US Presidential Election 2020

[Blue]

Oh, look, BS is back with a new bunch of crap pretending like he's looking for some RI backup affirmative analysis that TRUMP ACTUALLY WON THE ELECTION.

Why do the moderators put up with this continued nonsense?

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Re-pasting my prior posting below, and ignoring the misinformed, poor attempt at trolling, above.

Manipulation of voting results has been a common theme/occurrence throughout history, particularly for National elections.

What leads you to believe this time is different?

It's quite clear to anyone paying attention that I'm no fan of either Establishment party, or their representatives/stooges, particularly at the higher levels.

.

Came across this from Orlov -- shared in the comments section of a recent posting from J.M. Greer @ ecosophia.net.

Haven't corroborated these figures yet, other than checking for registered voters in the U.S. [see below].

Welcome added assessment here for those with the interest to dig into these numbers.

...were they able to do basic arithmetic, they would have spotted the problem: 74 million votes for Trump plus 81 million votes for Biden gives us 155 million votes total. But there were only 153 million registered voters just two years ago, so that's 101% voter turn-out. And then 160 million are said to have voted, so that's 104.5% turn-out! Compare that to 55.7% turn-out in the 2016 election.

There is no way to make the numbers make any sense. Since 2016 the US population grew by just under 8 million. Optimistically assuming half of them became eligible to vote; that would add 4 million to the rolls. Optimistically assuming all of them actually registered to vote, that would only make 157 million. Accept the reported stunning voter turn-out number for 2020 of 66.7%. That's just under 105 million votes total—nowhere near then 160 million number that has been reported. If Trump got 74 million votes, as reported, then just 31 million votes would be the theoretical maximum for Biden—less then half as many as for Trump.

https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/12/ ... r-end.html


According to KFF.org:

2018:

2016:

2014:


https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicat ... 2asc%22%7D

[Blue]

.

Re-pasting my prior posting below, and ignoring the misinformed, poor attempt at trolling, above.

Manipulation of voting results has been a common theme/occurrence throughout history, particularly for National elections.

What leads you to believe this time is different?

It's quite clear to anyone paying attention that I'm no fan of either Establishment party, or their representatives/stooges, particularly at the higher levels.

Yes, voting results have been manipulated. I don't believe it is different this time except for who the perceived victim is. Black, minority, inner city, well, all the gerrymandering that has been documented for decades to deny certain people of their votes counting. Reality.

With all the shit that is going on this year Mitch McConnell who was way behind Amy McGrath...won!

Looking for irregularities in voting during the presidential election of 2020, especially on Jan 1, 2021 is nothing but attention seeking or delusional thinking.

Multiple governors, election officials, the Supreme Court, multiple state courts, Homeland Security, the US Department of Justice, I know I'm forgetting someone...but most of those judges, governors and officials were Trump appointees, or at least his Republican buddies.

The conspiracy that ALL of them have turned on Trump can be accounted for by 4 groups of people supporting him:

1. Methhead and other addicts, alcohol, oxy, ect. nuts who don't function mentally.
2. Very Rich People.
3. Qanon type koo koos who think Hillary drinks baby blood, rapes them in non-existent basements, etc.
4. Those who wish to destroy the USA. Notice how I'm not saying Russia. Don't really fucking care who, but it's someone, maybe enough internally who want to tear it into shreds. Which is happening right before our eyes.

[Marionumber1]

