General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is the third time dirty tricks have cost us the loss
of a duly elected President.
Al Gore was the first when the recount of the Florida votes was stopped and subsequently the Supreme Court upheld that action and literally selected Bush. That day we stopped being a Constitutional Democracy, but people preferred to pretend it didnt happen. Two of our three branches of government failed as Congress did nothing, and the Judiciary took on powers its never been given, and the selected winner took up the reins of our third branch.
John Kerry was the second when every dirty trick in the book was used to defame him and no one thought it of importance to set the record straight. People who had seen what happened when Bush was selected had long since decided the selection was OK. Things had happened with the Bush administration that could never be reversed. We had all moved on to the wars. That time it was the media who failed us as well as every branch of government. We, the American people as aa body, believed that the Bush administration would actually have clean voting that time even though they didnt the first time. And so we got Bush again to eventually explode our economy too.
Hillary Clinton is the third. This time it was the combined failure of the above mentioned perpetrators and the added brazen criminality of the Trump/Russia criminal enterprise to gain control of the American government for personal political gain, both for raw power itself and for lucrative gain. Trump sucked the air out of the country and may have blown the last flicker of life out of our shredded Constitution. Congress has long since abdicated all power and lays supine awaiting further instruction. The Judiciary did nothing. Our representatives passed themselves guaranteed untold future wealth and have decided to quit their jobs and go home. Mission accomplished.
As a country calling itself, correctly or not, the United States of America and calling ourselves a Democratically run Constitution we will continue to live our daily lives like thats true, and for those of us who are white and male it may even feel that way for a while.
But if we actually face the above facts and do something about it there still may be a window of opportunity, not to reverse what has happened since 2000 because thats water under the bridge and a dark part of our history but to restore Democracy and our Constitution. We must all vote this year, like it were possibly the last time it really counts.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)unblock
(52,253 posts)in isolation i think they "won" that election...
... though of course reagan wouldn't have been running as an incumbent had it not been for them bribing iran in 1980 to keep americans hostage until it suited their campaign.
yes, people focus on the "trading arms" part, trying to argue that it was merely a policy decision.
but apart from all else, they paid iranians to refuse to release american hostages until after the election and even after reagan was inaugurated.
they paid foreign criminals to extend a kidnapping of americans.
they explicitly sponsored an overtly criminal act against americans.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)and Obama got elected twice because we voted like never before. We can do it again, but we have to restore the Constitution too.
dchill
(38,505 posts)So is 1980.
wysimdnwyg
(2,232 posts)Perhaps not directly (although the Vietnamese discussions present a possibility there), but even if Nixon and his cohorts did not directly order it, the RFK assassination almost certainly changed the result. Kennedy would very likely have beaten Nixon had it come down to it, so Nixon's win was tainted, regardless of any possible conspiracy around Kennedy's murder.
trc
(823 posts)Nixon promised the South Vietnamese government that if they slowed the peace talks in 1968 until after the election he would give them money. Reagan made a deal with the Iranians promising weapons parts and arms if they would not release the hostages until after the election.
politics is a dirty game and is not likely to get better in the foreseeable future.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)If they were then they indeed were criminal acts.
My question is sincere. They were definitely dirty though.
trc
(823 posts)And Reagan's actions were part of the Iran/Contra illegal activity throughout his presidency. Yes, both were working with a foreign power to effect the outcome of a US election. Treason. Lessons in Republican electioneering taken to heart by the current "president".
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Youve enlightened me!
rwsanders
(2,606 posts)Nixon promised them money and Vietnam expected that to release the POW's that they were holding (about 1750). When Nixon failed to come through (he knew congress would never authorize the money), they held the POW's.
https://www.thenation.com/article/why-has-john-mccain-blocked-info-mias/
It makes me sick to see how many Vietnam vets support the Republicans.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Its disgusting. Nixon is even worse than most people think.
^^^^^^^
groundloop
(11,519 posts)Ronnie RayGuns ran an extremely corrupt White House, the total number of prosecutions against members of his staff is one of the highest in history.
Still In Wisconsin
(4,450 posts)Or can we blame that one on the "Dukakis in a Tank" video?
trc
(823 posts)remember this?
Still In Wisconsin
(4,450 posts)Initech
(100,081 posts)And guess which one that was?
