A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Archives for November 2020

Choice Blindness and Inconsistent Beliefs

by Leave a Comment

Unlike the thinking machines of science fiction, human beings can easily believe inconsistent (even contradictory) claims. I am confident I have many inconsistent beliefs and know that I have many false beliefs. This is because I have turned up such beliefs over the years—one of the benefits (or occupational hazards) of being a professional philosopher. I thus infer I have many left in my mind. I do not know which ones are false—if I knew, I would (I hope) stop believing them. Writing out my ideas, like this, is a help—other people can see my claims and subject them to critical assessment. If someone can honestly show that two of my beliefs are inconsistent (or contradictory) I consider that a gift—they are helping me weed the garden of my mind. But not everyone is grateful for this sort of help—although, to be fair, this can often be done from cruelty rather than honest concern.

While most people do not write extensively about their beliefs, many people present their professed beliefs on social media, such as Facebook. Being a philosopher, I have the annoying trait of noting these claims and then assessing whether they can all be true. That is, I automatically check for logical inconsistency and contradictions. Two claims are inconsistent if they both cannot be true at the same time; but they could both be false. If two claims are contradictory, one must be false and the other true.

As would be suspected, the political beliefs people profess are often inconsistent or even contradictory. I have, and perhaps so have you, seen relatively short Facebook posts putting forth sets of political claims that are inconsistent. As noted in my previous essay, the professed beliefs of Trump supporters about the pandemic often form such sets. It is a bit jarring to see a single post mock people who take the pandemic “hoax” seriously, assert that the “China Virus” is a dangerous bioweapon, and then finish things off with praise for Trump’s great handling of the pandemic and how the Democrats are trying to steal credit for the great vaccine that should be credited to Trump. It gets even stranger when 5G and QAnon gets thrown into the post. Efforts to point out the inconsistencies tend to only lead people to respond by angrily doubling down or making threats. I, of course, invite readers to provide their favorite examples of how “the libs” also hold inconsistent sets of beliefs. But keep in mind that inconsistency is a matter of logic—a set of false claims can be consistent with each other. So how do people profess such sets of clearly inconsistent beliefs?  Perhaps the concept of choice blindness can shed some light on the matter.

Back in 2005 Swedish researchers developed the concept of choice blindness after conducting an experiment involving choosing between two photos of faces. Each participant was asked which photo they found most attractive and then the researcher used sleight of hand to make the participant think they had been handed back the photo they picked. But the researcher handed them the photo they had not picked. While one would expect the subject to notice the switch, they generally did not—they accepted the switched photo as the one they had picked and even offered reasons as to why they had picked that photo in the first place (though they had rejected it in the first place). Follow up experiments yielded the same results for the taste of jam, financial choices, and eyewitness reports.

These results could, perhaps, be explained away in terms of weak preferences and other factors. For example, if a person is asked to pick between two photos and at that moment, they slightly prefer one, then it would not be surprising that they would be amendable to easily changing their mind. But one might think that political beliefs would be different—especially in these highly polarized times.  But people seem to suffer from choice blindness here as well.

In 2018 an experiment was conducted in which participants were given a survey about political questions. The researchers gave the subjects false feedback and found that their beliefs tended to shift accordingly. This effect lasted up to a week and, interestingly, lasted even longer when the researchers asked the participants to defend “their choices.” For example, a person who originally favored raising taxes would be asked by the researchers about “their” view that taxes should not be raised. This person would then tend to believe that taxes should not be raised. The researchers’ explanation is a reasonable one: if a person thinks a belief is their belief, they will be free of many of the factors that would have caused them to defend their original belief. This certainly makes sense: if someone believes they believe something, then they will tend to believe and defend it. Roughly put, people believe what they believe they believe—even when they previously did not believe it. So how can this help explain the ability to believe inconsistent or even contradictory claims?

Based on the above, a person can initially believe one claim and then be easily switched to believing (and defending) a claim inconsistent with their original professed belief.  For example, a person who initially believes that a carbon tax would reduce emissions could have their belief switched by this method to believing (and defending) that carbon taxes would not do that.  These two claims are inconsistent, but a person can easily be switched from one to the other without apparently even noticing.

