of votes that should have gone to Biden.
I think the Southern Poverty Law Center should be entrusted with the audit. Why not, an audit is not rocket science, expertise is elitist nonsense, they’re super transparent as far as saying stuff I like to hear, so why would in world would Texas, Florida and North Carolina object unless they were hiding something. Makes you wonder.
I meant to write in my previous comment that ballots weren’t being adequately safeguarded.
Whether safeguards should be safeguarded is a very different issue.
To get back to the original question – if it wasn’t obvious before, it’s becoming even more obvious now that this is not an audit. It’s a hunt for even the flimsiest thread of evidence to hang a predetermined conclusion. What are democrats afraid of? Maybe they dislike confirmation bias nothingburgers — they have no calories, no fat, no nutritional value, but they taste disgusting and jam up the system with endless debate over nothingness. So called auditors are determined to find something. Will it be evidence? Doesn’t matter. Whatever they find, OAN and Newsmax will run with it, and a sizeable chunk of the country will believe it. The claims here by Torahvalues and Health, no doubt the echo of an echo chamber, that this is an openminded inquiry is too disingenuous for words.
So called auditors are looking for bamboo to prove that the ballots came from Asia.
The justice department has expressed concerns that the audit may violate federal law because safeguards are not being adequately safeguarded.
How ironic would it be if the so called auditors claimed to find the fraud they were desperately looking for, but in so doing they destroyed the evidence so no one could verify their findings. That would provide a satisfactory conclusion to the 2020 election. On the other hand, maybe that’s the whole point.
If you still believe there was fraud, nothing in the world will convince you otherwise. Democrats and normal republicans do not need to keep humoring you because it will never end.
“ Contrary to what the Fake News is pushing, Sidney did NOT claim in court that ‘no reasonable person would believe her claims’.”
This is true. She characterized her own position as “reasonable people would not accept such statements as facts but view them only as claims that await testing by the courts through the adversary process.”
She’s not saying you’re stupid for believing her. She’s saying you’re stupid for not realizing she was never saying it as a fact. She was only advancing opinions and legal theories, despite the fact that she claimed that they were facts.
It would be one thing if she confined her claims and legal theories to court filings, but she gave press conferences and interviews stating things as facts while now saying you’re stupid for believing that facts mean facts.
And even with respect to her claims in court, legal ethics prohibit advancing claims like this without sufficient proof. Lawyers can’t allege specific facts in court that they don’t know are true and then say they’re just opinions and legal theories. That’s not how it works. And that’s precisely why trumps first team of election lawyers quit on him. Trump had every right to pursue legal claims for recounts and challenge irregularities. His lawyers cannot ethically claim as fact something that isn’t fact.
I don’t know if you can sue a lawyer for defamation for lying in a court document, but it’s certainly not true that everyone should realize that anything a lawyer says as fact is actually opinions and legal theories.
“Its called Legal Strategy.”
“She’s only saying that to get out of her lawsuit.”
Here’s the problem with that particular legal strategy: the second you say out loud that you’re only saying it to get out of a lawsuit, you don’t just lose credibility, the defense actually disappears. Poof. She’d be better off claiming insanity. There’s no such thing as wink-wink “no one should believe it” because the wink says you still think everyone should believe it.
Also, as er pointed out, truth is an absolute defense to defamation. If she really thinks she told the truth, why not prove it instead of lying that she lied to blatantly that no one in their right mind would believe it.
In a way, plaintiffs have already won the lawsuit. The point of the lawsuit was to force her to lay her cards on the table so everyone can evaluate the proof, because proof was lacking in the lawsuits. Remember how Trump and Co were furious that the federal courts were dismissing their lawsuits on procedural grounds (like legal standing) instead of letting them litigate the issues. Well, that poses a problem to a company that has its reputation damaged by the unproven allegation. This was her opportunity to lay out the proof, and she showed everyone she was bluffing the whole time.
