1y ago

CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden's 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70%

edition.cnn.com CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden's 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70% | CNN Politics

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest.

417 comments

The really shocking thing here is that 31% of Republicans are still aware of reality enough to understand that Biden won legitimately.
- Like 70% also believe angels are real...
  Apparently decades of No Child Left Behind and removing critical thinking from public education did what republicans wanted it to do
  
  You're assuming they actually believe what they are saying and are arguing in good faith. That hasn't been in the Republican playbook since at least Nixon.
  
  Not to defend No Child Left Behind but it was only a 2002 law, the majority of these people are too old to have been in school since its passage.
  
  Don't worry, they're fixing this by burning books. We'll be back to the 50's in no time!
  
  You act like it's limited to the younger generations of Republicans.
- Doesn't help that they are allowing Trump to run around the country to continue to say he was cheated and that the election was stolen. They are literally waiting until next year to even put him on trial.
  Plenty of time for him to cause as much harm as possible.
- Those 30% will still vote R, even after knowing that they have been lied to by the republicans.
  When republicans voters call others “cucks”, you know it’s all a projection.
  
  They've largely stopped using "cuck" as an insult since the high mark of their movement involved a guy wearin' horns.
- Or they're just embarrassed to admit what they really think.
  
  Are they capable of shame? Seems like they revel in the absolute worst behavior possible.

now do the % of repubs who think the earth is 5,000 years old. or the % that think russia is our ally.

The Republican Party has become a doctrinaire anti-American organization; wholly subservient to the international fascist movement.
Why would any loyal American patriot be a member of it?
The Republicans stand against what America actually is.
The USA is a multicultural society. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a leader in science; including the understanding of our planet's climate. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is loyal to its international allies. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is committed to freedom of speech and of the press. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a leader in technology; including the development of clean energy. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a secular society, in which people of different religions can meet as equals in the marketplace of ideas. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is a capitalist economy; in which businesses may prosper without having to bend the knee to leaders' personality-cults or their ideological doctrine. The Republicans are against that.
The USA is an educated society; with free schooling for all, and with some of the best universities in the world. The Republicans are against that.
In all of these ways, the Republicans have endorsed anti-Americanism — opposition to what the USA actually is, its actual strengths and virtues.
- Great response
- I'm starting to put together citations to go with this list if anyone wants to contribute.
- Then it's urgent that you guys find a way so that there'd be more than two big parties, or the D are going to rot in the same direction as the R have already.
  
  There's no reason that has to be true, but a multi-party system enabled by ranked-choice or approval voting would be better
- Bold of you to assume they're capable of reading this.
  
  They're not reading this. I'd like it if other Americans kept in mind that you can be both patriotic and antifascist.

It's scary when there's an entire echochamber yelling nonsense at the top of their lungs. How is America supposed to recover with this incessant Fox News and even worse OAN propaganda?
- The obvious solution is to outlaw intentionally lying in the guise of a news show. Make FOX etc., have to broadcast a banner that says, "THIS IS NOT FACTUAL NEWS THIS IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY," as they have argued in court.
  
  In addition to this, retractions and corrections need to be more prominent. No more screaming falsehoods for hours and days and then quietly issuing a retraction as a scroll during the low viewership time block.
  
  Make FOX etc., have to broadcast a banner that says, “THIS IS NOT FACTUAL NEWS THIS IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY,"
  I mean, that might work, but what we'd get is "THIS IS NOT FACTUAL NEWS THIS IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY 😉 " and there'd be no difference to what we have now.
  
  Fox would own the fuck out of that.
  The left makes us put this banner on here! We know you're smart people that can make your own choices about what is and is not "entertainment"! Now, for something I don't find at all entertaining, Biden once again oversteps his authority and ....
- Align them with the crazies. If you hold these beliefs then you think the earth is flat. Full stop.
  If someone mentions this shit then they obviously believe in hollow earth, lizard people shit. Laugh at them, call them out as laughable and do not treat them as a serious person. They are talking about nonsense and they are children. Treat them as such.

