I would like to believe(perhaps naively) that the segment of population which genuinely believes in doing away with democracy is pretty small.
However, in case such an event comes to pass, what is far more important is the segment which actively opposes such a power grab. Authoritarians reply on the passiveness of the majority coupled with a small but very vocal and rabid fan base.
It's quite possible that a slow and gradual slide in that direction is underway, but the minute even a small faction of people actively oppose that, strongmen tend to find the limits of their power pretty quickly and mostly in ways that are pretty detrimental to their health.
The civil rights movement is a pretty good example of the power of a small set of people being enough to have critical mass.
The civil rights movement would not have succeeded without the confluence of growing anti-government sentiment and protests around the Vietnam War, and fears about the spread of communist influence in the US. This forced American leaders to give 15% of their population basic human rights denied to them under Jim Crow laws.
Then combine that with all the election interference we know Elon was doing, and previous years of being concerned about the security of voting machines.
Proving it will be hard now - I'm certain if there was election interference, that evidence is all gone now. For my money though, I find it hard to imagine that something this widespread across so many states was executed without any whistleblowers.
I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference.
> I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference.
The fact this anomaly only happens in swing states under commonly identified conditions for foreign elections with widely accepted interference isn't suspicious enough? You can recreate the Russian tail yourself with the available data. A commenter in the HN thread I linked even posts the code to do so.
I feel like suspicious voting patterns should be investigated, not that I have any belief that will happen. We already have proof of a consistent statistical anomaly.
We definitely should investigate. No argument there. It just won't make a difference. At this point, they have gotten away with it, and the opposition did not put up a fight. They are not all of a sudden going to start putting up a fight, when there's no way they win that fight. (But realistically: they are bad at putting up fights over things in the first place, which is how we ended up here - the party with no moral qualms about much of anything ran roughshod over them)
I agree with you it's likely pointless. I'm not arguing that "this information will change the election." That said, I do care about election integrity and the more evidence we have of fraud the more we can (theoretically) correct for it in the future.
I'm very much of the opinion there's going to be a violent civil war before the decade is over.
I think it depends entirely on what the military does. People seem to think the military will just fall in line with the president. I think a military coup is far more likely than that.
It may be our only hope but I hear they play a lot of fox news on military bases. Everyone I know who are in the services voted for trump and with loyalists installed in top leadership I don't see who would organize any resistance let alone a coup.
However, in case such an event comes to pass, what is far more important is the segment which actively opposes such a power grab. Authoritarians reply on the passiveness of the majority coupled with a small but very vocal and rabid fan base.
It's quite possible that a slow and gradual slide in that direction is underway, but the minute even a small faction of people actively oppose that, strongmen tend to find the limits of their power pretty quickly and mostly in ways that are pretty detrimental to their health.
The civil rights movement is a pretty good example of the power of a small set of people being enough to have critical mass.