Is This a Coup?

[Tech614]

The problem with this is the voting machines themselves along with the tabulators are not capable of being hooked up to any network. They don't have any hardware or software capable of doing this.

As I said up above, the voting machines literally print out a receipt of who you voted for and that goes in the ballot box. If you requested a paper ballot, those get turned into someone and at the end of the day, both the machine printed out one and the paper ballots all go together in a secured lockbox. After this, when they are being tabulated, once again, those machines are not connected in any way to the internet or any external communications or has the ability to do so.

It's insane people are even humoring this. It's like they learned nothing from the bs stories fabricated in 2020. It would be a massive fucking security risk if they ever made a voting machine that could be connected to the internet or any other outside devices. It's literally not a thing.

Just because you aren't on the side of facism doesn't make it ok to spew bullshit conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. This wasn't even a 2000 election where Bush won cause of a corrupt Florida state government who allowed the obstruction of the recount process. This is straight up Trump won. Sometimes the truth is sad, but it's still the truth.

[gondrin]

IF he is doing as you say for nefarious reasons, please someone blow his brains out.

Oh, I am just conjecturing here. However, Elon is not known to do things "for the benefit of the good of society". He does things he will personally get something out of.

However, his cronies over at the OPM have actively demanded access to those systems. Which caused the highest-ranking treasury official to resign in protest.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/g...d=BingNewsSerp

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It's insane people are even humoring this. It's like they learned nothing from the bs stories fabricated in 2020. It would be a massive fucking security risk if they ever made a voting machine that could be connected to the internet or any other outside devices. It's literally not a thing.

Yep. To even access the software on those machines, you have to physically be connected directly to it. Not saying that he didn't have or didn't pay someone that would have that kind of access but as far as remote connections go, that just isn't possible.

[Malkiah]

However, his cronies over at the OPM have actively demanded access to those systems. Which caused the highest-ranking treasury official to resign in protest.

i know this is jaded doomerism on my part but i just want to point out that "fascists roll up demanded fascist shit and in order to fight them lone man blocking them because he refuses to give them what they want valiantly quits his job to protest them asking him in the first place" is really not a good look for democracy.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The problem with this is the voting machines themselves along with the tabulators are not capable of being hooked up to any network. They don't have any hardware or software capable of doing this.

As I said up above, the voting machines literally print out a receipt of who you voted for and that goes in the ballot box. If you requested a paper ballot, those get turned into someone and at the end of the day, both the machine printed out one and the paper ballots all go together in a secured lockbox. After this, when they are being tabulated, once again, those machines are not connected in any way to the internet or any external communications or has the ability to do so.

Even if they had no network access, you really think the richest man in the United States of America, with half a trillion dollars in assets at his disposal and who knows how much cash, wouldn't be able to engage in some degree of ballot stuffing? Putin's an expert at that stuff, and we know Putin and Musk talk to each other.

[Kaleredar]

Even if they had no network access, you really think the richest man in the United States of America, with half a trillion dollars in assets at his disposal and who knows how much cash, wouldn't be able to engage in some degree of ballot stuffing? Putin's an expert at that stuff, and we know Putin and Musk talk to each other.

I wouldn't put it past him to think about it, but had there been massive voter fraud in the election I assume we'd have heard something about it. Between the hundreds of people involved from all sides of the political spectrum that work at polling stations or as supervisors at the city, county and state levels, including the actual companies running the ballot machines, to all collectively have said nothing... while Trump was in no position of power to coerce or intimidate them?

Frankly Trump, Musk, and co. simply aren't competent enough to have pulled it off that secretively. There wasn't just a single point of potential failure they'd have to overcome to effectively stuff ballot boxes.

[tehdang]

Once again, I am not talking about the executive orders. I am talking about how we have an unelected official, Elon Musk, actively putting people in places like the OPM sending out resignation emails to the ENTIRE FEDERAL WORKFORCE. If even a decent size of them say yes, they will replace those people, who tend to work through multiple administrations, with people that will only be loyal to Trump or Musk. I am talking about how we have an unelected official, Elon Musk, demanding to have direct access to the system that handle payments. When people know that Musk will actively try and target people for speaking bad about him as he has done in the past.

So answer me how those are OK?

What if Harris, Biden, Clinton, Obama or whomever decided to put, oh lets use the typical boogyman here, Bill Gates or George Soros, in charge of this and he sent off a mass mailing or email that said "Hey, why don't you take an early resignation?" and then those people put only yes men into those positions? What if Harris, Biden, Clinton or Obama were to just fire Republican people like Trump has been actively doing? What if Bill Gates or George Soros decided that he had to have access to said Treasury payment processors?

Unelected officials frequently make decisions affecting entire government departments, if not the entire federal workforce. What do you think the civil service is, anyways? I just think the entire foundation of your post is faulty. The people endowed Trump with a temporary 4-year term as head of the federal executive, and he is responsible for delegating the duties and administration of his policies to people who will best put them into effect.

Just because you dislike somebody, whether Garland or Trump or Musk or Becerra, does not mean you may rob them of the ability to be appointed and assume delegated powers.