This just in: republicans are fucking insane
If you are a republican in this day and age, given ALL the shit they have done and what they stand for, you are either stupid, evil or both
- But yet we still have to navigate this and them, despite their terrible brain problems.
- They're also listening to news sources that promote the bullshit instead of relaying actual facts. It's no wonder they don't know what's going on.
- you are either stupid, evil or both
  Republican leadership is mostly both, and it is done with the idea of keeping their voting base stupid. Smart, moral people don't vote republican at least since Reagan. The only thing Republican leadership believes in is money and power, and you have to keep people pretty dumb in order to keep believing the lies that Republican policies are good for anyone but the rich. So you get a DeSantis, for example, who's stripping libraries and destroying education in his state because it's the only hope that he has in keeping power. It's why Republican talking points are all about "woke" because they don't have to define it and they can't actually point to like a single fucking thing they're doing that's bettering anyone's lives.
- Remember when democrats cried for 4 years about "muh Russia interference"?
  Remember it was shown that it was fabricated by Clinton?
  Remember when they found nothing in connection to Russia even though all they did was try and get him on something?
  This is "democracy" is it?
  Orange man said mean tweets so now we much fortify and make sure we only have our guys as leaders lol
  
  No I don't remember. Got any proof/ sauce for this bullshit you're peddling?
  Here is what I remember: "So the report documents the extensive connections between folks in the Trump campaign and Russia, some of which we already knew. But it goes into greater depth, most notably probably on Paul Manafort."
  and "A nearly 1,000-page report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday documented a broad set of links and interactions between Russian government operatives and members of the 2016 Trump campaign...".
  oh I just remembered this: A bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday affirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a far-ranging influence campaign approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin and aimed at helping Donald Trump win the White House.

Republican voters are a different breed. Even with enough evidence to prove Russia was interfering with the 2016 election, Democrats still mostly accepted the win. With even less evidence of any fraud in the 2020 election, the majority of Republicans deny Biden's legitimacy.
- With ZERO evidence. Not "Even less". There was ZERO evidence of fraud by the Biden campaign and democrats.
  
  And lots of evidence of Republicans committing fraud in 2020, and still they lost.
- They take their cues from their politicians who are all cowards. Every Republican politician with even the most basic critical thinking skills understands that Trump did not win and that Trump intentionally broke the law with classified documents.
  Instead of acknowledging those facts, they instead are literally willing to destroy Americans' faith in fair elections and the basic rule of law by spewing lies in an effort to prostrate themselves to Donald Trump and his supporters. They have no fundamental principles anymore. They are literally willing to burn the country down to win.
- Democrats still mostly accepted the win
  Hardly accepted the win
  
  I couldn't view your link, but yes majority of Democrats did accept it: https://news.gallup.com/poll/197441/accept-trump-legitimate-president.aspx
  This includes Biden himself who requested that his party accept the results. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/no-trump-electoral-college-challenge-233294

As a conservative, this is mind boggling to me. In my head I think it's just a far right crazy conspiracy theory, but between this and the huge amount of support trump gets, I'm just baffled. I'm on the west coast, and none of my friends or family still support Trump or are election deniers.
Maybe the mid west republicans are just 100% trumpers? It's wild.
- Maybe the mid west republicans are just 100% trumpers? It's wild.
  MAGA is basically like a religion out here. They avoid any information that contradicts their belief system and gravitate towards media that reaffirms it. The constant drumbeat of whataboutism coming from trump, fox news, AM radio, etc really has poisoned their brains. Support of trump, embrace of his lies, and hatred of his "enemies", has become their entire identity.
  
  Back when Trump was President, a friend of mine (who's a Trump supporter) was arguing with me about whether or not Trump said something.
  I did what I always did and checked Google. I quickly found a video of Trump saying the thing and sent it to my friend. He replied that it was fake news.
  My friend wasn't claiming that the video was actually faked or taken out of context. Instead, he was saying that it was fake news because it was hosted on CNN's servers. He didn't care what the content was, just whether it was on a right wing outlet's server or not.
  
  They avoid any information that contradicts their belief system and gravitate towards media that reaffirms it.
  Isn't that the same with twitter, reddit, CNN MSNBC? It's a more broad media problem. When was the last time most people watched or read any media that directly conflicted with their beliefs?
- This isn't so much a mystery, but more of a reaping of what was sown.
  Right Wing media sources such as Breitbart and Fox News, have been nurturing many lines of thought, mostly in order to fire up the conservative base, versus providing useful information.
  When you want your base to be an angry mob, and spend considerable resources to keep them angry, ill informed, but likely to vote, this is what you get.
  This is a well trained response.
  
