Trump has Freudian slip on Hannity admitting he lost the election

It is quite interesting, however, that Trump received the most votes of any incumbent in American history and Biden got more votes than ever recorded in American history. I'm not about to pull at the string of the validity of the election but those numbers are staggering! I'm sure you'd agree.

Funny meme!

Given historical presidental election data, I don't find it unusual at all. In 2020, there was almost 9M more eligible voters than in 2016 (239,247,182 to 230,931,921) and of those, 66.7% of them turned out to vote - the highest percentage in over 100 years - compared to 59.2% in 2016.

The only thing that truly surprised me was the extent of additional voters Trump picked up in 2020 given that he was so massively disliked. Then again, Bush II gained almost 12M more votes in 2004 than he did from 2000 so it's not exactly unpredented.

It kind of gives one hope that the uptick of registered voters will continue and that everyone will begin to take more of an interest in the democratic process. I hope we can get away from the popularity contest aspect of the presidential election and have everyone voting on policy... but that requires effort that most are not prepared to put in. Maybe that's an evolution too far for the time being.

Thank you for your response, by the way. It's nice being able to calmly discuss something and having claims supported by facts and figures.

I'm curious as to your opinion on voter rights, voter registration and requiring identification to cast a ballot. Where do you stand on those points?

I'm totally with you that policy not personality should be the guiding factor when it comes to voting.

I have concerns about what will happen in the mid terms given that the House often (but not always) flips to the minority party and there's also going to be some senate seats up for grabs. The Dems can't afford to lose their majority in either as the GOP will make it next to impossible to achieve anything. They've already proven how obstructionist they're willing to be in preventing Dems from passing even good legislation, so I know it will only get worse should they regain power in either.

With respect to voter rights, I strongly believe voting should be made as easy as possible for everyone, so I'm in favor of advanced polls, mail in ballots, plenty of polling stations and drop boxes, extended hours, etc. Some of the things that were implimented last year due to Covid - like drive-thru voting - aren't really necessary in future elections but most everything else is.

When it comes to registering to vote, I've only ever had to do that once after becoming legal age. From there, most records are automatically updated by the government whenever one moves due to submitting a change of address on one's driver's license or the filing of income tax. Not quite what the process is for anyone that doesn't possess a license or have never filed taxes though.

I don't think having to show ID when one votes in person is an unreasonable expectation. It's the norm where I live but accomodations are also made for those who don't possess a driver's license, passport, or any other government issued picture ID. In those cases, people are asked to produce two pieces of ID with their name on it, such as health care cards, bank cards, etc, plus one recent bill or bank statement that shows their address. I don't see why that can't be implemented everywhere, especially in those communities with large minority populations, many of which possess no picture ID at all.

Absolutely... policy and actions are what count. I tire of this cult of personality trend our nation seems to be on... that includes things like news media, movies, television, music... you name it. It seems so sad that folks are more preoccupied with what some "famous" person last had for breakfast than their own lives.

Red or blue, it's largely the same to me... and, let's be fair, both are equally as obstructionist when it comes to gaining/retaining their power... it sickens me. Insofar as the House goes, I'm no fan of CRT and the current insanity being spouted by the most progressive folks in government, so I won't cry if they loose their seats. However, whoever ends up sitting those desks better do what's best for the country... not their personal ideology or what makes them popular. That's the difference between a leader and a grifter... the ability to do what's right even at the cost of their position. Sadly, too few have it in them to do it.

I largely agree with what you wrote about voting. My only sticking point is the final sentence. I've never had an issue getting an ID nor did anyone in my family and I can't remember anyone in my neighborhood that did either. I don't understand where the notion that minorities can't get IDs came from but I do find it to be mildly insulting (which is not to say I'm taking offense)... as if we somehow lack the ability or mental fortitude to head down to a DMV or somewhere similar. Caveats to the rule are needed to account for those that don't fall neatly into this or that category but caveats should be what they are... rare exceptions to enfranchise as many American citizens as possible. In the end, however, only American citizens should be allowed to vote in American elections.

