An infinite number.

I used to think that as well, but now I'm not so sure.

Although, I wouldn't call it stupidity as much as ignorance - and at least in part, willful ignorance (sometimes this is rooted in stupidity, sometimes not). Trump delivers a message they want to hear - it might be that he'll get them the SC they want so one day they can make abortion illegal, or that he'll get rid of all those nasty immigrants that are causing all their problems, or that he'll beat back big bad China, or that he'll stop the socialists/communists from taking over, or that he'll stop those socialists/communists from taxing them for LOLglobalwarmingthatisnthappeningamirite, or make sure their toilets flush with lots of water, or that he'll stop the bad people from eliminating Christianity, or that he'll stop the "others" from usurping white male supremacy (although of course he puts a thin veneer of disguise on this one), or that he'll tell things as they are and not bow to SJWs and the cancel culture. Usually it's a combination of those things. And because they're getting the message they want to hear, with no waffling or compromise, they know Trump is their guy, no matter what. No need for them to look deeper. If Trump says he lost by way of election fraud, then that's what happened. Him having cried foul before isn't an issue - it strengthens the case for them. This is what Trump was warning them about! He told everyone that mail-in voting leads to fraudulent voting, for months and months, and now that's exactly what's happened, right? And because the claims are primarily based on hundreds of anecdotes, it's impossible to "disprove" anyway. In fact, a number of the anecdotes are probably true, and many of these voters will know of an incident, or know someone who does, that lines up with all the claims, which further reinforces the fraud in their minds. Because of course when you have hundreds of millions of people voting, there's bound to be mistakes every election - thousands of them. And once you get yourself in that mindset, lots more things that you could view as suspicious. The fact that thousands of mistakes happen every election, with a negligible effect, never occurs to them, nor would they care if it did.

The people that know better but are happy to overturn a democratically-determined result are the ones that will directly benefit. They're in the clear minority.

I believe you're WAY overthinking this, and giving people far too much credit for wanting to understand the broader issues. People are busy, whether it's with trying to earn a dollar and keep food on the table, or trying to make their next million, or trying to catch the next episode of The Voice - they don't have an interest in looking beyond what they want to hear and what they believe most directly affects their lives.

Bobo fett is right about everything in that post, I’m just expressing it differently because I’m a dumb American who mostly talks to other dumb Americans. OP is right that some very smart gop-ers are greatly concerned about demographic shifts and the youth vote and whether or not they can win an election again , they lost the popular vote in 7 out of the last 8 elections. But the number of republicans thinking about that is a very small percentage of trumpers, the majority of which think 1.) he won and 2.) even if he didn’t win they can just win in 2024.

I find this part of our discussion fascinating and would like to see others rank this.

@Bobo I think we have dipped into a bit of a semantic nitpik.

I would call 'willful ignorance' not actually believing but simply telling yourself what you want to hear.

I would absolutely compare that to the sports super fanatics in the moment arguing about their team and players versus an arch rival. In that moment they actually believe the BS they are saying, no matter how extreme. But as soon as you can pull them away from the emotions of the moment you might get a real answer.

https://populist.press/election-supe...blank-ballots/

They believe it because they are convinced the left are lying thieving, communist pedophiles and that they are the enemy of freedom and democracy.

That is the narrative that has been sold, doesn't matter what you say or how you say they wont believe you.

We don't come across each other often enough for me to fully "get" you all the time, so I used to wonder what you were all about. But I think you just express it differently because...you express things differently, and you're likely much smarter than you're giving yourself credit for.

I don't think so, for two reasons. First of all, I believe the willful ignorance is for a different reason than you seem to - it's not because they are worried that they can no longer win in a democratically run election. They haven't put that much thought into it. It's simply that they want Trump back so badly that they want to believe that he can still win this particular election. IE there's not some deeper subversive overturn the election system to benefit Republicans for decades motivation here - they just want Trump to remain in power. Secondly, I think there's a whole spectrum here, and the willful ignorance isn't 100% willful with many, which is why I said "at least in part". The vast majority believe there was some kind of hijinks going on here. Some believe there was more, some less. And I'm sure they all believe that he "deserves" to win the election, both because Trump has made and will Make America Great Again, and because those dirty Democrats cheated him, whether in a small or a major way. So I think it's far more "Election was Stolen" than "Done with Democracy as we know we can no longer win".

Bang on IMO.

The average education in this country is abysmal, and many people do not know how to think critically. Until we improve our education system across the board, and wait at least one generation, a large percentage of us will continue to be swayed and duped.

I think a big part of it (and this is just true for whatever large percentage, not all) is that they lack critical thinking skills and prefer not to really think about much of anything at all.

The reason they might go along with your initial premise (betting on the better team instead of their own they've been championing) is because they know they're not that smart and will appeal to authority if money was on the line. They don't actually know anything and don't know what to believe: that's why Trump makes it easy for them. (And why they resent smart people: insecurity.)

It's the same dynamic at play with right wingers and the church for decades prior. They've been told to ignore science and logic from the jump. It's all about faith, unquestioning and obedient faith.

Ponied a bit by Derp!

