Trump does not have to do anything other than convince most of his followers that the election was stolen, and that he and they are victims of a vast and clearly powerful conspiracy. He was preparing for this before the election [footnote1], and claimed victory after the election, without any particular evidence that I know of – that is, he made an over-optimistic or deliberately false claim, not a mistaken claim [footnote2]. We might well assert that Donald Trump can never admit to losing or failing, he will pretend he was successful or he will blame others for cheating. This seems to be a long established characteristic.
However, his claims are working. A small Reuters Ipsos poll taken on Nov. 13-17 found only 29% of Republican voters said that Biden had rightfully won and 68% of Republicans said they were concerned that the election was “rigged.” A poll from Vox and Data for Progress taken on 16 November stated:
73 percent of likely Republican voters say that the allegations of voter fraud have made them question Joe Biden’s victory, a statement that 44 percent of all likely voters agreed with as well. Similarly, 75 percent of likely Republican voters said they believed voter fraud took place during the election that benefitted Biden, something that 43 percent of likely voters overall also stated.
Vox poll: 73 percent of Republican voters are questioning Biden’s victory
A poll taken in early December, by Quinnipiac University found that Republicans “say 70 – 23 percent that they think Biden’s victory is not legitimate… 38 percent [of all registered voters] say they believe there was widespread fraud.” Rather oddly “Republicans say 77 – 19 percent they believe there was widespread voter fraud,” so there are presumably Republicans who think that there was widespread Republican fraud.
Whatever the case, a large majority of Republicans appear to think that Biden did not really win legitimately.
So, because of these claims, assuming he gets into the White House, Joe Biden will not be accepted by a large portion of the US population, no matter if he won the popular vote by 7 million votes or not (over c.81,281,000 to c.74,224,000).
Consequently, Trump’s side of politics can refuse all co-operation and bog the nation down in do-nothingness, while the US is raddled with uncontrollable pandemics, poverty and so on. The only allowed solution to which is more Trump, and more neoliberal Republicanism.
To achieve his aim, Trump does not need evidence that holds up in court. He only requires a few out of context videos, a few non tested testimonies, a heap of rumour, and the assertion that things were weird, and that he could not loose, and for his supporters not to hear the refutations of Trump’s assertions – which will happen due to the ways right wing media works.
This is probably why his lawyers have not presented evidence to the courts that was not easily dismissed as hearsay. All he needs is the allegation of there being evidence repeatedly backed up by people and media on his side. This allegation will be joined to the allegation that everyone who disagrees with the evidence he has alleged to be true and meaningful, is either naïve, brainwashed or part of the conspiracy. These assertions will be repeated over and over.
Then his followers are trapped. They have to agree, or they face exile, rage and mockery – and they think it could possibly be true, as after all so many people are asserting there is irrefutable evidence…. And no one who asserts otherwise can be trusted.
His followers are the victims, of a failed society, and they experience that every day, why should they have faith in its institutions?
Trump attempted to change certifications and called those people in his party who were responsible for certifications in order to change their minds. Lindsay Graham reputedly rang the Georgia Secretary of State, to have votes thrown out. Trump appears to have sought to have large numbers of votes thrown out with little to no evidence presented, other than the fact that he did not think he could lose. [For more see Footnote 3].
The assumption seems to be that if there was any cheating, it had to be Democrat cheating, but it is at least conceptually possible that the reason why Biden did not win by as much as expected is that there was Republican cheating. We know that Republicans tried to prevent people from voting in advance, or by mail, and that was probably to scare off those who believed Covid was a problem, who seem to be primarily Democrat. So there is form here. Trump quote figures for fake votes without any apparent sources, or with ambiguous videos so, if there were fake votes then they could be for anyone. Furthermore, if the votes for the Senate and the House were accurate, which Republicans seem to expect, these are made at the same time, so why were they not faked?
