1. Lack of hard evidence - Trump thought that dirty tricks were being prepared for the election due to (a) the bureaucracy trying its hardest to keep him out of power and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years and (b) rumors to that effect but nothing with hard evidence.
2. Lack of Influence - The election process is decentralized and under the purview of the state / county, with limited Federal oversight. He might not have known what exactly to do about his concerns, especially in light of 1a, since there isn't an obvious place to address the threat.
3. You win some, you lose some - Even the best CEO doesn't bat 100%, not even close. Trump got the biggest middle east success of the generation signed, but failed to find a way to solve this election problem. You could argue he accomplished a lot of things but failed to address his election concern, and that is not as damning as you make it out to be. Apple released the Vision Pro, yet Tim Cook wasn't fired. There's a lot going on and no one's perfect.
4. There's a power imbalance which makes a decentralized election fraud operation more plausible: (a) Progressives are extremely well organized and powerful, far out of proportion to their numbers. (Based on how their positions have been adopted by all institutions during the Great Awokening, despite many of them being unpopular with the country as a whole or even among registered Democrats, speaking of trans and extreme racial preferences). (b) Conservatives just want to grill.
I don't think your article does a good job of addressing this steelman. Although it's a little messy, I don't think the steelman is particularly implausible, now that I think about it. The real world is messy more often than not.
Based on your article and this follow-up thought, I've actually moved TOWARDS it being plausible from where I was before. Hrm. :grimace:
5/24/20: “The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!”
5/26/20: “This will be a rigged election.”
7/30/20: “2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
Now consider three propositions about the claims made in those tweets:
(1) Those claims were true.
(2) If those claims were true, Trump didn’t do a poor job.
(3) If Trump was at the time epistemically justified in believing those claims, he didn’t do a poor job.
The reason I introduced those three propositions is to ask which, if any, you were steelmanning. Or, if none of them, can you say which one you were?
(I guess I should specify that, regarding the 2nd and 3rd tweets, I’m really thinking of present-tense claims about allegedly then-current efforts to bring about the claimed future eventuality, not claims about the future eventuality.)
The reason I ask is that I believe Mike – and also me in the essay Mike linked to at the start – was focused on something like (3), but I don’t think you showed (3) to be plausible. At most, you defended (2), but (2) alone isn’t very interesting.
After all, suppose Trump’s epistemic situation (and also his beliefs and intentions) were exactly as I suppose them to be – he knew full well he was making it all up for political reasons and not because he had any evidence – but suppose also that, coincidentally, there was in fact a conspiracy, more or less exactly as he described it (i.e., the case illustrates something like ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’ – although in this case it would be ‘just because you’re lying that they’re out to get you doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’).
In that case, I’d say his failure to do more about the conspiracy may not have been blameworthy at all – even though there was in fact a conspiracy and it succeeded in rigging the election on his watch. But by the same token, he was as blameworthy for lying about it as if it didn’t actually happen.
I think my question for you would also be answered if you replied to the argument that tweets like those, and similar statements he made, reveal him to have been highly blameworthy no matter what, but the grounds of his blameworthiness depend on his epistemic justification at the time. Insofar as he was epistemically justified in believing those claims, he was blameworthy for his poor handling of the situation he was aware of. Insofar as he wasn’t epistemically justified, he was blameworthy for making the claims (and other, related actions, like his attempt to ‘steal back’ the presidency culminating in January 6). So either way, he was highly blameworthy. I wonder how you’d respond to that.
I say all that because your steelmanning involved attributing to him a poor epistemic situation, somewhat like in my imaginary scenario illustrating ‘just because you’re lying…’.
As you describe it, Trump’s reasons for thinking the election was being rigged are these:
“the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power and … subsequently resist[ed] his administration for … 4 years”
“rumors … that dirty tricks were being prepared for the election”
“Progressives are extremely well organized and powerful”
What sort of epistemic situation do you think that put him in regarding claims like the ones he made in those tweets? I’d say quite terrible, although I’m not 100% sure because I’m not sure what you mean by “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” You mean prior to 1/20/17? That’s what’s suggested by the rest of the sentence (“and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years”). Can you elaborate?