NonImpeditiRationeCogitationis,
Even framed that way, it leaves plenty of room to discuss what exactly qualifies as a fundamental postulate where faith based thinking takes over. Is the statement that lashon hakodesh, or the formation of its letters, is ancient and original, a fundamental postulate, or is it more like a white swan?
Ramban quoted above states that lashon hakodesh is Canaanite (or that people of Canaan spoke lashon hakodesh). It had nothing to do with its similarities to Phoenician, so it wasn’t a concession based on scientific evidence. Ramban emphasizes that the kedushah derives from the fact that it is the language the Torah was given in.
RE: I think you mean Rambam.
Ramban on כי פי המדבר עליכם says.
כי איננה ראיה שידבר אדם אחד במצרים בלשון הקדש כי על דעתי הוא שפת כנען כי אברהם לא הביאו מאור כשדים ומחרן כי ארמית היא והגל הזה עד ואיננו לשון לאיש אחד לבד אבל הוא לשון כנען ורבים במצרים יודעים אותו כי קרוב הוא
The Ramban elsewhere says:
וכן הטעם אצלי במה שרבותינו קוראין לשון התורה ”לשון הקודש”, שהוא מפני שדברי התורה והנבואות וכל דברי קדושה כולם בלשון ההוא נאמרו והנה הוא הלשון שהקב”ה יתעלה שמו מדבר בו עם נביאיו ועם עדתו אנכי ולא יהיה לך ושאר דברות התורה והנבואה, ובו נקרא בשמותיו הקדושים אל, אלהים, צבאות, ושדי, ויו”ד ה”א, והשם הגדול המיוחד, ובו ברא עולמו (ב”ר יח ו), וקרא שמות שמים וארץ וכל אשר בם, ומלאכיו וכל צבאיו לכולם בשם יקרא מיכאל וגבריאל בלשון ההוא, ובו קרא שמות לקדושים אשר בארץ אברהם יצחק ויעקב ושלמה וזולתם:
והרב אמר במורה הנבוכים (ג ח) אל תחשוב שנקרא לשוננו לשון הקדש לגאותינו או לטעותינו, אבל הוא בדין, כי זה הלשון קדוש לא ימצאו בו שמות לאבר הבעילה בזכר או בנקבה, ולא לטפה ולשתן ולצואה רק בכנוי
I’d post translations, but I don’t know if it’s copyrighted. You can find translations on Sefaria.org – Bereshis 45:12 and Shemos 30:13.
“The questions should not be asked on YWN but to your LOR.”
“Ask your LOR” is the appropriate response to a halachic question involving multiple opinions or customs or is fact specific. It’s not the appropriate answer to a question like this. OP might indeed learn more by discussing this with a LOR than by online discussion (depending on who the rabbi is) but many people are uncomfortable asking questions like this to their LOR, if they even have one. And many LORs lack the knowledge or inclination to discuss the subject seriously. I don’t know if CR is the best forum to have a thoughtful exchange on this kind of subject, but if you can get past inevitable knee jerk reactions to anything that challenges what you were told in cheder, there are some intelligent and knowledgeable posters here as can be seen from some of the responses.
When we first got married we disagreed over how we would leave notes to each other around the house. The underlying reason for this conflict, as we later came to understand, was that we had very different visions for our marriage. One of us wanted our notes to be written in ktav ashuri because its letters are holy, majestic and structured. The other preferred modern cursive Hebrew because it’s flowing, flexible and intimate.
After several weeks of speaking exclusively and bitterly through our personal intermediary, Hatakh, we discovered that we could communicate directly in paleo Hebrew. Ktav ivri has the advantage of being historical and holy, yet casual enough for everyday use, which reassured both of us that our hashkafos were indeed compatible.
“the kumran teffilin had fallen apart and had been reassembled by the Arab antiquity thieves
and thus the arrangement was not authentic or conclusive.”Is this reassembly by arab antiquity thieves a confirmed fact or a theory to explain inconsistencies with halacha?
“I would like to know what everyone shalom bayis problems are or were, and how you worked to overcome them.”