  I mean, isn't that the media as a whole? The whole media is about outrage, it's not about reporting news.
  I'm pretty conservative, so is my pa, and we used to watch CNN's news coverage back in the early 00's. Now, try watching CNN, MSNBC and FOX, it's all 'political commentary.' There's no news, there's outrage.
  We've dimished knowledge into 140 characters with a screenshot attached. No context, no actual reporting or knowledge of the whole situation. Just some quick 1 liners to rile up their base. The republicans have chosen their demi-god because they've been losing, but I can't say that if the dems were losing that they wouldn't do the same thing.
- In light of seeing your fellow conservatives move farther right (and thus, kinda push the definition of the body of conservative beliefs farther right), on what grounds do you still identify as conservative? What does being a conservative mean to you?
  
  (and thus, kinda push the definition of the body of conservative beliefs farther right)
  I don't really agree with this. The republican party shifting doesn't mean the ideals of conservative ideology changes.
  On the other side of the coin, just because democrats are starting to become more socialist, does that mean that liberal ideologies are changing?
  I'm still a conservative because I believe in tradition, I believe in small government and a country that abides by the constitution is the best way to govern. I believe in the free market and put more emphasis on a states individuality rather than having a large federal government.
- I suspect conservative people like yourself no longer identifying as Republican may be a factor.
  I have a couple former republican friends who are still very conservative, but aren't trumpers and voted libertarian or independent last election.
  They do still have a bit of distrust around Jan 6th and criminal allegations because, well, they avoid looking into them deeper, so don't know who to trust. But they're not foaming at the mouth.
- They love him in the southeast. I'm in VA which is purple and not even in a rural area, and he has tons of support here.
  I was behind a truck the other day with a decal covering the back window stating the following:
  "Me and my homies would have been stacking bodies by now. -- George Washington"
  They're fucking crazy and they're everywhere around here. It makes my blood boil.
  
  Even just north of y'all in Western MD where I recently vacated from, there are plenty of nutters. MD is seen as a pretty blue state but that's mostly just Baltimore and Montgomery County balancing out the crazy in the rest of the state. The more rural parts of the state are still full to the brim of your typical Trump wackos.
- It's not just a mid-west thing. I'm in the PNW and I've yet to meet a Never Trumper republican.
  
  Yup,
  Strangest thing to me is that I know quite a few Asians that immigrated here that are super Trumpers. I just can't even grasp how.
  Also, interestingly enough, I also happen to work in a very right leaning field, and the majority of the republicans here have been very quiet since the Jan 6 incident. There was only one who was pretty outspoken about it, and he quit recently.
  
  Yep, they're still flying Trump flags and hanging Trump signs in the areas of Oregon outside the larger cities.
  
  Is that the only metric?
  I voted for him in '16, same with my pa. Does someone have to be a 'never trumper' to be reasonable? I'm in the PNW too, I've seen a handful of Trump Trucks, but despite being from a more rural area (you know there are a lot of conservative pockets in the PNW), there isn't this widespread support of Trump, from what I've seen.
- I am pretty liberal, but I have a-lot of family members who are republican and live in the midwest and they feel like they’re in the same boat as you.
  I do have to wonder where he gets all his support.
  
  He gets his support from the belts. Bible Belt and Rust Belt.
  
  I live in NY as does my father. He was a die hard Trump supporter until a few months ago when he switched to DeSantis - though he might have switched back to Trump. I try not to talk politics with him.
  As recently as last year, he was telling me that the Republicans were going to impeach and remove Biden and Kamala and install Trump as President again. I pointed out that the House could definitely impeach, but removal would take two thirds of the Senate - a number the Republicans couldn't possibly reach. (This was before the midterms.) My father responded that the Democrats would vote along with the Republicans.
  Yes, my father honestly believed that the Democrats would decide to ditch a Democratic President and Vice President so that Trump could come back to power. He was willing to make a bet that this would happen. I didn't take the bet only because I knew he'd either deny ever making the bet or would try to gaslight me what the bet actually was about.
  
  It's baffling to me, every poll I see like this I'm just confused and sad
- Maybe now. The Republicans in my family left the party after 2016. Granted, they're still on my shit list for voting against LGBT stuff but at least they've recognized the error of their ways.
  
  What anti-lgbt stuff did they vote against?
- Coming from the southeast, definitely still a lot of Trump banners and bumper stickers, though less so now. I expect them to be more common as the election gets closer.
  Hard to call it far right anymore. Conspiracy theorists and hate are more or less the norm in conservative circles, so far as I can tell.
  
