[lmm]

> That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t.

There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to tip the knife-edge election.

> Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.

I don't think anyone seriously disputes that the civil service has a partisan imbalance. If (and it's a big if) the "deep state" were to cheat, it's pretty clear which side they would cheat for. Well before the results came out this time, it was widely reported that the Republicans had filed hundreds of lawsuits questioning various election irregularities and the Democrats... hadn't. So yeah, only one party doubts the integrity of the election (or, if you want to be more cynical, only one party cares whether it's being rigged, since both parties know which way any rigging is going). That's exactly what we'd expect, whether it's being rigged or not?

[nerdponx]

The assertion that the deep state skews Democrat is so preposterous it sounds like an SNL sketch. Imagine a bunch of G-men sitting around in a conference room with oat milk lattes while the Cigarette Smoking Man lays out plans for the next year Pride parade.

Also consider that maybe only Republicans filed suits because their presidential candidate lost.

But more direct to your point: No consequential voting irregularities were found, and this time around the Democrats arguably had an even stronger incentive to commit widespread voter fraud than before, while the current President is a Democrat, and yet somehow all the fraud from 2020 is now just gone. That stretches credibility, to say the least.

[lmm]

> The assertion that the deep state skews Democrat is so preposterous it sounds like an SNL sketch. Imagine a bunch of G-men sitting around in a conference room with oat milk lattes while the Cigarette Smoking Man lays out plans for the next year Pride parade.

The top LGBT-friendly employer these days is Raytheon. Even pre-Trump the Dems were the party of big government, unions, urbanity, education...; now they're also the party of military interventionism, the media, and really most of the establishment.

> Also consider that maybe only Republicans filed suits because their presidential candidate lost.

I'm talking in the run-up to this election before the outcome was known.

> No consequential voting irregularities were found

Now you're subtly narrowing the goalposts a whole lot. Voting irregularities, no (other than that ballot box getting set on fire, but I guess you're saying that's not "consequential"), but plenty of potential crime in the overall process (lists of names being added to the rolls at the last minute, that sort of thing). The legal challenges will likely be dropped, if they haven't already, because the Republicans won the election anyway, so what relief could they possibly ask a court to grant?

> the Democrats arguably had an even stronger incentive to commit widespread voter fraud than before, while the current President is a Democrat, and yet somehow all the fraud from 2020 is now just gone

Some of the alleged misdeeds of 2020 were only possible because the pandemic created an excuse - rapid expansion of postal voting in violation of the law and/or under "creative" executive orders was something that could happen in plain sight then, but would be rather harder to brush under the carpet now. But, again, a lot of the same allegations were being made in the run-up to this election - we're only not hearing so much about them because the Republicans won.

[nerdponx]

> The top LGBT-friendly employer these days is Raytheon.

The what? Slapping a pride flag on a jet engine isn't exactly a political bias, it's a marketing / reputation-washing gimmick.

> Even pre-Trump the Dems were the party of big government, unions, urbanity, education

"Even pre-Trump"? This goes back to the 1950s.

> now they're also the party of military interventionism, the media, and really most of the establishment.

You are implying that the Republican party is not also this. That implication is utter nonsense beyond what can be excused by ignorance.

> Now you're subtly narrowing the goalposts a whole lot. Voting irregularities, no (other than that ballot box getting set on fire, but I guess you're saying that's not "consequential"), but plenty of potential crime in the overall process (lists of names being added to the rolls at the last minute, that sort of thing). The legal challenges will likely be dropped, if they haven't already, because the Republicans won the election anyway, so what relief could they possibly ask a court to grant?

Voting or voter registration -- citation needed. Voter fraud is a criminal offense, the courts can do plenty.

> Some of the alleged misdeeds of 2020 were only possible because the pandemic created an excuse - rapid expansion of postal voting in violation of the law and/or under "creative" executive orders was something that could happen in plain sight then, but would be rather harder to brush under the carpet now. But, again, a lot of the same allegations were being made in the run-up to this election - we're only not hearing so much about them because the Republicans won.

You don't think the Democrats would love to make a stink about it if there was any hint of real irregularities? Or are you claiming that the irregularities only were irregular in the Democrats' favor, and that they lost in spite of committing widescale voter registration fraud?

[lmm]

> Slapping a pride flag on a jet engine isn't exactly a political bias, it's a marketing / reputation-washing gimmick.

Oat milk lattes and pride parades were your chosen example. Raytheon is there.

