Our friend Dr. Bastiat (~ saepe noster) has a post up over at Mr. O’Shea’s place, entitled with the seemingly relevant question “Are Democrat Voters Learning from What’s Happening?” The argument develops along time-tested lines, in which days and decades of leftist leadership inevitably ruin those it purports to help, so there should be an awakening as things swing from unutterably awful to somehow worse. After that, some portion of former Democrat voters would vote Republican, and then presumably that party would faithfully effect a restoration. I have several issues with this framing, as does the good Doctor, as he answers his title question by effectively saying “probably not”.
The main issues are the unlikelihood of the Democrats masses changing (even in the required fraction), the lack of value in voting, and at any rate, the separate lack of value in voting for Republicans.
different members of the same party
Which brings us to the second issue, the futility of voting. Say that we actually won the Electoral system, which I do believe is the case, and look at what happened from that perspective. The system closed ranks, and completed the coup. Constitutional methods designed explicitly to prevent abuse were ignored, denied, or explained away. “None dare”, etc. We saw before our eyes, and I urge people to remember, the deep state coup shut Americans out of the process of electing our government. Vote fraud in 2012 was fishy as all get out. In 2020, it was blatant, with (mostly) Democrats maneuvering in public to deny legally-required, sensible vote validation measures. Why? Because they were no longer afraid to admit that they prefer winning through fraud and tyranny vice losing fair elections — in fact both of these happened, but the story is in the events.
So no matter how many Democrats decide to change things by voting Republican, we have already seen that votes for Republicans do not matter when the votes are counted. Enough Republican votes will always be discounted or offset by manufactures Democrat votes that Republicans will not win.
House and Senate leadership set fire to our majority
The Republicans as a party are thoroughly compromised. Even if we somehow turned a great fraction of unhappy Democrat voters, and even if we somehow prevailed against the rigged elections, the fact is that a Republican victory will not get us the results we want.
You know who else is compromised? The Republican voters. A good half of Republican voters hate Trump and Trumpism. Another half hate whomever the GOP Establishment puts up, and xirever’s whateverism. The anti-Trumpers are much more relaxed about the current state of affairs than the pro-Trumpers. “Just vote, man, get out that vote, man, lick your envelopes and knock on doors, man. Groovy!” Like the young infatuated fools who rebuke their mentors, insisting that Love is all they Need, the Establishment-friendly wing of the Republican voting base has tuned in to Radio GOP, turned on to OrangeManStillBad, and dropped out of even acknowledging the coup. People will believe what they need to in order to continue thinking what they think. “I am sure we can vote our way out of this because I am unwilling to admit that this was a coup. Solutions after that admission are too hard, so I will carefully adjust my beliefs in order to preserve my chosen solution.” Naturally, you may accuse me of the common human failing of believing that I am the only one in the room who sees things clearly, and projecting that upon all I meet. Perhaps, but it doesn’t make me wrong, and I feel that my dim view of others’ internal machination is evidenced when they defend their chosen solution by explicitly asking “Well, if not voting, then what do you propose?” I’m not proposing anything. I’m pointing out that we were defeated not through votes by in a coup.
preserve the big government spending machine against all enemies, foreign and domestic
At every level of the system it seems, the safeguards have been bypassed, suppressed, denied, refused, broken, compromised, defeated — whatever it took. The system of voting for our government has been captured by the government itself. There are several pithy or witty criticisms which have all come to pass — the the government now has a country (rather than the other way around), that the government will dissolve the electorate and get a new one, that it’s not he who votes that counts, but he who counts the votes, and of course, that
“Treason doth never prosper: what ‘s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” — John Harrington.
We cannot vote our way out of an accomplished coup. And we will not shoot our way out of it. We are not the people our forefathers were — we are not even the stuff our grandfathers were. The modern techno-state precludes anything like effective resistance. Here, for your convenience is a listing of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. Find the one which is still in effect — I’ll wait:
First Amendment [Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition]
Second Amendment [Right to Bear Arms]
Third Amendment [Quartering of Troops]
Fourth Amendment [Search and Seizure]
Fifth Amendment [Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process]
Sixth Amendment [Criminal Prosecutions – Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel]
Seventh Amendment [Common Law Suits – Jury Trial]
Eighth Amendment [Excess Bail or Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment]
Ninth Amendment [Non-Enumerated Rights]
Tenth Amendment [Rights Reserved to States or People]— pasted in from the excellent Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
“Constitutional methods designed explicitly to prevent abuse were ignored, denied, or explained away.”