It’s also possible that you have a different idea of the kind of resistance offered than I do, and that may be relevant too. Obviously, the issues are complex, but perhaps you can give some indication of what you mean by telling us at least one act of resistance that you think improved his epistemic situation regarding the claims made in those tweets – perhaps one you think of as at least a candidate for having most improved it (among all the relevant acts of resistance).
I'm having trouble following this part / the distinction between the selections. To re-state: "Trump may not have been certain of it, and he may have done a poor job of preventing it, but even if true that is not extremely damning, given the role. Saying it is extremely damning seems like an example of an 'isolated demand for rigor' which is not applied to other politicians for most of their positions".
Overall, you seem to draw a very bright line between "knowing" and "lying". The degree of confidence he had is unknowable, and from my experience with performative individuals, I think they often believe what they say. I don't share those characteristics, but from the outside it seems like more like a survival instinct than intentional duplicity, if that makes sense. I think that's the only way most people can say things believably, ie not by lying but by arranging from themselves to actually believe the thing.
I'm not sure that these individuals are a good fit for the model of rationality that is used around here. And if reality fails to match the model, then that is not reality's fault. (At least, formal reasoning is how I understand your comment and aligns with the author's posts on this substack)
> I’m not sure what you mean by “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” You mean prior to 1/20/17? That’s what’s suggested by the rest of the sentence (“and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years”). Can you elaborate?
I thought it was widely accepted that the establishment has been heavily biased against Trump since the time he was the nominee, presumably for the reasons that I also find him to have undesirable personality characteristics.
I don't have the kind of recall necessary, but I'd say that dozens of officials knowingly lying about the Hunter laptop is a strong example. If you disagree, I'd be curious why. I can look some more stuff up if this is a load-bearing question for your position.
If I understand correctly, you’re attributing to him a greater degree of belief than his evidence justified. But that seems like the worst of both worlds. If he was more sure than his evidence justified he’s blameworthy for that. And if he really believed it, even if unjustifiably, his failure to do more was incompetent. Or do you think there was really nothing more he could have done?
The phrase “the establishment has been heavily biased against Trump” seems vague. Surely most members of the establishment voted against him. But I don’t think you had that in mind when you said “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” It certainly wouldn’t come close to justifying anything like the sorts of claims he was making (e.g., in the tweets quoted in my earlier reply).
The Hunter Biden laptop stuff happened in October 2020 [edit: or maybe earlier? ugh]. Trump had been saying the election was going to be rigged for quite a while by then.
After the 2020 election, a rumor that concerned me involved a claim that many court cases had been brought over election fraud, but immediately dismissed for lack of standing, without ever considering the evidence. If true, this at best would beg for an explanation, at worst reveal a conspiracy. But other people would have much more motive and ability to investigate this. Having never heard from any, I assume that the cases that existed were less numerous and less credible than the rumor claimed. Maybe someone debunked this claim, but I missed it.
This raises a question I should have been curious about sooner. Can we really trust the FEC or whoever to keep elections honest? Has the government succeeded in making the civil service truly non-partisan?
If a case is dismissed for lack of standing, the most likely explanation is that the plaintiff in fact lacked standing.
If you want an explanation for why a person with no standing would file a lawsuit, it could be because they're an amateur who doesn't know the legal rules, or they're doing it as a publicity stunt, or they're an ideologue trying to signal party loyalty.
I don't agree that the most likely explanation is that the plaintiff lacked standing. That might have made sense years ago, but I have serious doubts in the current environment.
I am just an ordinary citizen with no legal expertise or experience. But I spent several hours studying the case the NY AG filed against Trump over supposed financial fraud. I did not want to trust any third-party reporting.
I read through parts of the ruling (there are two documents, one is 35 pages and the other is 92 pages), and I am convinced that it was indeed an insane political witch hunt.
First of all, they used Section 63(12) of "New York's Executive Law", which "gives the attorney general authority to pursue any kind of conduct that she or he considers to be fraudulent" (New Yorker Magazine). The NYT referred to this law as a "little-known measure". The judge's own characterization of this law: "Section 63(12) does not require the government to prove that financial losses were incurred or that the defendant acted with intention to defraud." Does this pass the sniff test? They claim he committed financial fraud, yet they don't have to show that losses were incurred, or that he intended to defraud anyone?