  Conspiracy theorists and hate are more or less the norm in conservative circles, so far as I can tell.
  I don't think they're conservative. I think republicans have given up on being conservative, and just now fight culture war and spend as much if not more than the dems.
  I've been trying to be diligent about not conflating republicans and conservatives anymore, they haven't been conservative in awhile. Republicans have been overwhelmingly blindly following Trump, conservatives haven't.
- Most midwest Republicans are actually populists, and populism is step one on the track to fascism. They have been used and abused by large corporations killing off local economies and greater macroeconomic forces which have determined that their labor is no longer worth a living wage. It's quite sad actually, but at this point the damage has been done. There's nothing left for reasonable people to do but get out.
- the conservative party is gone. What's left is a theocratic loony bid. Anyone voting for that shit is completely out of the loop or doesn't care about the negative long term consequences to their continued science and data denial and constant conspiracy theory horseshit.
  
  Agreed, my only hope is that Trump will absolutely fall so hard that there is no way people can support him still (at this point, it may take his death, but even then, what conspiracies would come from that?), and the 'right' sees a series of defeats that they are forced to re-brand, become more liberal on social issues and actually try to be the conservative party of fiscal responsibility.

Yeah I'm telling you. There is an older crowd that it doesn't matter what you say to them, they run on hate and they've been given a lot of fuel.

Remember the 2000 election? That was a close one. One county in one state with a 500 vote difference. 2020 were 5 states with 10k votes in Arizona to 180k votes in Pennsylvania to Biden. If they pulled 13k votes for out of Trump’s ass for AZ and GA he would of still would of lost the election. They key to the White House is the rust belt. Republicans are too dumb to understand this.
- 500 votes in a state that was governed by the winners brother, no less.
  Democrats have good reason to be suspect about 2000. Republicans are a bunch of clowns.
  
  Yes my point is that 2000 is a valid reason to be suspicious. But you don't see Gore kicking the results back to Florida and have them overturn the election results with fake electors. That's fraud.

So, 69% of Republicans are traitors to the Republic. That's what I'm hearing.
- How many of those 70% knows it's a lie, but went along with it. There's a reason why I support rejecting Republicans and I would go as far as not funding red states along with boycotting businesses residing from those states.
  
  That would backfire spectacularly. We must always keep in mind that Republican policies keep their citizens in a state of disinformation and dilapidation. If your life is already miserable, denied education and resources so as to never escape what few jobs are left, you'll latch onto anyone promising salvation. That is the whole reason we saw J6ers go as far as they did.
  The long road has the best chances of keeping the country in one piece. Dispelling falsehoods piece by piece, enacting programs that modernize not just infrastructure but local economies as well. Bring the success of the coasts inward to lands exploited and abandoned by corporations and their elected goons. As difficult as it sounds, we're looking at another reconstruction era for those kneecapped by decades of Republican control.
- Always has been.
- Does no one remember 2016-2020? The whole time people said Trumps win was a sham.
  Are those people traitors too?
  I'm not saying Biden's win was bullshit, but I swear no one can remember past 30 minutes ago
  
  It's not the same. Most people calling the 2016 election a sham will admit that Trump did technically win by the rules as written, but also think that those rules are bullshit because they allowed a multi-million person majority to be shut out in favor of a malevolent moron. The people saying Biden lost are saying he literally cheated and that there's a conspiracy of thousands of government employees collaborating to break the rules and subvert the will of the people; that the multi-million majority literally doesn't exist. This is just as disingenuous as comparing the top secret documents that Trump hid to the ones that Biden and Pence handed over immediately on request.
  
  did ANY of those people try a coup?
  
  The small insignificant difference between the two is that those people didn’t try to break into congress and kill the people who disagreed

Can we call them neo-confederates already?
- Pre Antebelum Republicans.

This doesn’t mean much when large swaths of them believe the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, slavery helped black people, etc. Asking them their opinions on reality is like asking an amoeba how it feels about NFTs. The levels of insane & stupid coming from these people just means their thoughts & opinions are irrelevant.
- They may be insane, but they're insane AND active voters. They're also heavily armed.
- While their thoughts and opinions are irrelevant their votes are absolutely relevant. Their susceptibility to basic, low-effort manipulation can unfortunately affect us all.
- If they vote then their delusions are very much relevant.

The same people believe an imaginary being lives in the sky, that aliens are always visiting Earth, and that dinosaurs never existed.
- Maybe we should start saying the dinosaurs were aliens…
  
  So birds are aliens! Mind blown!!