My family’s minhag is to place mezuzahs at a 45 degree angle like Rama. My spouse’s family’s minhag is to place them vertically, like Shulchan Aruch. After intensive therapy during sheva brachos (during which we compromised between 3 and 7 by doing 5 brachos, but that’s a compromise for another time), we compromised on mezuzahs angles by placing them at a 22.5 degree angle. My spouse was satisfied because we compromised. I felt duped because 45 degrees is already a compromise so why should I have to compromise more. I got even by only not showering for half of the 9 days that do not overlap with shavua shechal bo.
“A Real Goyishe Prophet”
The only real goyishe prophet, bilaam, is said by the medrash to have engaged in bestiality with his talking donkey.
[Avodah Zarah 4b]
I don’t think it implies one way or the other.
Pockets are a relatively recent invention. The Gemara is not referring to the $20 bill you left in your pants pocket on Wednesday. Whether or not people changed clothes for Shabbos, presumably people without pockets tucked items into the folds of their clothes or belts during the course of the day and the Gemara is saying one should check his clothes at sunset.
AAQ, if you mean that full capacity now translates into increased rates when the vaccines in production now are done, that could very well be. I am only pointing out that your cynicism about Biden taking over a successful program and pretending that it was broken was unwarranted. You presented it as straight math (1m a day for 3 days translates to 100m over 100 days), but it isn’t as explained earlier.
“Do they not teach time series and linear correlations in yeshivot any more?!”
They can start with basic civics lessons.
4.5 million per week was one number I came across. If I remember correctly it was based on the the number of weekly vaccines allocated to states. Since other countries are getting vaccines as well, the actual amount manufactured is probably higher.
AAQ, I don’t know who said they were given no plans. I did see a clip of fauci saying the Biden administration is not starting from scratch. Your original question was why is 100m doses in 100 days ambitious, which is entirely different.
Maybe a good analogy is if you have a weekly magazine subscription that piles up for a few weeks. If you sit down and look through 4 back issues one week, it doesn’t mean you can continue reading 4 issues of that magazine per week going forward because you’re still only getting 1 new issue every week. To maintain that pace, you’d have to either get the magazine to publish more frequently, or subscribe to additional magazines. It’s more complicated than just maintaining the current plan.
That said, I’m sure some aspect of this is to set expectations that you can beat. But it does appear to be more complex than just continuing the plan rolled out by the previous administration.
If appointments are being cancelled, then the system as it exists is regressing. Cities that could continue the pace that led to 0 to 1m/day are not being given enough doses to maintain that pace. Essentially the 1m/day pace was possible because for the first few weeks, many vaccines were delivered but not administered, so there was supply to go through (which also means averaging probably gives you a better picture of the overall state). Once those doses are administered, the vaccination rate will fall. According to some reports, Pfizer and moderna together are manufacturing 4.5 million doses a week at close to max capacity, which doesn’t get you to 100 million in 100 days even if they can maintain production.
AAQ, it’s not just a question of math. Production bottleneck and lack of coordinated distribution has resulted in some areas having unused vaccines and others using up supply and having to cancel appointments. There’s currently an excess of vaccines overall (36m distributed, 16.5m administered per NYT), but getting to 100m in 100 days is not a given without fixing the system and/or approving additional vaccines.
Hakatan,
You drew the parallel, so you explain it to me.
Are you saying:
a) a woman SHOULD NOT be allowed to choose an abortion and the same woman SHOULD NOT be allowed to choose to forgo a vaccine, or
b) a woman SHOULD be allowed to choose an abortion and the same woman SHOULD be allowed to choose to forgo a vaccine
I don’t remember discussing abortions in CR, but I get the impulse to make sure we’re all morally consistent.
And then a republican congressman tried to claim that “amen” is latin. Hashem yeracheim. It’s OUR word. And to think so many yidden voted for these etymologically challenged kratsmach tree worshipers.
We don’t have to call them detention camps. We can call them covid communes. Whatever the name, it would serve an important human rights purpose: covid-deniers and anti-vaxers who insist that their fundamental right to control their bodies means they have a right to participate in society while potentially spreading a highly contagious and deadly virus to others even if immunization is safe, available and free, can do just that. With each other. Everyone else has a right to participate in society without having to worry if 95% effective means there’s a small but still significant chance that they can still get infected from the selfish human rights activist breathing on their face.
