Poll says half of Republicans would support postponing 2020 election if Trump did it.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... 476262462b

Full article is longer, but...

Critics of President Trump have repeatedly warned of his potential to undermine American democracy. Among the concerns are his repeated assertions that he would have won the popular vote had 3 to 5 million "illegals" not voted in the 2016 election, a claim echoed by the head of a White House advisory committee on voter fraud.

Claims of large-scale voter fraud are not true, but that has not stopped a substantial number of Republicans from believing them. But how far would Republicans be willing to follow the president to stop what they perceive as rampant fraud? Our recent survey suggests that the answer is quite far: About half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the country can fix this problem.

Well, there we have it. The mass voter-fraud myth (which is often pretty obviously code for "minorities voting") has now become a pretext to abolish elections altogether, all in the name of fairness, of course (or rather, until enough voters have been purged to ensure perpetual Republican victory).

Does anyone honestly believe Trump wouldn't be willing to act on this if he thought he had the support to pull it off?

Hopefully he'll be impeached before much longer, but then, we are still left with the problem that the majority of one of our two main parties apparently openly no longer believes in democracy.

This is how dictatorships and civil wars begin. In fact, from one point of view, the last American civil war started when states seceded and attacked the Federal government because they refused to accept the result of an election they fairly lost.

I will also point out that even at the height of said civil war, Abraham Lincoln still allowed free elections, even while running against opponents who would have capitulated to the Confederacy had they won. Because Abraham Lincoln was neither a despot nor a coward, unlike the scum who have hijacked his party in more recent times.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its also supremely stupid of them, I might add. I do not support or condone political violence, but I'm realistic enough to realize that when you deprive people of their right to vote, many people will seek alternative means of change, and some of them will turn to violence.

No doubt many of these Republicans (who have mostly never experienced real war in their lives) salivate at the prospect of a war where they can put down/intern/kill the liberals and minorities by force of arms. But they are, Trump's egotistical lies notwithstanding, a minority of the populace, and I think that they overestimate how compliant the other three-quarters of the populace would be in the face of such a thing.

Democracy is, in part, a device for relieving political tension, for resolving political disputes with a minimum of chaos and bloodshed. No government can retain power effectively if the vast majority of the populace are against them, and a significant percentage willing to act on that opposition. Democracy simply provides a means to recognize that reality with a minimum of upheaval or inconvenience. If democracy ceases to exist, the alternative means will come into play. Of those, the best (mass protest and civil disobedience) are highly disruptive, and the worst (protracted civil war) are catastrophic.

[Adam Reynolds]

If Obama had proposed that he remain in office until an investigation of Trump and the Russian connection could be conducted, would you have supported it? More to the point, if a poll had asked this question, would you have said yes?

Trump doesn't even have the political capital to fire Mueller. This is something to be concerned about, certainly, but it is not exactly something that has any real chance of occurring.

[Zwinmar]

Well, many are convinced that 'liberals' can't/won't fight when pushed. People seem to think that it is only the right who can fight.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't disagree with that in and of itself, but we need a solution to that which does not boil down to yet another argument about how the Left needs to engage in more pre-emptive political violence/terrorism. Presuming the goal is to prevent civil war, not start one.

If Obama had proposed that he remain in office until an investigation of Trump and the Russian connection could be conducted, would you have supported it? More to the point, if a poll had asked this question, would you have said yes?

I honestly don't know what I would have said at the time, though in hindsight I think that that would have been a mistake, as well as illegal (its also not something Obama would ever have even contemplating doing- Obama's problem, if anything, is that he was too timid a politician, and to attempt such an act, even were he able to do so, would be utterly outside his character).

Regardless, however, the two things are not equivalent. For one thing, their is very strong evidence for the Russian collusion, and fuck all evidence for mass voting by illegal immigrants outside of Republican/white nationalist fever dreams. Its a flimsy pretext for denying the right of minorities and Democrats to vote, which has nothing to do with the actual integrity of the election, except in paranoid partisan fantasies.

But I suppose I should have expected that the first response would be someone trotting out the old "the other side are just as bad" line. The single greatest tool for obfuscating political discourse and normalizing any act under the Sun.