It's a variety of topics I find denial of reality to be increasing. Climate change science, including the history of how long ago people like Carl Sagan made it a widespread topic. Medical science with pandemics, nonsensical views on how vaccines work. Wild views about how windmills work and interact with the environment.
- I was driving through rural Trump country not long ago and saw a billboard that had that iconic image of Man evolving from our ape-like ancestors. The billboard had a big red X through it and said No! God created!
  That broke me. Literally broke me. Really helped me understand their response to covid and climate change et al. God help us when the next pandemic hits when permafrost in the arctic starts melting and releases all kind of microorganisms humans have never encountered before. Good luck fighting climate change when 40% of the country thinks evolution is a lie and god just went 'click'.
  
  Some people hate thinking god is not constantly thinking about them and that they aren't super special
- People must be kept stupid and afraid is seems. I don't know why. Power and control probably, but this is disgusting. All you can do is look out for yourself.
  
  A brain-dead population is way easier to control. Source: greetings from Hungary!
- My neighbour denied that it was hot outside while he was outside in record heat

These people are just entitled babies. They know Trump didn't win, but it feels good feelings to pretend that he did so back to the social media that reinforces that.
We need to stop caring about their delusional indulgence in non-reality and start getting the country back on track. Never vote for a single Republican again. I don't care if you're a moderate even - there is no safe Republican candidate for a long while, if ever.
- THEY KNOW TRUMP LOST
  It's charitable to call them babies. They're liars.
  How do they want to change elections? Are they asking for more election security? NO. They're calling to raise the voting age to 25.
  They know they can't win a fair election. They don't want a fair election. They will throw out Democracy for power. They won't ever admit it, so they lie, and they recognize their in-group when they see other liars.
- They are aggressively stupid. They would rather take the whole ship down with them, than admit they might be wrong.
  
  It's hard to think of anything that "gets me the most" about the last 6-8 years but this is up there. If you pin them down by the ears and make them answer, most will say they would rather have King Trump than President Biden.
  Ask them, what about after King Trump dies? What if a democrat manages to take the throne and get all the power he had? Watch them sputter.
  It's so disturbing.

That's an insane number for something they have zero evidence for.
- Makes you wonder how many are religious.
- Reminder that Steve Bannon frankly confessed Trump's Start the Steal conspiracy plans to a group of Trump insiders before the election.
  https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112138665/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
  …audio from Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, surfaced from October 31st, 2020, just a few days before the Presidential election.
  Let’s listen. [Begin Videotape]
  STEVE BANNON: And what Trump’s going to do is declare victory, right? He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage — that’s our strategy.
  He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier. Because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden’s wining, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.

Does anybody else hope (emphasis on hope lol) they’re just saying this out of spite? Perhaps they know he lost, and are just saying this because they know it will “piss off the libs?”
Maybe it’s naive, but while I am pretty liberal a-lot of my family is (unfortunately) republican and they all admit Trump lost, fair and square. They also say they’re sick of him, wish he would drop out of the race, and allow another, younger republican to be nominated. They’ve also not been contacted by any of these pollsters.
Admittedly, this is just my experience with a very narrow slice of republicans; outside my family, I don’t really interact with too many.
Thoughts? Am I just fortunate to not have to interact with the Trump cult on a daily basis? Or is the US just screwed? lol
- This is what I was thinking. It has to be partly true.
- It's to galvanize part of their base. "The last one was stolen from us, don't let it happen again."
  
  This, I think, is pretty true. But still, its incredibly foolish. They could not control Trump the first time, why on earth do they think they could control him the second time?
  Unless they are banking on him being locked up with the key being tossed, and using that to galvanize the base around a candidate they can better control? Either way though, peddling these types of lies is just so, so dangerous. They are more-or-less setting up a large chunk of the nation to believe that the democrats are stealing the election and going to install a communist dictatorship (lol) and the only way to “save the country” is to violently take it back.
  And if Trump actually does win again? Well, then the other half the country is correctly convinced their has been a criminal takeover of the nation’s executive branch. How does that end? What even happens if Trump is convicted after taking office?
  I wish more republicans would understand that supporting Trump is going to seriously weaken the US and create instability. Even if the democrats were “unfairly targeting him” (to be clear, I believe he is guilty) there is just no way he can unify the country and make it stronger. Half the country will hate his guts, and that alone should disqualify him.