But that's not all, of course. A central part of the state's argument is that Trump "lied" about the valuation of his properties. You really have to look at the ruling yourself to believe this, but on page 26 the judge writes (with presumably a straight face): "From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million...Notwithstanding, the SFCs' [Statement of Financial Condition, I think] values do not reflect these land use restrictions [Trump agreed to only use the land for a social club]. Donald Trump's SFCs for 2011-2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426,529,614 million and $612,110,496, an overvaluation of at least 2,300%, compared to the assessor's appraisal."
Are we in the twilight zone yet? The judge here is accusing Trump of overvaluing Mar-a-Lago by 2,300%, based on COUNTY ASSESSOR appraised values??? If it's not immediately obvious how insane this is, take a quick look at this:
Trump currently has four openings for memberships, priced at $1M each, with a $20k annual fee. Does it make sense to value a property like this at $27.6 million on the HIGH end??? Where do I sign???
Analogously, if I were to take out a home equity loan on my house, I'm almost certain that the loan officer would use the MARKET VALUE of my house, not the county assessor value.
Further, the bank that Trump supposedly committed fraud with even testified for Trump's defense!!!
As if this wasn't enough, take a look at how they arrived on the several hundred million dollar fine:
"When Donald Trump sold the Old Post Office hotel, he paid off the Deutsche Bank loan, and the following profits were distributed: $126,828,600 to Donald Trump; $4,013,024 to Eric Trump; $4,013,024 to Donald Trump, Jr., and $4,013,024 to Ivanka Trump.”
The argument was that even though Trump PAID OFF the loan to Deutsche Bank, since this loan was ill-gotten, Trump's $126 million profit is also ill-gotten and needs to be paid back!!! "No, that can't be right" I hear you say? This is a quote from the judgement:
"...all three [theories advanced by the plaintiff], viewed collectively, support disgorgement of the profits defendants received from the sale of Old Post Office as ill-gotten gains. Accordingly, Donald Trump...are jointly and severally liable, in the amount of $126,828,600, for the ill-gotten profits Donald Trump netted from the sale of the Old Post Office."
With cases like this being brought against Trump, how can anyone have faith in the justice system to handle election fraud cases fairly?
(As a side note, Trump DID lie about some things in his loan application, but I think they are immaterial. For example, he claimed the square footage of his NY penthouse was 30k when it was only around 10k, and this affected the valuation (the judge claims by as much as 200 million). However, beyond the fact that nobody lost money because of this, getting a loan from a bank is a market process; it's competitive and both sides try to maximize their interests, and ultimately whether two parties agree to a deal is up for each party to decide after taking into account all of the relevant information/risks. If the bank thinks Trump is lying about the square footage, it's their responsibility to question Trump. And indeed, in the defense, the bank representative stated that they subjected Trump's valuations to "sanity checks" and sometimes made sizable "haircuts".)
With all the damn biased reporting out there, spending several hours studying this case independently resulted in establishing some "ground reality" for me – this was an absolute a witch hunt. This then influences my perception of other reported information.
Another side note – it's absolutely insane that in 2024, a non-expert like me needs to spend several hours reading legal documents in order to try and tease out what's true and what's not. This is not sustainable "for our democracy", to borrow a phrase that a certain party has become quite fond of.
Finally, I'll just briefly mention that the revelations coming out of Georgia seem fairly compelling to me. See for example, this post:
and other posts from the same author. I watched the relevant segments where the lawyer presents to the election board, and although I was not able to follow entirely, I found it compelling (also notable is that this presentation was in response to a presentation given by the state a month or two prior to this, and this testimony casted severe doubts on the veracity of what the state presented).
It’s too bad the comments have veered off in such an irrelevant direction. I think the most interesting question raised by this post is whether the Big Lie can be used against Trump – not just because it’s a lie but because the content of the lie casts him in such a negative light. Personally I think it can, for the reasons Mike nicely captures in section 4. My take on it is in the essay linked to at the start. You should especially check out the stuff I called “my experiments in brutal mockery”. I’d love to hear what you think!