One high level Trump supporter called for a military take over, another said of Chris Krebs, who declared the election secure, “that guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.” The same person also remarked of those Republicans who said the election was fair: “the governors in these states are a bunch of losers, along with their secretaries of state. I’ve never seen such wimps wearing an R [being Republican]…. You know, they’re going to have to be dealt with politically. It’s the only way you deal with these people.” Other people received death threats and slurs, apparently from Trump followers, with little objection from Republican representatives.
Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said dozens of armed protesters gathered in a threatening manner outside her home on Saturday evening chanting “bogus” claims about electoral fraud.
Armed pro-Trump protesters gather outside Michigan elections chief’s home. The Guardian, 8 December 2020
The idea seems to be to intimidate and bribe. If so, this is fascism in action. This is the real cancel culture.
People on the Democrat side tend to believe in things like the rule of law, playing fair, and not lying all the time, so consequently they don’t even see that democracy is crumbling, despite the refutations of Trump by ‘experts’, people who were present where there was supposedly cheating, courts, and so on. This is also despite the number of votes Trump requested be nullified.
Refutations mean nothing, as Trump knows. To Trump’s followers the refutations, and their consistency, only prove the depth of the conspiracy against them. The 60 or so failed court cases, again demonstrate the size, ruthlessness and power of the opposition against him, not the fact that only one of the cases was any good.
By his followers’ lights, Democrats who can engineer all this failure for the super-businessman, must be evil. Evil stops at nothing, so evil cannot be believed, and evil must be crushed forever. Trump will not give in. He will take revenge on all who have stopped him being declared winner as was his right. His followers will agree and cheer.
So people on his side in the next election, will probably only step in to scrutinize results if they already know Republicans should win, and any Democrat victories are the result of fraud. They know the cost of ‘being truthful’ and going against Republican declarations of fraud. So not only will Republicans intensify their demonstrated opposition to any possible non-Republican votes, but they will try and fix the counts, to get at the real truth of America.
And when the next Republican gets in, he will not have to listen to Democrats at all because people on his side know that Democrats fixed an election and are evil. Democrats can slowly be rounded up because they are evil and corrupt, and many people will have no sympathy for them. And it won’t take much of that before most Democrats decide the results of this election probably were faked and they should go along with it. The media will go along to keep going along, and nobody will report the threats and so they will not exist.
Only a few people will even notice that democracy has gone, because it all will be done in defense of democracy.
*********************
[Footnote 1] A brief history of Trump and allegations of electoral fraud
After the election of Obama. Trump tweeted:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Twitter Nov 7, 2012
This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!
A deleted tweet said:
He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
Donald Trump Freaks Out on Twitter After Obama Wins Election, Mashable 7 November 2012
and
The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!
as above
Actually Obama seems to have won the popular vote by about 5 million votes. However, it is clear that loosing the popular vote but wining in the electoral college is no longer a problem in 2016.
In 2016, he lost the Iowa primary to Ted Cruz and wrote:
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!
Twitter 12: 47 am Feb 4, 2016
and
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.
Twitter 1: 28 am Feb 4 2016
Even later he tweeted:
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Twitter 10:00 PM · Apr 16, 2016
I will be interviewed on @foxandfriends at 9:00 A.M. I will be talking about the rigged and boss controlled Republican primaries!
In the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton, he tweeted.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Twitter Oct 15, 2016
This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges, and outright lies, in order to elect Crooked Hillary!
A section of a debate with Hilary Clinton went like this:
Donald Trump: She shouldn’t be allowed to run. She’s guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run. And just in that respect, I say it’s rigged. Because she should never-… she should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with emails and so many other things.
Chris Wallace: (01:04:31)
But sir, there is a tradition in this country. In fact, one of the prides of this country is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard for what a campaign is that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner. Not saying that you’re necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and that the country comes together in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?Donald Trump: (01:04:57)
What I am saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.Hillary Clinton: (01:05:01)
Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton 3rd Presidential Debate Transcript 2016
Well, Chris, let me respond to that because that’s horrifying. Every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him. The FBI conducted a year long investigation into my emails. They concluded there was no case. He said the FBI was rigged. He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering, he claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him. There was even a time when he didn’t get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmy’s were rigged against him.