Don't know how I feel about that.

there's a lot of overlap in the venn diagrams of trump supporters, people who believe the sun orbits the earth, people who believe the earth is a few thousand years old, people who believe God sacrificed himself to himself so he doesn't have to punish people eternally for things they didn't do or couldn't help, people who fall for nigerian prince email scams, etc.

it all comes from willful ignorance and wishful thinking

if you find it hard to believe that stupid people believe stupid things, you must be new on this planet

welcome to earth

Deleted some posts (and a post by innocent bystander caught up in it), stop the incessant trolling.

.

I understand fine that people can be duped.


That said if I say now, "I am going to run in the 2030 election and if I win it is fine and if I lose it must be rigged' and then I lose and claim it is rigged, I think it strains credulity that people will ACTUALLY believe it.

They may want to believe it. They may convince themselves to believe it. But I think, given the chance to win a million dollars on a simple choice of 'rigged or not', they would sober up quick and tick the 'not' box.

How is it any different than a huge population of people and the media thinking Russia hacked the 2016 election because Trump is a Russian asset and Melania is a spy or whatever. There was a 3 year investigation into that.

Do you think it was more likely Trump was a Russian asset or some County's had election fraud?

I was a life long republican, voted for trump once.
On the rare occasion I watched news, it was fox.

When he bragged about the largest inauguration crowd,
when it was obvious it wasn't, I realized something was wrong.

I started watching other news and doing some research.

Turns out trump wasn't the successful business man some said he was.

Those that are still with trump are either full tilt racist or have their head in the sand. IMO.

Wouldn't they have rigged for the house and senate also?

Sun Tzu definitely knew the earth was flat... only dumb indoctrinated and brainwashed people think otherwise...
Time to wake up... it’s flat!

It’s funny that highly “educated” people are still falling for a 2 party false paradigm

Interesting to see the poll now skew to 'belief it was stolen' as it started out overwhelmingly to 'done with democracy, can't win'.

Are these mail in votes coming in? Maybe the poll is rigged :}

Ok so based on comments it appears my view is a minority one.

The idea that they have just given up on democracy is one that gives them some credit for being smart, even if unethical. It is clear however that the majority of people here simply feel they are painfully dumb.

That as per my prior post, Trump or anyone could proclaim in advance 'if i win it is all good... if I lose it is rigged' and then truly fall for the latter. That they see no 'tell' there.

That Trump can proclaim in 2016 when it looked like he had lost to Hilary, 'it was rigged' but when in fact he came back to win 'i guess it was good'. And then when he found out he lost the popular vote 'oh that part was rigged'. And that they need to 'count all votes in AZ' when he is behind, but 'stop the count' in PA when he is ahead. That again they see no 'tells' there.


Hmmm maybe I do give the republican base more credit than I should as I see them as more duplicitous than stupid, but I certainly could be wrong.

Cite for bolded please. I totally missed all the stories and the investigation into Trump being a Russian asset and Melania being a spy.

Or did you mean the stories and the investigation about Russia interfering with the election and Trump explicitly requesting that they do that? Because that actually happened, there is evidence for it.

If you mean fraud to the extent that it had any meaningful impact on the result of the election then I would say the former is probably more likely but both are very low likelihood. However if you include the possibility of Trump simply being used by Russia as a puppet with him largely oblivious to the manipulation, as opposed to him actually being a willing asset and deliberately trying to aid Russia, then I don't think it's even remotely close.

i think the sports analogy that was used earlier was poor.

i also live in a deep red area and see large amounts of people that truly think the election was rigged or stolen. and they will continue to believe that forever.

just like the same people believe that their sports teams were cheated by refs or other circumstances for YEARS.

"...However if you include the possibility of Trump simply being used by Russia as a puppet with him largely oblivious to the manipulation, as opposed to him actually being a willing asset and deliberately trying to aid Russia, then I don't think it's even remotely close."

The above nails it.

Trump simply wanted to win an election and did not care about any rules or laws that would get in the way in terms of how he got his data. He was not looking for any quid pro quo from Russia where he thought he had to give them any promises of anything specific in return and they did not ask as the Russians separately had an agenda to see Hilary lose but also they saw Trump as a useful idiot, beholding to them and compromised in his personal dealings.

Win/win but not provable prosecutable collusion.

Manafort and Rudy were working the quid pro quo's with the russians and that is where any true collusion lied but it was more to their personal benefit and thus outside Muellers scope even though it intersected with the Trump Campaign that was getting benefits.

also multiple people were prosecuted and convicted for their actions in the 2016 election and run up, and even republicans in congress released their report that russia obviously interfered in the 2016 election.

it makes posters look really dumb to keep trying to use that as some far fetched idea.

Convicted of what?

There are thousands of signed affidavits of people saying they witnessed fraud. Whether they just saw what they thought was fraud but actually wasn't, are lying or actually saw fraud what is the harm in investigating it? If you care about democracy you should want fair election. If you are a democrat you get to laugh at republicans for wasting time and resources on a phony investigation. If there was no fraud I don't get why democrats don't want republicans to run with the "election was stolen" narrative.