Now consider a person who professes to believe claims that are inconsistent. When they profess one claim, this would be analogous to their professing their original belief in the choice blindness experiment. When they profess an inconsistent claim, this would be analogous to them professing belief in the claim they were switched to believing by the researchers. In the case of holding inconsistent beliefs, a person would be switching themselves when they switched from professing one belief to professing belief in a claim inconsistent with the first belief. As such, a person would believe the first belief and then seamlessly switch to the inconsistent belief without noticing the inconsistency. Given that the experiment shows that people can be switched to opposite beliefs without noticing, it would be even easier for people to hold to inconsistent beliefs without noticing any inconsistency. They believe one belief because they believe it; they believe an inconsistent belief because they believe that as well. That is, people believe what they think they believe and simply ignore or forget any inconsistencies.  While this is certainly not the whole story, choice blindness does shed some light on the ability people have to profess inconsistent beliefs.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Election/Voter Fraud: The Great Disappointment?

by Leave a Comment

Since his election in 2016 Trump has been pushing false claims about voter fraud. After decisively losing the 2020 election, Trump and his supporters claimed widespread voter/election fraud and his legal team headed to court. While Fox News provided some support for the fraud claims, the network earned the ire of Trump and his supporters for not going all in and for some factual reporting. Fortunately for Trump, the right-wing media has been generally supportive of the unsupported claims of fraud.

Out of respect for Trump supporters I took their claims seriously and assumed they were honest in their claims and had laudable moral motivations. That is, they believed their claims of fraud and were motivated by a desire to ensure that the election was fair and secure. As such, I did what I would do when any professional colleague makes claims that seem implausible: I give them a reasonable chance to provide supporting evidence and endeavor to be objective and patient. In return, they do the same with my implausible claims.

As I write this, no evidence of widespread voter/election fraud has been provided. While Trump’s legal team has filed about 36 lawsuits, at least 25 have been denied, dismissed, settled or withdrawn. Interestingly, while Trump’s team makes claims about fraud in public, they do not make this claim in court. The reason is, of course, that they can lie in public but lies told in court come with consequences. As many others have noted, Trump’s legal team has had ample opportunity to present evidence in court—and have simply not done so. What remains of his team have made the claim that they do have amazing evidence, but they keep refusing to provide it. Even Tucker Carlson has grown frustrated with the promises to provide evidence tomorrow for claims made today. While Trump’s legal team has been publicly advancing unsupported conspiracy theories about election fraud, even they proved to have some limits. After Trump legal team member Sidney Powell started advancing a masterpiece of conspiracy that involved the CIA and the governor of Georgia working with Venezuelan communists to commit election fraud, she was officially disavowed.

While, as this is being written, Trump has not officially acknowledged Biden’s victory, the GSA has acknowledged the election results and the transition process has commenced. As such, Trump’s fight seems to be winding down as it began—without any evidence. So, what about Trump’s supporters?

Thanks to Hume’s problem of induction and the ancient skeptics one can endlessly doubt the results of the election—because one can endlessly doubt anything. But I suspect that few of his supporters will continue their doubt on these philosophical grounds—but the option is certainly there.

While some Republicans have acknowledged that the election is legitimate, many of Trump’s supporters are persisting in their unsupported claims about fraud. According to one poll, 88% of Trump supporters claim that Biden did not legitimately win the election. Another poll shows that 77% of Trump supporters profess to believe that Trump lost because of fraud. The general narrative is that there is “no way in hell” that Trump lost. In terms of where they go from here, history might afford some guidance.