It's really just insane many Republicans believe this lie still. Even if Trump goes to jail there will still be many Republicans thinking this
- I wonder how many votes the republicans have cost themselves by tying their cart to this dead horse (trump)

Republicans just projecting their own "the ends always justify the means" mindset onto their enemies.
They just refuse to understand that they're the ones willing to sacrifice any and all values in the name of pyrrhic victory, and that not everyone is as morally bankrupt as them.
- A lack of empathy will do that.
  This is how/why they do things, so it must also be the same for everyone else.
  Same reason they think everything is "virtue signaling."

The rational Republicans left the party ages ago. Pretty sure George Will closed the door behind him on the way out.
When was that? 2016?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will#:~:text=In%20June%202016%2C%20citing%20his,registered%20as%20an%20unaffiliated%20voter.

They're conditioned now to think any win by a member of the Democratic party is illegitimate. It's going to be decades before we get back to anything resembling normal.
- A big "if" that is...
- The echo chamber effect isolates left and right from each other. When 95% of your peer group shares your political affiliation, it strains credibility that the other 5% could actually wield any political power.
  This is a problem on both sides of the aisle. We're all abandoning the center.
  
  This is a problem on both sides of the aisle
  no, only republicans have chosen to divorce themselves from reality and create their own, including sorry attempts at "both sides" arguments
  
  Just in case anyone isn't aware, any "both sides" argument is always a republican talking point. One side of the aisle didn't try to overthrow the government and install a dictator, both sides are NOT the same.
  
  💀

For Millennial's it's wild to have had our parents tell us "TV will rot your brain" and "don't just trust anything you see online" to them now where cable news has turned their brains to goo and anything posted by some guy in a truck wearing sun glasses on Facebook Reels must be reality.
- Lesson learned always block your parents router of alt right content and TV ahead of time including on the Roku
  
  Sounds like censorship to me

Troll farms wouldn't be a thing if they weren't effective. Social media has poisoned a lot of minds. I am in my mid-40s and grew up in NE Texas which is part of the "Deep South" (assign to that what you will) and in my lifetime I've seen things that would just not be possible if it were not for the internet.
"Back in my day..." Reading the newspaper was more than sufficient. There were no (edit: few and/or less easily manifest beyond a 'google search') collective hive minds and echo chambers so you had to actually express and own an opinion. I was taught that "this is what Science tells us how God put into motion the universe" We didn't need concealed or open carry to feel safe.
I'm not really that old. I honestly think most of this crap is 9/11. The terrorists actually won. Fear. There is a culture of fear pervading the USA and international troll farms took root and we continue to deal with the fallout today. Not to get too deep into the weeds .. dwindling middle class but .. who gives a shit .. capitalism. When you can't provide for your family on a base wage .. shit is going to go sideways.
- Giving a voice to everyone via the internet may have looked good on paper but in reality it has shown that too many people shouldn't have a voice.
  Fear isn't new though. Everyone thought everyone else was a Soviet spy or secretly a communist in the 50s.
  
  I wouldn't say it's necessarily that too many people shouldn't have a voice. Just that too many of the people who shouldn't have much of a voice or any at all are the ones who really want to have one, often times.

The thoughts of a conservative should be treated the same way the thoughts of a five year old child are treated.
Discussing any topic with a conservative is a waste of time for both parties. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception, manipulation or innacurate. Nothing good comes from interacting with them. Nothing at all. They should be disregarded and shunned from polite society.
- So not exactly like a 5 year old. You can teach most 5 year olds.
  
  True. And five year olds are innocent. Conservatives are not.
- I was thinking like ChatGPT: no actual cognition, just producing the kind of output they've been trained to produce. OTOH I think that comparison is a little unfair to ChatGPT.

Don't believe polling on either side, get out and vote.

That Russian propaganda really coming back strong. They need Trump back in to get some kind of upper hand in Ukraine.

Propaganda works on stupid people. There's a whole lotta stupid in this country.
How about we do something about the big propaganda networks and 24x7 "news" channels that are more interested in ratings and entertainment than simply reporting. No more talking heads.

Their logic: My guy loses, "the election was rigged!", my guy wins, "power to the people!"
- "Ah spoke to everybody at mah church and they all voted Trump! This must be rigged!"
- I don't know if that's really a thought process separated by party lines.
  
  Ehhh, in 2016 there was a lot of talk about election interference (which was corroborated by most, if not all, intelligence agencies) but not much about the election being illegitimate. It's a subtle but very important distinction.
  It's the difference between saying "the refs weren't calling it our way at all" and "the refs conspired against us!"

Education in America is absolute dog shit
- It is, but I don't know why. We have the most public funding per full time student in the world....that money's getting lost somewhere, I assume the administration level of schools.
  