Out of curiosity, though, can someone tell me what, if anything, the Constitutional procedure is for a contested election persisting past Inauguration Day? Suppose, say, that Gore v Bush 2000 recounts/court battles had persisted, with the outcome still in doubt, until Inauguration Day? Its not really on-topic, but its certainly an intriguing hypothetical.

Trump doesn't even have the political capital to fire Mueller. This is something to be concerned about, certainly, but it is not exactly something that has any real chance of occurring.

Not now, no.

But even if Trump is impeached tomorrow, we still have to deal with the reality that half of one of our two main political parties apparently no longer believes in democracy. And if they're willing to suspend elections until they've purged enough opposition voters to ensure victory if Dear Leader suggests it, then its not a huge leap from that to refusing to peacefully accept the results of an election they loose.

The last time that happened on such a scale, it was called the American Civil War.

I am concerned about the future viability of democracy in American if a large portion of our political spectrum more or less openly opposes democracy.

[Terralthra]

If Obama had proposed that he remain in office until an investigation of Trump and the Russian connection could be conducted, would you have supported it? More to the point, if a poll had asked this question, would you have said yes?

The counter-question you propose isn't exactly equivalent, because there's evidence linking the Trump campaign and something in Russia. The scary part of this isn't "delay the election", it's "until the vote can be secured against those millions of voting illegal immigrants". There aren't vast numbers of fraudulent voters, millions of undocumented immigrants did not vote, and Trump did not win the popular vote, but that's what the people who answered yes to the delay-the-election question think. The "fake news" thing is fundamentally breaking our electorate's grap on basic facts.

Mind, I'd've said no to the question you propose anyway.

[aerius]

Nothingburger. You could make poll that asks "are Nazis fucking awesome and would you support zombie Hitler as president for life?" and i bet you 20-25% of Americans would vote yes.

[Zaune]

I don't like the direction US politics has taken lately any more than anyone else here, but it's a bit of a leading question, isn't it? Let's reword it slightly: "If the Executive branch had obtained credible evidence of serious irregularities in the electoral rolls affecting a significant fraction of the population of the United States, would you support postponing polling day until those irregularities could be corrected?" It wouldn't be all that hard to get bipartisan consensus on that, except possibly on the definition of credible evidence.

[The Romulan Republic]

Perhaps a leading question, but its still a disturbingly high number, especially considering how absurd the entire "illegal voter fraud" myth is.

[Zaune]

True. But most Republican voters don't know that, do they? They believe what they're told to believe because they learned how to pass standardised tests in school instead of how to recognise biased or unreliable sources and defend or attack a position in a debate or an essay.

[Adam Reynolds]

The counter-question you propose isn't exactly equivalent, because there's evidence linking the Trump campaign and something in Russia. The scary part of this isn't "delay the election", it's "until the vote can be secured against those millions of voting illegal immigrants". There aren't vast numbers of fraudulent voters, millions of undocumented immigrants did not vote, and Trump did not win the popular vote, but that's what the people who answered yes to the delay-the-election question think. The "fake news" thing is fundamentally breaking our electorate's grap on basic facts.

Mind, I'd've said no to the question you propose anyway.

My point is that people give stupid answers to poll questions. Especially when pollsters use priming, as almost certainly occurred in this case. It is not exactly equivalent as noted, and Obama indeed would have never done such a thing, but people would have still almost certainly said yes. Polls like this are also a source of almost fake news in their own right, because they are so easily manipulated to read whatever the pollster suggests.

[The Romulan Republic]

Is the question really that leading here, though? It seemed a pretty straightforward "If Trump said this, would you support it?" to me.

Oh, and a couple more horrifying details:

1. While slightly under half said they'd support it if Donald said it, slightly more than half said they'd support it if it was Trump and Congress.

2. Young Republicans were more likely to support it, meaning that the younger generations of the party are more extreme. In other words, this problem ain't going away any time soon.

In any case, the rest of the article details the methodology used for the poll, if you're curious.

[Ace Pace]

To continue with what aerius said (after my PC ate my post last night)...

What an incompetent article, which itself states it doesn't trust it's own conclusion. This is what passes for red meat in the U.S. left? Pandering to the base?