In addition to the swing voters, there's also the "blackpilling" effect of the Big Lie on the Republicans. If 2020 was a stolen election, why bother voting this time around? Just stay at home and jerk off instead of going and voting, it'll have the same effect and be more enjoyable. I've definitely heard from some Trumpers/ex-Trumpers that they've seen this basic idea percolating in their circles, and it makes logical sense if you actually believe the Big Lie. (And, indeed, some Trump followers are stupid enough to actually believe the Big Lie.)
Hello Sir, I have a question in my mind. The question is not related to this post. I am sorry for that but I didn’t know where to contact you else. So I thought of posting my question here. I hope you read this. I was thinking about the Sorites paradox. Consider the organ transplant hypothesis of normative ethics. Suppose to save your five patients each of which lack one important organ, you have to kill an innocent individual and take his five organs. I think you will agree that it will be wrong to kill an innocent to save 5 people in such a situation. But let’s change the hypothesis a bit. Suppose that the innocent person will live just for 10 milliseconds if you don’t kill him and the five patients who are going to die will live for 90 95 years if you kill the innocent person. It seems like in this case we are justified in killing the innocent person. Because if you don’t kill the innocent person, then it will only live for 10 milliseconds. I think it is permissible to take 10 milliseconds of someone’s life to save 5 people who will live for 90 95 years. But if this is true then it seems there must be a precise life span t such that it is wrong to permissible to kill an innocent to save 5 people in such a scenario if the life span of the innocent person is less than t and it is not permissible to kill an innocent person if his life span is greater or equal to t. However, this conclusion seems absurd. Because it seems that if it is wrong to kill an innocent person who has the life span of t then it seems that it will still be wrong to kill that person even if he is going to live a millisecond less. The conclusion entails that it will be permissible to kill an innocent who is going to live for t-(1 millisecond) but not permissible to kill an innocent who is going to live for t.
1)It is permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for 1 millisecond to save 5 people in organ transplant case.
2)It is not permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for 90 years to save 5 people in organ transplant case.
3)So, For some time t, it is not permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for time t but it is permissible to kill someone who is going to live for time less than t.
Where is the problem in this kind of reasoning? What are your thoughts on it?
In a case of election fraud, who has/hasn’t standing? Who was filing the cases? I never got any of these details. If it was actually a thing, I assume I would have heard more about it. I was never willing to trek down the rabbit hole and find out.
Thanks, but I didn’t mean to make you my unpaid research assistant!
The article is a bit vague, but does address some of my concerns, noting that some of the cases were heard, some withdrawn by Trump or the other plaintiffs, and some were dismissed for lack of evidence. However they barely address the issue of standing, which apparently did affect some of the cases. The most specific reference to this was “Sometimes the law is that the person trying to bring a claim doesn’t have any legal right to do so.” They did not clarify how many cases this applied to, and what is the difference between persons who have a legal right to bring a claim of election fraud and those who don’t, or whatever might have been alleged instead.
As I said previously, I assume if this was an important miscarriage of Justice, someone would be complaining about it more loudly than anyone is. Trump and his followers make many complaints, some of which are at least coherent, but I don’t hear this one any longer.
Yes. The best I can gather is that *Texas* tried to sue to invalidate the electoral votes of *other* states, and the court said they lacked standing to do that. There may have been other cases like that. Probably the Texas people knew they would lose and were just signaling.
Re 1, part of the trouble is that what Trump should have done depends on his information. Since he was making it all up, it's hard to say exactly what more he should have done -- we need to consider various counterfactual scenarios. But in my essay Mike linked to at the start I suggest various general categories of things he could have done -- as well as something he did which he shouldn't have done. It's in the section titled "my experiments in brutal mockery".
Here's a steelman:
1. Lack of hard evidence - Trump thought that dirty tricks were being prepared for the election due to (a) the bureaucracy trying its hardest to keep him out of power and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years and (b) rumors to that effect but nothing with hard evidence.
2. Lack of Influence - The election process is decentralized and under the purview of the state / county, with limited Federal oversight. He might not have known what exactly to do about his concerns, especially in light of 1a, since there isn't an obvious place to address the threat.