OP might be referring to a proposed bill (A11179) in the assembly to add a public health law provision mandating covid19 vaccines.
Text of the proposed law would provide in part as follows:
2. ONCE THE UNITED STATES FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION’S CENTER FOR
BIOLOGICS EVALUATION AND RESEARCH AND THE NEW YORK STATE CLINICAL ADVI-
SORY TASK FORCE HAVE APPROVED THE SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF A COVID-19
VACCINATION AND PROMOTION AND DISTRIBUTION PLANS OF SUCH VACCINE HAVE
BEGUN PURSUANT TO THE DEPARTMENT’S COVID-19 VACCINATION ADMINISTRATION
PROGRAM, IF PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS DETERMINE THAT RESIDENTS OF THE
STATE ARE NOT DEVELOPING SUFFICIENT IMMUNITY FROM COVID-19, THE DEPART-
MENT SHALL MANDATE VACCINATION FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS OF INDIVID-
UALS WHO, AS SHOWN BY CLINICAL DATA, ARE PROVEN TO BE SAFE TO RECEIVE
SUCH VACCINE.
3. ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS RECEIVED A MEDICAL EXEMPTION FROM A LICENSED
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL SHALL NOT BE MANDATED TO RECEIVE THE COVID-19
VACCINE AND SHALL BE EXCLUDED FROM THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SECTION.And by the way, how can anyone be confident that Trump won Florida, Texas and Ohio? Polls showed him behind. What, all of sudden it’s a come from behind win? How improbable is it that Latinos voted for Trump? I think there are enough questions to require recounts and audits. We already know from Trump’s top shelf lawyers that the machines are hackable by Venezuelans, so why do you think there’s fraud in Georgia but not in Florida?
Health and Moshe: when are they going to present this in court? It’s more than 2 and half weeks since election day. They’ve lost a bunch of cases and withdrew others. Presumably, you hold a press conference to sway public opinion, which at this point is all they have. So while you are not required to show evidence to the public, if you claim widespread fraud, but give no evidence and forgo or delay the lawsuits, forgive anyone who is uninitiated in the cult to be more than a little skeptical.
ENS: Obviously the computers changed the paper ballot. It’s easy to do from Venezuela if you have the computer manual.
You heard it here first.
Romney today wrote:
“Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president.”
OP’s hypothetical assumed evidence of fraud and legitimate court decisions that overturned Biden’s victory.
As many have already pointed out, this is purely hypothetical. If there was any evidence, it would have been presented in court. In fact, the withdrawal of the Michigan lawsuits and the effort now to get legislators to disregard the election points to the fact that Trump’s lawyers themselves know they have no evidence despite what they claim in press conferences.
Nevertheless, I think the question is a fair thought exercise. For every person who is disgusted by trump, there’s a 0.95 person who liked him enough to vote for him. If you’re happy with the results, it’s easy to say that’s the way democracy works. Losing is hard, especially if you believe a lot is at stake.
So taking the hypothetical at face value, we are stipulating that proof of fraud was presented and that, as a result, there are fully transparent and objectively legitimate court decisions overturning Biden’s victory.
First of all, Biden thus far has been a gracious winner. He talks about bipartisanship and being president for all Americans regardless of who they voted for. Rhetorical, maybe, but so far he hasn’t shown he’s giving the keys to radical progressives as many republicans claimed he would. No one should expect Trump to be gracious if he wins. He will gloat and call for investigations and prosecution for treason (raises the question of whether those things can be applied to him now, but that’s another topic) and spend the next 4 years talking about the 2020 election rather than doing the work of being president. He will double down on divisiveness. If you thought it couldn’t get worse, of course it can.
