The allegation that Dominion software was manipulated to determine the results of the presidential election is a conspiracy theory and, like most such conspiracies, false. It has all the hallmarks of classic conspiracy theories; convoluted, some pseudo-technical mumble-jumble, dark forces at work behind the scenes, hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved, ignoring alternative explanations, and just enough linkage to a couple of established facts to make people think it possible.
Per my recent post, the President will lose his legal challenges, though he has the right to pursue them, but the Dominion software stuff is malicious nonsense and unworthy of promotion by Trump and his team. I am glad to see on Sunday the Trump legal team cut its ties to Sidney Powell, who had promoted this theory at Thursday's press conference run by Rudy Giuliani. That she was allowed to spout this delusional material is a reflection on the chaos and lack of thought within Trump's legal team as well as Giuliani's mental state. Now they need to sever ties with Lin Wood, and let this issue die. However, with Trump's gullibility and penchant for conspiracy theories this may not be over and it needs to be. [UPDATE: Trump is not abandoning his insane conspiracy theories and his legal team continues to be an embarrassment. Giuliani and his "experts"showed up here in Arizona to contest the election and it is clear they actually know nothing about how this state conducts its elections; I didn't like the election results but have confidence in the basic integrity of the process. Our very pro-Trump governor has rejected this nonsense theories and supported the certification. We are at the completely ridiculous stage. What the President is doing is reprehensible, and how he is doing it is even worse than what he is doing. He will lose but the repercussions will be with us for a long time.]*
Conspiracy theories arise in all countries and cultures. There is something in human nature to which they appeal. They can arise in many contexts, not just political as is happening now.
Two examples of conspiracy theories in the political context illustrate their essential features.
One that never gained more than limited traction is the conspiracy theory that President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor and let it proceed in order to embroil the United States in World War Two. The tenuous factual starting point for conspiracy theorists is the existence of a few Japanese communications intercepted by American intelligence indicating Pearl Harbor as a potential target, and the political and military maneuvering FDR was undertaking in anticipation of American involvement in the war. The theory studiously ignores a lot of context.
Yes, there were some isolated intercepted communications but these came within in a blizzard of intercepts, indicating that Japan was preparing an attack with the overwhelming bulk concerning an advance south towards the British and Dutch possessions in Southeast Asia and possibly towards the Philippines. All of the information we see relating to top military and cabinet officials in D.C. from late November until December 7, 1941 shows they anticipated the Japanese attack but in a southerly direction, not west towards Pearl.
Because of the flow of the intelligence intercepts, there are many others beyond FDR who would have seen the communications, including our military leaders and the Secretary of War. This would have required men like George C Marshall, Ernest King, and Henry Stimson to have participated in allowing the Pearl Harbor attack. Anyone who knows anything about those individuals understands they would never have agreed to do so. Nor do I believe FDR capable of it - he was, above all a Navy man.
Moreover, getting into a war with Japan was counter to American strategy and potentially derailed it. FDR and the military chiefs of staff had agreed that war was likely but that the primary threat was Germany, not Japan. The military had been adamant about avoiding war with Japan because it would have diverted resources needed when, not whether, war with Germany came, and even if it came with both 85% of American resources were to be direct towards Europe. Pearl Harbor created a dilemma for the U.S during the first days after the attack, with the worry being that public opinion would force resources planned for Europe to be recommitted to the Pacific, a problem only solved by Hitler's still puzzling decision to declare war on America on December 11.
The other example, and the more impactful on Americans in triggering distrust of the government, is the assassination of President Kennedy, which took place 57 years ago yesterday. Even today, half of Americans believe a conspiracy was behind his murder and, at times in the past more than 70% held such views. Most of those conspiracy theories propose some combination of anti-communists, U.S. intelligence agencies, and VP Lyndon Johnson were behind the tragedy.
How did the murder of a popular American president by an avowed communist and admirer of Fidel Castro, who had earlier the same year attempted to assassinate a right-wing figure in the Dallas area (only narrowing missing), end up with many Americans believing in a right-wing conspiracy?