3. You win some, you lose some - Even the best CEO doesn't bat 100%, not even close. Trump got the biggest middle east success of the generation signed, but failed to find a way to solve this election problem. You could argue he accomplished a lot of things but failed to address his election concern, and that is not as damning as you make it out to be. Apple released the Vision Pro, yet Tim Cook wasn't fired. There's a lot going on and no one's perfect.
4. There's a power imbalance which makes a decentralized election fraud operation more plausible: (a) Progressives are extremely well organized and powerful, far out of proportion to their numbers. (Based on how their positions have been adopted by all institutions during the Great Awokening, despite many of them being unpopular with the country as a whole or even among registered Democrats, speaking of trans and extreme racial preferences). (b) Conservatives just want to grill.
I don't think your article does a good job of addressing this steelman. Although it's a little messy, I don't think the steelman is particularly implausible, now that I think about it. The real world is messy more often than not.
Based on your article and this follow-up thought, I've actually moved TOWARDS it being plausible from where I was before. Hrm. :grimace:
Consider a few of Trump’s tweets:
5/24/20: “The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!”
5/26/20: “This will be a rigged election.”
7/30/20: “2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
Now consider three propositions about the claims made in those tweets:
(1) Those claims were true.
(2) If those claims were true, Trump didn’t do a poor job.
(3) If Trump was at the time epistemically justified in believing those claims, he didn’t do a poor job.
The reason I introduced those three propositions is to ask which, if any, you were steelmanning. Or, if none of them, can you say which one you were?
(I guess I should specify that, regarding the 2nd and 3rd tweets, I’m really thinking of present-tense claims about allegedly then-current efforts to bring about the claimed future eventuality, not claims about the future eventuality.)
The reason I ask is that I believe Mike – and also me in the essay Mike linked to at the start – was focused on something like (3), but I don’t think you showed (3) to be plausible. At most, you defended (2), but (2) alone isn’t very interesting.
After all, suppose Trump’s epistemic situation (and also his beliefs and intentions) were exactly as I suppose them to be – he knew full well he was making it all up for political reasons and not because he had any evidence – but suppose also that, coincidentally, there was in fact a conspiracy, more or less exactly as he described it (i.e., the case illustrates something like ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’ – although in this case it would be ‘just because you’re lying that they’re out to get you doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’).
In that case, I’d say his failure to do more about the conspiracy may not have been blameworthy at all – even though there was in fact a conspiracy and it succeeded in rigging the election on his watch. But by the same token, he was as blameworthy for lying about it as if it didn’t actually happen.
I think my question for you would also be answered if you replied to the argument that tweets like those, and similar statements he made, reveal him to have been highly blameworthy no matter what, but the grounds of his blameworthiness depend on his epistemic justification at the time. Insofar as he was epistemically justified in believing those claims, he was blameworthy for his poor handling of the situation he was aware of. Insofar as he wasn’t epistemically justified, he was blameworthy for making the claims (and other, related actions, like his attempt to ‘steal back’ the presidency culminating in January 6). So either way, he was highly blameworthy. I wonder how you’d respond to that.
I say all that because your steelmanning involved attributing to him a poor epistemic situation, somewhat like in my imaginary scenario illustrating ‘just because you’re lying…’.
As you describe it, Trump’s reasons for thinking the election was being rigged are these:
“the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power and … subsequently resist[ed] his administration for … 4 years”
“rumors … that dirty tricks were being prepared for the election”
“Progressives are extremely well organized and powerful”
What sort of epistemic situation do you think that put him in regarding claims like the ones he made in those tweets? I’d say quite terrible, although I’m not 100% sure because I’m not sure what you mean by “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” You mean prior to 1/20/17? That’s what’s suggested by the rest of the sentence (“and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years”). Can you elaborate?
It’s also possible that you have a different idea of the kind of resistance offered than I do, and that may be relevant too. Obviously, the issues are complex, but perhaps you can give some indication of what you mean by telling us at least one act of resistance that you think improved his epistemic situation regarding the claims made in those tweets – perhaps one you think of as at least a candidate for having most improved it (among all the relevant acts of resistance).
> Now consider three propositions..