No amount of objective legitimacy will prevent mass demonstrations and probable violence. There were demonstrations after the 2016 election, but this will be on a much larger scale. Trump has already used military force against demonstrations. No doubt he will do it again, which of course will only serve to further incite violent demonstrations. Hard to know how or if that cycle will end. Trump only escalates, reconciliation is for losers.
Personally, I have been looking forward to post election and say good bye to the constant news cycle. If Trump’s goal now is to get as much negative attention as he can, he is succeeding. Everyone wants to know how it will end. The only thing universally agreed on is that he will never actually concede, but he might just drop the topic. Will he slink off to Maralago for Christmas and not come back (not like he’s been doing much since the election)? Will he pardon himself? Will he have to be physically removed as a trespasser on Jan 20, kicking and screaming that he’s the real president? But that’s it: on Jan 21, I’m deleting news apps. Hopefully, Joe Biden’s presidency will be so boring we’d all rather stare out of a window and look for animal shapes in the clouds. Actually, that sounds like fun as long as I don’t see trump’s profile.
So hypothetically, if Trump did really win, the drama will not end for another 4 years. No staring out of windows. Phone calls with relatives will continue to be dominated by discussion of the latest in presidential politics. Children will know more about politics than I ever knew or cared to know at their age. I’m already exhausted, and it’s just a hypothetical.
Health – I learned today that I can admire something about Giuliani. If his legal strategy is to sit on his evidence and lose his way up to the Supreme Court, while at the same time convincing his boss that he’s worth $20,000 a day, that is admirable chutzpah.
Syag – I haven’t seen anyone here say that every person who voted for trump is a member of the trump cult. The cult is a special category of trump supporters who believe his conspiracy theories and lies. Many people are also calling them zombies because trump ate their brains. I know that because obviously it’s true.
withheld – don’t assume that all people who voted for trump support his wild conspiracy theories about fraud. It’s not half the country. Many republicans are disgusted by this.
Not everyone who voted for trump is in the trump cult. Trump cult is defined by people who believe any and every conspiracy theory floated by trump or floated by other cult members, just because he said it or it serves his purpose.
And please do not try to turn this around with an exhausting, “well you’re in a cult because you refuse to believe blah blah blah.” I could also be a figment of your imagination. But in the shared world we call reality, you need rational based evidence for your beliefs or you’re a nutcase. “I don’t have proof that Biden cheated, I just know it’s true” doesn’t cut it – not in a courtroom, not in life.
It’s actually amazing that Trump didn’t nominate Rudy Giuliani to the Supreme Court. Instead he nominated a conservative with judicial principles. He deserves to lose just for that.
Commonsaychel: “I hope the lesson learned is not to make group assumptions.”
Unfortunately for everyone in the world, the lesson learned is that you’d get better results if you hire companies like Cabridge Analytica. Differentiating between the frum person in Boro Park and the secular progressive in Berkley is child’s play even if both have flip phone and no social media accounts.
Whatever you do, don’t take Moshiach advice from Religious Xiatians.
huju, the Shy Trump Voter is probably a myth. It’s more likely that Trump supporters believe polls are corrupt (rather than mere junk science), so they’re even less likely to respond to them. Pollsters have to try to adjust for Trump support and enthusiasm without data. That’s why it’s junk science.
That might explain why democrats didn’t do better, but not why polling and media expected them to in the first place.
If the question is why democrats didn’t do better considering how awful trump and trumpism is, I think it’s partly effective branding by republicans tying all democrats to the extreme progressive wing. In Republican telling, all democrats are antifa supporting, police defunding aoc socialists. The electorate is also so polarized that most people just vote for their team. There are few undecided voters and few voters who would consider voting for the other team.
Covid hospitalizations are at an all time high. It’s not just testing.
ujm – you are on record here advocating for an anti-democratic use of constitutional power to throw the election to trump simply because it can be done under the literal reading of the constitution (in mark levin’s reading of the constitution). So in the final analysis, ENS is correct: be honest and acknowledge that you want an authoritarian regime.
