GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Politics at it’s ugliest.

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The Daily Blog
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In a world of conspiracy theories we witnessed a rare event last night – the birth of a dangerous one for American democracy.

In a late night speech Trump declared victory and demanded officials stop counting the votes – despite the fact that millions of them had yet to be tabulated in battleground states.

This built on a narrative he began months ago when he claimed that mail in ballots would be manipulated by ” a few dishonest people who are trying to steal the election” – an allegation the FBI say they have investigated and found no evidence to support.

The fact is – and both he and his team must know it – that in many states votes cast on the day are counted first and this count tends to favour the Republican candidate whereas mail -in ballots tend to favour the Democrat one.

It’s something we are seeing yet again and is part of a normal process in which the result is not known until every vote is counted.

When, for example, voters in Wisconsin went to bed last night it was looking like Trump might take it, but this morning because the votes from the states’ urban centres, many of them mail-in ballots are in Biden’s favour – to the point that (at the time of writing this post) he leads by more than 20,000 votes.

So the US election is not over and we may have to wait for days before the official result is known.

In the meantime what we witnessed last night in Trump’s deceptive speech was a bare faced attempt to cling to power at all costs,delivered to a White House room packed with Republican supporters who stood on the feet and wildly applauded the birth of a conspiracy theory designed to divide a nation not unite it.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

It was politics at it’s ugliest.

Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. One swing state that did not count the mail in votes after those cast on the day, but counted them through the week as they came in so they were known before the walk in votes started was Florida. Widely expected to go to Biden, only it comfortably went to Trump.
    There are stories coming in from people on the ground involved in these states that have unusually stopped counting in the late evening with Trump looking good , and resumed in the morning with a turnaround of fortunes having arrived overnight. Stories of altered postmarks, votes arriving from other states, etc etc.
    The intensity of feeling against Trump even here let alone in the US is quite sufficient to motivate the odd actor in a few critical positions to tweak the rules to bring about an outcome they see as essential to rid the world of their hated nemesis. Let the judiciary have a look at it all. If it is possible retrospectively to determine if fraud has been perpetrated.
    By the way, What exactly was the FBI able to investigate months ago of an event that had not yet happened? And Trump if you listen to his speech did not claim victory. He claimed that if it were not for fraud he would have won and that the result should be investigated. Interestingly at a point in the evening when it still appeared that he was winning. He must have known something not yet in the media.
    The democratic system does need the buy in of the population, a lot of people have to get involved in the counting and as scrutineers ‘etc. Let’s hope that remains the same as it has been in New Zealand.
    D J S

    • That is nonsense. Of all the battleground states where polling favored Biden, Florida was the most finely balanced. The results so far are entirely consistent with the Republicans having generally over-performed the polls, but not by enough to turn the battleground states where the polls gave Biden a bit of breathing room (NV, MI, WI, and PA which is clearly going to flip for Biden). The one exception is Georgia, where Biden has overperformed and turned a Trump-leaning battleground into a dead heat. Essentially instead of getting a thrashing, Trump has managed to achieve a respectable loss. Biden is winning the national popular vote by close to 4 million, well ahead of what Hillary did in 2016 with a lot of votes still to count.
      Nothing about what has happened is unexpected enough to suggest fraud. Until there is some credible evidence to the contrary (as opposed to dubious social media scuttlebutt) the fraud talk is just the final stand of a deluded narcissist who can’t accept that he has worn out his welcome.

    • Can democracy exist where “candidates” are bought by corporation, to get what they want from the system.
      There are three levels of US Society
      The uber rich who dictate what takes place and buy the candidates for elected govt, the bought elected govt who do as commanded, and the workers who create the wealth.

      While that is a common pattern in the West, it is not so for all countries.

  3. Kia ora David
    The real lesson to be learned from this – as from the chaos in Belarus – is that states which aim to be safely and sustainably democratic must dispense with the procedure which makes electoral fraud possible and false allegations of fraud plausible – that is, the secret ballot.
    An open ballot cannot be perverted.
    The secret ballot, on the other hand, is a recent innovation designed to ensure that the political elites can obtain and retain power over the masses by fair means or foul.
    In the current climate of political distrust, the secret ballot is a recipe for violence and the abrogation of due process.
    Getting rid of it is the first step on the road to a real democracy.

  4. This is why I love following American politics.
    It’s so utterly broken but as entertaining as hell.
    Every day Americans will be screwed over regardless of who eventually prevails.

  5. Bryan, politics at its ugliest is when it is one eyed and ignores ones own failings. This is highly divisive and dangerous. The “Trump is bad, the resistance Holy” monologue spouted for 4 years hides a litany of lies and selective truth. By ignoring the corruption of the Dems and pointing all blame one way everybody suffers. It is a sordid stance that reeks of intellectual dishonesty, extreme partisanship and laziness.

    I oppose Trump, but I will not support his opponents on the basis of them not being him. Biden is too involved in corruption with China and Ukraine. Laptop contents tell it all. Harris projects overt dislike of my gender and race. Is that an improvement?

    A pox not only on both their houses but also on all those drawn in to binary partisanship. The Left really needs to do better.

  6. The Americans should ban money and decriminalize all drugs.
    Talk about drugs being mind altering substances. Money turns mortals into monsters.