Some days later he commented:
I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win,
Donald Trump: ‘I will totally accept’ election results ‘if I win’ 20 October 2016 – emphasis added.
Possibly a joke?, But its only fakery if he looses, yet he became one of the few Presidents to claim his victory was in a faked election
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Twitter Nov 28, 2016
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
He continued his claims of fraud into 2017
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Twitter Jan 28, 2017
Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!
The UK based Independent commented:
VoteStand is an amateur app that allows people to send in their own reports of voter fraud. The app has been downloaded just a few thousand times and is barely used…. The VoteStand Twitter account has only 614 followers.
Even if the app detected genuine instances of voter fraud, so few people use it that it would be impossible for three million infractions to have taken place [and been reported].
Votestand: Donald Trump relies on unknown app to back up claims of voter fraud. The Independent, 27 January 2017
His administration even threatened to investigate the supposed fraud, and Trump reportedly alleged again that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election. No evidence was presented.
Let us be clear, if President Trump wanted to set up a commission to ensure US elections were secure, well-regulated, and reflected the will of the people, he had plenty of opportunity to do so. Republicans controlled the Senate and the House for his first two years so, even if Democrats had objected (which is unlikely, if the commission was not phrased as a witch hunt), a commission could easily have been set up to consider all the available evidence, and to find ways of better securing the results. He did not do this.
A reasonable conclusion from his comments, is that he only wants to challenge the voting system when votes don’t go his way.
He began this 2020 election pointing out a problem with mail-in voting….
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans. @foxandfriends
Twitter 10:20 PM · Apr 8, 2020 Emphasis added.
For what it is worth, one mid year survey estimated that:
“More than one-third of Americans intend to vote by mail in the November presidential election”….
Among them, 48% of voters who plan to vote for Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden said they are likely to vote by mail, according to the survey. That’s more than twice the 23% of voters backing President Donald Trump who said they are likely to vote by mail.
Biden voters twice as likely than Trump supporters to vote by mail in November, survey finds, USAToday 18 August 2020
So we can agree with the President that mail in ballots were going to be bad for Republicans. We could also suspect that if the mail in votes were counted after the polling day results, then there would be a significant swing in Biden’s direction, late in the counting. Some votes might be post-marked before the election and delivered after the election, especially given the apparent run down of the post-office.
As I understand it, in the USA, mailed ballots are safe for several reasons
- They are signed by the voter.
- The signature on the ballot is matched to one on file.
- They are individually barcoded to keep track of the votes and voters, and check what forms are used.
- All this information is stored and put on the electoral role, to catch people who vote by mail and then in person.
- The US military use mailed ballots.
Most research appears to show mail-in votes are safe [2]. The Right wing Heritage Foundation reported only 1,308 proven instances of voter fraud since the 1990s. Only a subset of these votes were mail-in.
However, governments do sometimes send out multiple application forms, and sometimes people seem to think this is the actual voting form.
in California, the governor sent, I hear or sending millions of ballots all over the state. Millions to anybody. To anybody. People that aren’t citizens, illegals, anybody that walks in California is going to get a ballot. We’re not going to destroy this country by allowing things like that to happen. We’re not destroying our country. This has more to do with fairness and honesty and really our country itself because when that starts happening, you don’t have a fare. You have a rigged system. You have a rigged system and that’s what would happen.
We’re not going to let it happen because you’re subverting our process and you’re making our country a joke and the Democrats are doing it because in theory, it’s good for them. Although last week we two big races. We won in Wisconsin and one in California. California, 25. We won a tremendous race in California.
Transcript: Donald Trump Remarks on Protecting Seniors with Diabetes May 26, 2020
I think we’re going to have a lot of people show up. I’m very worried about mail-in voting because I think it’s subject to tremendous fraud and being rigged. Do you see that Paterson, New Jersey, where I believe it was 20% of the vote was fraudulent? It was all sorts of things happened. I understand a mailman was recently indicted someplace for playing games with the mail-in ballots….
