This is not news, but here's a recent poll finding about the 2020 election. It's for Republicans only:
Among Republican voters who support Trump in the primaries, 86% think he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election and 61% think there was outright fraud from Democrats.
Those are basically Trump cultists. But even among the non-Trump voters, 41% think Trump rightfully won the election. That's a majority of those who expressed an opinion.
For what it's worth, this is one of the answers to the question of why even moderate Republicans still plan to vote for Trump rather than Biden. In their view, it's Democrats who are a threat to democracy, and all Trump is doing is fighting back.
In other news, it looks like Republicans have pretty much given up on Ukraine:
Republicans only like wars that Republicans start. They get tired of wars supported by Democratic presidents pretty quickly, even if, as in this case, it means giving Vladimir Putin whatever he wants.
*especially if it means giving putin what he wants
This poll does not answer the question of why people support Trump. They only believe the election was stolen because Trump says so, in the face of all evidence. They only say that Democrats are a threat to democracy because Trump says so, although he himself is clearly planning to end democracy. People who vote for Trump obviously do not value actual democracy, that is rule by majority.
The real question is why so many people support Trump and believe what he says - they were doing this before the 2016 election. No, it's not resentment of the "elites", because establishment (big-money) Republicans are the actual economic elites and Trump himself is a quintessential representative of big-city cultural and economic elites. Ultimately it comes down to his support for tribal identification - the tribe of White Christian Supremacy. Nothing but powerful tribal instinct explains the loss of rationality and devotion to the leader, whoever he may be. People don't believe what Trump says because they are stupid, they act stupidly, that is not rationally, because their behavior is governed by tribal instinct. The end of White Christian Supremacy - that is "wokism" - is a real threat to many people, and they see Trump as their savior. The very absurdity of the response to the poll indicates that "moderate" Republicans and Independents may be subject to this influence. Of course some see economic advantage in a Republican government.
" the tribe of White Christian Supremacy."...................
There's NOTHING Christian about the tribe nor its leader though.
How do we explain THAT?
There is something missing in our evaluation of Trump supporters
They know he's a liar - but still support him
They know he's a non-practicing Christian - yet they still support him
They know he's a racist yet still support him
They know he's a womanizer yet still support him
ALL of these things should "bother" the Christians but they don't
Why throw away your sense of "values" when it comes to Trump?
I talked to a boomer friend of mine who put it this way. "We hated to be wrong. We felt the same way when Nixon got impeached. We were wrong then and we are wrong now. We just CAN'T accept that because it sows doubt about what else we COULD be wrong about - like our religious beliefs. So they bury their collective heads in the sand and try to make it look like Trump was robbed without having to have HIM FACE THE TRUTH."
Conservative Christians are just as Christian as they are conservative. They've badly distorted the meanings of both words.
I disagree on Christian part. They make up wholesale stuff that's not even in the bible to suit their ideology and if Jesus were alive today they'd nail him to a cross for being a weak wokster with dark skin and an illegal immigrant.
Yes, the Republican perspective on the election is ridiculous and a factual.
Then again, I recall a survey of Democrats after the Mueller report. From memory, is was about 30% of Democrats still believed that Russian collusion cause Hillary to lose/the Russians stole the election for Trump.
People believe what they want to believe...
yeah, we all remember when obama and hillary stood outside the capitol and whipped up a crowd of frenzied dems to initiate a coup
both sides, don'tcha know
Come on, middleoftheroaddem! This is entirely different, as in a different galaxy. The 2016 election was insanely close, so there are many factors which could have tipped it the other way. One of those factors was certainly Russian influence -- don't forget Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians for that very thing -- so it's reasonable to assume that without that interference, it might have gone the other way.
Furthermore, Mueller never said that the Trump campaign didn't coordinate with Russian meddlers, he just found no documented agreement with the Russian GOVERNMENT, and thus nothing for which campaign officials could be prosecuted. No Democrats are claiming that Russians actually changed any votes that were cast in 2016.
In contrast, no formal investigation or court has ever turned up one iota of evidence to support Trump's 2020 claims. The 2020 election was not close. Comparing these events is patently ridiculous. It's not a matter of "what someone believes," it's a matter of facts.
Citizen99 - respectfully
1. As I stated there is zero evidence of the Trump claim of a stolen election. 100% of folks who support theory base it on #$%^^$%
2. The Mueller report did not find evidence of the Russian government influencing the election. Thus, I would contend the 30% of Democrats, after the publication of the Mueller report, were making baseless claims
3. Finally, you said the Biden Trump election was not close. Respectfully, that is not accurate.
3. As modern elections go, 2020 wasn't close; Biden's margin was 4.5% and he won an absolute majority of the popular vote. People talk about the closer margins in several key states as though some factor could have changed the outcome in just those states. Elections don't work that way. If we had seen a swing of tens of thousands of votes in the deciding states, the same influences would have changed millions of votes nationwide.