During the Second Great Awakening William Miller, a Baptist preacher, predicted that Jesus would return, and the world would end in 1843 or 1844. Samuel Snow, one of his followers, calculated the date of Jesus’ return as October 22, 1844. Putting their faith in Miller, 50,000 Millerites awaited the arrival of Jesus—and many had given away their possessions. Jesus obviously did not arrive on that day and the world (such as it is) continued. Appropriately enough, this failure was dubbed the Great Disappointment. Miller was discredited and many of his followers left the movement. The same might happen with the election fraud movement—if no evidence is ever forthcoming for the alleged fraud and Trump leaves office, then Trump’s supporters might suffer from a Great Disappointment. In this case, many of them would stop professing belief in the claim about widespread voter fraud and they would move on, perhaps to some other conspiracy or perhaps into the mainstream. But there are alternatives.

While many religions do predict the end of days, clever clerics never specific a date. Miller’s error (made worse by Snow) was committing to a specific time and, worst of all, one not in the distant future. Those professing belief in widespread election fraud can (and are) avoiding this mistake by never promising a specific date on which their alleged evidence will be revealed—they want people to believe today based on evidence to be given tomorrow. And the evidence will always be given tomorrow. A problem with this approach is that the faithful can begin, as Tucker Carlsen has, to ask for the evidence. It then becomes a matter of how long the faithful will believe in the face of an inability to provide evidence that Trump and his team claim (in public) to have in abundance. While new conspiracy theories can be spun, the fabric must grow ever thinner and ever crazier. As the Powell case shows, there are limits even for Trump’s legal team.

When Trump leaves office it will be difficult for people to profess belief in widespread fraud. They will need to weave or accept a conspiracy theory that reconciles the claim that Trump and his team have conclusive proof of fraud and Trump leaving the White House. Presumably a conspiracy theory will be woven that explains this by claiming Trump is making  a brilliant strategic move in which he leaves to plan his inevitable return—presumably bringing the Storm on his way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This will allow the story to continue. If Trump eventually dies without returning to the White House, the story will presumably change to predict that his children will retake the White House and bring the Storm on the way. And so on. It might even become a new religion. Or perhaps it already is.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Consistency & Belief

by Leave a Comment

While I was required to take Epistemology in graduate school, I was not particularly interested in the study of knowledge until I started teaching it. While remaining professionally neutral in the classroom, I now include a section on the ethics of belief in my epistemology class and discuss, in general terms, such things as tribal epistemology. Outside of the classroom I am free to discuss my own views on epistemology in the context of politics and it is a fascinating subject. My younger self from graduate school would be surprised at the words “epistemology” and “fascinating” used together in the same sentence. But here we are to discuss epistemology and Trump supporters.

While COVID-19 is a nightmare for the world, the professed beliefs of Trump supporters about the pandemic provide an excellent case study in belief. As anyone familiar with these beliefs knows, they form a strange set of inconsistent and even contradictory claims. I am not claiming that every Trump supporter believes all these claims and I am not claiming that only Trump supporters believe them; but these are all claims professed by those who support Trump.

At the start of the pandemic Trump placed the blame on China and still refers to the virus as “the China virus.” His supporters generally accept this view. The role of China varies depending on which explanation is offered. Some make the true claim that it originated in China. Others make the unsupported claim that it escaped (or was released intentionally) from a lab. On this view, the virus is generally presented as something bad. After all, it makes no sense to blame China unless the virus is a significant problem.

There are also various other conspiracy theories about the pandemic—one infamous theory is that the pandemic is real—but caused by 5G. This would be inconsistent with the China virus theory; but one could preserve the China link by claiming that 5G originated in China.

Trump has also advanced the idea that the pandemic does not exist, that it is a hoax. This has been echoed by his supporters—although some also advance the theory that the Democrats infected Trump with the virus. The hoax idea is presented in various ways. For example, on some accounts the virus does exist but is no worse than the flu—something that is not true. This view has led to an active anti-mask movement and death threats against public health experts. The anti-mask views make sense if one claims to believe the virus is a hoax but makes less sense if one professes to believe that the virus is bad enough to warrant making China pay. If it is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats, then it makes little sense to hold China accountable. And if the virus did real damage and China should pay, then it makes no sense to claim it is a hoax. To be fair, these could be combined into the claim that China and the Democrats ran a worldwide hoax with the cooperation of all governments to harm Trump. Reconciling the 5G theory with the hoax theory would be challenging—if 5G is the cause of the pandemic, then it is not a hoax. And if it is a hoax, there is no pandemic for 5G to cause.