I'm having trouble following this part / the distinction between the selections. To re-state: "Trump may not have been certain of it, and he may have done a poor job of preventing it, but even if true that is not extremely damning, given the role. Saying it is extremely damning seems like an example of an 'isolated demand for rigor' which is not applied to other politicians for most of their positions".
Overall, you seem to draw a very bright line between "knowing" and "lying". The degree of confidence he had is unknowable, and from my experience with performative individuals, I think they often believe what they say. I don't share those characteristics, but from the outside it seems like more like a survival instinct than intentional duplicity, if that makes sense. I think that's the only way most people can say things believably, ie not by lying but by arranging from themselves to actually believe the thing.
I'm not sure that these individuals are a good fit for the model of rationality that is used around here. And if reality fails to match the model, then that is not reality's fault. (At least, formal reasoning is how I understand your comment and aligns with the author's posts on this substack)
> I’m not sure what you mean by “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” You mean prior to 1/20/17? That’s what’s suggested by the rest of the sentence (“and to subsequently resist his administration for the past 4 years”). Can you elaborate?
I thought it was widely accepted that the establishment has been heavily biased against Trump since the time he was the nominee, presumably for the reasons that I also find him to have undesirable personality characteristics.
I don't have the kind of recall necessary, but I'd say that dozens of officials knowingly lying about the Hunter laptop is a strong example. If you disagree, I'd be curious why. I can look some more stuff up if this is a load-bearing question for your position.
If I understand correctly, you’re attributing to him a greater degree of belief than his evidence justified. But that seems like the worst of both worlds. If he was more sure than his evidence justified he’s blameworthy for that. And if he really believed it, even if unjustifiably, his failure to do more was incompetent. Or do you think there was really nothing more he could have done?
The phrase “the establishment has been heavily biased against Trump” seems vague. Surely most members of the establishment voted against him. But I don’t think you had that in mind when you said “the bureaucracy tr[ied] its hardest to keep him out of power.” It certainly wouldn’t come close to justifying anything like the sorts of claims he was making (e.g., in the tweets quoted in my earlier reply).
The Hunter Biden laptop stuff happened in October 2020 [edit: or maybe earlier? ugh]. Trump had been saying the election was going to be rigged for quite a while by then.
After the 2020 election, a rumor that concerned me involved a claim that many court cases had been brought over election fraud, but immediately dismissed for lack of standing, without ever considering the evidence. If true, this at best would beg for an explanation, at worst reveal a conspiracy. But other people would have much more motive and ability to investigate this. Having never heard from any, I assume that the cases that existed were less numerous and less credible than the rumor claimed. Maybe someone debunked this claim, but I missed it.
This raises a question I should have been curious about sooner. Can we really trust the FEC or whoever to keep elections honest? Has the government succeeded in making the civil service truly non-partisan?
If a case is dismissed for lack of standing, the most likely explanation is that the plaintiff in fact lacked standing.
If you want an explanation for why a person with no standing would file a lawsuit, it could be because they're an amateur who doesn't know the legal rules, or they're doing it as a publicity stunt, or they're an ideologue trying to signal party loyalty.
Have you guys seen this site?
https://election-integrity.info/2020_Election_Cases.htm
I don't agree that the most likely explanation is that the plaintiff lacked standing. That might have made sense years ago, but I have serious doubts in the current environment.
I am just an ordinary citizen with no legal expertise or experience. But I spent several hours studying the case the NY AG filed against Trump over supposed financial fraud. I did not want to trust any third-party reporting.
I read through parts of the ruling (there are two documents, one is 35 pages and the other is 92 pages), and I am convinced that it was indeed an insane political witch hunt.
First of all, they used Section 63(12) of "New York's Executive Law", which "gives the attorney general authority to pursue any kind of conduct that she or he considers to be fraudulent" (New Yorker Magazine). The NYT referred to this law as a "little-known measure". The judge's own characterization of this law: "Section 63(12) does not require the government to prove that financial losses were incurred or that the defendant acted with intention to defraud." Does this pass the sniff test? They claim he committed financial fraud, yet they don't have to show that losses were incurred, or that he intended to defraud anyone?