There are many things wrong with Orlov's "analysis". 55.7% is the 2016 turnout among the voting-age population; to figure out the 2016 turnout among registered voters, which is the comparison Orlov is making, you'd have to divide 137,537 by 157,596 which is about 87.3%. From there we see that it is actually quite normal for the substantial majority of registered voters to turn out, and trying to highlight an anomaly by comparing to 55.7% is highly misleading. The more fundamental issue is that Orlov assumes new registered voters can only come from people who are newly eligible to vote, as if there isn't a substantial number of people in the country who aren't registered and might have opted to do so in large numbers before a major election like this one. It is not very easy to assess the implausibility of voter turnout until we actually have 2020 voter registration figures, and certainly not with a so-called analysis of this caliber.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with questioning an election outcome. There is nothing sacred about them and evidence throughout the past several decades suggests they have repeatedly been rigged. But it is clear that almost all of the "It was rigged for Biden!" advocates like Orlov have no semblance of objectivity and are just scrounging for any piece of data that backs up their conclusions, without considering alternative explanations or even reading their own data correctly.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with questioning an election outcome. There is nothing sacred about them and evidence throughout the past several decades suggests they have repeatedly been rigged. But it is clear that almost all of the "It was rigged for Biden!" advocates like Orlov have no semblance of objectivity and are just scrounging for any piece of data that backs up their conclusions, without considering alternative explanations or even reading their own data correctly.

Astute observations, Mario; we're in a bad spot regardless of U.S. figurehead, of course. There is no Establishment Party solution for our current ills. To the contrary, at least for the near-term, there are certain agendas that appear to be lined up for us that won't bode well for the majority.

That aside, some of the apparent paradigm shifts ahead may provide opportunity to alter certain outcomes -- nothing is written in stone. A big obstacle, in my view, isn't so much the intentions of the players at the top but the increasingly pervasive influence of those that shape narratives, to the point that many in the majority will allow or agree to detrimental actions/policies.

TBD.

[brainpanhandler]

There are many things wrong with Orlov's "analysis". 55.7% is the 2016 turnout among the voting-age population; to figure out the 2016 turnout among registered voters, which is the comparison Orlov is making, you'd have to divide 137,537 by 157,596 which is about 87.3%. From there we see that it is actually quite normal for the substantial majority of registered voters to turn out, and trying to highlight an anomaly by comparing to 55.7% is highly misleading. The more fundamental issue is that Orlov assumes new registered voters can only come from people who are newly eligible to vote, as if there isn't a substantial number of people in the country who aren't registered and might have opted to do so in large numbers before a major election like this one. It is not very easy to assess the implausibility of voter turnout until we actually have 2020 voter registration figures, and certainly not with a so-called analysis of this caliber.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with questioning an election outcome. There is nothing sacred about them and evidence throughout the past several decades suggests they have repeatedly been rigged. But it is clear that almost all of the "It was rigged for Biden!" advocates like Orlov have no semblance of objectivity and are just scrounging for any piece of data that backs up their conclusions, without considering alternative explanations or even reading their own data correctly.

What Mario said.

I'd add:

"The more fundamental issue is that Orlov assumes new registered voters can only come from people who are newly eligible to vote, as if there isn't a substantial number of people in the country who aren't registered and might have opted to do so in large numbers before a major election like this one."

According to U.S. census data from 2018 there were approximately 76 million people of voting age that answered not registered or made no answer.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time ... 0-583.html

I'm still chewing on this. There have been elections with larger turnout by percentage of voting age population. This election is anomalous to be sure. I'm not sure how plausible it is that nearly 160 million people voted. The republicans pulled out every trick in their playbook to suppress democratic votes and the pandemic had to have acted to suppress the vote. It's... odd.

Certainly my first thought would not be that the democrats had somehow stolen the election, but rather that the republicans somehow manufactured a lot of votes.

[DrEvil]

Mail-in votes had a big bump this election, so maybe the convenience of it made more people vote? It's a hell of a lot easier to just drop off an envelope than to take time off work and go stand in line for hours on a specific day during a pandemic.

I would also guess that both Trump (Hitler!) and Biden (Stalin!) made a lot of people highly motivated to get off their asses and vote.

Even with the record turnout it was only at 66.7% of eligible voters, which isn't really that impressive. One third still couldn't be bothered.

[Blue]

.

[JackRiddler]

Given the imputed stakes and four years of continuous advance coverage, another 10-pt rise in turnout (above the high in 2016) is not remarkable.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

yes, all viable scenarios.