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2018, 01:17 PM - Edit history (2)
As soon as Bush claimed it wasnt possible for him to lose Florida because Jeb had quaranteed he would win it.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)by Katherine Harris didnt help either.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Maybe because the Bush family threw her away so fast. We hardly got to know her.
modrepub
(3,496 posts)We need to get rid of that thing. The Presidency should be decided by a simple majority of all eligible US citizens (I'm including all territories and overseas military bases). Every other office in this country is decided by a majority vote, why do we should the Presidency be any different. And if the small states complain then tell them they still have the Senate.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Their individual vote is as powerful as the vote in any large state.
ProfessorGAC
(65,076 posts)It's an anachronism. Besides, the first 3 words of the Constitution are "we the people". The EC makes territory more important than the citizens.
Nitram
(22,822 posts)Freddie
(9,267 posts)A couple more votes in Ohio and we would have won the EC but not the popular vote. Would have been delicious.
planetc
(7,815 posts)that was audited, which means that we cannot be sure how the popular vote went, either. Many of our state elections cannot be audited.
This means that we can have no confidence in the announced winners of many state elections, and thus, no idea which of two candidates for an open seat won. Perhaps the Republicans haven't controlled anything except the balloting process for a very long time.
To repeat: we have no way of knowing who won any given election unless we can audit it, and we can only audit the ones using paper ballots, hand counted. The electoral process is rather like ordering a sweater we liked online, in green, and getting shipped a brown one in the wrong size, and then being told to shut up and like it.
Unless the people control the means by which the vote is collected and counted, it won't matter how many Democrats turn out, because the people who control the balloting will announce the results. We cannot audit the announced results. Many of us have no confidence left in the announced results of any state or national election unless the ballot process is a) paper ballots, b) hand counted.
The American people have been ill served especially by the press, who keep assuring us, even up to election night in 2016, that it's impossible to steal an American election. It's not impossible; it has certainly been done; all we lack are the specific numbers. As you recall, the press in 2015 and 2016 assured us, ad nauseam, that Mr. Trump's sexism was significant (true) and Mrs. Clinton's email server was important (false). None of them had more than a few carefully crafted words to say about the safety of that election, and we were assured that tampering with electronic voting machines was "unlikely." Bullfeathers.
We're neither a republic nor a democracy at the moment. We're a captive population. To the New York Times and the Washington Post I say: do your jobs. Tell us how safe our national and state elections are, and then face the large quantity of feathers that will be blown in your faces by outraged but uninformed ninnies. Your newspapers may close, but you will have gone down fighting.
mfcorey1
(11,001 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)We would pay for our own demise and for Russias rise to untold power. That thought is sickening.
OMGWTF
(3,959 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Welcome to DU. These are some of the unintended, or perhaps intended outcomes. No one can claim the Republicans arent experts at taking advantage of every opportunity they get, be it legal or illegal.
certainot
(9,090 posts)related to the incredible idiocy of dems/liberals/the left in continuing to ignore the talk radio propaganda monopoly
from swiftboating, making bush, palin, trump even 'acceptable', trashing anita hill to get thomas in to selling voter fraud fraud to pass voter suppression to benghazi to providing most of the material for russian trolling.
ignoring it has been the biggest political fuck up in history and it continues today.
Texin
(2,596 posts)The loss of both houses in D.C. has been the single most damaging to the country long-term. It's of far greater consequence to democracy, as well as the repetitive loss of state and local seats in so many states across the country. With rethugs in control of state and local legislative bodies, they've been able to eviscerate laws governing fair play, public schools, election processes through gerrymandering and other mechanisms in order to seize control of those bodies and ensure a permanent rethuglican stranglehold.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)These things wouldnt happen if our Constitution had been defended in the first place. But once the door to legalized crime has been opened anything is OK.
rainy
(6,092 posts)Republicans easily get funding for elections because they share the same corrupt values, lie, cheat steal. Democrats just have to not stir the pot so remain silent even when they get screwed to make sure they get enough money for re-election. Corporate media are none too happy to assist donors preferences for policy.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)I'm enormously frustrated by the fact that our elected leaders aren't more cognizant, more outraged and more activist of all this.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)so we should fire them by electing new ones.
BadgerMom
(2,771 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2018, 02:38 PM - Edit history (1)
I realize the OP is about election theft, but Garland was a theft, too, although of a different nature.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)McConnell basically told the American people to fuck off, that his mandate under the Constitution meant nothing to him.