Or lets quote something non inflammatory, compared to the trash headline.

Of course, our survey is only measuring reactions to a hypothetical situation. Were Trump to seriously propose postponing the election, there would be a torrent of opposition, which would most likely include prominent Republicans. Financial markets would presumably react negatively to the potential for political instability. And this is to say nothing of the various legal and constitutional complications that would immediately become clear. Citizens would almost certainly form their opinions amid such tumult, which does not at all resemble the context in which our survey was conducted.
Nevertheless, we do not believe that these findings can be dismissed out of hand. At a minimum, they show that a substantial number of Republicans are amenable to violations of democratic norms that are more flagrant than what is typically proposed (or studied). And although the ensuing chaos could turn more Republicans against this kind of proposal, it is also conceivable that a high-stakes and polarized debate would do the exact opposite.

Where are the Democrat or independent numbers? Where is the actual data? Not on the researchers website that I could find.

This is yet another classic example of when entering the data you can get very different results. Similar to poll results on belief on voter fraud in the U.S (from WaPo), where playing with the numbers can get you that republicans believe voter fraud is very likely at far higher rate than democrats, but when you start playing with the data, you realise that it's basically white college educated liberals who skew the democrats towards less voter fraud.

[Flagg]

It doesn't matter if half of half of the electorate (and that's assuming too much) would support President Cockroach essentially taking dictatorial power and "delaying" the 2020 election. Primarily because it's not something he can actually do. He has about as much control over elections as a dead raccoon. All of that power is in the hands of the states.

The other reason would be congress shitting, hundreds of lawsuits, and the SCOTUS laughing the shaved orangutan out of court.

And that's without mentioning all of the mass rioting.

So it's an article asking people if they would support doing something he can't do. How fucking stupid do you have to be to publish that shit?

[aerius]

So it's an article asking people if they would support doing something he can't do. How fucking stupid do you have to be to publish that shit?

It can't be all bad, they're getting readership and thus revenue from dumbasses like the one who started this thread. Who needs journalistic integrity?

[Flagg]

So it's an article asking people if they would support doing something he can't do. How fucking stupid do you have to be to publish that shit?

It can't be all bad, they're getting readership and thus revenue from dumbasses like the one who started this thread. Who needs journalistic integrity?

I don't know how much revenue they get since all the print papers whine about losing ground to internet sources without paywalls.

I also wonder if this is an "all the real talent are moving on to greener pastures and the big papers are reduced to hiring moronic wastes of good organs who don't understand 5th grade civics", as opposed to an integrity issue. Both are bad, and arrive at the same result.

In either case, they need an enema.

[The Romulan Republic]

So it's an article asking people if they would support doing something he can't do. How fucking stupid do you have to be to publish that shit?

It can't be all bad, they're getting readership and thus revenue from dumbasses like the one who started this thread. Who needs journalistic integrity?

Did you miss the point of this thread, or are you just ignoring it so that you can insult me/perpetuate the Trumpian "Fake News" meme?

My point, in posting this, is NOT to alledge that Trump is about to postpone elections (though based on past experience, that will not stop you and others from claiming that's what I'm saying and then accusing me of hyperbole, alarmism, etc.). Certainly I am aware that he would not have the Constitutional power to unilaterally make that decision. Nor do I think that it is what the Washington Post is trying to suggest. I wouldn't put it past him to try to do it if he thought he could get away with it, because he has consistently shown himself to be a sociopath with despotic aspirations who tries to rule by executive fiat as much as possible, but he is not, thankfully, in a position to do so at this time.

My concern is that if these numbers are anything close to true, then half of one of our two main parties is more or less openly opposed to, or at least willing to oppose, the most basic tenant of democracy: the right to vote.

This has very concerning long-term implications for the future of our democracy, and absolutely is a legitimate concern, and one worth reporting on in a newspaper.

Do you actually want to address that, or just go the quick and easy way of misrepresenting my arguments to score cheap points?

[aerius]

Do you actually want to address that, or just go the quick and easy way of misrepresenting my arguments to score cheap points?