But that's not all, of course. A central part of the state's argument is that Trump "lied" about the valuation of his properties. You really have to look at the ruling yourself to believe this, but on page 26 the judge writes (with presumably a straight face): "From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million...Notwithstanding, the SFCs' [Statement of Financial Condition, I think] values do not reflect these land use restrictions [Trump agreed to only use the land for a social club]. Donald Trump's SFCs for 2011-2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426,529,614 million and $612,110,496, an overvaluation of at least 2,300%, compared to the assessor's appraisal."
Are we in the twilight zone yet? The judge here is accusing Trump of overvaluing Mar-a-Lago by 2,300%, based on COUNTY ASSESSOR appraised values??? If it's not immediately obvious how insane this is, take a quick look at this:
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-mar-a-lago-club-membership-cost-to-jump-to-1m-20839209
Trump currently has four openings for memberships, priced at $1M each, with a $20k annual fee. Does it make sense to value a property like this at $27.6 million on the HIGH end??? Where do I sign???
Analogously, if I were to take out a home equity loan on my house, I'm almost certain that the loan officer would use the MARKET VALUE of my house, not the county assessor value.
Further, the bank that Trump supposedly committed fraud with even testified for Trump's defense!!!
https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-lawsuit-trial-new-york-53313f64d57b0aa99f756c2c791d29ab
As if this wasn't enough, take a look at how they arrived on the several hundred million dollar fine:
"When Donald Trump sold the Old Post Office hotel, he paid off the Deutsche Bank loan, and the following profits were distributed: $126,828,600 to Donald Trump; $4,013,024 to Eric Trump; $4,013,024 to Donald Trump, Jr., and $4,013,024 to Ivanka Trump.”
The argument was that even though Trump PAID OFF the loan to Deutsche Bank, since this loan was ill-gotten, Trump's $126 million profit is also ill-gotten and needs to be paid back!!! "No, that can't be right" I hear you say? This is a quote from the judgement:
"...all three [theories advanced by the plaintiff], viewed collectively, support disgorgement of the profits defendants received from the sale of Old Post Office as ill-gotten gains. Accordingly, Donald Trump...are jointly and severally liable, in the amount of $126,828,600, for the ill-gotten profits Donald Trump netted from the sale of the Old Post Office."
With cases like this being brought against Trump, how can anyone have faith in the justice system to handle election fraud cases fairly?
(As a side note, Trump DID lie about some things in his loan application, but I think they are immaterial. For example, he claimed the square footage of his NY penthouse was 30k when it was only around 10k, and this affected the valuation (the judge claims by as much as 200 million). However, beyond the fact that nobody lost money because of this, getting a loan from a bank is a market process; it's competitive and both sides try to maximize their interests, and ultimately whether two parties agree to a deal is up for each party to decide after taking into account all of the relevant information/risks. If the bank thinks Trump is lying about the square footage, it's their responsibility to question Trump. And indeed, in the defense, the bank representative stated that they subjected Trump's valuations to "sanity checks" and sometimes made sizable "haircuts".)
With all the damn biased reporting out there, spending several hours studying this case independently resulted in establishing some "ground reality" for me – this was an absolute a witch hunt. This then influences my perception of other reported information.
Another side note – it's absolutely insane that in 2024, a non-expert like me needs to spend several hours reading legal documents in order to try and tease out what's true and what's not. This is not sustainable "for our democracy", to borrow a phrase that a certain party has become quite fond of.
Finally, I'll just briefly mention that the revelations coming out of Georgia seem fairly compelling to me. See for example, this post:
https://x.com/jeffmfulgham/status/1815811550009004246
and other posts from the same author. I watched the relevant segments where the lawyer presents to the election board, and although I was not able to follow entirely, I found it compelling (also notable is that this presentation was in response to a presentation given by the state a month or two prior to this, and this testimony casted severe doubts on the veracity of what the state presented).
It’s too bad the comments have veered off in such an irrelevant direction. I think the most interesting question raised by this post is whether the Big Lie can be used against Trump – not just because it’s a lie but because the content of the lie casts him in such a negative light. Personally I think it can, for the reasons Mike nicely captures in section 4. My take on it is in the essay linked to at the start. You should especially check out the stuff I called “my experiments in brutal mockery”. I’d love to hear what you think!
