Since evergreen doesn't want to engage, I will: I don't post on Bad Atlas very often but I lurk and I find this new take of yours to be very irritating because it's totally disingenuous. Considering that Trump is a fascist who has shown little regard for the Constitution, human rights and racial minorities, is it really a mystery that Democrats would want to delegitimize his election?
I'm not sure what "logic" or "reason" would dictate here. Am I supposed to say "ah yes, democracy worked as intended because the interests of the public were made clear at the ballot box,"? The public voted against me in a very personal manner and also voted for a scumbag who is a threat to democracy, liberalism, freedom, tolerance etc. This is what Trump hath wrought and he could mend these attitudes but you cannot run a campaign like he ran over the past two years and expect anyone to respect him. He has destroyed democratic mechanisms which were already crumbling and there's no turning back now. The Rubicon has been crossed and the goal is to resist this Fascist.
To be blunt, no, I don't particularly care whether or not the public legitimately or illegitimately elected a fascist to be President of the United States. Intellectually, the outcome appears to be legitimate to me but my reaction would be the same: do everything in my power to ensure that Trump fails and fails miserably in his quest to plunder, loot and pillage from the American people, and in his quest to turn America into a disturbing Apartheid state. "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice".
How does any of that mean my argument
disingenuous?
Even assuming that I was doing more than getting Evergreen to specify whether she actually thought it was a sham election, or is just arguing that it's OK to be disingenuous about the results for political purposes...how would that make my argument
disingenuous? Do you think my argument is somehow predicated on me feigning belief that Donald Trump isn't toxic to democratic institutions, and at heart an authoritarian bully jerk? Let me be clear: I absolutely think he is both of those things. If you think otherwise, you haven't been paying attention to my posts over the last few months.
What
is disingenuous is your apparent belief that my argument is based on "respecting" Trump, or opposing efforts to "resist" him, or that "extremism" is inherently wrong. I have never made any of those arguments. If you are addressing bad arguments that other people made -- I'm not going to defend those. The "let's give Trump a chance!" school of thought is pollyannaish idiocy. I
am prepared to argue that democratic institutions and pluralism aren't so utterly destroyed it's a good idea to subject chaotic attempts at power-plays and mass-lying. If you want to have a conversation about why we disagree about this, fine, but calling my argument "disingenuous" when you really just mean "I disagree" is...well...super disingenuous.
I don't totally get your "logic" and "reason" comments. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you're still annoyed from the time I argued that it wasn't sufficient to dismiss an argument or truth proposition just because it's often posed by people you feel are hostile to your personal identity or set of values. If that's the case, I think you're failing to see
why I think that's so important. It's not because I think logic and truth are some ultimate ideal, and we should blare socially problematic truths from loudspeakers because THE TRUTH!11. It's because I think tribalistic moralism can be
extremely goddamn dangerous, and is a big part of why the vast majority of human history has involved more homicide, suffering, and oppression than the current day. I'm willing to discuss why I believe that, but don't call my argument "disingenuous" on the presumption that I don't think about this stuff.
And, finally, if you were arguing it was disingenuous because I knew Evergreen doesn't
actually believe there was systemic tampering: apparently she does.
