This shouldn't need to be said at this point, but given the new Speaker's apparent beliefs, it bears repeating:
While there are weaknesses in US election infrastructure, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" or that technical attacks in any way altered its outcome.
58 of my colleagues and I wrote this shortly after these nonsensical conspiracy theories began to spread two years ago. It remains as true now as it was then. https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/election2020.pdf
@mattblaze it's a mistake, both factual and rhetorical, to say there is no evidence instead of saying the evidence is scant and uncompelling.
It's like, yes, there is evidence that the world is flat. It's poor evidence and the overwhelming body of evidence and analysis debunks it. But it exists.
If one wants to engage with someone who has questions about the election, they're going to be immediately shut out once they deny that the evidence exists.
At that point they're clearly gaslighting and won't make any progress.
Although, if the goal is just to preach to the choir or signal tribalism, have at it.
@volkris you’re not as clever ad you think you sound. This isn’t a freshman philosophy class.
@mattblaze who said anything about philosophy?
This is really about rhetoric and political science. This is 100% about real world choice of words.
Philosophy doesn't enter into it.
The moment a person feels gaslit they're going to shut down and your argument is not going to be convincing.
Again, maybe your goal is not to convince. That's fair. The choir will still eat it up.
But if you do want to reach some people with misguided beliefs, then you have to reach them where they are.
@volkris made up bullshit isn’t evidence.
@mattblaze that might be, but AGAIN, if you want to convince someone then you have to meet them where they are.
If I'm a fervent believer that the earth is round and your first words to me are, "Seeing as the world is flat..." I'm going to start with the assumption that you don't know what you're talking about, and you're unlikely to convince me of your perspective.
Maybe a person does believe a bunch of made up bullshit about the election. Fine. If you want to reach them you have to engage with that.
Again, IF your goal goes beyond preaching to the choir.
@volkris @mattblaze
I think you misunderstand the direction of debate.
I can't prove the election was secure/accurate. I can't start a conversation this way. It's not valid.
The onus is on the other side to come forward and present the strongest evidence that supports their argument of election fraud.
The analogy isn't flat-earth, but space-aliens. With flat-earth, I can prove the opposite, that it's actually not flat. But I can't prove there are no space-aliens. I can't only debate the evidence that UFO believers bring forward. If they refuse to bring forth the. strongest evidence of their claims, well, then there's nothing for me to do but laugh at them.
Same with election denial. We have a secret ballot (good) and sloppy/opaque ballot handling (bad). There's no way I can prove that votes weren't flipped from Trump to Biden in enough numbers to flip the election.
All I can show is that the evidence shown to date do not show any fraud, any flipping or insertions of votes.
Until Trumpists/election-deniers bring forth what they think is the strongest evidence, we can't have a debate.
And they won't. Republicans have been in control of the House since 2022. They could've had hearings on the evidence. They refuse to, because pretty much all the strongest arguments that have convinced the rank-and-file have already been debunked.
@ErrataRob You're assuming there's debate but I'm not! @mattblaze might be happily just spouting off into social media, and that's fine.
Anyway from your comment I would take away the phrase "the evidence shown to date" to highlight exactly what I'm saying, that evidence was shown even if it was really bad evidence.
But again, none of that matters if Matt's point was not to debate but just to preach to the choir.
@ErrataRob YES exactly!
@volkris @mattblaze
The standard dictionary definitions support both concepts.
a. facts/observations PRESENTED in support an assertion
b. facts/observations THAT REALLY DO support an assertion
One could therefore say:
a. all the evidence to date has been debunked
b. there is no real evidence