I've enjoyed our conversations and look forward to running into you again in other comment sections. I hope you keep posting memes and look forward to your next one. :D

I fully agree with everything you stated.

The last sentence is based on multiple reports I've read which showed a high percentage of minority individuals across the country don't possess picture ID for multiple reasons. That came as a surprise when I first learned about it but apparently it's true based on various studies.

Here's a few links you can read it about it...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/voter-id-laws-why-do-minorities-lack-id-to-show-at-the-polls.html

https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id

https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet

Here's some excerpts from the ACLU link but every report basically says the same thing..

"Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states find acceptable for voting. These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card."
...

"Minority voters disproportionately lack ID. Nationally, up to 25% of African-American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites."

I had some time so I dived into the rabbit hole of links you provided which was fairly standard for most "news" reporting today. I discounted both the Slate and NPR articles that merely alluded to some study conducted at some point somewhere or offered strictly anecdotal evidence and concentrated on the ACLU link which actually sited their sources.

In it, they site a survey conducted in 2006 by the Brennan Center whose sample size for the survey was below 1000 (pitifully low if one wishes to apply it to a population of a third of a billion) and, although they said it was random, they also said they specifically targeted "under-represented" folks due to race. They also make the allowance that these racially under-represented folks could simply not have access to proper documentation to prove their citizenship. Furthermore, and this is important, they use weasel words like 'many', 'some', 'likely' that re not quantifiable and easy to manipulate. Here's a quote:

"Although the results of this survey were weighted to account for underrepresentation of race, they were not weighted to account for a likely skew toward higher-income households. Because the survey found that low-income households were less likely to have documentary proof of citizenship or photo ID, it is therefore likely that the survey results actually underestimate the total number of American citizens who do not have readily available documentation."

The only other actual study germane to racial minorities having difficulties obtaining an ID was from the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard
Law School. While the bias should be clear from the institute's name, the study was refreshingly complete... though the argument wasn't that racial minorities couldn't obtain an ID. Instead, the paper detailed the cost of an ID in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas before coming to the conclusion that "free" voter ID didn't exist. A savvy - and ultimately dishonest - person could then posit that racial minorities are poor and, therefore, cannot obtain an ID... which was an argument in the Slate article you linked... because Slate are hacks.

All that said, I'm not discounting that obtaining proper identification isn't free or even something anyone even enjoys doing. My argument is that, the system treats everyone the same and treating a certain demographic differently due to race is... well... racist.

I did, however, enjoy reading the data sets available.

The NPR and Slate articles were both from 2012, and while I agree they are standard fare news reporting, the ACLU does however tend to track such issues on an ongoing basis and I believe it was from 2017.

There were two other articles I initially was going to provide but didn't want to inundate you with links. One's from the Brennan Centre for Justice published in 2011, which basically states the same thing and references many studies conducted in prior years (some of the links no longer work) and the other's a 2018 article out of Texas. It too makes the same claim.

Here's the links if you want to review them...

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-misinformation-photo-id

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2018/01/10/261048/researchers-find-african-americans-are-less-likely-than-other-texans-to-have-photo-id/

With all the new voting bills be pushed in states around the country post the election, I'm sure we'll be seeing a plethora of new studies, articles and reports in coming months.

While I agree the system should treat everyone the same, yet it's a known fact that millions of eligble voters - be it young people, elderly people or minorities - do not possess "valid" picture ID for one reason or another, then that has to be taken into consideration and accomodated somehow so they aren't disenfranchised. I don't really consider that as granting special privileges to certain demographics. Rather, I see it more as facing up to reality.

... I'm no fan of censorship... but making direct threats of violence is not only unhelpful, it's quite illegal. You may consider want to consider deleting this one JK404.

Unlike Trump, most elementary school children know when it's appropriate to round up or down and are able to admit to being legitimately challenged and/or defeated by others rather than carry on with pretenses designed to protect their own fragile ego.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/17/donald-trump-fox-news-sean-hannity-didnt-win-election-joe-biden