BadgerMom
(2,771 posts)I edited my reply above. I knew his name but Im a total failure as a proofreader. And autocorrect seldom lives up to its name. I should know better than to let it have its way.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)The collateral fallout directly linked to the failure of Congress to do its job.
Anon-C
(3,430 posts)Putin had just come on the international stage in late 1999, and the Clinton Administration had essentially contested Russia in the former Yugoslavia. This was also the exact time-frame that the Koch Bros. started building and expanding their network and spending big money on elections. That is no coincidence.
gopiscrap
(23,761 posts)we haven't had a clean republican president since Eisenhower
FailureToCommunicate
(14,014 posts)We practically invented dirty tricks!"
Nixon's tricksters, Donald Segretti, Lee Atwater, et al:
?w=611&h=404&crop=1
http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/top-10-dirty-political-tricks-2/slide/donald-segretti-and-the-nixon-gang/
Demsrule86
(68,586 posts)Kerry was very much attacked early in the campaign and never had the support of the usual suspects named above...and in 16 ...well we all know what happened then...same old same old. The left left green slime (so called not progressive at all) and the purist didn't vote for Hillary so we got Trump...until we always vote Democratic in a general we will continue to lose.
Loubee
(165 posts)Nixon and Reagan arguably committed treason to get elected to their first terms
I think they did commit treason. They actively committed crimes by inviting foreign countries to throw the elections.
Their elections are the foundation for every stolen election in the 21st Century. Reagan especially set the ball rolling that has us where we are today.
Jakes Progress
(11,122 posts)as treason.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Thats why Trump is so determined to claim no collusion.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)wipe the floor with trump!", I reply that it doesn't matter if we nominate Flawless Charismatic Superstar. As long as the repugs keep getting away with their dirty tactics, they'll keep "winning" elections.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Our elections are becoming as honest as Putins, Saddam Husseins, or every other dictator who still pretends to hold elections.
Jakes Progress
(11,122 posts)what irks me is that, in none of those cases, should it have ever been nearly close enough for them to steal. Hillary was right both times. There is a "vast right wing conspiracy" and we do have a basketful of "deplorables".
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Hillary made that comment about the vast right wing conspiracy back in the 1990s.
And since then theyve used her to advance their agenda. Of course they werent going to let her be president.
enid602
(8,620 posts)Don't forget Tricky Dick telling the North and South Vietnamese to wait for a few months for a much better deal once he's President. Probably cost Hubie the election, as LBJ was close to a peace treaty.
Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)in other elections due to same dirty tricks.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)and specifically, as far as I know with the complicity, deliberate or not of the other branches of government and ultimately the media. A supine Congress, an inactive Judiciary and privatized media with a political agenda serving their owners.
Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)Demsrule86
(68,586 posts)rurallib
(62,423 posts)and then Hoover before that
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)TheSmarterDog
(794 posts)Bill Casey's goons convinced Iran to kill their deal with Carter to release their hostages to help Reagan.
Hassler
(3,379 posts)garybeck
(9,942 posts)People keep saying that we have to vote these guys out but you're forgetting that part of the dirty tricks is that they mess with the election system.
Does your vote count?
Rene
(1,183 posts)at 10pm at nite, with Gore ahead. Switched back to Ohio server at 10:20 with vote counts flipped to Bush. Anybody staring at the screens wouldn't see that server switch happening in the background. This is the part of vote tampering that tech folks haven't followed up on yet.....and it's happened many times since I'm sure.
AllaN01Bear
(18,261 posts)ive been feeling this for a long time and couldnt put my finger on it.
my late mom had a saying," they (the rs) feel that they (the rs) own the white house and congress. they (the rs) get upset esp: when a democrat wins the white house .
Orangeutan
(204 posts)stole the election from Kerry as he was in the process of drafting his acceptance remarks.
Suspect flipped votes in Wisc, Mich, & Penn in '16.
This may be a permanent thing from now on. Sure hope not.
Perseus
(4,341 posts)Knowing the GOP is going to cheat, why is it that the DNC has not prevented it? France did a job on the Russians when they tried to meddle in their elections, so knowing that the GOP is going to cheat, why is it that the democratic party doesn't do anything about it?
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Doing nothing has consequences just as powerful as doing something. When it comes to accountability there is no such thing as a pass. Every action and inaction has consequences.
Hopefully if he Democrats become the majority something will be done. One thing that makes this years elections more hopeful is the sheer numbers of people running for the first time, specifically because of Trump AND the mass shootings and out of control sales of semi automatic weapons of war in our country.