That aside, the turnout remains unprecedented -- for an unprecedented year -- and the heightened promotion of mail-in voting (due of course to COVID) likely played a part in higher turnout relative prior years (not to mention the added incentive relative to prior years, as JRiddler alludes above).

Still, given the history of rigging in elections, particularly those deemed to be particularly momentous, and recent blatant instances of fraudulent activities both in Primaries (Sanders getting shafted not once, but twice in 2016 and 2020) and National elections (the 2000 election was particularly glaring, but 2004 also had shady characteristics), given some of the plans hinted/outright promoted for the coming year+ (more so than any prior years in recent history, arguably), it would not surprise me at all if there were a number of irregularities, or instances of outright fraud, this year.

It's possible factions within both parties participated in fraud -- and it's certainly probable that Biden was going to win regardless of any rigging, despite Trump rallies suggesting otherwise (Biden supporters were more likely to stay locked in, etc.). But nothing can be ruled out given all we've observed and witnessed, both historically, and particularly over the last ~12 months. If rigging occurred, it may have been to assure a result, rather than rely on 'odds'. All speculative -- and will never be known definitively.


[A few asides: I'm sticking to my speculation that Trump is part of a controlled opposition operation, of a sort. It goes without saying that Trump certainly is no solution to the common American's ills; he's a criminal along with his peers at the top, but he certainly presented the optics of such an alternative, to great effect, as he successfully tapped into growing frustration among the increasingly disenfranchised. It also can not be underscored enough how 'TRUMP' -- the phenomenon, in addition to mesmerizing his fanbase, also offers the added benefit of eliciting guttural/reflexive reactions by those who loathe him. For example: Trump raising questions, earlier this year, on bureaucratic/officially-mandated methods for handling COVID, immediately caused practically half the population to DISMISS ANY scrutiny, outright, related to bureaucratic/official handling of this virus. We saw an example of this on display in this very forum. Along similar lines, any scrutiny of this year's election will raise similar automatic rebukes. That's not to say that there aren't ample reasons to outright rebuke many of the claims, of course: The 'Trump-tards' arguments are littered with poisoned-well talking points. BUT, this also often causes the 'baby to be tossed with the bathwater': legit inquiry is immediately and summarily dismissed. LOSE-LOSE. By no means am I suggesting Orlov is of the latter, to be clear - I don't read his blog regularly; he may well be a variant of a 'Trump-tard'. I don't know. I included his quoted comment here as I felt it was worthy of larger discussion.]

[Marionumber1]

It's possible factions within both parties participated in fraud -- and it's certainly probable that Biden was going to win regardless of any rigging, despite Trump rallies suggesting otherwise (Biden supporters were more likely to stay locked in, etc.). But nothing can be ruled out given all we've observed and witnessed, both historically, and particularly over the last ~12 months. If rigging occurred, it may have been to assure a result, rather than rely on 'odds'. All speculative -- and will never be known definitively.


[A few asides: I'm sticking to my speculation that Trump is part of a controlled opposition operation, of a sort. It goes without saying that Trump certainly is no solution to the common American's ills; he's a criminal along with his peers at the top, but he certainly presented the optics of such an alternative, to great effect, as he successfully tapped into growing frustration among the increasingly disenfranchised. It also can not be underscored enough how 'TRUMP' -- the phenomenon, in addition to mesmerizing his fanbase, also offers the added benefit of eliciting guttural/reflexive reactions by those who loathe him. For example: Trump raising questions, earlier this year, on bureaucratic/officially-mandated methods for handling COVID, immediately caused practically half the population to DISMISS ANY scrutiny, outright, related to bureaucratic/official handling of this virus. We saw an example of this on display in this very forum. Along similar lines, any scrutiny of this year's election will raise similar automatic rebukes. That's not to say that there aren't ample reasons to outright rebuke many of the claims, of course: The 'Trump-tards' arguments are littered with poisoned-well talking points. BUT, this also often causes the 'baby to be tossed with the bathwater': legit inquiry is immediately and summarily dismissed. LOSE-LOSE. By no means am I suggesting Orlov is of the latter, to be clear - I don't read his blog regularly; he may well be a variant of a 'Trump-tard'. I don't know. I included his quoted comment here as I felt it was worthy of larger discussion.]

