Three years later and my blood sill boils when I listen to Trump’s calls to Georgia. And three years later he still sounds desperate and pathetic. And three years later I still cannot believe how many people, especially lawyers(!), who enabled and assisted his delusional efforts to undermine our election.
No paywall; you can read through the Georgia timeline & listen to several excerpted calls.
#democracy #elections #politics #USpolitics #lawfedi #law #lawyers
I think a lot comes down to different people having vastly different--opposite even-- interpretations of his phone call.
People coming from different backgrounds interpreted the call differently based on their perspectives.
To understand how other people acted requires at least recognizing that.
Again, half the country has a different interpretation, and if you want to understand the situation you also have to at least recognize that.
Even better is to go a step farther and understand the other perspective, but the minimum is to recognize that it exists and shaped all of the events then and now.
@volkris I understand that there are people who *believe* despite all evidence to the contrary that the election was *stolen.* They do so because Trump and those who enabled him, fueled that belief. What makes my blood boil is that Trump and his enablers put their lust for power ahead of all else. I don’t have any respect for that.
I know that's the caricature of that portion of the population that's so often promoted, but it doesn't really capture the mainstream of public sentiment pushing those actions forward.
It's the equivalent of certain conservatives who try to paint all liberals as atheist anarchists or whatever: yeah, there are those on the extreme, but it's not the bulk of those on that side of the table.
If the stolen election side was the entire half of the population there would have been SO many more riots, but there weren't, showing that those aren't quite so prevalent.
@volkris I don’t think we are talking about the same thing. You are talking about the US population who believes that the election was stolen. I am talking about Trump and those in his orbit, especially lawyers who have an obligation as guardians of the rule of law, to push these theories well beyond their expiration date. A candidate has the right to contest an election and there are multiple legal ways to do so. When those did not succeed, Trump had a responsibility to concede. He did not.
I am specifically *not* talking about the US population who believes the election was stolen, as I said above.
Really so much of it comes down to something you put your finger on: the division between people who believe a candidate has one set of legal ways to contest an election and people who believe the candidate has a different set.
Setting aside the irrational extremists on all sides, it comes down to a matter of different sources making different claims about what the laws actually say.
That sort of factual matter can be discussed with citation to publicly available statute to help sort it out.
But a person can't sort out facts if they don't understand the others' perspective.
@volkris @jackiegardina
Not sure how else can one "interpret" this: “So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find... 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state."
He asked outright to be given votes he did not win.
I'm glad to help then. It's based on the simple reading of the words you quoted.
He didn't say to make or forge or fake votes. He said to *find* them, consistent with *we won the state*.
It's a consistent interpretation that's a simple reading of the quote, I'd say. No need to project contrary meaning onto it.
Maybe he **was** using code words, but that gets into making assumptions to get to more tenuous interpretations.
@volkris @jackiegardina
You're awarding him a lot more belief than his past and present actions warrant. He's been a selfish, unethical grifter for decades, and he's done untold damage to our nation. But your belief in him doesn't affect anyone but you, so have at it. #maga
It's not that I believe in him. Honestly, I think he's all of those things but also such a god damn idiot that he wouldn't understand election law or statistics anyway.
But I do believe that when someone says something coherent (again, a mean feat for this guy), that it's best to at least consider that maybe he means what his own words say.
That's before ascribing new meanings to the words on the page.
You said you weren't sure how else one can interpret it, so here's an example of another interpretation: the simple meaning of the words he said.
@jackiegardina
@volkris It was January 2. He had lost every court case, he had failed to produce any evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election. Like every other presidential candidate who lost—even those who contested, like Al Gore—it was time for him to concede the election. You do that because it is in the best interest of the country. Trump acts only in his best interest. This was about his ego, not the country. I have no respect for that.