You’ll have tremendous fraud if you do these mail-in ballots. Now, absentee ballots are okay, because absentee ballots, you have to get applications. You have to go through a process. If I’m here, and I vote in Florida, you get an absentee ballot. But you have to go through a process. Absentee ballots are great, but mail-in voting, where a governor mails millions of ballots to people all over the state. California, millions and millions of ballots, as an [inaudible 00:56:15]… and then they come back, they don’t come back. Who got them? Did you forget to send them to a Republican area or a Democrat area, I guess you could say? But if you take a look at all of the unbelievable fraud that’s been involved with mail-in voting over the last even short period of a while, but look at Paterson, New Jersey. It was a massive error and a massive miscalculation and there was incredible fraud. Look at the city council, what’s happened to it. This is one place, but you have many places and they’re all over. Yes, please?
Donald Trump Rose Garden Press Conference Transcript July 14, 2020
The Patterson New Jersey case is interesting, but it does not seem to be really about voter fraud, it is about procedural violations. Voters are supposed to either submit or mail in their votes themselves. They can authorise another person to do this, but such people are limited to delivering 3 votes. What seems to have happened is that some people took on far more than three votes from voters. They did not appear to fake them, and they were caught. The judge commented the vote was “rife with mail in vote procedural violations.” [3], [4] The case concerns an election for a city council ward, which is probably a little less protected than a Presidential Election.
Now it’s very bad what’s going on with mail-in ballots. Okay? As differentiated from absentee ballots where you have to go and you go through a process because you can’t be there for some reason, but the mail-in ballots is going to be, they’re going to be rigged. They’re going to be a terrible situation. And you have to be careful in Georgia, but you have to be careful everywhere where they’re doing it.
And there’s been tremendous corruption, tremendous corruption on mail-in ballots. So absentee ballot, great, mail-in ballot, absolutely no good. It makes no sense. A governor sends out millions of ballots all over the place. They don’t know where they’re going. They’re going to wherever. I have a friend who got one for his daughter, another one for his daughter, and then a second one for the first daughter. They didn’t know what to do with them. I had another friend, a really wonderful guy who lost his son seven years ago, Robert, his son, Robert, and his son was sent a mail-in ballot. He called me, he said, “What do I do? I just got a mail-in ballot for Robert? Robert died seven years ago.” So it’s a terrible situation if they decide to use it.
Donald Trump Atlanta Speech Transcript on Rebuilding Infrastructure July 15 2020
Again we have the problem of whether he was sent a mail-in ballot, or sent an application form for a mail in ballot. In interview with Chris Wallace, Trump was asked:
But can you give a direct answer, you will accept the election?
Donald Trump: I have to see. Look, I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say [inaudible 00:38:24 ‘or not‘???], and I didn’t last time either.
Donald Trump Chris Wallace Interview Transcript July 19 2020
In New Jersey, 20% of the ballots were defective, fraudulent, 20%. And that’s because they did a good job. Okay? So this is just a way they’re trying to steal the election and everybody knows that. Because the only way they’re going to win is by a rigged election. I really believe that. I saw the crowd outside. For every sign we had for Trump Pence, every single sign.
Donald Trump Speech Transcript August 20, 2020: In Joe Biden’s Hometown
This argument is that because he has crowds he will win….
the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged, remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to lose this election… So we have to be very careful. Look, we have more than this election, that’s a big statement. The only way they’re going to win is that way.
Donald Trump Speech Transcript Wisconsin August 17 2020
******
Footnote 2: Trump on the 2020 Election
I’d like to provide the American people with an update on our efforts to protect the integrity of our very important 2020 election. If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking to them very strongly, but a lot of votes came in late….
I’ve already decisively won many critical states, including massive victories in Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, to name just a few. We won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from big media, big money, and big tech. As everybody saw, we won by historic numbers, and the pollsters got it knowingly wrong. They got it knowingly wrong. We had polls that were so ridiculous and everybody knew it at the time.