I have long been inclined to see Trump as controlled opposition, but I think the implications of that go farther than you outlined here. At least at the highest levels of political control, I don't believe that there has been much substantial division at all. Acknowledging that politics is largely controlled by behind-the-scenes forces while still subscribing to the idea that the two parties are duking it out for power feels to me like one hasn't really embraced the full implications of that type of duopolistic control. (An aside: my perspective very much inspired by the late Dave McGowan's book Understanding the F-Word, which I think is an essential read even if, as is the case with me, you don't agree with all of it.)

At least when it comes to electronic vote tampering (mainly 2000 onwards), there appears to be just one election rigging enterprise that has operated throughout the years in general elections and primaries of both parties. Whether it is rigging Bush's initial election in 2000 and re-election in 2004, or spiking the 2008 New Hampshire primary vote to maintain Hillary's viability, or screwing over Bernie in 2016, or installing Trump in 2016, the markers tend to be the same: right-wing-favoring discrepancies in exit polls, anomalies in cumulative vote share analysis, complicity of local officials in suppressing any attempted recounts or audits, and even some of the same personnel rotating from place to place (e.g. Michael Vu who oversaw the rigged 2004 Ohio recount in Cuyahoga County and then went on to run elections in San Diego where he oversaw a corrupt audit of the 2016 primary there). I haven't seen a particular reason to doubt that it's the same long-running enterprise, and the inside information that Jonathan Simon (of Election Defense Alliance), Cliff Arnebeck (lawyer for the case surrounding 2004 Ohio), and Dana Jill Simpson (whistleblower on Karl Rove's operation) have received backs up the idea that the same forces surrounding Karl Rove have always been the key fraud players.

The consistent red shift trend doesn't make it seem like the two parties have been competing to rig votes. Virtually without fail, the general elections have been rigged for Republicans, and the Democrats have systematically ignored the evidence, aiding in the cover-up of fraud that is reducing the amount of political power they hold. This isn't the pattern we would see if there was any kind of substantial rigging competition between the two parties: it's what we would see if they're both complicit in the process of pushing the country further to the right. I'm sure that at lower levels in the parties, there are true believer operatives who are trying to cheat for their respective parties. Red shift trends are sometimes broken, such as in the 2016 general election in New York (a Democratic stronghold) where there was a blue shift. But the overall pattern is clear, which suggests a pretty consistent control of the mechanisms that allow wholesale fraud (as opposed to smaller, less influential retail frauds that both parties' operatives undoubtedly engage in).

You're quite right about how the poor arguments for pro-Biden fraud poison the well, and I do believe it's by design, but I don't think it's to prevent people from considering the possibility of pro-Biden fraud. As of now, I still highly doubt that the fraud went in that direction, and I suspect that it was really meant to poison the entire issue of election rigging. Democrats have been pushed into defending the electoral process as honest, and in turn looking like hypocrites if they ever do challenge a genuinely suspect election. Any concern about voting machines, meanwhile, is made to look like a freakish right-wing conspiracy theory. While Sidney Powell weaves her bullshit tales about China, Venezuela, and Cuba rigging the election, Dominion Voting Systems has been able to get away with blatant lies about how their systems can't be rigged. What this whole mess actually seems to protect is the preexisting fraud mechanisms that primarily rig for the right-wingers.

[Belligerent Savant]

I have long been inclined to see Trump as controlled opposition, but I think the implications of that go farther than you outlined here. At least at the highest levels of political control, I don't believe that there has been much substantial division at all. Acknowledging that politics is largely controlled by behind-the-scenes forces while still subscribing to the idea that the two parties are duking it out for power feels to me like one hasn't really embraced the full implications of that type of duopolistic control. (An aside: my perspective very much inspired by the late Dave McGowan's book Understanding the F-Word, which I think is an essential read even if, as is the case with me, you don't agree with all of it.)