  7. Seen “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” by the Coen Brothers?
    They should throw biden and trump off that bridge and elect the chicken as president.

  9. Kia ora ano David
    The left has taken a bizarrely characteristic approach to the United States presidential election.
    For example it has upbraided Donald Trump for crude comments made in private while failing to mention his open use of murder as an instrument of politics. The reason why is obvious enough. The left intends to continue the using murder for political ends, less publicly than Trump, but almost certainly to a wider extent.
    The same applies in a more general sense. The left will strive for a semblance of respectability. It will speak well while doing evil, which it will seek to better conceal than the rightly reviled President Trump.
    Even in the mechanics of the electoral process, the left is very careful not to look too deeply into the machinations of Trump. For example his objection to early voting, and his insistence that all votes should be counted on the day, is electoral orthodoxy to which the left actually subscribes, while the left chooses to allow some small or ad hoc departures from the principle.
    But it fails to address the questions: If voting at a point in time is not to be the principle, then what should be?
    Are we to allow people who will be deceased on election day to cast a vote all the same? If so, why not allow them to vote a year ahead, or even four years ahead?
    On a less trivial level, why would you not allow the voters to “have their voice” on any day of any year, just as the politicians do?
    The answer is that to do that would empower the people, and to empower the people would be to dispossess the left as well as the right of politics.
    The conclusion is that the US presidential election, like the New Zealand parliamentary election, is a charade of two players, the left and the right, each seeking the coveted and lucrative role of perpetuating the rule of capitalism and imperialism.

    • Kai Ora Geoff
      What I think is going on in the US is this.
      Trump had no idea what he was taking on in 2016, did not expect to win and had no pre arranged supporting people he could rely on in the critical positions. He had a kindred spirit who would have helped him with foreign policy (wars or reducing them) in Flynn, but they quickly got rid of him.
      I think he is a loaner , with no great connection with any part of the ruling class of the US. Not the deep state, not the financial elite and not the political wing of the establishment. Only the mid west traditional red neck once cowboy and motor industry basic American public , now disenfranchised and out of meaningful work.
      For an inauguration initiation ceremony they arranged a drone hit on the family of an American citizen to spring on him next morning. “Do we go with this critical mission that has been weeks in the making ? or are you going to axe it because it isn’t your idea? ” He had to prove he was up to making the decisions a President has to make, so they had him from then on.
      The bombing raid on Iran he cancelled with ” the planes in the air”In retaliation for the Iranians taking out their spy plane with remarkable precision I don’t believe he knew anything about until the planes were in the air. So the next move was assassinating Iran’s top general . This time they wedged him in so he couldn’t dodge.
      He has managed to keep the missile strikes on Syria to tokenism and has tried to get out of there several times.
      He is no more welcome in the Republican camp than he would be in the Democrat camp , but they all have appearances to keep up.So no one will support him in his legal battles to prove that the Democrats flooded the mail in ballots with false late votes.They will be just as happy to see the back of him as their Democrat mates.
      But after having weathered the Russiagate storm set up to occupy and obstruct him for as long as possible to deflect from the examination by the judiciary of the comprehensive corruption among the Dem elite of the Clintons , the Bidens the Epsteins and their associates the worm had started to turn. while he stayed there the prospect of the lot of them going to jail was getting closer every day. They had to win this election whatever it took.
      D J S

  10. David Stone:
    Your analysis of Trump’s progress sounds plausible.
    I would add in the extraordinary decision of the media not to report Trump’s “electoral fraud” speech on the grounds that his allegations were false or unfounded.
    The media is not obliged to report everything anyone says, particularly if it is without substance or false, but statements coming from a head of state are the exception. They should always be reported because in a democracy the public should be able to see and hear for themselves what kind of person is ruling over them. They need to be given all relevant information which will allow them to make a judgement on their rulers.
    The media, by determining that the executive of state should not be permitted to speak to the nation, have put themselves above both state and people. The media is in effect saying “It is for us to judge President Trump. We cannot allow the people to make that judgement”.
    So while I am very critical of Trump’s conduct through his presidency (regardless of whether his most egregious decisions were made under pressure from the political establishment) I do believe that the real and present danger to democracy in the United States and in the world comes from the opposite quarter. (Some of my comments on this matter will not be allowed to appear on TDB, so I will email them to you).

  11. I totally agree.
    I suspect that Twitter and Facebook are looking at what is happening to Julian Assange , and to Kim Dot Com come to that, and making decisions that they hope will avoid their meeting the same fate.
    With the way Democracy is going in the west (though not here yet thank god), dictatorship as in China is starting to look like a better arrangement. At least the vast majority of Chinese seem to think so seeing the government is far more popular domestically than any democracy except perhaps for Syria and Russia.
    I do believe in democracy but it has to be very open and leave no doubt about results. And censorship is it’s death knell.
    Cheers D J S

    • David I muse as to the word dictatorship applying to China. China has a leader but so do we have a PM as leader, both elected but by different processes.
      Many would apply the word “dictator” to installed “leaders” who have powers to bypass government and make edicts that amount to commands. POTUS comes to mind.
      In China, each level of government (local, district, regional, and national) has elected officials with decision-making power.
      China has bodies that select leaders from within their ranks and can also demote them as necessary. Corruption at any level is dealt with harshly.

      https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/xijinping-china-role

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