There was no blue wave that they predicted. They thought there was going to be a big blue wave. That was false. That was done for suppression reasons…..
our opponents major donors were Wall Street bankers and special interests. Our major donors were police officers, farmers, everyday citizens. Yet for the first time ever, we lost zero races in the House….
I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt, even if they aren’t by nature, but they become corrupt. It’s too easy. They want to find out how many votes they need, and then they seem to be able to find them. They wait and wait, and then they find them, and you see that on Election Night….
We were ahead in vote in North Carolina by a lot, a tremendous number of votes, and we’re still ahead by a lot, but not as many because they’re finding ballots all of a sudden. “Oh, we have some mail-in ballots.” It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided too….
Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot, with a lead of over getting close to 300,000 votes on Election Night in Georgia. And by the way, got whittled down and now it’s getting to be to a point where I’ll go from winning by a lot to perhaps being even down a little bit…. The election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats….
Despite years of claiming to care about the election security, they refuse to include any requirement to verify signatures, identities, or even determined whether they’re eligible or ineligible to vote….
The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democrat machine that you’ve written about. And for a long time, you’ve been writing about the corrupt Democrat machine.
Donald Trump White House Press Conference as Election Counts Continue Transcript November 5
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Twitter Nov 16, 2020
I WON THE ELECTION!
*******************
Footnote 3: Trump tries to fix the election
This will get more documentation over time, but these two cases bring out the point.
Judge Brann remarked of Trump’s Pennsylvania case:
In this action, the Trump Campaign and the Individual Plaintiffs (collectively, the “Plaintiffs”) seek to discard millions of votes legally cast by Pennsylvanians from all corners – from Greene County to Pike County, and everywhere in between. In other words, Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens.
That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA…. No. 4:20-CV-02078
A taped Phone call from January 2nd exists in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to find more votes, as:
I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes. I’m just going by small numbers, when you add them up, they’re many times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes….
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
Trump reiterated this argument a few times – he must have won because he felt it, and people said he should have won….
We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense…..
I mean, you know, and I didn’t lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there’s no way they beat me. And they beat me. They beat me in the . . . As you know, every single state, we won every state [hardly because if they had, they would not need to be ringing the people in Georgia]….
I mean, we have many, many times the number of votes necessary to win this State and we won the State and we won it very substantially and easily and we’re getting… We have… Much of this is they’re certified, far more certified than we need. But we’re getting additional numbers certified too. [Again only if you believe him in the first place is this assertion correct]….
Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they’re saying it’s impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia. And I can tell you by our rallies, I can tell you by the rally I’m having on Monday night, the place they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It’s just not possible to have lost Georgia, it’s not possible. [So what? He knows already how many people turn up at a Rally?]
I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes. I’m just going by small numbers, when you add them up, they’re many times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
Trump even made this bizarre claim for his evidence:
President Trump: (30:39)
What about the ballots, the shredding of the ballots, have they been shredding ballots?Ryan Germany: (30:44)
The only investigation that we have into that, they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from past elections.Trump : It doesn’t pass the smell test because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” You know.
Raffensperger : Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.
Trump : Oh this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not; it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican. [Ah media which agree with Trump are both reliable and not Big Tech]
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
Trump abused Raffensperger and pleaded with him.
The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry, and there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
“So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break…. You would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the [Georgia runnoffs] election….”
When Trump claimed that over 5,000 ballots were cast in the state by dead people, Raffensperger responded: “The actual number was two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong..”
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021 and Trump’s phone call to Brad Raffensperger: six key points. The Guardian 4 January 2021
Trump also claimed:
And the minimum, there were 18,000 ballots, but they used them three times. So that’s, you know, a lot of votes. And they were all to Biden, by the way. That’s the other thing we didn’t say….
Every single ballot that she did through the machines at early, early in the morning went to Biden. Did you know that, Ryan?
Germany : That’s not accurate, Mr. President.
Trump : Huh. What is accurate?
Germany : The numbers that we are showing are accurate….