While Trump supporters profess to believe the pandemic is a hoax, over 80% of Republicans claim to believe that Trump has done a great job with the pandemic.  His supporters claim that he took rapid action (he did not) and that his response has been very effective (it has not). Trump has also attempted to take credit for the forthcoming vaccines and has claimed, without evidence, that the FDA and Democrats stalled the vaccines. If the pandemic is a hoax, then it makes no sense to claim that Trump acted rapidly and effectively to counter the pandemic.  This is because there would be no pandemic to counter. It could be claimed that Trump acted to counter the hoax but this would be hard to reconcile with Trump’s claims about the vaccine—if the pandemic is a hoax, then there is no need for a vaccine and taking credit for a useless vaccine would be silly. A Trump supporter could take the view that the pandemic is no worse than the flu and then credit Trump with addressing something no worse than the flu and developing the equivalent of a flu vaccine. But to the degree that Trump downplayed (lied about) the pandemic, thus would undercut claims of how significant his alleged success should be considered.

As I noted earlier, I am not claiming that every Trump supporter believes all these claims. For example, the 5G pandemic theory is not universally embraced by Trump supporters (and is, one suspects, held by some who do not support him). However, Trump supporters generally seem to profess belief in many of these claims—even though they are not consistent, and some would seem to lead to contradictions.

In logic, two claims are inconsistent when both could be false, but both cannot be true. To use my classroom example, the claim that my water bottle contains only vodka and the claim that it contains only water are inconsistent with each other. If the bottle contains only vodka, then it does not contain only water—and vice versa. But both could be false: the bottle could be empty. Or it could contain tequila. Many of the claims Trump supporters profess to believe about the pandemic seem inconsistent. For example, the claim that the pandemic was caused by 5G is not consistent with the claim that it is a hoax.

In logic, two claims contradict one another when one of them must be false and the other must be true. A contradiction is a claim that must be false and is false because of its logical structure. The stock example in logic is the conjunction P & -P. Since a conjunction is true when the two claims being conjoined are true and false otherwise, this claim is always false—at least on the assumption that any claim is true or false (but not both). So, if P is true, then -P must be false (and vice versa). Some of the claims Trump supporters profess to believe would seem to entail contradictory claims. For example, if it is claimed that the pandemic is caused by 5G, then this would entail the claim that the pandemic is not a hoax. This would contradict the claim that it is a hoax. Naturally, one could argue that the pandemic is caused by 5G and is also a hoax—provided that the nature of the hoax is defined in a way that allows it to be caused by 5G. As another example, the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was caused by a bioweapon released (intentionally or not) by China (or someone else) would entail that it is not a hoax. This would contradict the claim that it is a hoax. Again, one could try to craft the hoax claims in a way that the pandemic is both a hoax and caused by a bioweapon. Claiming that it is a hoax about a bioweapon would not do this, since a hoax about a bioweapon is not a bioweapon it is just a hoax.

From the standpoint of truth-functional logic (a logic in which the truth of a claim depends on the truth of the parts), the claims made by Trump supporters about the pandemic cannot all be true. In science-fiction, a robot or computer that attempted to accept all these claims as true would suffer some sort of sci-fi logic failure, perhaps exploding in accord with the special effects budget of the show. In reality, mapping out the logical relations between these claims would show that they cannot all be true and there would be no explosions (one hopes). But there is the interesting question of how people can hold to beliefs that cannot all be true and some of which lead to contradictions.