In the last eight presidential elections, Biden's win was only topped by Obama in 2008. Bill Clinton, while he had larger margins of the two-party vote, never won a majority. G. W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 of course lost the popular vote.
Just because the Russians hacked the DNC's emails and die a slow leak of them, yah, no evidence at all. Mueller found no evidence of collusion, not no evidence of not influencing the election.
The Mueller investigation did not attempt to determine whether or not the combined efforts of the Russians and the Trump team influenced the election results.
Youre being dishonest again. Common theme for you isnt it?
I believe I will disregard your deflections.
Middleoftheroadkill is all Whataboutism and deflection all the time. They are not arguing in good faith.
Well, it's been factually demonstrated that the Russians did collude with the Trump campaign, that they do favor him, and they've spent money on propaganda for him, and that HRC lost by less than 1% of the vote in three states, so this is not inaccurate.
Thinking that the Mueller report was nonsense and only believed by cultists is actually the more biased and factually inaccurate belief.
There's a great study that someone could do of Iowa. I don't think there is any place on Earth that has suffered a brain drain as fast or profound. Most of the state no longer has anyone who can understand even the rudiments of local government.
It's only a matter of time before wingnuts discover they really can get away with anything and any kind of authority that might stand in there way can simply be replaced.
Authority and authoritarianism are distinct ideas. The first means verifiable, the second means arbitrary.
Conservatives will not know this difference and will insist there isn't any.
At it's base the whole issue is a massive anxiety disorder that obstructs information that contradicts any impression received after about age 4 or 5.
Social conservatism is a medical issue.
This whole country is a shit show. But we’re muddling through. When will that end?
When the Hard Rain Falls because we pissed everyone else in the world off.
Well shucks, they convinced me: Trump was indeed twice elected POTUS.
Oh darn! That means the 22nd Amendment bars him from being elected ever again.
😂
Not according to Liz Cheney, who says that Trump will find a way to remain President for life, should he win in 2024. I'm sure that the small matter of a Constitutional amendment would not keep him off the ballot in most states.
“. . . Even if it means giving Vladimir Putin what he wants”
From a Republican standpoint this is a feature, not a bug. Republicans only support things that Trump supports, and Trump supports anything Putin supports. This could be because Vlad has dirty pictures of Donald (exactly the sort of thing an old KGB hand like Vlad would pull on a philanderer like Donald) or because Vlad is just the sort of person that dominates a guy like Trump.
Someone ought to tell Republicans that Russia opposes(1)(2)(3) Israel's actions in Gaza. Maybe that will get Republicans to change their opinion of US' unlimited backing of Israel and put Evangelicals in a bind against the GOP?
(1) - See UN resolution, "Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory"
(2) - See CNBC article, "Russia is turning increasingly hostile toward Israel as it picks sides in the Middle East"
(3) - See Moscow Times article, "Israel Has No Right to Self-Defense as ‘Occupier,’ Russia Says"
I pretty carefully read the first section of the Mueller Report and came away absolutely convinced that the Russians did interfere in the US election and that the Trump campaign encouraged it. I recall that Mueller in one section stated something to the effect that it is clear that people acting on behalf of Russia and the Trump campaign clearly intended to conspire in violation of US election law. He said that such a conspiracy is a crime whether it succeeds or not. He said that he did not charge various Trump campaign officers with this crime because he could not prove they knew it was illegal. Apparently ignorance of the law is a valid excuse if you are a politician or working for one.
Paul Manafort was sharing sensitive private polling data from the upper Mid-West with a Russian intelligence contact in the months just before the election. What else do you need?
My recollection is that the Mueller investigation ran for less than 23 months. Over 30 people were indicted. Most were Russians beyond our reach. Eight Americans plead guilty or were convicted.
Let us compare that to the five year long Hunter Biden investigation or the four year long Durham investigation into supposed FBI malfeasance in investigating Trump. The first is clearly a malicious prosecution on charges not likely to be brought against others. The second coerced one man into pleading guilty to a minor crime and resulted in two super fast acquittals of other men in jury trials.
Suppose Mueller had not been shut down by Barr after 23 months but had run for 5 or 6 years. Who knows what sort of cases he could have made. Maybe he'd have brought charges against Trump in early 2021.
To say that Mueller exonerated Trump or disproved Russian interference is nothing but a lie.
This was Bill Barr's whole thrust, to cloud the findings of the Mueller report and blunt their impact before it was released. And to that end, he was quite successful!