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The "will to believe" is powerful, and it's not so much about whether the election was "stolen" as a desire to view the opposition as not only the opposition but as illegitimate. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1329024973055385600
In a 2017 poll "respondents who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election were especially convinced of Obama's African origins: Fully 57 percent said it was 'definitely true' or 'probably true' that the 44th president came from Kenya." https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republicans-kenya-744195
This is not limited to Republicans. Many Hillary Clinton supporters maintain Trump's 2016 win was fraudulent, making him an illegitimate president as well, and some of these people have lofty perches. Here's serial conspiracy fabulist Jane Mayer: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump
A YouGov poll found "Two out of three Democrats also claim Russia *tampered with vote tallies* on Election Day to help the President – something for which there has been no credible evidence." [Emphasis mine] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/09/russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes
Election fraud and foreign interference in our elections are not new. What is new is seeing them as rampant, coordinated, and effective when, of anything, they're less common, more random, and less effective than in the past. It's not their objective impact that matters.
They're straws each side grasps at in order to have a reason to refuse to believe the opposition is legitimate. By my way of thinking, it's not a belief in nonexistent voter fraud creating a crisis of legitimacy, but a crisis of legitimacy promoting a belief in phantom fraud.
The real question is: Why are Republicans and Democrats so intent on believing the other is not just wrong but illegitimate? People blame social media and partisan media bubbles, but are those really any worse than when we had an up-front partisan press pre-WWII?
The post-WWII "consensus" was an aberration in American history, not the norm. My suspicion is the belief that that aberration *is* the norm has driven people crazy now that it's been taken away. People will eventually readjust, but in the meantime, a lot of them are going
to freak out and see lies, conspiracies, and illegitimacy everywhere -- except when they win; then the system is just fine. (How does one square the circle of cheating Trump out of the presidency but letting the GOP keep the Senate? How many epicycles can you still on your
model of the solar system before you think, "Hey, maybe plants don't revolve in perfect circles"?) Well, Trump will probably buy BlazeTV or another one of the sycophantic channels that started up in the hope he'd buy them out. So, things are going to get dumber.
*planets
Also, a couple of other typos above, because instead of an edit feature, we have fleets.
Also, a couple of other typos above, because instead of an edit feature, we have fleets.