Further, Hillary Clinton never claimed that Trump did not legally hold the office of the president or that legal actions he took as president would be illegitimate. She did not claim russia hacked the vote counting machines or that the election itself was illegitimate. Whatever people have in their heads when they vote is their business; there is a long history of propaganda and disinformation in presidential campaigns, but in the end it’s up to the campaigns to make their cases and then people vote using whatever criteria they want to use.
The question of legitimacy in 2016 had to do with democratic norms and whether the trump campaign accepted or colluded with foreign powers. Had the Russia investigation concluded that there was actual collusion, there may have been grounds for impeachment, but no one ever said collusion would void the 2016 election. Trump’s legal legitimacy was never questioned. Hillary Clinton never claimed she was rightful president. She conceded as soon as the results were clear. So stop with the false equivalencies.
What’s going on now is either trump trying to maneuver the country into a serious constitutional crisis, or far more likely, he’s a wimp who cannot admit defeat so he’s just lashing out without a strategy, or even more likely than that, it’s a huge con to fire up the trump zombies to get them to pay for his campaign debts and legal fees. Trump has every right to ask for every vote to be counted, to ask for a recount where allowed by law, and to ask for the minor voting irregularities to be looked into, but he does not have a right to claim widespread fraud without any proof. Whatever the motivation, it will have a long lasting affect on democracy and will serve to delegitimize actions taken by biden in eyes of those trump supporters who cannot separate fact from fiction.
“The strongest evidence against fraud is the lack of a “Blue wave”. “
Never trumpers claim this shows the impact they had on the election. Trump lost support among white educated voters compared to last election. If enough of those educated voters voted against trump this time, but still voted Republican down ticket in close elections, that could explain a Biden win without a blue wave.
I think we’re all being played. Trump believes he is playing a president on TV. He has no real interest in governing, but he does like the spotlight. The Trump Show is the opposite of the Truman Show. Trump knows it’s fake. We all think it’s real. Or maybe we know it’s real and he thinks it’s fake. Something like that.
So here’s what’s really happening. Trump believes that he is building dramatic tension to an explosive season one finale. Will he concede or not? Is he a villain or a misunderstood patriot? Will those loyal to him pull creaky levers of government to help him or will they be pulled to thwart his ambition? Will the liberty bell be unrung? Who really won the election amid a once-in-a-century global pandemic? With an upcoming senate runoff for control of the legislative machinary, will he have the opportunity to flex his political muscle once again and regain his former glory, or will he slink off to cable talk show host ignominy?
This is why we haven’t seen much of Trump in the last week. He is planning the season one cliffhanger.
January 20, 2021, 11:45 AM: Chief Justice John Roberts is ready to swear in a president, but neither candidate has arrived. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, herself recently elevated to the highest court through the urging of Trump’s most stalwart defenders, is on hand to swear in a vice president. Mike Pence and Kamala Harris stare at each other from the steps of the capitol. Both make their way to the podium.
Is there a collective bechira?
There will be an outrageous amount of money spent in Georgia on the two runoff elections. Now that we know who is president, control of the senate comes down to the court packers vs the obstructionists. In way, trump will do his party a favor by conceding.
Common, that was my first paragraph, but it didn’t happen overnight. You went to bed with George w bush and woke up to trump.
“I was talking to my friends and they told me there is a change in thinking by the younger generation our grandparents were ingrained to vote Democratic from the minute they left the ship and the young generation shifted to the GOP.”
I don’t think our grandparents saw the partisan divide in religious terms. My guess is that civil rights contributed to aligning white Christianity along the political spectrum so that issues like abortion became partisan and reinforced the divide. If I read between lines of a certain influential orthodox rabbi correctly, it seems that 1960’s culture followed by rising crime showed moral decay not shared by the square republican conformists. There’s also the fact that after a few generations of settling down and accumulating wealth, tax policy and small government become more important than what democrats had to offer.
Of course that doesn’t explain the blind attachment to an immoral (and profligate) president and by extension an immoral party over the last few years. For that you have resort to color war where you pick (or are assigned) a team that you root for no matter how corrupt or destructive they turn out to be. I assume that people in Houston still root for the Astros for the same reason. How insane is that.