Trump Tries To Steal The Election, As Promised

Behind Trump’s Yearslong Effort to Turn Losing Into Winning

This crap makes me furious. It wasn't a surprise when it arrived; Trump has been broadcasting for a long while, to anyone who would listen, that he was going to do all he could to cast doubt on the integrity of the election in an effort to retain his hold on power if he lost. But anticipating it doesn't mean any of us should stand for it.

The expectation that we will choose our leaders through a voting process is baked into our Constitution, and has been since its beginning. But like any legal system, operated by fallible humans, it relies on a basic expectation of decency, on good-faith attempts to discern what is true and what isn't. Going around sowing doubt in the integrity of the voting process -- it's the kind of thing that is effective due to some inbuilt tendencies we all have, to form beliefs based on insufficient evidence. It's a con. Trump isn't good at much, but he is good at conning people.

A lot of people fall for it, lacking certain mental defenses against con men: knowledge of how to check one's sources and correctly assess their credibility, for example. People who can't tell the difference between "a news program on Fox News" and "a commentator on the Fox News channel who has an agenda" are the ones likely to believe Trump when he says the election was rigged against him.

Of course I wish more people were wise to this sort of thing. That's not the world we live in today. Until we're able to fix our educational systems and give shields against these cons to a much larger percentage of Americans, we require other steps to stem the tide of misinformation.

Twitter has started flagging misleading tweets, including some of the President's. I would favor  extending this approach. You want someone like Tucker Carlson spouting groundless accusations on your network? Fine -- but you slap a banner across the screen: "This program is opinion" or "This program contains untrue statements". News programs, making a genuine effort to state facts, don't require the banner. If you're caught making false accusations on a program without the banner, your network (Fox News) gets hit with a hefty fine. Money is the only incentive that matters to big corporations.

For statements like Trump's, suggesting the election was rigged, a fine doesn't feel like nearly enough. By drawing into question the whole democratic system on which this country is founded, you could argue these statements are an attack on the country and its government, and that they give aid to our enemies (such as Russia). That could fit the definition of treason. We should go after Trump on this basis, and every other person who has helped propagate his poisonous lies.

Original Facebook post

Location: Waikoloa Village, HI, USA

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