Ok. So half the Republican voter base is as dumb as you are. News at 11.
Refer to my previous post on polls, Nazis, and zombie Hitler.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, no, you won't actually address the topic, but will just keep hurling cheap insults. Shouldn't have expected anything better from our resident Trump/Putin lapdog.

Ignoring you now.

[Flagg]

Do you actually want to address that, or just go the quick and easy way of misrepresenting my arguments to score cheap points?

Ok. So half the Republican voter base is as dumb as you are. News at 11.
Refer to my previous post on polls, Nazis, and zombie Hitler.

Yeah, and in this case they might was we'll be polling on whether house Slitherin or house Griffindor has the best team at whatever that stupid broomstick game is called.

In this and the sticky threads I'm literally aghast at how many supposedly intelligent people don't have a single fucking clue about how the American government works yet make totally incorrect definitive statements as if they are fact.

The POTUS cannot postpone an election. The 2016 election results cannot be overturned, it doesn't matter if President Cockroach and his Master Vlad come out and declare they rigged it, the election was certified end of story. No wonder political discourse in this country is a sewer, no one seems to have a goddamned clue how things fucking work.

[The Romulan Republic]

Since a number of people seem to feel that this is no big deal...

I get that this isn't the end of the world in and of itself and that Trump has no Constitutional power to unilaterally suspend elections. Really, I do.

But are we really at the point of mindless cynicism and apathy where "half of one of our two main parties no longer believes in free elections" is just greeted with a shrug and a "business as usual"?

Senator Amidala had it wrong. Liberty does not die with thunderous applause, but with a shrug of indifference.

[aerius]

So, no, you won't actually address the topic, but will just keep hurling cheap insults. Shouldn't have expected anything better from our resident Trump/Putin lapdog.

Ignoring you now.

The topic was addressed and given the attention and respect it merits. Which is to say less than my daily #2.
If you'd like to have an adult discussion you can begin by pulling your head out of Hitlery's cunt.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, no, you won't actually address the topic, but will just keep hurling cheap insults. Shouldn't have expected anything better from our resident Trump/Putin lapdog.

Ignoring you now.

The topic was addressed and given the attention and respect it merits. Which is to say less than my daily #2.
If you'd like to have an adult discussion you can begin by pulling your head out of Hitlery's cunt.

Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with this topic whatsoever, but thank you for making your biases, and the real motivation behind your posts, so apparent. Who cares if democracy dies, as long as you get to stick it to Hillary Clinton, right?

Also, your blatantly misogynist rhetoric does not go unnoticed.

[aerius]

Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with this topic whatsoever, but thank you for making your biases, and the real motivation behind your posts, so apparent. Who cares if democracy dies, as long as you get to stick it to Hillary Clinton, right?

Also, your blatantly misogynist rhetoric does not go unnoticed.

Newsflash, dingus, your democracy is already fucked and has been for longer than you've been alive. You basically get to choose between getting ass-raped with lube or ass-raped dry. I guess it's hard to see that with Bernie's balls in your mouth.

PS. I thought you were going to ignore me, how's that working, dicksmack.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with this topic whatsoever, but thank you for making your biases, and the real motivation behind your posts, so apparent. Who cares if democracy dies, as long as you get to stick it to Hillary Clinton, right?

Also, your blatantly misogynist rhetoric does not go unnoticed.

Newsflash, dingus, your democracy is already fucked and has been for longer than you've been alive. You basically get to choose between getting ass-raped with lube or ass-raped dry. I guess it's hard to see that with Bernie's balls in your mouth.

PS. I thought you were going to ignore me, how's that working, dicksmack.

Hi there.

#1: Your misogynistic rhetoric has not at all gone unnoticed.
#2: You are also coming dangerously close to the vendetta line. I would recommend you back the fuck off immediately.
#3: Your attempt to make this thread about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in order to pursue that vendetta-trotting line have also not gone unnoticed.
#4: TRR does not hold a position that is entirely without merit (having a significant proportion of a major party willing to suspend democracy because they believe a web of lies is a problem) and he is trying to treat you like an adult. Yet, you seem to have difficulty behaving as such.

This has been your mild admonishment. Clean up your act, or consequences will result.