  Funding is drastically different from area to area. You go to a rich white area and the schools are top notch.
  You go to a poor area with lots of minorities and there is hardly any funding.
  The schools that need funding don’t get it. Inequality like most things in America is the reason. It’s by design to keep the poor in their seats.

Two possibilities: Either more people are buying into conspiracy theories or more people are declining to identify as Republicans which makes the percentage go up. I'm hopeful it's the latter but fearful it's the latter.

I choose to believe this means 30% of them are dead now.
- Exactly. Also helps me to think gen Z is coming up and replacing all those dead Republicans.

That's about 70 million Americans who think Biden's victory was illegitimate.
That is a terrifyingly large percent of people.
- Where did you get the 70 million number? I can't find any stats on that.
  
  I can't figure out a way that it could be 70 million. Only about 150 million people voted in 2020. 39% of voters identify as or lean Republican .

Republicans are (sore) losers. They love "news" that fuels their hate. They cling to their lies, even as those lies fall apart in front of them. Pathetic.

There's no way CNN's poll is accurate.. I hope

Republicans are brainwashed reality deniers. GOP/Trump/Russia keeps them insulated from learning.
- Fringe republicans, they've probably lost the sensible ones to independent voters

The brain worms have stirred awake in the summer heat

Knowing them, not much of a shock.

That’s because Repuglicans are self selecting. People need to stop seeing them as half of the population. They are not.

The damage that Fox News and Trump have done to these people's brains is incalculable.

If a fraction of the remaining 30 percent of Republicans vote for Biden or does not vote, Biden will win in a landslide in a rematch with Trump.
- Trump's gonna be in a cell and probably disqualifies from running for public office.
  Never would have believed it until the latest charged dropped. Now I really think so
  Wish we had a Remind Me! bot over here 😁
  
  Sadly it's not actually against the rules to run for president from jail or even prison technically. There's even historical precident, although nobody running from jail has ever actually won.
  
  Is it likely that the cases will progress that quickly? I was under the impression that he wouldn't likely have a trial until next year, and wouldn't be convicted/sentenced until after the election

The administration really needs to bring back fireside chats. These people are living in a different reality and have no trust in institutions. Only through a concerted effort to educate them can we combat the disinformation. Or bring back the fairness doctrine.
- It goes a lot deeper than that. Education is a really, really huge issue in America. And sadly these idiots don't just exist, they are created and cultivated by those who seek to use them - and use them they do.
- I keep seeing you post, are you really a Boomer? Not trying to be pedantic, I'm honestly curious. Either way, I've enjoyed a lot of your commentary, hope to see you around more!
  
  My son calls me a boomer, so I own it. As for my posting. I only post to create engagement so the Fediverse can continue to grow. Unlike our government, I’ll pass the torch once this place gets more people.

what's croc of shit. Trump was surrounded by Russian stooges who were convicted in court of law.

70% is shocking for something so absurd. It's like hearing that 70% of X group believe that the earth is flat.
- What most of these statistics don't show is that the republican party is shrinking.
  If I have a 10,000 people in a room, and remove 6,000 of them from the room, then sample the remainder and tell you that 70% of those people believe that aliens built the pyramid, you'd be shocked, but what I didn't tell you is that the 6,000 who were removed, left because they thought my claim was BS.
  So even though the statistic is high, I imagine the MAGA base is shrinking as more evidence comes out. Maybe not by strides, but by slices.
  
  I hope this is right, but it's still a TON of people.

Does anyone have a chart that shows the amount of Republicans vs the Democrats over the years by registered voters? I don't see anyone saying how many have changed up or down in a clear chart. https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters

Election denial isn't specifically a republican thing.
- Oh fuck off with your lies so obvious only a Republican could believe them.
  
  Cant hear for yourself? BlueMAGA is deranged like MAGA

I finally found that hot garbage dumpster fire smell I was so familiar with on Reddit. Just had to randomly bump into a post about politics.
- Y'know, I downvoted you at first then I read further down the thread and took my downvote back.
  
  Yeah, I probably should have specified the comments section.
- I don't mind the politics post, but the quality of the comments. That's were the real smell comes from

Remember: 70% of Republicans is only 25ish% of the nation. Plenty of people in reserves to keep those dirt bags out.

