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Samizdata quote of the day In 1992 Democrats won the men’s vote, and finished only 2 points behind with white voters. Support from both groups has plummeted since. Male voters and white voters have been hearing from Democrats how sexist and racist they are for 20+ years now — what did you expect would happen?
She knew what she was selling, and so did the American public. This was 100% an own goal: Hillary chose to run a far left “SJW” campaign pandering to Black Lives Matter, illegal aliens, and the most corrosive feminists & GLBT activists she could find. She gave white Americans and men the finger, and both groups responded in kind.
– Neil Edmondson
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According to exit polls Trump won white voters by 58% to 37%, an enormous gap. But then Romney won white voters by 20%. So basically whites have long given up on the left. How ‘convenient’, then, for the Democrats that they’ve imported millions of non-white voters into the country to help them still win elections.
Hence the farce that is Voter ID …
This is incredibly OT, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for deleting it for that reason, but I really don’t know where else I could ask this question and expect thoughtful responses, so I apologize in advance . . .
This post looks to the question of what groupings in the USA are happy with this result. Looking to Europe (yeah, I know it’s not monolithic) and the Mideast, which populations/groups/cultures are celebrating Trump’s win, and which are in mourning? Is there a massive cringe? A sigh of relief? A roar of a happy joined uprising?
Maybe my more basic question is, where do we look across the ocean to find allies in whatever shift this US election might trigger or presage? Is there a natural Brexit/Trump coalition? I can’t imagine Israel is mourning this result, but there’s no clear consensus here about everyone else.
Or is this all just a local kerfuffle with few international implications?
(Edited to add: I can’t believe “kerfuffle” made it past spellcheck.)
China/PRC may actually be happy with Trump’s victory. Trump seems more concerned than Hillary about domestic issues, and may strike a bargain with China regarding East Asia. He may see no benefit to the US in counter-balancing China, only potentially further antagonizing China on top of the protectionist trade wars he’s going to wage.
A more isolationist US pulls out of SK, Japan and Taiwan, ceding East Asia to China to both control and administer. We may be seeing the end of pax americana and the start of pax sinica. Of course, this also means that China would have sole responsibility for North Korea, which may not be a bad thing. MY own country would fall under the Chinese umbrella. People in the region wouldn’t care much as long as their living standards continue to improve.
Hillary, OTOH, would have continued Obama’s Asia Pivot policy and maintained a strong US presence in East Asia, but eventual domestic weakness (poor immigration quality, divisive racial politics) would have translated to an inability to project power in ten years’ time.
Clinton Campaign people were caught on camera (Project Veritas) boasting of how Democrats RIG elections – how, for example, they bus people from polling station to polling station (just as the “spontaneous” rioters are being bussed about now) to vote multiple times. And the Clinton Campaign people even boasted of how they sent thugs to create violent incidents at Trump campaign events – again in leaked e.mails and hidden camera recorded conversations that the “mainstream media” tried desperately to COVER UP.
Many big cities have been controlled by the Democrats for decades – so as long as the key “activists” and “Community Organisers” are kept on-side to rig the voting it really did not matter how other places voted……. At least so the Clinton Campaign thought.
Hence the Social Justice campaign – based on Frankfurt School of Marxism “race”, “gender”, “sexual orientation” (and so on), to please the activists in charge of rigging the popular vote. Whilst the media (such as my dear friends the Economist magazine) looked the other way – even as Clinton Campaign people boasted of rigging the vote (unaware of such things as hidden cameras and leaked e.mails).
However, rural and small town America came out to vote – in force. And the Electoral College did the rest.
It was an example of what used to be know in the 19th century as the “Republican Elephant”.
The Democrats were not Marxists (Frankfurt School or other) back then – but they still controlled most big cities and they rigged the vote – just as they do now.
But rural and small town American was too big for them to rig – it was the “Republican Elephant” that would sometimes crush the Democrats at election time.
This “Elephant” was supposed to be dead – there was no way that the Republicans could win such States as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan….. till they did win them.
I do not have a high regard for Mr Trump – but he did bring the Republican Elephant back in some big Northern States.
It turns out that the Elephant of the suburbs and small towns was not dead – the Elephant was only sleeping.
And the constant rain of “SWJ” insults from the Dems, woke up the Republican Elephant.
