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But the rules didn’t change. One “team”, let’s call it, said that the rules were unfair but the next game they say they’re fair.
A Deeply Fractured US
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I would argue that the rules did change.
My analogy is that if next year's Super Bowl is to be played on the 4 Down system then the correct time to announce that is the day after this year's Super Bowl, with the agreement of all parties. The wrong time to be changing the rules is at the coin toss.
Some of us are of the opinion that rules were being changed right up to the time of the coin toss. The changes may have been legal, although that is a matter of interpretation and open for challenge. The changes may even have been necessary or appropriate given exigent circumstances, although that too is a matter of interpretation and open for challenge.
The nature of rules is less important than that all parties accept the rules. Changing rules does not engender trust.
Especially when the working axiom is "Never let a crisis go to waste" - attributed to Winston Churchill and to Rahm Emmanuel, advisor to Obama and past Democratic mayor of Chicago.
....
As to the entire issue of challenging rules, there are rules for challenging rules and they too are part of the game.
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Ok - maybe I’m missing your point completely.
AFAIK, mail-in voting was legal in the 2016, 2020, and will be legal in the 2024 elections. Of course, it varies by state bc there is no big federal group like Elections Canada there.
For the 2020 election, the GOP pushed the narrative that mail-in voting was fraudulent. However, that had the unintended consequence of lowering the potential GOP voting bloc, some of whom would have voted by mail. Realizing that “mail-in voting is bad” narrative is not going to help them in the 2024 election, now they’re saying that it’s fine again.
I’m not sure what the “changed rules” are that you’re referring to? As I said, I may be completely missing your point.
The only point is grasping at whatever excuse is possible to explain the discrepancy in opinion from one electoral cycle to another.
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I am referring to the state by state changes.
I differentiate between the hyperbolic fraudulent used to gin up crowds and working the rules to advantage. The Democrats worked the rules to their best advantage. My opinion is the Trump also attempted to work the rules to his best advantage. Rather than working the popular vote he worked the Electoral College. I would also argue that he was quite within his rights to challenge any and all counts up to and past Jan 6. Those challenges are within the rules.
Rioting is not within the rules but Trump supporters were not the first people to exceed the bounds and to riot.
To be frank, despite the rhetoric from both parties, I see both parties equally to blame. I also see both parties operating within norms. Most people accepting and accommodating and some people pushing the limits to the point that they step out of bounds.
I don't expect virtuous behaviour. The pundit class seems to be composed of seminarians and revolutionaries. I am a fan of neither. I prefer shopkeepers.
Absolutely. And he and his team brought case after case after case to the courts with staggering lack of success. In some cases attorneys were sanctioned for crossing professional and ethical lines in the types of allegations they tried to move through court. But he was absolutely within his rights to seek legal recourse, and he’s not in the slightest bit of hot water for that.
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Nobody said you had to be bright to spend your money on lawyers.
His case was particularly concentrated and egregious, but the American high business/political class is riddled with it across the spectrum. There’s a whole social ecosystem of legacy admissions to prestigious schools, mutual back-scratching in offering internship and junior executive roles to the graduating nepo-babies, and so on from there. It certainly carries right through into politics.
OldSolduer
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And in other institutions as well. Meritocracy is a laudable goal but eventually it gives way to nepotism.
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Senators make the rules, and confirm the Supreme Court. I bet on Red.
Minority Rule review: rich history of America’s undemocratic democracy
From an absurd Senate where California and Wyoming are equal, to Republican voter suppression, Ari Berman covers it all
www.theguardian.com
Retired AF Guy
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Kind of like saying this will be the last election using the "first-past-the-post" electoral system and then winning a majority and quietly ditching your promise to change the system.
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Strangely, the party that won the election generally doesn’t want to change the method in which they won.
FJAG
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Just as a minor update on the legal stuff: Trump’s felony trial in state court in New York has concluded, and the jury has begun deliberating today. At any time a verdict could come back.
