Trump Evangelical Advisers Back Voting Challenges But Stop Short of Alleging Fraud
[Aaron Blumer]It’s good to hear that things are being carefully handled in Wisconsin. I have not heard any of their hearings.Your extensive lifelong experience still does not qualify you to prejudge the veracity of eyewitness testimonies of wrongdoing. Unless you have personally watched the hearings and then personally investigated the claims of the eyewitnesses, you yourself are not in a credible position to say that their testimonies are false or not worth investigating further.
Rajesh, you’re not alone in this thinking by a long shot… but there’s something huge missing in this.
Consider what these acts have in common:
- I got new tires and drove away without personally inspecting each tire and checking the torque on each lug nut. (I did come back after 50 miles to have them checked as they recommended)
- I had a biopsy taken and after I got the call with the results, accepted them as true without personally putting them under a microscope (or learning how to interpret what I would have seen if I did)
- I contributed funds all year long to my 401k and never once called up a mutual fund manager and asked to see all of his/her analysis for his buy/sell decisions
- I got a flu shot without personally testing it to see if it was safe and effective
- In 2019, I flew back and forth from Chicago without personally inspecting a single lever, bolt, screw, flap, or engine.
- Even in 2020, I’ve driven over dozens of bridges dozens of times without ever inspecting them first to see if they’re sturdy.
- I put money in the bank and never once checked the doors for secure locks, analyzed the computer systems for vulnerability to hacking, or verified that the security cameras work. Didn’t interview any personnel for their knowledge and experience in banking. Didn’t ask to see logs of teller activity in handling my funds. … and didn’t worry about any of that for a second.
I could go on. Here’s my point: we all rely on professionals with special expertise countless times every single day. We trust that they know their work better than we do and that it’s not our job to tell them how to do it… and that we’d probably get it wrong if we tried.
Yes, government is different. They work for “the people.” We’re entitled to know what goes on and if it was done right, etc. We’re also obligated to fully understand how it works before we cast judgment.
And both humility and charity demand that we respect their professionalism over the claims of people we don’t even know until there are solid verifiable facts indicating we should do otherwise.
In this case, we have clerks, other local officials, state officials, and judges who are trained, experienced, and responsible to do these things.
Could they mess up and should they be held accountable if they do? Sure. But sound judgment (added to the already noted charity and humility) demands that we recognize the probability is high that they know better than we do how to do their jobs. So, the starting point is not “they failed/did wrong” (because I didn’t lilke the result) until they can prove themselves innocent and competent. The starting point is “they did their job” until there are verifiable, factual reasons to think otherwise.
And yes, I’ve watched a good bit of hearings here in Wisconsin. It’s always insiteful to note who’s calm and fact focused vs. who’s emotionally repeating dramatic anecdotes and representing them as “facts.”
Example (you do have to register to view this, but it’s free). https://wiseye.org/2020/12/11/joint-committee-on-campaigns-and-elections-2/
Nothing is being swept under the rug in Wisconsin. People are insisting on drawing verifiable fact-based conclusions, for the most part. Grown ups (for the most part) are running the show. It’s all been looked at and still getting looked at. The really goofy stuff is not being permitted to determine outcomes, though it is definitely being allowed to be heard. I find the process encouraging. They know what they’re doing.
Tomorrow is a huge day concerning the elections so we will likely know a lot more by the end of tomorrow.
Andrew McCarthy at NR …
So what happened in Wisconsin?
Judge Ludwig denied the state’s claims that the campaign lacked standing. Instead, he gave the campaign the hearing they asked for — the opportunity to call witnesses and submit damning exhibits. Yet, when it got down to brass tacks, the morning of the hearing, it turned out there was no actual disagreement between the Trump team and Wisconsin officials about the pertinent facts of the case. The president’s counsel basically said: Never mind, we don’t need to present all our proof … we’ll just stipulate to all the relevant facts and argue legal principles.
In the end, after all the heated rhetoric, what did they tell the court the case was really about? Just three differences over the manner in which the election was administered — to all of which, as Ludwig pointed out, the campaign could have objected before the election if these matters had actually been of great moment.
Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-stunning-passage-from-the-late…
McCarthy has been a vocal Trump backer for years and specifically supported cutting for Trump in this election.
That should be meaningful to “massive fraud” adherents.
My claim is that the pattern is pretty similar in all the states where Trump supporters have claimed large scale fraud.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Here is the Wisconsin decision. This is where the rubber meets the road. Please read it, especially pp. 17ff.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
In spite of this unanimous ruling, the court yet ruled (4-3, in a separate ruling) against Trump. Notice that the latter case was not dismissed, and it was not a unanimous repudiation of the claims by the Trump team. Rather, the majority decided not to remedy the wrong actions that various parties engaged in.
The hearings I linked to a while back showed some evidence that rules were improperly changed in response to COVID-19 in some places. It was likely—is still likely—that the legislature will act on this, independently of what the court has ruled.
But none of this has anything to do with Trump.
These are process violations that have to due with not making rule changes in the required way. There is no evidence that these changes would help one candidate over another… except possibly for the self-inflicted disadvantage Trump created by building distrust of mailed votes months ahead of the election.
Anyway, my point is that not every case of irregularity is about Biden over Trump. Many of them have to do with COVID-19, and accommodations that were made without properly dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s.
Along with lack of evidence, this is another reason many of these Team Trump cases have been thrown out: instances of improper procedure that didn’t favor one candidate over another can’t rationally be used to prove Trump was targeted by them.
But then again, “rationally”… which doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with what much of the right cares about these days.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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