Trump : No, they were 100 percent for Biden. 100 percent. There wasn’t a Trump vote in the whole group. Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan? What’s wrong with you? [How would he know they were 100% for Biden?]
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
Earlier the multiple counting came up
Trump: Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times….
Germany: We had our — this is Ryan Germany. We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was, who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them as well as FBI agents….
Trump: Well, there’s no way they could — then they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, okay?
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
People were supposed to have voted from outside Georgia or returned in suspicious circumstances.
Mitchell: The number who have registered out of state after they moved from Georgia. And so they had a date when they moved from Georgia, they registered to vote out of state, and then it’s like 4,500, I don’t have that number right in front of me.
Trump: And then they came back in, and they voted.
Germany : We’ve been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that Ms. Mitchell was just saying, they’re not accurate. Every one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately.
Trump: How may people do that? They moved out, and then they said, “Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.” You know, it doesn’t sound like a very normal . . . you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy. [I guess that is an insult to Georgia].
Germany: They moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election. So there’s something about that data that, it’s just not accurate.
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
And so it goes on:
Trump: Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery.
Germany : This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.
Trump : But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
Germany : No.
Trump : Are you sure, Ryan?
Germany : I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,…. You know, that’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That’s a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I’ve heard. And they are removing machinery, and they’re moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds…. 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,
Donald Trump Georgia Phone call Transcript. Rev 4 January 2021
As USA Today said:
Georgia officials tallied votes for the presidential election three times in the state, including in an audit required by state law and a recount requested by the president. Each count determined that President-elect Joe Biden won the state, the first Democrat to do so since 1992…
On Dec. 5, Trump urged Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to demand the state legislature act to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia. Kemp refused and has been subjected to a steady barrage of Trump attacks in the weeks since….
Neal Katyal, who was acting solicitor general during the Barack Obama administration, said the Trump call to Raffensperger “demonstrates an impeachable, perhaps criminal, offense. It is a behind the scenes look at how Trump carries out the presidency, abusing his power for his gain.”
Brown, Trump pushes Georgia secretary of state to ‘find’ votes during phone call, Washington Post reports, USAToday 3 January 2021
Trump’s response was.
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Twitter 12:57 AM · Jan 4, 2021
I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia. He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the “ballots under table” scam, ballot destruction, out of state “voters”, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!
If Trump really believes he has iron clad evidence, then why does he just not present it to a court? The phone call sounds like Trump has a complete incapacity to believe he could lose, or that he could be refused the opportunity to change things without proof. It sounds like a fishing expedition for access to materials to pronounce them fake. It veers from expecting the officials could just change things because its not that many votes they have to ‘find’ or disallow to give him victory, to odd threats and name calling. It even seems he was incapable of recognising the opportunities he had been given by the people in Georgia to establish his case, perhaps because he cannot.
It may need to be said, that even if Trump did win Georgia, he would not win the election. Therefore, we can presume, he is engaging in similar tactics elsewhere, but it has not leaked to the media. Georgia is probably more open as he is trying to get people out to vote in the runoffs by telling them that unless they vote in huge numbers, they will lose.
In a speech a few days later in Georgia he reportedly said:
Your governor, your secretary of state are petrified of Stacey Abrams,” he said, referring to a Democratic voting rights activist who lost to Kemp in 2018. “What’s all that about? They’re say they’re Republicans. I really don’t think they can be.”
The president added ominously: “I’m going to be back here in a year-and-a-half and I’m going to be campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state.”
‘Fight like hell’: grievance and denialism rule at Trump Georgia rally. The Guardian, 5 January 2021
This is perhaps the end point of the ‘Republicans in Name Only’ (RINO) campaign. You are only a real Republican if you support Trump no matter what, and will commit any crime requested to gain the Party victory. Loyalty and obedience to ideology is required, otherwise you will be attacked or dismissed.
If a Democrat had behaved like this, then it would probably be clear to Republicans, that this was an effort to corrupt the election and generate fake votes.
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