In philosophy, epistemologists (and others) often speak of beliefs as having intentionality. That is, beliefs have aboutness. When a person believes something about their world, they take their belief to correspond to reality. But while a belief has aboutness it need not be about reality. As an example, if Ted believes in unicorns, his belief is about unicorns (although philosophers disagree about beliefs about things that are not real)—but not about real unicorns. Because there are no unicorns. People can also believe that all the claims in a set are true, even though it is not possible for them all to be true. That is, that set contains beliefs that are inconsistent with each other (or even contradictory). A person can even believe that a contradiction is true. Unlike truth functional logic, the truth of the claim “Person A believes claim C” does not depend on the truth of the parts; only on the truth of the claim about A believing C. A crude way to look at the matter is to see belief as like a Word file in which one can type any sentence rather than being like a computer program or circuit design that would crash or fail if it contained logical inconsistencies or contradictions. So, saying that a person believes something is like saying it is in their Word file. Humans are clearly able to believe sets of inconsistent claims and even act on those beliefs—which raises many interesting questions about belief formation and how belief impacts actions. As a closing point, people can certainly reconcile apparently inconsistent beliefs by not really believing in some or all of them—professing that a claim is true when one believes it is not. That is, lying.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Buffoonery as a Political Strategy

by 2 Comments

(Nova York – EUA, 24/09/2019) Presidente da República, Jair Bolsonaro, durante encontro com o senhor Rudolph Giuliani, ex-prefeito da cidade de Nova York. .Foto: Alan Santos/PR

One seemingly odd thing about the far right in America is that they often seem to be buffoons engaging in absurd behavior. One good example is the fascist organization Proud Boys. While this is a domestic terrorist group known for violence, it is also known for its wacky rules and rituals. They have a strict rule about masturbation and one of their rituals involves punching a member while they shout out the names of breakfast cereals. They also seem to LARP by dressing up to get a Call of Duty look and have an order of “Alt Knights.” As such, they can seem like a bunch of loonies. Dangerous loonies.

As a second example, Trump puts on a masterful show of buffoonery. He maintains an odd orange skin tone which has led to speculation that it is a spray on tan. His COVID press conferences were master performances in absurdity—bizarre claims made in front of the cameras. His bumbling of basic language and expression of ignorance about basic facts relevant to his job are also an impressive performance of buffoonery.

As a third example, Rudy Giuliani rivals his master in his buffoonery. He crazily advances unsupported conspiracy theories, files unfounded lawsuits with typos, held a press conference at a landscaping business, and in a brilliant stroke of foolery held a press conference with what might be mascara (rather than hair dye) running down the sides of his face. Comedians are hard pressed to parody the right for they are already parodies of humanity. While it is tempting to dismiss this buffoonery as a natural result of their defects as human beings, it is worth considering that buffoonery is being employed as a strategy—perhaps not by the buffoons themselves but by competent fascists and authoritarians behind the buffoons. So, what are possible advantages of buffoonery as a political tool?

One clear advantage is that ridiculous behavior can make a group or person seem less dangerous or even harmless. Take, for example, the Proud Boys. Their breakfast cereal beating and “no wank” rules make them seem silly—and how could such silly people be domestic terrorists? In the case of Rudy and his ilk, their incompetent buffoonery makes them seem silly. How could some crazy guy with mascara running down his face from his sideburns be damaging American democracy? The defense against this is to realize that even buffoons can be dangerous—especially when their buffoonery is directed by non-buffoons and used as a cover.

A second advantage of buffoonery is that it distracts people from serious matters. Trumps constant buffoonery draws attention away from the harmful and corrupt things that have and are occurring within his administration. As many have said, Trump sucks up all the oxygen and dominates the news cycle—thus important stories get little or no attention. In the case of the Proud Boys, their buffoonery distracts from their acts of violence—and the acts of violence by other domestic terrorist groups. In the case of Rudy and his ilk, their buffoonery distracts from the deeper stories of what is being done to undermine American democracy in favor of authoritarianism—to the cheers of authoritarian Trump supporters who cannot wait for American democracy to finally be defeated by fascism.  This tactic is analogous to that used by pickpockets and magicians: they often use an assistant to distract the target so that they can accomplish their goal. The defense is to resist the lure of the buffoonery—but this is hard for most of the media.

