This is the kind of boring "both side-ism" that I just don't understand. I have no great love of either party, but one side is openly speculating about all sorts of things that cannot be described as anything other than outright authoritarian, and the other party ... is not. And no, some disagreements on free speech or the 2nd amendment or whatnot is not even close. And no, "oh, he's not really serious about it" doesn't fly either.
And with one party transformed in the Monster Raving Loony Party, the other one can't do anything else but push its own agenda through when it can, so compromise becomes rarer and rarer. And it's not just Trump – remember the madness and obstructionism of the Obama years?
And yes, there have been times the Democratic party could have done better. No doubt. But it's absolutely not a "both sides" issue.
The issue in question was truth, not authoritarianism. Specifically, the issue was truth about election security. The point was that both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they lose, and "most secure election in history" when they win.
More generally: In the current election, Harris isn't the firehose of lies that Trump is. She isn't a shining beacon of truth, either.
"Most secure election in history" was a superlative I'm not happy with either, no. But the core of it is correct: there is no evidence of wide-spread fraud.
The core of the other side is outright lies and fraud, rooted in nothing more than one person's narcissism.
Equating these two is just bizarre. "Murder, arson, and jaywalking". Or something like that.
And "both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they lose" is just not true. There have been a few disagreements over the decades of course, some more reasonable than others, but nothing like 2016 has happened in recent history, from either party.
Agreed. There were 60+ court cases, but not evidence of fraud.
> The core of the other side is outright lies and fraud, rooted in nothing more than one person's narcissism.
Also agreed.
> Equating these two is just bizarre.
I wasn't.
> And "both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they lose" is just not true. There have been a few disagreements over the decades of course, some more reasonable than others, but nothing like 2016 has happened in recent history, from either party.
I presume you mean 2020, not 2016. Yes, nothing like that has happened in recent history... until next week.
But speaking of 2016, I remember a large number of people (including Hillary) saying that Hillary "really won" because she had more votes than Trump did, as if the Electoral College was not a thing. I recall seeing it, here on HN, over and over, for months, that Trump wasn't "really the legitimate president".
No, nobody actually tried to do anything. Obama didn't tell states to send fake electors to the House for the vote. He didn't have a "demonstration of love and respect" or whatever Trump is currently trying to paint January 6th as. So that's better. Months of talk is better than 60 court cases, fake electors, and attempting to physically prevent the vote in the House.
Since you seem to keep mis-reading me, I'm going to say that again, more clearly: The two are not comparable.
And yet... the "it's not legitimate because our person lost" was still there as a definite idea. The idea wasn't election fraud - it was that the Electoral College had thwarted the will of the people, and therefore the election was somehow illegitimate. Never mind that we had rules in place, and we followed the rules, and under the rules that were in place, Hillary lost. But no, "it's not legitimate".
Nobody ever took it as far as Trump did. But both sides de-ligitimatize the other side's victories, if only verbally. (Again, "only verbally" is better than attacking the Capitol. But it's not as close to "we'll see you in four years" as I would wish.)
And with one party transformed in the Monster Raving Loony Party, the other one can't do anything else but push its own agenda through when it can, so compromise becomes rarer and rarer. And it's not just Trump – remember the madness and obstructionism of the Obama years?
And yes, there have been times the Democratic party could have done better. No doubt. But it's absolutely not a "both sides" issue.