2018?

2020? (which the official line is still, "Biden was certified." and not "Biden won the election". republicans even stormed the US capitol over it and spend 4 years suing to overturn results of the presidential and some downballot elections)

2022 when the "red tsunami" failed to materialize too?

they literally denied any of these were losses, blamed stolen elections, and doubled down. this is fairly disconnected from reality.

2020 gave Biden a shot to govern better, and he so failed to do a good job at it that the American people sent Trump back in despite everything in the first term and while out of office. I do also posit that Trump may have a similarly catastrophic failure to execute as President that Democrats can fix nothing and do nothing and still win simply off of their opponent's incompetence.

Do you even hear yourself? Republicans might need a loss before they can acknowledge.... a loss?

Who won and who lost the 2024 election? We can start there. Which party is out of power?

They had a loss...it was the 2020 election. When they lose again...what's to stop them from calling that one rigged too?

You do understand that paying for the refusal to acknowledge an election loss must happen after the loss? We didn't have a 2024 election loss for Trump that was due partially for his antics after his 2020 election loss. Trump didn't run in 2022.

I don't think I've ever read a post on this forum that's conveyed such threat

I do hope that you change your mind on political disagreements. I hope the Democrats, in particular, learn from their mistakes. The threat of learning is entirely in your own mind.

[Doomcookie]

Unelected officials frequently make decisions affecting entire government departments, if not the entire federal workforce. What do you think the civil service is, anyways? I just think the entire foundation of your post is faulty. The people endowed Trump with a temporary 4-year term as head of the federal executive, and he is responsible for delegating the duties and administration of his policies to people who will best put them into effect.

Just because you dislike somebody, whether Garland or Trump or Musk or Becerra, does not mean you may rob them of the ability to be appointed and assume delegated powers.

2020 gave Biden a shot to govern better, and he so failed to do a good job at it that the American people sent Trump back in despite everything in the first term and while out of office. I do also posit that Trump may have a similarly catastrophic failure to execute as President that Democrats can fix nothing and do nothing and still win simply off of their opponent's incompetence.

Who won and who lost the 2024 election? We can start there. Which party is out of power?

You do understand that paying for the refusal to acknowledge an election loss must happen after the loss? We didn't have a 2024 election loss for Trump that was due partially for his antics after his 2020 election loss. Trump didn't run in 2022.

I do hope that you change your mind on political disagreements. I hope the Democrats, in particular, learn from their mistakes. The threat of learning is entirely in your own mind.

Did you learn from your undying support of Trump?

I asked, but never got an answer.

[Edge-]

2020 gave Biden a shot to govern better, and he so failed to do a good job at it that the American people sent Trump back in despite everything in the first term and while out of office. I do also posit that Trump may have a similarly catastrophic failure to execute as President that Democrats can fix nothing and do nothing and still win simply off of their opponent's incompetence.

I see we're treating the American electorate as informed and not grossly ignorant, easily mislead, and extremely reactionary. All the crisis like...global inflation rofl.

The constant dishonesty while you wrap everything in polite language is annoying.

"similarly catastrophic failure"

my dude he's literally eviscerating the government from inside without any checks what the fuck are you talking about

[Polgara]

I see we're treating the American electorate as informed and not grossly ignorant, easily mislead, and extremely reactionary. All the crisis like...global inflation rofl.

The constant dishonesty while you wrap everything in polite language is annoying.

"similarly catastrophic failure"

my dude he's literally eviscerating the government from inside without any checks what the fuck are you talking about

"The people are smart that's why they voted for trump considering Biden's failures that they were well informed of before making their decision, but they'll fickly vote him out after 4 years because they are totally not fickle and stupid but informed of how catastrophic Trump will be".

Horribly reductive of me, but I genuinely don't read anything else in that garbled mess of a salad. The ability for the American people to be so educated, learned and invested in politics they made an educated decision to oust Biden because he failed to "govern better", for Trump even though they somehow knew Trump would be a catastrophic failure because they had his first term to deduce that.

It's an unscripted circus act, that involves the clown knocking himself out cold from the first cream pie that no one wanted to see.

[PhaelixWW]

Who won and who lost the 2024 election? We can start there. Which party is out of power?

Nobody's contesting the 2024 election results, are they? How many states are doing recounts? How many lawsuits have been filed over the results? How many times has Harris used social media to claim a rigged election?

[cordrann]

I'm already anticipating the great GoP cries of rigged elections after the 2026 midterms.

You are much more optimistic about how the next two years will go than I am. My expectation is we will see unprecedented voter suppression efforts in the elections going forward so the GoP will have no reason to dispute anything ever again.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Nobody's contesting the 2024 election results, are they? How many states are doing recounts? How many lawsuits have been filed over the results? How many times has Harris used social media to claim a rigged election?

That's what I want, investigations, questions asked, even potential lawsuits, but none of that is happening. Democrats rolled over and gave up completely.

Funny because when asked about whether or not Trump lost the 2020 election, every single Trump patsy gives a non-answer.

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You are much more optimistic about how the next two years will go than I am. My expectation is we will see unprecedented voter suppression efforts in the elections going forward so the GoP will have no reason to dispute anything ever again.