As explained in my post A Cruel And Shocking Act, there was a conspiracy involving the Warren Commission, but not the one conspiracy theorists postulated. LBJ, Robert Kennedy and the bungling FBI and CIA, each had their reasons for the Commission wrapping up its work quickly, pinning the blame on Oswald, and for withholding sensitive information during the investigation. Some of the Warren Commission's obvious errors, along with a Soviet disinformation campaign, gave instant credibility to conspiracy theorists, leading them to ever more elaborate and far-fetched alternative explanations of the assassination, culminating in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory fantasy, JFK, in the 1990s.
Out of these initial errors, the conspiracy theorists, some of whom, like Mark Lane, made long and profitable careers, built ever more elaborate and fanciful constructs to explain the events in Dallas. For anyone taking the time to really examine the details and think through all the practical aspects it falls apart as easily as a house of cards in a light wind, but most people don't have that time. The result was, if you accepted the initial premise, the rest seems to follow logically. Like many conspiracy theories, those propagating it are very careful what details to tell their followers, and which to leave out. Sometimes, it is very simple things; I'd read some of the early conspiracy books before realizing how twisted they were and was led to believe that one reason to believe Oswald was not the shooter was how difficult it was to make the shoots he was alleged to have taken; well beyond his capabilities. Making my first visit to Dealey Plaza in the late 1990s, I was surprised to see how much smaller it was in person than the impression given by books and photos. And when I was at the window in the Book Depository from which Oswald fired the shots, I realized, having done some rifle shooting, how relatively easy the shots would have been for a trained Marine rifleman (and everyone I've spoken with who has experience shooting has had the same reaction looking out that window). Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. There was no conspiracy.
I also have a personal distaste for conspiracy theories and my default position is not to believe them without compelling evidence that I've personally examined. It stems in part from reading a lot of history from a very early age and seeing how contingent many great events are on happenstance; how many miscalculations are made by historical figures; how much naturally goes wrong in the course of events; and how difficult it is to coordinate large groups in a conspiracy.
My working experience reinforced those views. I've investigated incidents that looked initially as planned, requiring willfulness by the participants, and been surprised to find out that while it looked awful, no one planned the outcome or deliberately acted improperly. Rather, a series of misjudgments, innocent acts, and actions not in anyone's control or foresight led to the result. I've also been directly involved in some events that received substantial media attention and were the subject of public claims that I, and others, had created a conspiracy, imputing motives to us that we did not have, and patterns of action that simply did not exist in the real world.
I mentioned my default settings regarding conspiracy theories above. But regarding the current electoral dispute, particularly that of manipulation of the voting systems, there is an aspect that explains, though it does not excuse, some of the current belief of Trump supporters in such a conspiracy; the Russia collusion hoax and the entire way the Democratic Party and its media allies have destroyed norms over the past four years.
As I've written, when the issue of possible collusion between the Trump campaign, or Trump himself, with the Russians was raised in late 2016 and early 2017 I thought there might be something to it. Over the next four years I read more than 10,000 pages of original source documents, not relying upon being told by others what they said.
If you had told me in January 2017 the Clinton campaign had taken Russian disinformation regarding Trump, disseminated it to the media in an attempt to influence the election, and gone to the FBI in order to prompt it to obtain a warrant to spy on their opponent's campaign, I would not have believed it.
If you had told me in February 2017 that once Clinton unexpectedly lost the election, the Democratic party, federal bureaucrats (including the Director of the FBI deliberately lying to the President) and their allies in the media, would convert the campaign actions into a conspiracy to unseat the new President and, failing that to create an ongoing investigation designed to hamstring the administration, provide a continued series of media leaks, attempt to trap the President into an obstruction of justice charge, and damaging the President in the 2018 mid-terms, I would not have believed it.
But, in fact, that is what happened. We had an unprecedented conspiracy at the highest levels of government. The greatest scandal in American political history. And it worked. A November 2018 Economist/YouGov poll found that 63% of Democrats believed the Russians directly hacked the voting results in 2016, an accusation for which there is absolutely no evidence. The Democrats rode this to regaining the House in 2018 and the Mueller investigation would still be ongoing if Bill Barr had not finally stepped in to call a halt to the farce.