In addition to the swing voters, there's also the "blackpilling" effect of the Big Lie on the Republicans. If 2020 was a stolen election, why bother voting this time around? Just stay at home and jerk off instead of going and voting, it'll have the same effect and be more enjoyable. I've definitely heard from some Trumpers/ex-Trumpers that they've seen this basic idea percolating in their circles, and it makes logical sense if you actually believe the Big Lie. (And, indeed, some Trump followers are stupid enough to actually believe the Big Lie.)
Hello Sir, I have a question in my mind. The question is not related to this post. I am sorry for that but I didn’t know where to contact you else. So I thought of posting my question here. I hope you read this. I was thinking about the Sorites paradox. Consider the organ transplant hypothesis of normative ethics. Suppose to save your five patients each of which lack one important organ, you have to kill an innocent individual and take his five organs. I think you will agree that it will be wrong to kill an innocent to save 5 people in such a situation. But let’s change the hypothesis a bit. Suppose that the innocent person will live just for 10 milliseconds if you don’t kill him and the five patients who are going to die will live for 90 95 years if you kill the innocent person. It seems like in this case we are justified in killing the innocent person. Because if you don’t kill the innocent person, then it will only live for 10 milliseconds. I think it is permissible to take 10 milliseconds of someone’s life to save 5 people who will live for 90 95 years. But if this is true then it seems there must be a precise life span t such that it is wrong to permissible to kill an innocent to save 5 people in such a scenario if the life span of the innocent person is less than t and it is not permissible to kill an innocent person if his life span is greater or equal to t. However, this conclusion seems absurd. Because it seems that if it is wrong to kill an innocent person who has the life span of t then it seems that it will still be wrong to kill that person even if he is going to live a millisecond less. The conclusion entails that it will be permissible to kill an innocent who is going to live for t-(1 millisecond) but not permissible to kill an innocent who is going to live for t.
1)It is permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for 1 millisecond to save 5 people in organ transplant case.
2)It is not permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for 90 years to save 5 people in organ transplant case.
3)So, For some time t, it is not permissible to kill an innocent person who is going to live for time t but it is permissible to kill someone who is going to live for time less than t.
Where is the problem in this kind of reasoning? What are your thoughts on it?
Very nice discussion. This thesis is also well discussed in "Not born Yesterday" Hugo Mercier :
https://youtu.be/lXKSDiWJjyk?si=yUh6_omX8gFeUSTV
In a case of election fraud, who has/hasn’t standing? Who was filing the cases? I never got any of these details. If it was actually a thing, I assume I would have heard more about it. I was never willing to trek down the rabbit hole and find out.
Politifact's report on it: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/oct/28/instagram-posts/trump-campaigns-evidence-of-fraud-was-reviewed-bef/
Thanks, but I didn’t mean to make you my unpaid research assistant!
The article is a bit vague, but does address some of my concerns, noting that some of the cases were heard, some withdrawn by Trump or the other plaintiffs, and some were dismissed for lack of evidence. However they barely address the issue of standing, which apparently did affect some of the cases. The most specific reference to this was “Sometimes the law is that the person trying to bring a claim doesn’t have any legal right to do so.” They did not clarify how many cases this applied to, and what is the difference between persons who have a legal right to bring a claim of election fraud and those who don’t, or whatever might have been alleged instead.
As I said previously, I assume if this was an important miscarriage of Justice, someone would be complaining about it more loudly than anyone is. Trump and his followers make many complaints, some of which are at least coherent, but I don’t hear this one any longer.
Yes. The best I can gather is that *Texas* tried to sue to invalidate the electoral votes of *other* states, and the court said they lacked standing to do that. There may have been other cases like that. Probably the Texas people knew they would lose and were just signaling.
Re 1, part of the trouble is that what Trump should have done depends on his information. Since he was making it all up, it's hard to say exactly what more he should have done -- we need to consider various counterfactual scenarios. But in my essay Mike linked to at the start I suggest various general categories of things he could have done -- as well as something he did which he shouldn't have done. It's in the section titled "my experiments in brutal mockery".