Yep, I get the feeling things are about to get a lot worse for the average American, and yet Republicans (Trump loyalists) will be getting larger and larger margins of victory in every election going forward.

How long do you think until Trump suspends or just plain ignores the constitution? Who would stop him, the executive forces (police, military) controlled by the president (Trump)? A Republican controlled legislature packed full of Trump loyalists? The judiciary who could feasibly indict him... but the people who carry out the sentencing are *Checks notes* ah yes, the executive.

It's insane people are even humoring this. It's like they learned nothing from the bs stories fabricated in 2020. It would be a massive fucking security risk if they ever made a voting machine that could be connected to the internet or any other outside devices. It's literally not a thing.

Just because you aren't on the side of facism doesn't make it ok to spew bullshit conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. This wasn't even a 2000 election where Bush won cause of a corrupt Florida state government who allowed the obstruction of the recount process. This is straight up Trump won. Sometimes the truth is sad, but it's still the truth.

I don't think "We would have heard about it" is a water tight defense for why a man who controls $500B in assets couldn't have rigged something, and not a single person in this thread doubting it has yet to address the ballots that ONLY voted for Trump with no down ballot votes cast, that appeared in unprecedented numbers but only for Trump and only in swing states.

[gondrin]

Unelected officials frequently make decisions affecting entire government departments, if not the entire federal workforce. What do you think the civil service is, anyways? I just think the entire foundation of your post is faulty. The people endowed Trump with a temporary 4-year term as head of the federal executive, and he is responsible for delegating the duties and administration of his policies to people who will best put them into effect.

Just because you dislike somebody, whether Garland or Trump or Musk or Becerra, does not mean you may rob them of the ability to be appointed and assume delegated powers.

The thing is, Musk has no actual authority. He has not been nominated to any actual government position. The office he runs is literally an advisory team. The fact that he is installing his own hardware that could easily be compromised means that any government can easily siphon, along with himself, every cent the US has.

[Edge-]

The thing is, Musk has no actual authority. He has not been nominated to any actual government position. The office he runs is literally an advisory team. The fact that he is installing his own hardware that could easily be compromised means that any government can easily siphon, along with himself, every cent the US has.

The lack of concern that all proper oversight and checks have been functionally fired or otherwise ignored is telling.

It's one thing for a president to pursue policies. It's another for them to do so with complete disregard for anything.

[PhaelixWW]

I don't think "We would have heard about it" is a water tight defense for why a man who controls $500B in assets couldn't have rigged something, and not a single person in this thread doubting it has yet to address the ballots that ONLY voted for Trump with no down ballot votes cast, that appeared in unprecedented numbers but only for Trump and only in swing states.

Okay, fine, where's your evidence of this?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

That's what I want, investigations, questions asked, even potential lawsuits, but none of that is happening. Democrats rolled over and gave up completely.

They didn't roll over. They lost. They accepted that loss and moved on. That's what adults do.

Are you really suggesting that Democrats should have done what Trump did?

I don't think "We would have heard about it" is a water tight defense for why a man who controls $500B in assets couldn't have rigged something

And I don't think "Rich man could have done something" is the kind of case anyone needs to build a water tight defense against.

and not a single person in this thread doubting it has yet to address the ballots that ONLY voted for Trump with no down ballot votes cast, that appeared in unprecedented numbers but only for Trump and only in swing states.

You're using the same logic that Trump did in 2020. There's no evidence that Trump and/or Musk did anything to rig the election...just like there was no evidence that Biden rigged it in 2020.

No one has to address anything. You have to provide some actual evidence. Until you do you're just another crackpot with a conspiracy theory.

[The Stormbringer]

In the sense that all party change general elections feel like a coup. Especially in the first week with all the fresh executive orders.

But mostly I think it's still the shock of a second election loss to Trump, mixed with deep misunderstandings of what happened during Trump's first term and Biden's interregnum. Some of this will be cured through education and debate over the next four years. The chaos probably won't go away.

You are what's wrong with this country, you and everyone like you. Leave us alone and go play nice with your fellow Nazi--sorry, I mean conservative buddies. Why are you even here? You already won, and our nation is being dismantled at your behest, just like you wanted. You have no more reason to muddy the waters with your intellectual dishonesty and intentional deceit. Go away.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Are you really suggesting that Democrats should have done what Trump did?

I suggested an investigation. Remind me again what Republicans did again?

[gondrin]

Anyone on the right that is making excuses for Musk getting access to basically trillions of dollars of payments, ask yourself this. If Biden were to put in, lets say, George Soros to do the same thing, would you be ok with it? Much like Musk, George Soros is a foreign national. I know I sure as the hell wouldn't be.

[Paetolus]

We already have a couple Constitutional Crises on our hands, and I'm not confident Congress or the SC will do anything about it.

So yes, it certainly feels like a coup. I think they're moving way too fast though, they aren't boiling the water slow enough for the frogs.

I guess their plan is to make voting meaningless as soon as they can, because Republicans must know they'll be screwed by the midterms at this rate.