Moreover, those who believe Trump is the victim of an electoral conspiracy need merely look at Democrats and their media allies who for four years have denounced Trump as a Hitler-like figure who is destroying democracy and taking America down the road to fascism. If they really felt that way, why wouldn't they feel justified in engaging in some election fiddling to stop him? You'd do anything you could to stop Hitler, wouldn't you?
And once he took office, Democrats refused to recognize the legitimacy of the election. Editors of major publications like the New York Times and New Yorker announced they would lie about the President because they would refuse to "normalize" him - a vow they more than fulfilled over the last four years (for two examples of what the Times is willing to normalize read this and this). In the Senate, Democrats obstructed presidential nominees to an unprecedented extent, simply because they were nominees of Donald Trump.
And lest we forget - what about the U.S. Postal Service conspiracy that made headlines for weeks late this summer and early fall? A story with no substance became the hook for a Democratic conspiracy theory about Trump stealing the election.
As for accepting the result of the 2020 election, pray tell me - what did the storeowners who boarded up their properties in Washington, Manhattan, Boston and other cities just prior to the election, anticipate? Enraged Republicans storming the streets, wreaking havoc? No, they knew from this summer's experience, it would be the paramilitary wing of the Democratic Party taking to the streets if Biden lost and they also knew that the Democratic politicians who rule those cities would allow it to happen just as they had during the summer. It is impossible to overstate the impact of what happened in American cities this summer in terms of destroying norms. We've had riots before. The difference was Progressive mayors in city after city standing aside, and often encouraging, while party supporters destroyed property and business and, since then violent crime has surged. For the first time, Americans of all races understood that we are dependent on the whim of Progressives as to whether we would actually be protected against criminal elements. We have entered a new world.
And speaking of what happened this summer, isn't the Black Lives Matter movement and Critical Race Theory one huge conspiracy theory? Imagine, all the "evil" in the Western World attributable to, and explainable by, a single factor; a giant conspiracy to maintain white supremacy - the one thing that explains all. And, if you deny it, it just proves you are part of the conspiracy. It comes along with a full set of false narratives - Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Omar Mateen, disporportionate numbers of unarmed blacks killed by police - the list goes on and on. This is classic conspiracy thinking in the guise of social justice and academic theory.
So while the Dominion conspiracy theory should be denounced and Trump needs to accept his defeat, we are not going to sit quietly and listen to lectures from Democrats and the media about "norms" and "conspiracies" when they've been complicit for four years in smashing norms, encouraging the conspiratorial fantasies of their followers, have yet to acknowledge their own shoddy behavior (indeed, they still mock those who say it is a hoax), losing the last shreds of their integrity, and making their own contribution to the destruction of trust in American institutions.
We are all slowly going crazy (well, some more quickly than others) and unless we find a way to halt this spiral the outlook is grim.
-------------------
* I have not paid as much attention to every Trump related election claim as I did with the Russia collusion story. With Russia collusion I became concerned, during the course of 2017, that something was not right with the story I was seeing in the media and decided to start reading every original source document I could find so as to draw my own conclusions.
In the case of the recent election, so many of the claims being made were false, and sometimes outright crazy, that I felt it not a good investment of my time to investigate in detail. And that's the problem with conspiracists. To the extent, there is some underlying validity to any claim regarding election fraud it has been buried under a pile of crap by its advocates. Moreover, while Trump's erratic and improvisational nature, along with his lack of attention to detail, has occasionally served him well, it was precisely the wrong approach it you are preparing to contest an election. Legal teams and observers should have been identified well in advance, lists of items to be carefully watched and documented should have been prepared so that the evidence could have been collected, instead of the madcap exercise going on now. Further, some state actions could have been contested prior to election day. For instance, the PA mail ballot case could have been filed months ago and it remains the case with the most legal merit (though even if Trump were to prevail, it would not change the national election outcome).
No comments:
Post a Comment