While I still have some sympathy left for the few sane people in this once great nation, I'm at a point now where it is hard to really sympathize with you as a people. The political system is corrupted beyond recognition, toxicity and hate run rampant due to the allmighty "free speech" amendment and yet nobody seems to actually care if they are not personally affected in horrible ways.
By now it's really easy to say "you get the government that you deserve". And yet I dont fully believe it or want to say it because that would express the same apathy that you folks display when it comes to being governed.
So.. maybe get your shit together collectively?!
- One of the difficulties is that concessions made at the founding of the country are affecting us now. Mainly the electoral college. We likely would have been on the same trajectory as Europe if not for that.
- We're trying, but you can't reason with hate-fueled chaos. They'll die off eventually and history won't paint them as the patriots they imagine themselves. Sanity will return, but it will take time.

A SAMPLE SIZE OF 1279*!! Get this bullshit out of here
And only 1047 even responded. No shit the crazy ones replied..
- How many people do you think would be needed?
  It's less than you imagine. As long as the sampling is random and unbiased, assuming 100 million Republicans, a sample size of 1000 should be enough for a 3% margin of error with a 95% confidence level.
  
  No way man. The average citizen in this country isn't registered with these types of polls. These are from the same group that write letters to news channels. I think the selection pool was already biased, and this represents an extremely small portion of the population.
- Even if the ones who didn't reply had replied, and they expressed confidence in the 2020 election results, it's still a pretty bad look for the GOP.

69% of republicans say Biden's win in 2020 is illegitimate. Democrats point to Russian interference in Trump's 2016 election. Republicans claim Obama's 2012 and 2008 win is illegitimate because he was born in Kenya (gee, even if that was true, McCain was born in Panama!). Democrats object to Bush's 2004 win certification due to Diebold messing with machines in Ohio. Democrats claim Bush's 2000 win was the result of Supreme court interference. Republicans try to overturn Clinton's 1996 win with impeachment over a sexual affair. Republicans actually accept Clinton's 1992 win.
The excuses may not compare, but I find it troubling that it has been 31 years since the loosing party actually accepted a loss as legitimate.
- Ok but what if, now hear me out... the Democrats were correct about 2016 and 2000?
  Plus this is the first I've heard of the 2004 issue vs hundreds of times hearing about 2016 and 2000.
  With hundreds of millions of people in a country, there is a zero percent chance everybody accepts the truth, but unless I just missed something really big the 2004 election was not seriously contested. And no I'm not some kid who wasn't around to hear about it. I was a news consuming adult even back then.
  Feels like you were stretching to make a both sides argument.
  
  I vividly remember the 2004 voting machine issues. It was the first general election with widespread use of computerized voting software, in the wake of the 2000 election disaster, and there was a lot of evidence that the machines could be tampered with quite easily. I'm not sure if there is real evidence that they were actually tampered with, but the fact the machines were not open source and demonstrably falsifiable is in itself alarming.
  I don't recall any talk about the 2016 election being illegitimate. The results were horrifying obviously, and we were shocked the polls were so wrong, but actual fraud? I don't think so.
  
  I felt like trying to say Clinton's impeachment was the R's not accepting the legitimacy of his election was a stretch also. Seems OP is trying to make the facts fit his point.
  
  not that there's like mountains of evidence to prove that or anything /s
  
  Trump used 2004 as a starting point for Jan 6th, then added a riot. In order to stop the counting, you need a house and senate member to object to a particular vote (I'm actually in the house district of the guy who objected in 2020, and campaigned for his opponent). The concerns over vote switching were so bad in 2004 that most of the democratic states switched over to having paper trails. From what I remember, Ohio polling was constantly showing a Bush loss and the CEO of Diebold was running around saying "No, those are our machines, Bush will win", and then Bush did.
  
  https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
  
  Ok but what if, now hear me out… the Democrats were correct about 2016 and 2000?
  Dunno about 2000, I was 4 years old, but 2016 was the typical action movie "evil foreign hackers hijacking our great 'Murrican democracy" thing, only told by Democrats. That is, as somebody living in Russia I can't take this seriously.
- Al Gore legitimately beat GWB in 2000.
- Apples and oranges. The difference is that in only one instance did the losing candidate refuse to concede and peacefully transfer power to the winner.
- Indeed, they're not comparable and yet here you are making the comparison anyway.
- Starting to think these habitual losers are tired of losing
  Stop picking a loser party run by losers who have loser ideas, maybe?

The laws and changes to the US in Biden's time as a career politician have taken mine and other's right to vote away. The Demopublicans are one party working towards the same goals the elitists set for them. No matter which "party" wins we the people lose.

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