A third advantage is that buffoonery makes it harder for the opponents of the far right to convince others that these people are a dangerous threat. This idea is nicely laid out in the X-Files episode José Chung’s From Outer Space. In this episode, Mulder and Scully run into the Men in Black. Alex Trebek plays one of them—but he is supposed to just look like Alek Trebek rather than be Alex Trebek. That is, he is playing someone who is playing him. This sort of things is done because the Men in Black are supposed to appear ridiculous so that any story told about them will seem absurd and unbelievable. To use the Proud Boys as an example, if someone tries to explain that this “no wank” group of breakfast cereal name shouters is a real threat, they might seem a bit crazy.

Folks on the right also use coded language, dog-whistles, and euphemisms to produce a similar effect. Because of these terms attempting to describe the truth about right to “normies” can make a person seem a bit crazy. Phrases and terms like “bad hombres”, “law and order”, “inner cities”, “suburban housewives”, “America First”, “international bankers”, and such seem to be normal language to those ignorant of the code and the context. For example, trying to explain that when Trump talks about “law and order” in the “inner cities” he is usually talking about using the police to oppress black Americans. When a right-wing group talks about “international bankers” and “Soros” they are usually engaging in antisemitism. As I can attest to from my own experience, trying to explain dog whistles and coded language to “normies” tends to result in incredulous stares—which is exactly what the right intends. Overcoming this is challenging, especially since the right adapts when their dog whistles and coded language become understood for what they area. But this is something that needs to be done and one hopes that more people become aware of what the right is trying to do and are able to decode their language even when the right adapts.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

The Next Election

by Leave a Comment

While about 80% of Americans accept the fact that Biden won the election, about half of  Republicans claim to believe the lie that Trump won. Trump seems to have exhausted the ability of Americans to be shocked by his fascist and authoritarian rejection of core American values, so his refusal to accept the results of the most secure election in American history is just another news burp. While the Republicans are split over Trump’s lies about the election, some top Republicans have decided that supporting Trump in corroding American democracy is a smart political play.

Fortunately for American democracy, our institutions and people have proven resilient the efforts to destroy a bedrock of the republic. Election officials across the country and across party lines have made it clear that the election was conducted safely and with integrity. Trump has responded by firing those he can fire and attacking those he cannot. While there were death threats against election officials before the election, these have increased dramatically since Trump lost. These threats are not only directed at top officials who are Democrats but also against Republicans who have chosen democracy over the will of Trump.

There is currently still no evidence of significant voter fraud. While Trump and his legal team have launched a storm of lawsuits, they have failed repeatedly in court. These efforts have been characterized by their sloppiness, which is often taken as evidence that Trump is not actually serious about his claims.  While the appearance or sanity of a lawyer is not relevant to the truth of their claims, Giuliani recently presented yet another perfect metaphor for Trump’s lies about the election: his hair dye ran down his face while he rambled about his favorite movie and advanced conspiracy theories.

While Trump’s efforts strike some as more examples of Trump’s incompetency and dishonesty, there does seem to be an underlying game plan. While Trump and top Republicans know there was no widespread voter fraud, they do have a slight chance of creating enough corrosion and confusion to allow a bold anti-democratic move. Trump can try to get the Republican state legislatures to give him the electoral votes he needs, thus stealing the election from the voters. Most experts think this is unlikely—but it is not impossible.  Trump and his fellows are also keeping up the fight so they can keep scamming money and to keep the base fired up for upcoming elections. Setting democracy on fire is thus a clever move for Trump in that he gains and other suffer the consequences. While the election results are likely to stand, there is the obvious question about future elections.

Trump has successfully created a devoted base who now have strong (yet utterly unfounded) doubts about the election system in the United States. 80-88% of Trump supporters (depending on the poll) claim they believe that Biden did not legitimately win, despite the utter lack of evidence. This is not surprising: Trump’s base is composed of people who have professed to believe his lies for at least four years—so it would be surprising if they did not claim to believe his current lies. Death threats are being made against election officials and these are presumably not coming primarily from Biden supporters. Trump’s unrelenting lies and hyperbole will probably also have the effect of tainting the views of some people who are not Trump supporters—they will feel that something was wrong, even if they are unsure of the truth of any specific claim. As such, one enduring consequences of Trump’s lies is that there is a group that now doubts the integrity of elections with a burning passion. Another enduring question is that the institution of voting has been corroded with these false allegations.