Yup. My brother-in-law was down here last weekend. He’s from New York, and generally on the Left. He asked me if I thought there was voter fraud. I told him that:
1) There’s always fraud, and to say that it never happens is silly.
2) That being said, I don’t believe the whole “Dominion machines changed the vote!” story. (Well, I haven’t seen enough evidence to convince me.)
3) Nevertheless, there were many instances of courts and the executive branches in several states rewriting election law on the fly. This is blatantly unconstitutional. Then the courts denied standing to the candidates affected by the changes.
4) I gave him the example of Georgia, where tens of thousands of ballots were cast by voters who used a P.O. box as their address, or a commercial address. Both of these are prohibited under Georgia law, but those votes were allowed to stand (hell, AFAIK they weren’t even investigated).
5) This is the real issue: bureaucrats and judges changing the election laws and procedures when the is specifically left to the state legislatures.
Finally, I asked him why, if all was on the up-and-up, there was such resistance to performing audits.
I was met with silence.
The Establishment Republicrats are worthless! No argument there. The refusal in 2016 of Establishment CongressScum and SenateScum to buck their contributors and start the long process of restoring the Constitution speaks for itself.
While “We the People” have to bear the ultimate responsibility for this failure of democracy and the republican form of government, is it fair to say:
“You know who else is compromised? The Republican voters. A good half of Republican voters hate Trump and Trumpism. Another half hate whomever the GOP Establishment puts up, and xirever’s whateverism.”
Look at the numbers of votes cast — President Trump in 2020 got 74.2 Million votes (officially; number before Demo-fraud was probably larger). That is significantly more than the mere 60.9 Million who voted for Pierre Delicto in 2012.
Looking at the votes cast (not the percentages the Lame Stream Media love to quote) in elections prior to 2016 when Democrat voter fraud was probably smaller scale, there is a case for the “Contingent Voter” — a person who will never vote for any Democrat, but might vote for a Reagan, Perot, Trump type of outsider.
There appear to be very few actual swing voters (Democrat one election, Republicrat the next). However, there appear to be a substantial number of voters who are willing to vote for an anti-Establishment type if one is on the ticket but otherwise do not vote at all.
Knowing this, Republicrats could choose to win every time by nominating the right kind of outsider candidate. But then they would not be Republicrats. Those foolish people seem to believe it is better to serve in Hell than to reign in Heaven.
I’m good with it, as the burden of proof is on Dominion and the entities using that software to provide auditable results, which is (as discussed) being stymied at every turn. Individuals (“citizens”, even) have a right to privacy, not government bodies conducting our elections. The company and its products are heavily implacted in other known corrupt elections, with the technology to change things when needed being explicitly added to support desired outcomes such as in Venezuela. All that is required is a shut-down period to do some math and instruct the machines. And what do you know — key races in key states experienced “stop the count” abnormalities, after which votes always surged in one direction. Excuses and circumstances varied, but the pattern of facts is consistent across not only sketchy results across the US in 2020, but in previous known bad uses of these machines.
I agree that I’m not empirically convinced, but I see the Dominion issue as damning by circumstantial evidence, including Dominion and Democrat-run polities’ refusal to to the required audits.
Trump 2020 / Romney 2012 is a 22% increase.
Nationwide turnout 2020 / 2012 is a 15% increase.
This seems to show a healthy bump for the GOP. Yet when we engage in our debates online, we are talking to voters, not party officials, and despite the energy and enthusiasm of the Trumpers, we still drown in the gentle souls who just cannot make their peace with OrangeMan, and the brick-tossers (tossers, at any rate) who hate Trump and hate us too. And these are Republicans.
The modern GOP could not be so rotten at the top if it were not so (at best) squishy at the bottom.
Those of us who feel a certain way no longer have a party. The GOP got rid of Trump. You can say that we did it to ourselves through Tea Party dissatisfaction with the Establishment, that the division is all our fault (not that you personally say this), and that the Empire Struck Back at a destructive rebel faction. Fine, but the Rebels are right, Trump was an opportunity for restoration, and a speed bump on the road to Hell. The fundamental problem is not Trump, but the GOP who is happy to stay on that road. And the mass of Republican voters who do not demand change, who do not angrily return dunning letters with Heck No (or similar) emblazoned across the form blanks, who accept that the time to fight will be later, not now, etc…
We lost, not fair and square, but we lost just the same, and that loss shows us the deep flaws. The only reason we won in 2016 was the failure of the deep state (Dem and Rep) to take the Trump candidacy seriously. Oops. That mistake will not be repeated in our lifetimes.
And the Republican voter base is at best split on that.