Paul Marks (November 12, 2016 at 6:56 am) is spot on in saying that the Democrat’s have a dreadful record of voter fraud. One hundred years ago, they were voting ‘early and often’ in New York, Chicago, etc., while in the south they obstructed negroes (Republican back then) from voting. Today, the overt obstruction of voters is no longer used en masse (it’s not unknown) but the dead, the criminal and the ‘not legally in US, let alone in polling booth’ are a masse phenomenon. The statement I read in an article last year – that the job of a Chicago community organiser is to be the go between connecting the gangs and the politicians – was so obviously true of New York a century ago that it appears in British comedy (I’m thinking of ‘Smith, Journalist’ by P.G. Wodehouse).
Related to this, I’m assuming that Trump probably in truth won the popular vote, though not by a huge amount. This opinion is not, as yet, the result of any great analysis (and some counts are still completing IIUC). Anyone have an opinion/argument for/against?
All pundits keep telling us it was the revolt of the great mass of uneducated white hillbillies against the politically correct, coast, intellectual elites. Wrong.
I think it was much more a personal matter – the best candidate – as a person – won.
Trump isn’t a good candidate or an adorable person (not at all). But you don’t have to be to get elected. You just have to be more likable than your adversary. In this case it was a very low bar, and Trump passed it, easily.
Hillary is just insufferable on many counts – liar, corrupt, phony, dumb.
Trump is a genuine person – blowhard, clown, not-conservative etc. etc. but still better, not dumb, with a successful business career to his record.
That is why he won.
Why didn’t the great mass of uneducated white hillbillies revolt against Obama (two times)? Because Obama was a likable person, genuine, not corrupt, not a liar, a person WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). He was a SJW ideologue, not very bright, but otherwise a genuine person.
For some reason, i am reminded of the Marxist dictum:
That is Groucho, of course, not Karl.
Well in terms of votes Hillary was still more “popular”, but then this election was essentially a choice of the least awful candidate. I think trumps victory was the final nail in the coffin of the neocon brand of republicanism that took over the GOP post 9/11, and a victory for the more paleocon isolationist brand of conservatism.
This does raise concerns over Russia, Putin will no doubt be emboldened by this election and Europe and Israel will have to fight their own wars without American assistance.
“Israel will have to fight their own wars without American assistance.”
Good. The aftermath of the “Project for the New American Century” has been disastrous for the Middle East and Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
How often has this not been the case?
I think that the voter-fraud point tends to be grossly overstated. Yes, there is fraud, always has been, everywhere. Yes, in the US it has usually been the hallmark of the Democratic party, especially in areas in which they have long had control – such as big cities and certain industrial areas (coal). However, my impression from speaking to a couple of people “in the business” is that in recent decades it has not been nearly significant enough to actually change the results, even in close elections such as this one.
I think that while voter fraud may be less prevalent in general than in years past, there are still genuine and substantial benefits in overhauling the current system; to my mind, primarily, that it could remove once and for all the suspicion that the other guy’s people cheated.
We get this each and every election, and the very accusation of voter fraud undermines respect for the rule of law.
I’d say that it even warrants federal intervention (and I don’t make this suggestion lightly) in that as a resident of one state, I should be able to put full faith in the results collected and tallied in other states, and hence their nominees for the Executive, House and Senate.
But what if these accusations are “crying ‘wolf'”? As I understand it (and I am more than willing to be corrected), there is a system in place for verifying and addressing actual formal complaints (which is a very different thing from throwing accusations in private or public conversations), and it works, most of the time – obviously, no system is perfect.
Could you be more specific as to what exactly needs to be changed, in addition to many changes that have already been taking place?
Voter fraud gave us Obamacare. Coleman (Republican) won the election for Senator from Minnesota. But it was close, and Democrats fussed and howled and demanded a recount, and somehow found a thousand votes or so that threw the election over to Franken (Democrat). Who promptly went to Washington DC and provided the final Senate vote needed for Obamacare.
Don’t tell me vote fraud doesn’t count.
On that note, this is funny.
Alisa (November 12, 2016 at 1:28 pm), I agree that voter fraud did not elect Obama in 2012 (I did a little thought and stats on that), nor do I think Bill Clinton won either of his presidential terms via voter fraud.
The most recent plausible case I know is 1960, when IIUC the Chicago count was decisive, was for sure phoney, and may have been phoney enough to change the outcome. Previously of course, sufficient negroes were sufficiently dissuaded from voting in certain states to decide elections, perhaps including a presidential election (I have not studied this in detail).
It is reported that the Governor of Virginia tried to enfranchise 200,000 felons for this election. On being ordered to examine each case individually by a court, he used an auto pen to pardon a number (13,000 his office initially said, 60,000 it is being reported), sending voter registration forms with the pardon letters. When asked, Terry McAuliffe said he had “no idea” how the pardoned felons would vote, which is the sort of remark that gives political lying a bad name. 🙂 As the court challenges gave him little time to do this before the vote, it may be that few of these felons actually registered and voted. In the past, some votes in Virginia and elsewhere have been closer than the known total of unlawful voters – famously as regards the election of the 60th senate vote that passed Obama care IIRC – but these were close races separated by much smaller numbers than 60,000.
I have forgotten the name and dates of the woman reported (in 2013?) to have died in her garage some years before (2009?) and who voted twice post-mortem.
So I think the danger is real and (in recent times) growing. Whether, in 2016, it was big enough to have reversed the popular vote outcome is something to assess statistically once all the returns are in.
Mayor Daley is reported to have said ‘vote early, vote often’. He was mayor of Chicago for 21 years.
Niall, like I said: fraud has been with us since the advent of history, and is going to stay here for the remainder of the same. Not just election fraud, although that is what we are discussing. With enough intensives, people will lie and cheat, and it’s never going to go away. That is why to me the real question is how often are they succeeding and to what extent?
That was regarding the danger being real. What makes you think it is growing? I don’t have the link handy, but I seem to recall official reports showing a trend in the opposite direction (over the period of a few past decades, IIRC) – have you seen any data to the contrary?
Also, note that I am not making light of election fraud (or any kind of fraud, for that matter) – we do need to watch out for it, and make all we can to root out as much of it as possible (mostly by eliminating relevant incentives, IMO). I am just saying that on the one hand, it is never going to go away completely, and on the other the actual extent of it needs to be kept in proper proportion (see “crying ‘wold'” above).
Israel has been a nuclear power for forty years because they realize exactly this. There is no more dangerous position in the world than being dependent on American support.
Regarding voter fraud, the determination with which the Democrats push transparently false arguments against voter ID is very good evidence that they want – at the least – to keep the option open.
Alisa (November 12, 2016 at 5:35 pm), half-way through this pre-election post, Mark Steyn links to a vid of the (not yet former) president and then quotes some relevant parts. I’m thinking the intent, the scale and above all the openness would not be so easy to match from a while back. YMMV.
Niall, my mileage hardly varies when it comes to Progressive intentions and policies, and that is also why my question was not about those. But since you brought it up: no, the danger does not grow, because as pernicious as these intentions are, they are hardly new.
Furthermore, Obama can say what he wants or thinks, but for these Progressive intentions to be implemented in practice, the law would need to be changed – and it seems to me he and his pals are currently hardly in a position to do that. And even if they were, changing the law or even openly giving illegal immigrants the green light to vote without changing the law, would hardly constitute election fraud – which was what we were discussing in the first place.
Alisa, November 12, 2016 at 10:18 pm: “Obama can say what he wants or thinks, but for these Progressive intentions to be implemented in practice, the law would need to be changed”
How so?
“She said, who feels hate for the law? Though we may not remove it,
If his vote give us aid in this raid, we will set him above it.”
Obama did, and Clinton would, assure illegal residents that illegal voting was consequence-free. Authorities in securely Democrat areas can assist via liberal (in every sense) enforcement policies that guarantee not to enforce anything. There is no need for any crude, open, explicit change in the law.
If the number of illegals in the country is higher than in the past, then a greater proportion voting would map to greater numbers.
I agree of course that Obama, Clinton etc. are in a poor position to make anything grow since Tuesday. The growing danger will I hope shrink – but not unless it is vigorously tackled. Some investigation of who actually won the popular vote would be a place to start.
Yes Niall, I agree. What I am saying is that this would not constitute election fraud – and I thought that was what we were discussing. After all, that was what Paul’s original comment to which you responded was about. So I maintain that the danger of election fraud is not increasing. There are other dangers the Republic is facing, many of them are indeed demographic, and many are in fact increasing – but they have nothing to do with election fraud as I understand it.
Re changing the law, it can be changed in many ways: the proper way, as stipulated by the US Constitution, or several improper ways – one of them being what Obama has been doing for the past 8 years (although he is by far not the first to do this, only one of the worst). If Obama said the things he said in that video while facing another term in the Oval Office, and election officials throughout the country followed his “advice”, then it would effectively become the law of the land, whether we like it or not.
Luckily for us, so far none of that happened, although I absolutely agree that it is not for lack of trying by the Left. But what I am saying is that if it had happened, it would not qualify as election fraud, but rather as, in effect, a change of law by other means, so to speak.
@TheWobblyGuy
I doubt Trump would pull U.S. forces out of East Asia to that extent for several reasons, one of which is that more than one of his policy advisors – including Peter Navarro – are strong advocates of better U.S. support for Taiwan. He may be able to get away with reducing the size of the U.S. military presence in the Pacific Rim, but not to the extent of allowing the PRC to break through the first island chain to the Pacific.
Alisa (November 13, 2016 at 9:37 am): “Yes Niall, I agree. What I am saying is that this would not constitute election fraud”
I’ll probably need to read your definition of election fraud. To me, electoral fraud is any instance of a person voting …
1) … in their own persona, although that persona is not legally eligible to vote and/or exist, e.g. a felon pardoned contrary to court-enjoined procedure (Virginia) or a sanctuary-city illegal alien supplied with elements of US-citizen legal persona (California).
2) … in someone else’s persona, e.g. that of a dead person.
Case (2) – repeat voting (‘early and often’) – is long known. The Democratic party have been doing this in cities for a century and more. (I do not offhand know of specific cases when Republicans can confidently be said to have done the like, though in that party’s history from the 1850s till now I know some I’d say were not too good to do it; can anyone offer examples?)
Case (1) – especially when done (in a sense) openly, insolently – seems more recent.
The crime of committing the above fraud is perpetrated by both the actual voter and by the authorities who accept declarations they know to be false, prevent checks, the purging of voter rolls, etc., protect perpetrators from consequences, etc. (In some cases, the authorities may do all and the voter may not actually exist.)
The effect is only sometimes to change the outcome of the election. However as it is almost never committed except to increase the odds of reversing the outcome, that is not a different crime. In very local elections, the odds of changing the outcome from a practicable amount of fraud are non-trivial. As things get larger, the odds of changing the outcome get poorer (an aspect of why the founders advocated a large federal union).
Well, then I need to read your definition of fraud – because to me it implies the opposite of something done openly (insolent or not), i.e. deceitfully. IOW, it has to involve concealment or outright lying. That was not what Obama was calling for in that video.
As to the actual patterns of fraud you listed, I agreed early on that they always existed and still exist – but I am still questioning their being on the increase.
The overtness of the voter fraud is critical. In past years there has been some level of plausible deniability on the part of politicians, but in this election (and going forward) voter fraud and other dishonesties have been lain bare by Project Veritas (and others, I’m sure).
As long as the MSM were able to ignore it, one could claim that it wasn’t happening (or at least were not aware of it happening) – the democratization of information the Internet has produced represents the great hope of democrats, Libertarians and (let’s face it) honest people everywhere.
Alisa, there is no requirement for fraud to be done secretively, any more than murder or any other crime. In a community where the authorities are just, criminals try to keep their deeds secret. If the authorities regard a particular law as one that only the deplorably prejudiced support, and feel secure in their power to act but unable to alter the law (i.e. above the law in practice but unable to alter it), why be secretive? The Virginia governor was a bit secretive – his office reported 13,000 pardons issued when the true number appears to be far larger – but not very. He knew the court would know he had not individually reviewed even as few as 13,000 pardons in the time.
Niall, I get the feeling that you and I are now talking past each other – so I’ll stop here, and suggest to agree to disagree (or just disagree 🙂 )
Alisa (November 13, 2016 at 4:08 pm), to answer your specific question about my meaning of fraud: a fraud is a crime committed (at least in the first instance) by asserting a known falsehood (as opposed to e.g. a crime that starts by punching someone in the face). The effectiveness of the crime is often enhanced by deception but does not need it. See, for example, the lines in Richard II (from memory)
“Who is so dense as cannot see this obvious device?
Yet who so brave but will claim he sees it not?”
or Wellington on Napoleon (from memory): “His policy was force and fraud … In most cases, when the victim perceived the fraud, he did not dare denounce it”.
In the modern US, it is not so much fear on the part of the victim as insolence on the part of the perpetrator that is the obstacle. No doubt many are not deceived by rhodomontade about the legality of sanctuary cities, but if Hillary had won, what would their perfect understanding of what a con it all was matter?
Alisa, I hope to look at the question of recent voter fraud after the results are all in. As I have a day job, it may be quite some time after. Till then, I’ll happily agree to park our discussion – and will also happily read any evidence you and others have to offer.
Niall, I’ll try to come back here later and re-read our discussion with fresh eyes. I’ll also be interested in seeing any new election-related data that may be forthcoming in the near future.