Trump and his fellows have also laid, by their incompetent efforts, the groundwork for competent attacks on future elections. Trump and his fellows are incompetent grifters but there are competent people who are committed to authoritarianism. Where Trump and Rudy make buffoonish efforts to destroy democracy for their own gain, these competent authoritarians can harness Trumpism and launch a far more effective attack on the institution of voting in the United States. As an illustration, Republicans have steadily suppressed voters through an effective campaign founded on the lie of voter fraud. The gutting of the Voter Rights Act was a major Republican coup and now that they control the Supreme Court, many states, and many lesser courts they are in an excellent position to enable their party to hold onto power even as support for Republicans and their views continue to decline significantly. With the groundwork laid in this election, the Republican candidate in 2024 (which could be Trump) will be in an excellent position to take power—even if they lose the popular vote by a landslide. While some are thrilled that Biden won, keep in mind that eight years of Obama-Biden set the stage for Trump in 2016. Trump has had 4 years to build a base that accepts his lies as reality and the Republicans have been working hard to ensure their minority rule—so 2024 could easily be the year that Trump returns to the White House. Or worse, a competent authoritarian.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Believe Today; Proof Will Be Here Tomorrow

by 3 Comments

Trump questioned the legitimacy of his own election by advancing the claim that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. Despite being has unable to present any evidence for this claim after four years, his supporters seem to still believe this lie. Before the 2020 election he stoked the fears and delusions of his base with unfounded claims of fraud-t0-be while he and his party systemically tried to undermine the election—with a special effort to attack the USPS.

In an open display of authoritarianism, Trump has now refused to accept the results of the election. Instead, he has continued to actively undermine American democracy by persisting in false claims about voter fraud.

Election officials across the country (Republican and Democrat) have said that there was no widespread fraud and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has expressed confidence in the security of the vote—making a statement that seems to have been in response to yet another baseless allegation of election fraud. Despite the lack of evidence for fraud and the evidence the election was secure, the administration is persisting. Some members of the Trump administration have taken leave from their official jobs to serve as members of a private group investigation the claims of alleged fraud.

There is considerable speculation as to why Trump is not accepting the results and, more importantly, why he is being backed in his lies by some top Republicans. Trump is using the claims about fraud to fuel his fundraising, which seems like a reason for him to keep lying. While he is selling it to his base as being focused on the recount, 60% of a donation up to $8,333 goes to Trump’s new PAC and 40% goes to the RNC (which can, but is not required, to spend it on recounts). Trump and the RNC have a clear financial incentive to persist in actively burning down confidence in our democracy—these fires warm and guide his donors. They will, of course, eventually tap out the donors and even his supporters might grasp that this fundraiser is  clearly not focused on funding a recount—if it were, the money would be going to funding the recount and not Trump’s PAC. The RNC is presumably not interested in wasting their money on pointless recounts—so they will likely use it for other purposes.

There is also speculation that top Republicans are backing Trump to avoid the consequences of his spite and rage—he could damage them if they dared accept the election results. He is also the undisputed master of a large and devoted base—they are clearly willing to embrace his lies even when doing so can cause their literal deaths and when he actively undermines the democracy they profess to love. The Republicans are making a clear partisan calculation:  the damage being done to American democracy and the harms arising from a delayed transition are outweighed by the short term advantages they think they will gain. The obvious counter to all my claims would be evidence that the alleged fraud is real.

As noted in an earlier essay, I am treating Trump supporters seriously and with respect. This involves the two assumptions I mentioned. The first is that I assume they are being honest: they believe that fraud occurs, they believe what is presented to them as evidence, and they believe that this matter will be resolved in Trump’s favor. The second is an assumption of moral motivation. I am assuming that Trump supporters believe that political legitimacy rests on winning an election fairly. In the case of the presidential election, this involves winning the electoral college without fraud, suppression or other anti-democratic means. If these assumptions do not hold, then there is no reason to treat Trump’s supporters seriously and with respect. After all, this would mean that they are accomplices to Trump’s lies and are concerned with keeping Trump in power by rejecting the results of a legitimate election.

