I'm not sure if this counts, but before the election I thought there was a chance that mass-harvested mail-in ballots could be a factor, and given that I also believe that these types of schemes would be more likely to succeed in urban/high population density areas, that it would tend to benefit the Democratic party more. An important corollary to this is that I believed neither party is above cheating in the same way the ocean is not above the sky - they would both try it if they could, but only the D's were in a position to do this effectively. I believe that mass harvesting did not occur, based on the negative evidence that if it had, MAGA sleuths would have found evidence of it by now. So, the most important thing I have had to change my mind on, is that I no longer believe the Democratic party has a sizeable minority of people in it who would organize vote-stealing schemes in Federal elections, even if they claim to think the election is vitally important to the existence of life on Earth. If they didn't or couldn't do it in 2020, I doubt they will in the next 20 years or so. So I guess I've had to reject an easy cynicism and think better of (at least some of) my fellow citizens, and let me tell you, I don't like it one bit.
For what it's worth, I also don't believe that "mass harvesting" occured (this is an ambiguous term because ballot harvesting is actually perfectly legal in many states) but not because anyone's conscience got the better of them. The more realistic explanation is that the bigger the electoral scheme is, the more likely you are to get caught, and that carries stiff penalties. There's plenty of examples of people receiving 1-5 years in prison just on account of ONE fraudulent vote.
My position is that unless these concerns were pre-registered ahead of the outcome, I do not believe they are genuine. The Pennsylvania rule changes is an excellent example of this because the legislation was passed in 2019 by a GOP legislature/governor, and nobody said a peep about it until after the state became important in the election outcome. Suddenly they came out of the woodwork claiming the law was unconstitutional or whatever.
It's almost a pitch-perfect example of the motte-and-bailey fallacy, oscillating between "Italian satellites changed the voting tally" baileys and then retreating into "All we meant was that the rules were unfair" motte. My suspicion (based on everything I've read/written on the subject) is that this shift in narrative was a face-shaving rationalization once the fraud theories got too embarrassing to shoulder any further.
I'm not sure if this counts, but before the election I thought there was a chance that mass-harvested mail-in ballots could be a factor, and given that I also believe that these types of schemes would be more likely to succeed in urban/high population density areas, that it would tend to benefit the Democratic party more. An important corollary to this is that I believed neither party is above cheating in the same way the ocean is not above the sky - they would both try it if they could, but only the D's were in a position to do this effectively. I believe that mass harvesting did not occur, based on the negative evidence that if it had, MAGA sleuths would have found evidence of it by now. So, the most important thing I have had to change my mind on, is that I no longer believe the Democratic party has a sizeable minority of people in it who would organize vote-stealing schemes in Federal elections, even if they claim to think the election is vitally important to the existence of life on Earth. If they didn't or couldn't do it in 2020, I doubt they will in the next 20 years or so. So I guess I've had to reject an easy cynicism and think better of (at least some of) my fellow citizens, and let me tell you, I don't like it one bit.
For what it's worth, I also don't believe that "mass harvesting" occured (this is an ambiguous term because ballot harvesting is actually perfectly legal in many states) but not because anyone's conscience got the better of them. The more realistic explanation is that the bigger the electoral scheme is, the more likely you are to get caught, and that carries stiff penalties. There's plenty of examples of people receiving 1-5 years in prison just on account of ONE fraudulent vote.
My position is that unless these concerns were pre-registered ahead of the outcome, I do not believe they are genuine. The Pennsylvania rule changes is an excellent example of this because the legislation was passed in 2019 by a GOP legislature/governor, and nobody said a peep about it until after the state became important in the election outcome. Suddenly they came out of the woodwork claiming the law was unconstitutional or whatever.
It's almost a pitch-perfect example of the motte-and-bailey fallacy, oscillating between "Italian satellites changed the voting tally" baileys and then retreating into "All we meant was that the rules were unfair" motte. My suspicion (based on everything I've read/written on the subject) is that this shift in narrative was a face-shaving rationalization once the fraud theories got too embarrassing to shoulder any further.
Same. It's important to be able to discern when a given justification is pretextual, which was part of the reason I wrote my post on felons voting: https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/selfish-reasons-to-let-felons-vote