Mario, you insult me (sarcasm).
Particularly the bolded bit above, if that's what you read from my commentary then i'm not articulating my stance clearly enough, or you haven't read my historical commentary here in RI (I can certainly forgive the latter; in fact, you have good cause to be thankful you've missed my prior ramblings).

And to top it off, you reference one of my early would-be heroes, Dave McGowan (I type 'would be' as I generally loathe the usage of 'hero'/'heroes').

I began reading McGowan's 'blog' in early 2000. His was the first site i visited for perspective on 911. I have several of his books on my bookshelf, including the fore-referenced Understanding the F-word. I had several email correspondences with him from the early 2000s. Damned shame his voice is no longer available -- sorely missed.

You're quite right about how the poor arguments for pro-Biden fraud poison the well, and I do believe it's by design, but I don't think it's to prevent people from considering the possibility of pro-Biden fraud. As of now, I still highly doubt that the fraud went in that direction, and I suspect that it was really meant to poison the entire issue of election rigging. Democrats have been pushed into defending the electoral process as honest, and in turn looking like hypocrites if they ever do challenge a genuinely suspect election. Any concern about voting machines, meanwhile, is made to look like a freakish right-wing conspiracy theory. While Sidney Powell weaves her bullshit tales about China, Venezuela, and Cuba rigging the election, Dominion Voting Systems has been able to get away with blatant lies about how their systems can't be rigged. What this whole mess actually seems to protect is the preexisting fraud mechanisms that primarily rig for the right-wingers.

No dispute with any of the above.

[Marionumber1]

Yeah I don't mean to denigrate your understanding of the world we're in, and probably did misinterpret the full extent of what you were saying. I'm glad that you enjoy Dave McGowan's work too. It's very sad that he's gone; in fact, he was gone before I even had any awareness of parapolitics at all and so I missed out on the chance to correspond with him. So I guess my diatribe can stand, not directed to you but to other parapolitical researchers I have seen (and there are a surprising number) who still subscribe to the dubious idea of the Republicans and Democrats battling each other for control. I don't even place too much stock in whether a political donor outwardly identifies as Democrat/Republican, or anti/pro-Trump, because it tends to be more about crafting a public image than really caring strongly about a candidate seeing as both candidates are almost always going to carry out the agenda they want. Take major Trumpworld benefactor Robert Mercer, for instance: his co-CEO Jim Simons at Renaissance Technologies was a similarly big Democratic donor, and one political insider joked that the pair was hedging on the political process. I'd bet that's what actually happens most of the time.

There likely is some level of factionalism within the deep political system, and some interesting aberrations that pop up sometimes. One such example is the apparent rivalry between Karl Rove and Steve Bannon, seemingly manifesting in a rare blue shift in favor of Doug Jones (the favorite of Alabama's GOP and business establishment) against Roy Moore. But overall, the objectives of the behind-the-scenes string pullers seem to be pretty consistent, and even the factions are likely being played off by forces higher up in the food chain. Just my own speculation, of course, but it's what I've come to believe after looking at election rigging and the other forces that intersect with it.

[norton ash]

The powers that be just invest in porkbellies. Some from Arkansas, some from Ohio, some from China. It's good to cover your bets all around the table.

[brainpanhandler]

.I'm sticking to my speculation that Trump is part of a controlled opposition operation, of a sort. It goes without saying that Trump certainly is no solution to the common American's ills; he's a criminal along with his peers at the top, but he certainly presented the optics of such an alternative, to great effect, as he successfully tapped into growing frustration among the increasingly disenfranchised.

I think this has to be the case, although it is difficult to imagine when and how this came about. I have cultivated relationships with Trump supporters that can speak in complete sentences so as to have access to what they think and why. This often involves some interpretation. If Bernie had gotten the nomination in 2016 I believe a large enough number of Trump supporters would have voted for Bernie that Bernie would have won. That could not be allowed to happen. Not that there wouldn't have been solutions available.