Because I am treating Trump’s supporters with the respect they deserve under these assumptions, I am willing to allow time for evidence to be gathered and court cases to be conducted: serious claims by honest and good people deserve their proper hearing. Voting fraud is not impossible and the Heritage Foundation has scoured the country in search of cases. While the Heritage Foundation did find cases of voter fraud, they seem to carefully avoid putting their information into context. For example, they state the number of cases of fraud they claim to have found but do not put that into a clear context of the number of total votes cast. This is problematic for the obvious reason that if you wanted to know the risk of something occurring or if it is a serious problem, you would need to have a meaningful context. Fortunately, the Brennan Center has done the work for them and complete an analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s report. But perhaps this is the year that the Heritage Center will be able to report tens of thousands of cases of fraud—I look forward to seeing that report.

While Trump and his team have had days in which to gather evidence and file cases, there is yet to be any evidence of voter fraud. His law suits have so far yielded no meaningful results. These failures present Trump and his supporters with a clear challenge: how do they keep claiming fraud when they have no evidence, when their claims are debunked, and the court cases fail because of their defects? Fortunately, they do have ways to keep it going.

One method is to generate new conspiracy theories. One approach is to craft theories that explain the lack of evidence. These theories do run into a bit of a paradox: they must explain why there is a lack of evidence while still allowing for evidence of fraud to both exist and be known to those claiming there is fraud. After all, if the fraud conspiracy were so good that they covered up all evidence, Trump’s people would have no way of knowing that the fraud occurred. After all, you cannot know that the perfect conspiracy has occurred. And if its is not a perfect conspiracy, then there would be evidence.

Another approach is to keep creating new stories of how fraud occurred—these can be new methods, new people, or new locations. So, if a claim about mail-in-ballot fraud in PA is not working, then a tale of voter machine manipulation can be floated. When that gets shot down, a new theory can be advanced. In theory, this could keep going until every possible story is used. The only limit would be the credulity of Trump’s supporters—but if they are honest believers, they should reach a point at which it is clear there is no evidence.

A second method is to claim that one has great evidence, but that it cannot be shown to the public yet. That is, you should believe today based on evidence that will be given tomorrow. The evidence, one assumes, will always be given tomorrow. Rudy Giuliani has been trying this tactic, along with serving up already debunked conspiracy theories.  While, as I noted above, I am willing to allow time for Trump supporters to see the investigations and trials conducted, the evidence cannot always be waiting for tomorrow. If Giuliani has the evidence he claims, then he should use it and thus secure victory for Trump. If he does not have this evidence, then his tactic his clear—he is trying to run the clock as long as possible. Perhaps he honestly thinks some evidence will appear tomorrow and he needs to keep delaying. But it seems more likely that there are nefarious purposes—such as squeezing more donations from the base or whatever scam is being run this time.

I do wonder what Trump’s supporters will believe when Trump finally leaves office. If they are honest believers, they should take this as clear evidence that Trump never really believed in his claims of fraud. But I suspect that new theories will be crafted to explain this—that Trump has suffered a set back inflicted by the deep state but he is building his great army for both the Storm (as per the QAnon conspiracy) and retaking the White House that he won. When none of this happens, I do wonder what his supporters will do: will they keep believing in him despite the utter lack of evidence or will they finally become disillusioned with the lies and break with him?

But, of course, what would shut my liberal mouth would be the evidence promised by Giuliani—if he delivers that great proof that exposes the widespread voter fraud and the election is rightfully given to Trump, then I will have been shown to be wrong. And I will say to the Trump supporters: your faith is vindicated; I was wrong, and you were right. But the question is, are there any conditions under which they could do the same—where they could admit to being wrong? I believe that we shall have an answer to that.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

%d bloggers like this: