Jimmy Carter denounces Trump's election as illegitimate.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is frankly stunning. Even among the Democratic Party, there have been few prominent figures willing to outright say that Trump's election was illegitimate. Its all the more significant because there is a tradition (another norm of American politics Trump has effectively killed) that former Presidents do not publicly criticize the sitting President. For a former President, then, to not only criticize the sitting PotUS but to call his Presidency illegitimate, is something nobody could have imagined seeing a few years ago.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/ ... st-1387634

Former President Jimmy Carter questioned the legitimacy of Donald Trump's presidency on Thursday, saying he would likely not be in the White House if the Russians did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

“I think a full investigation would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” the former president, who served between 1977 and 1981, said at a panel hosted by the Carter Center in Leesburg, Va.

Pressed by moderator and historian Jon Meacham on whether he believes Trump is an “illegitimate president,” Carter stared, and then said smiling, “Basically, what I said, I can’t retract.” Carter’s remark drew laughs from the audience and Meacham.

Carter has not been an especially vocal critic of the president, and has sometimes even praised Trump's policies, such as Trump’s decision not to take military action against Iran. The oldest living president and Trump also spoke over the phone in April after Carter wrote to the president about his trade negotiations with China.

During the Thursday event, Carter called for Trump to condemn Russia for their meddling in the election, and said he should “admit that it happened," as the intelligence community has already stated.

Carter’s comment will likely chafe Trump, who has been quick to roast anyone who attempts to undermine his presidency by insinuating that his surprise victory in 2016 was illegitimate.

The president has repeatedly argued, without evidence, that there were millions of illegitimate votes, which helped tip the popular vote in rival Hillary Clinton’s favor during the 2016 election. He said directly after the election that voter fraud was to blame for his losing the popular vote, and maintains that position.

In a recent interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” Trump said “there were a lot of votes cast [in 2016] that I don’t believe," adding, “There was much illegal voting," he added.

The nearly two-year probe by former special counsel Robert Mueller did not find sufficient evidence that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian officials to harm Clinton and boost the real estate tycoon's presidential bid. However, the report, which was released in mid-April, laid out in extensive detail how the Kremlin used hacking techniques and disinformation campaigns to try to sway the election Trump's way.

Trump has held strong on his position that the Russians played no part in helping him land in the Oval Office. He has dismissed the idea that Russian interference affected the outcome of the 2016 election, calling it “a hoax,” among other names.

But the president also said in a recent interview that he might not report any election help offered by foreign sources to the FBI in the 2020 election cycle, stoking fresh agitation among Democrats and his fellow Republicans.

And just hours after Carter’s comment, Trump again made light of Russia's meddling attempts. While meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Japan, Trump turned to the Russian president and said jokingly, "Don't meddle in the election, president. Don't meddle in the election." Putin, after appearing to hear the translation, laughed while Trump grinned.

[Jub]

Carter has a lot less to lose at his age and with his existing reputation. The Republicans are going to hate him beyond the grave anyway so why not speak up.

[The Romulan Republic]

That, and Jimmy Carter is arguably one of the few genuinely good men to have held the office of the Presidency.

[gizmojumpjet]

I'm sure they dems and their deep-state lap dogs are holding onto the FUCKING EVIDENCE for these irresponsible accusations. Waiting for the right moment to POUNCE.

Yep.

MmmHmmm.

[Zaune]

I'm sure they dems and their deep-state lap dogs are holding onto the FUCKING EVIDENCE for these irresponsible accusations. Waiting for the right moment to POUNCE.

Yep.

MmmHmmm.

Can you really blame people for not wanting to believe that a majority of eligible voters could look at Donald Trump and think, "Yes, this is the man I want to entrust with the highest elected office in the country" entirely of their own accord, without malevolent outside influence?

[Tribble]

I'm sure they dems and their deep-state lap dogs are holding onto the FUCKING EVIDENCE for these irresponsible accusations. Waiting for the right moment to POUNCE.

Yep.

MmmHmmm.

Can you really blame people for not wanting to believe that a majority of eligible voters could look at Donald Trump and think, "Yes, this is the man I want to entrust with the highest elected office in the country" entirely of their own accord, without malevolent outside influence?

To be specific, it was a majority of electors via the Electoral College which voted for Trump, not majority of voters, of which 3 million more voted for Clinton.

[Rogue 9]

I'm sure they dems and their deep-state lap dogs are holding onto the FUCKING EVIDENCE for these irresponsible accusations. Waiting for the right moment to POUNCE.

Yep.

MmmHmmm.

Go read the first volume of the Mueller report.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm sure they dems and their deep-state lap dogs are holding onto the FUCKING EVIDENCE for these irresponsible accusations. Waiting for the right moment to POUNCE.

Yep.

MmmHmmm.

The evidence is there. Its been laid out in great detail, for those who actually want to acknowledge it. Its just that our laws have gaping loopholes, and our system is set up to give near-immunity to the President barring impeachment (which Pelosi is afraid to do because she thinks that appealing to an increasingly imaginary center is how you win elections).

Or, what Rogue 9 said.

Hmm, I said I was going to do a Let's Read of the Mueller report once my play was done. I have a couple days off work coming up, so maybe I'll get the ball rolling then.

Can you really blame people for not wanting to believe that a majority of eligible voters could look at Donald Trump and think, "Yes, this is the man I want to entrust with the highest elected office in the country" entirely of their own accord, without malevolent outside influence?

To echo what Tribble said, the majority of voters did not vote for him. Not only did nearly three million more people vote for Hillary Clinton, but neither of them won an actual majority of the popular vote. And that is not even taking into account all those who could not vote due to age, non-citizenship, criminal record, voter supression laws, etc. (mostly people from groups that tend to skew Democrat).

This is all a somewhat separate question, of course, from whether the legitimacy of his election was tainted by Russian interference on his behalf.

Now, one can loose the popular vote and still be legally elected, of course, because America isn't actually a true democracy, its an oligarchy. But Trump emphatically does not have, and has never had, a mandate from the American people. At most, you can say that a majority of eligible Americans didn't oppose him enough to bother turning out to stop him. Which is pretty damning by itself, but not quite the same as saying that they wanted him in the office.

Trump is bad enough without giving him a popular legitimacy he does not have and does not deserve.

[gizmojumpjet]

Talking about loopholes is just another way of saying "I wish to live in a different reality." There's no such thing as a loophole, the law is what it is. Deal with it.

Do please oh DO PLEASE give me specific criteria that we can use to determine whether a given president had a "mandate from the American people." See I sort of thought GETTING ELECTED AS PRESIDENT qualified but apparently not?

[PS: It's nice to see someone recognize that a large number of Democrat supporters are generally young people (ignorant, inexperienced, impressionable idiots molded by our the liberal-leaning sausage factory called public education and literally suffering brain damage from too much exposure to social media), non-citizens (who do not and must not have the right to vote), criminals (who don't care for the rule of law) and the voter-suppressed (lol anyone who can get food stamps can register to vote). Please do please keep harping on the fact that Democrat voters are takers and not makers, because hey we all need more takers, right?]

[The Romulan Republic]

Talking about loopholes is just another way of saying "I wish to live in a different reality." There's no such thing as a loophole, the law is what it is. Deal with it.

There is such a thing as an immoral law. Or would you have been one of those people who looked at the Fugitive Slave Act and told abolitionist "The law is what it is. Deal with it."?

Do please oh DO PLEASE give me specific criteria that we can use to determine whether a given president had a "mandate from the American people." See I sort of thought GETTING ELECTED AS PRESIDENT qualified but apparently not?

I can't speak for what standard anyone else is using, but for me its pretty simple really: a majority of people eligible to vote (assuming that the right to vote is broadly respected, which means that at best, no President before the Civil Rights era can claim a democratic mandate) chose them for President.

You know, democracy.

[PS: It's nice to see someone recognize that a large number of Democrat supporters are generally young people (ignorant, inexperienced, impressionable idiots molded by our the liberal-leaning sausage factory called public education and literally suffering brain damage from too much exposure to social media),

Ageism. Got an argument that isn't based in stereotypes?

non-citizens (who do not and must not have the right to vote),

Agreed, though I think citizenship should be far easier to attain.

criminals (who don't care for the rule of law)

Right, because all criminals are incurably evil and should therefore be deprived of their most fundamental rights as citizens.

Hell, why not just advocate the death penalty for anyone who ever breaks the law, if that's your position?

and the voter-suppressed (lol anyone who can get food stamps can register to vote).

So you're going to deny the existence of voter ID laws designed to make it more difficult for the young, the poor, and the non-white to vote?

Please do please keep harping on the fact that Democrat voters are takers and not makers, because hey we all need more takers, right?]

Ah, I see. You think the dirty prols should be disenfranchised, because they're "takers and not makers" (or in other words- they're poor and therefore they deserve to be treated as second class citizens because the sole actual conservative principle is "I've got mine, fuck everyone else.").

Edit: Also, you conflated the groups we were talking about (and who you so readily dehumanize), who cannot vote, with "Democratic voters". But then, you probably think Democratic voters are all voting illegally, because you seem like someone who gets his thoughts for him direct from Trump's Twitter account.

[Zaune]

Like it or not, though, I think gizmojumpjet is right about one thing: We can't lay all the blame for the mess the United States is currently in on Russian weaponised trolling. They might have helped whip it up a bit but the sentiment was already simmering for a long time.

We are in the situation we are in right now because the a significant majority of Americans... No, a significant majority of human beings do not give a shit about the welfare of anyone outside their personal in-group. Most of them aren't actively revelling in the atrocities going on at the border, in fact they're probably pretty disturbed by the pictures, but they sure as hell aren't going to do anything proactive about it as long as it's not happening to anyone they care about.

That's just people for you, I'm afraid.

[The Romulan Republic]

Like it or not, though, I think gizmojumpjet is right about one thing: We can't lay all the blame for the mess the United States is currently in on Russian weaponised trolling. They might have helped whip it up a bit but the sentiment was already simmering for a long time.

Of course, and I don't think anyone does put all the blame on Russia (well, very few people, anyway- you can probably find a few morons who will say anything). I think that's mostly just a strawman that the deniers have whipped up so they can scream "McCarthyist Russophobic Witchhunt!" at the top of their lungs, before switching the topic to the "real" problem (ie how its really all the Democrats' fault). I'm sure we've all heard the argument: "Democrats just want to blame it all on Russia so they can avoid responsibility for losing."

We are in the situation we are in right now because the a significant majority of Americans... No, a significant majority of human beings do not give a shit about the welfare of anyone outside their personal in-group. Most of them aren't actively revelling in the atrocities going on at the border, in fact they're probably pretty disturbed by the pictures, but they sure as hell aren't going to do anything proactive about it as long as it's not happening to anyone they care about.

That's just people for you, I'm afraid.

I take a slightly less cynical view, in that I think there are many people who want to help, but feel overwhelmed or unable to actually do anything. Russia (and Trump, and others) has played on this as well, fueling cynicism and the idea that everything is just as bad, nothing matters, nothing can ever change. For Putin, especially, Americans giving up and staying home is as much of a win as them voting for Trump, if not more so. Fascism thrives when people believe that nothing matters, because it normalizes the worst, denigrates the best, and encourages people to just accept whatever those in power tell them.

One thing I'll say for Republicans (and the far Right generally), and one thing only- they are fucking motivated. They get out and vote, and they push their agenda, even when they're the minority. They don't accept that things are the way they are and they can never change. And that's why they've been winning, and its why they'll probably keep winning until the Left fully gets off its collective ass. I'm not saying that we have to use their methods, but we have to fucking try. And recognize that trying does, in fact, matter.

[Gandalf]

[PS: It's nice to see someone recognize that a large number of Democrat supporters are generally young people (ignorant, inexperienced, impressionable idiots molded by our the liberal-leaning sausage factory called public education and literally suffering brain damage from too much exposure to social media), non-citizens (who do not and must not have the right to vote), criminals (who don't care for the rule of law) and the voter-suppressed (lol anyone who can get food stamps can register to vote). Please do please keep harping on the fact that Democrat voters are takers and not makers, because hey we all need more takers, right?]

All comedy aside, is the US education system "liberal leaning" in an actual sense, or just relative to clods who talk of God Emperor Trump unironically?

One thing I'll say for Republicans (and the far Right generally), and one thing only- they are fucking motivated. They get out and vote, and they push their agenda, even when they're the minority. They don't accept that things are the way they are and they can never change. And that's why they've been winning, and its why they'll probably keep winning until the Left fully gets off its collective ass. I'm not saying that we have to use their methods, but we have to fucking try. And recognize that trying does, in fact, matter.

It's amazing what one can do with an angry, uninformed base.

[Elheru Aran]

All comedy aside, is the US education system "liberal leaning" in an actual sense, or just relative to clods who talk of God Emperor Trump unironically?

Liberal education is a popular bogeyman of the right, but in practice most publicly funded primary education is fairly centrist or conservative, when there's enough of it to have a political slant anyway. Textbooks in particular are notorious for a predominantly conservative attitude towards history, as I'm sure you're aware. That said the problem with American primary education is the hyper focus upon quantity rather than quality, but that's a whole other discussion.

Now we do have publicly funded colleges and universities, some of which do have notably liberal attitudes. But realistically, they're in the minority. It probably wouldn't be wrong to say that there are more liberals in the university systems than in the average state government though...

[The Romulan Republic]

All comedy aside, is the US education system "liberal leaning" in an actual sense, or just relative to clods who talk of God Emperor Trump unironically?

Liberal education is a popular bogeyman of the right, but in practice most publicly funded primary education is fairly centrist or conservative, when there's enough of it to have a political slant anyway. Textbooks in particular are notorious for a predominantly conservative attitude towards history, as I'm sure you're aware. That said the problem with American primary education is the hyper focus upon quantity rather than quality, but that's a whole other discussion.

Now we do have publicly funded colleges and universities, some of which do have notably liberal attitudes. But realistically, they're in the minority. It probably wouldn't be wrong to say that there are more liberals in the university systems than in the average state government though...

They're scared of the schools teaching children sinister liberal values like birth control or the Earth being more than six thousand years old.