This is the least consequential of Trump’s four felony trials. This is the one where he’s charged with falsifying business records, with the prosecution arguing that it’s elevated to a felony based on the belief that he falsified those records so as to further what would be an offence under state election law- though prosecution does not need to charge or prove that predicate offence.
Even if convicted, prison time is unlikely, and it would have zero impact on his eligibility for office. This is, however, the only one of the four cases that now looks likely to resolve before the election, so it will be sensational in that respect, anyway.
I didn’t follow the case closely enough to have a real appreciation of the evidence, nor do so have the benefit of the judge’s instruction to the jury on how to apply the law, so I don’t really have an opinion on this one one way or another. Whichever way it goes there will be much angsty gnashing of teeth, and potentially appeals (definitely if he’s convicted).
And now we wait to see what the jury says.
This is the least consequential of Trump’s four felony trials. This is the one where he’s charged with falsifying business records, with the prosecution arguing that it’s elevated to a felony based on the belief that he falsified those records so as to further what would be an offence under state election law- though prosecution does not need to charge or prove that predicate offence.
Even if convicted, prison time is unlikely, and it would have zero impact on his eligibility for office. This is, however, the only one of the four cases that now looks likely to resolve before the election, so it will be sensational in that respect, anyway.
I didn’t follow the case closely enough to have a real appreciation of the evidence, nor do so have the benefit of the judge’s instruction to the jury on how to apply the law, so I don’t really have an opinion on this one one way or another. Whichever way it goes there will be much angsty gnashing of teeth, and potentially appeals (definitely if he’s convicted).
And now we wait to see what the jury says.
Retired AF Guy
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QV
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These people are hardly fans of Trump, there take is the case should be thrown out.
www.nationalreview.com
Acquit Trump in the Hush-Money Case | National Review
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has not proven the charges against the former president.
www.nationalreview.com
Shrug lots of opinions out there. Like our threads on polling versus election results, in this criminal prosecution the opinions that matter are exclusively those of the twelve jurors as the triers of fact. Following a verdict one way or another, the only subsequent opinions that might matter would be appellate judges.These people are hardly fans of Trump, there take is the case should be thrown out.
Acquit Trump in the Hush-Money Case | National Review
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has not proven the charges against the former president.
We’ll see what the jury says.
QV
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From the CBC, I'm surprised they had commentary both for and against convictions.
I find this line interesting: "and, crucially, that he did this to influence the 2016 election..."... yet the russia collusion gambit led by Hillary and DNC was not an attempt to influence the election?
Other interesting points: The felony charges against Trump rest, he says, on an unjustly loose application of the underlying statutes: the tax, state- and federal-level election laws Trump is accused of intending to break.
Prosecutors have argued, and the judge has agreed, to instruct the jury that all they have to do is agree Trump intended to break one of those three laws by falsifying those records; it doesn't matter which law, or even if jurors all settle on the same one.
"[This is] vague and broad, and thus nearly impossible to defend against," said Bakken, now a professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point.
and
There's not the slightest shred of evidence, Andrew McCarthy wrote in the National Review, that in making those payments Trump had any awareness of the underlying laws he's accused of trying to break.
I find this line interesting: "and, crucially, that he did this to influence the 2016 election..."... yet the russia collusion gambit led by Hillary and DNC was not an attempt to influence the election?
Other interesting points: The felony charges against Trump rest, he says, on an unjustly loose application of the underlying statutes: the tax, state- and federal-level election laws Trump is accused of intending to break.
Prosecutors have argued, and the judge has agreed, to instruct the jury that all they have to do is agree Trump intended to break one of those three laws by falsifying those records; it doesn't matter which law, or even if jurors all settle on the same one.
"[This is] vague and broad, and thus nearly impossible to defend against," said Bakken, now a professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point.
and
There's not the slightest shred of evidence, Andrew McCarthy wrote in the National Review, that in making those payments Trump had any awareness of the underlying laws he's accused of trying to break.