> You are implying that the Republican party is not also this.

In the Trump era they're not - the media/establishment has been firmly anti-Trump, and he's been loudly calling for scaling back overseas military activity.

> Voting or voter registration -- citation needed.

I mean the 70+ lawsuits are widely reported.

> Voter fraud is a criminal offense, the courts can do plenty.

Against an individual who voted fraudulently, if they can prove it was wilful and if they can even find the person, sure. Against an official who "forgot" to make a required check, or "accidentally" allowed someone to register past the deadline, or didn't manage to connect up a database that was supposed to be connected up? Very hard to prove anything, and hard to get past qualified immunity too.

> Or are you claiming that the irregularities only were irregular in the Democrats' favor, and that they lost in spite of committing widescale voter registration fraud?

No fraud of the sort that you'd find a smoking gun for - no-one directly lying, no orders to break the law in so many words. Just a bunch of procedural errors and mishaps, probably not even coordinated, that add up to nudge the vote a few tenths of a percentage point in one direction. Not enough to tip the balance when the margin is as big as it was this time around.

[toyg]

> I don't think anyone seriously disputes

... that the federal "deep state" doesn't matter, since elections are handled at the lowest level by state authorities - which are tightly controlled in red states, as much as in blue states (if not more, arguably), by the locally-dominant party. This is just how business has always been done in good ol' Murica.

Writing sweeping statements like the one you make, indicates that one lives in a partisan bubble.

[lmm]

> ... that the federal "deep state" doesn't matter, since elections are handled at the lowest level by state authorities - which are tightly controlled in red states, as much as in blue states (if not more, arguably), by the locally-dominant party.

The whole point of the "deep state" concept is that it's not controlled by the formal political structures at all - yes the state bureaucracy is nominally accountable to the elected executive, but in practice it's made up of humans who are unlikely to be 100% loyal to their boss or their organisation's stated mandate (and with the chain of command being pretty long, there's plenty of room for small disalignments to compound). Even in red states (and red counties), the offices of the state bureaucracy are, systematically, often in blue islands. It's got nothing to do with state vs federal, because it's the same kind of people who work in government jobs[1] either way.

[1] OK, "government office jobs" or something, yes the typical military employee is quite different from the kind of people I'm talking about. But you know what I mean.

[toyg]

> it's made up of humans who are unlikely to be 100% loyal to their boss

If true, that obviously cuts both ways.

But really I think you're just being paranoid and somehow biased against state employees - who are definitely not all "blue" by any stretch, particularly in red states. If you really think any low-level minion, or even middle-manager apparatchik, will risk their jobs by substantially fiddling numbers against the will of their boss, there is no argument that will ever cut through your ideological lenses.

[lmm]

> If true, that obviously cuts both ways.

It does, but ultimately it adds up to a drift towards what a typical government employee would want to do rather than what the elected representatives decided - and government employees are not a representative sample of voters.

> If you really think any low-level minion, or even middle-manager apparatchik, will risk their jobs by substantially fiddling numbers against the will of their boss

What's "substantial" though? There are a lot of things that are just a nudge at any given layer. Your boss tells you that there's some new bullshit requirement that says you have to check voter rolls against the juror database, but he doesn't sound particularly enthusiastic about it, and the department's already understaffed. So maybe you stick it on the pile, or you send an email to your subordinates late on Thursday afternoon, and maybe your boss never follows up on it and neither you do, and maybe the end result of that is that the checking never happens and your state's election laws are perhaps violated (and maybe some people who shouldn't have been able to vote got to do so), but even if the Reps win their lawsuit against your department the chance of anything getting pinned on you is essentially nil.

[toyg]

As you say yourself, those things are typically bullshit anyway (mostly targeted at disenfranchising minorities), and they're definitely not something that can substantially and continuously influence a presidential election in a single direction in a country of 400millions.

[lmm]

> As you say yourself, those things are typically bullshit anyway (mostly targeted at disenfranchising minorities)

Maybe, but I do think it's a worsening of partisanship - time was when the civil service felt a responsibility to remain strictly neutral and implement the policies of our elected leaders, right or wrong. Now people put their personal morals first and are less willing to implement a law they disagree with, and while there are good sides to that, it's also reducing trust in government services.

> they're definitely not something that can substantially and continuously influence a presidential election in a single direction in a country of 400millions.

Could they overwhelm a popular landslide? No. Could they nudge the vote enough to tip the balance in a knife-edge election? Perhaps.