[Gandalf]

All comedy aside, is the US education system "liberal leaning" in an actual sense, or just relative to clods who talk of God Emperor Trump unironically?

Liberal education is a popular bogeyman of the right, but in practice most publicly funded primary education is fairly centrist or conservative, when there's enough of it to have a political slant anyway. Textbooks in particular are notorious for a predominantly conservative attitude towards history, as I'm sure you're aware. That said the problem with American primary education is the hyper focus upon quantity rather than quality, but that's a whole other discussion.

Now we do have publicly funded colleges and universities, some of which do have notably liberal attitudes. But realistically, they're in the minority. It probably wouldn't be wrong to say that there are more liberals in the university systems than in the average state government though...

Oh,certainly. I'm just keen to see gizmojumpjet back up his claims.

[Coop D'etat]

I think there's merit to the case that American elite postsecondary education has a strong leftwards tilt towards the beliefs of upper class liberals. This has a comparatively tiny effects on the lives of the ordinary American, but is an obsession of the American political class as those are the places were the new elite gets their credentials. Hence the bizarre focus the American media puts on the minute goings-on at Harvard and Oberlin, rather than paying any mind to the large middling institutions were most Americans who even go to college get educated.

The rightwards elements of the American elite have a long-standing greviance that elite education doesn't much cater to them, and spend a disproportionate amount of mindshare on that issue. Campus kids are also a fertile source of political ridiculousness that can gin up outrage, so the political grifter set pay a lot of attention to finding it in the search of clickbait and donations from scared old people.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think there's merit to the case that American elite postsecondary education has a strong leftwards tilt towards the beliefs of upper class liberals. This has a comparatively tiny effects on the lives of the ordinary American, but is an obsession of the American political class as those are the places were the new elite gets their credentials. Hence the bizarre focus the American media puts on the minute goings-on at Harvard and Oberlin, rather than paying any mind to the large middling institutions were most Americans who even go to college get educated.

The rightwards elements of the American elite have a long-standing greviance that elite education doesn't much cater to them, and spend a disproportionate amount of mindshare on that issue. Campus kids are also a fertile source of political ridiculousness that can gin up outrage, so the political grifter set pay a lot of attention to finding it in the search of clickbait and donations from scared old people.

The actual evidence for any strong leftward bias is scant, at best (and certainly varies wildly depending on both the institution and the discipline in question). While it's true that this issue is a particularly prevalent bugaboo for conservatives, it is essentially a myth (or at best an open question).

In my opinion, the issue isn't that American higher education actually has some significant liberal bias (if it did, it would show up in the surveys, which it does not). The issue is that PRIOR to secondary education, children of the rightward elements of the American elite grow up in a political bubble. They are attending conservative, often religious private schools and boarding schools serving relatively close-knit communities of like-minded wealthy people. For many of them, attending a large university like Harvard is the first time in their lives they've been put in a situation where they aren't sheltered to the perspectives of other people, and suddenly have to confront a vocal liberal bloc they aren't use to dealing with directly. They have their views directly challenged. The natural reaction to this is to be defensive and feel marginalized.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think there's merit to the case that American elite postsecondary education has a strong leftwards tilt towards the beliefs of upper class liberals. This has a comparatively tiny effects on the lives of the ordinary American, but is an obsession of the American political class as those are the places were the new elite gets their credentials. Hence the bizarre focus the American media puts on the minute goings-on at Harvard and Oberlin, rather than paying any mind to the large middling institutions were most Americans who even go to college get educated.

The rightwards elements of the American elite have a long-standing greviance that elite education doesn't much cater to them, and spend a disproportionate amount of mindshare on that issue. Campus kids are also a fertile source of political ridiculousness that can gin up outrage, so the political grifter set pay a lot of attention to finding it in the search of clickbait and donations from scared old people.

The actual evidence for any strong leftward bias is scant, at best (and certainly varies wildly depending on both the institution and the discipline in question). While it's true that this issue is a particularly prevalent bugaboo for conservatives, it is essentially a myth (or at best an open question).

In my opinion, the issue isn't that American higher education actually has some significant liberal bias (if it did, it would show up in the surveys, which it does not). The issue is that PRIOR to secondary education, children of the rightward elements of the American elite grow up in a political bubble. They are attending conservative, often religious private schools and boarding schools serving relatively close-knit communities of like-minded wealthy people. For many of them, attending a large university like Harvard is the first time in their lives they've been put in a situation where they aren't sheltered to the perspectives of other people, and suddenly have to confront a vocal liberal bloc they aren't use to dealing with directly. They have their views directly challenged. The natural reaction to this is to be defensive and feel marginalized.

Keep in mind that the current Republican Party pretty much regards anything Left of Ayn Rand (or not being slavishly loyal to Trump) as "having a liberal bias". Also basic science, historical fact, and any religion not fundamentalist Christianity.