But what if the game is not played according to Hoyle?
What if a player or contingent takes advantage of the rules themselves to achieve a goal other than balance? What if put-upon Dad, for example, says, “I know which Young Traveller is today’s Designated Criminal, but Samantha has just done something so egregious that I am going to suspend the rules and humiliate her”.
Readers will feel the affront of the interjection. As will not only young Samantha, but the whole family. For they had agreed to suspend their individual feelings in favour of group unity. And Dad has just proclaimed that they were fools to do so — that they had made a bargain which, it seems, the car’s driver reserved the right to abrogate, and, thus, that anyone may be the next-accused.
Now, the once-happy car, all occupants free to enjoy not only the trip but the game, are forced into co-dependence. The game is over, and the Ref (of whose existence the car was previously unaware) has ruled that actual indictment of the other is now the order of the day and those not supporting the new rule will suffer. The enjoyment of Free Speech has been superseded by the necessity of obedience to power. The car has just experienced Terror.
The occupants, now, do not know what the new rules are, but only that they, having been changed once, may continue to be changed at will, by those possessing or bidding for power. Now, rather than the joy of improvisation (of the communal comedy), the rule of silence, obedience and denunciation is in force.
This is the state of the sick, co-dependant family. Here it is not that some things may be false, but that all things must be false. For if the subordinate members do not know what is and what is not permitted, they must devote themselves, in preference to any productive activity, to protection from power.
Far worse than the frowns of the car which does not know The Designated Criminal we now have the false smiles and the sad head shakings of the sick family, which is to say, of the Left.
When we know that it’s our turn on the electoral ducking stool tomorrow, we, when in power, may moderate our behaviour. In a crumbling Democracy, the power-mad, like Dad taking the reins, have come to the Dictator’s realisation. That is, “Wait a second. All I have to do is rig it so I can hold my seat indefinitely”. This, of course, is the aperçu of most every politician from dogcatcher to President, down through time. (George III said of Washington that if he chose to relinquish the Presidency he would be the greatest man who ever lived.)
***
One cannot credit the Politicians of the Left with even the delusion that they are Doing Good. And, if they do, then what? They did not take an oath to do good, but to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
Must they come to bend and break the rules in favour of 1) their good ideas, 2) the necessity of staying in office, 3) theft? Of course. That’s why we have elections. To roll the dice. The co-dependant, terrified society comes to think that, having achieved the perfection of leadership, it’s a grand idea to call it quits, abolish the electoral college, mail ballots to everyone on earth, require no voter identification, import new voters, and so on.
Just as the inspired politicians see that perpetual hegemony might be had by mere suspension of their Oath; their dupes, the electorate, learn to suspend their reason, and substitute hatred of the indicted for their new-found fear of power — a fear so powerful it must be relegated to the unconscious.
Just like the children in the car.
When Dad trashes the rules he changes the whole point of the exercise. The building of family happiness and unity (which, we assume, was, after all, the whole purpose of the trip) becomes an indoctrination; and, the child sees, safety must now be his primary concern. He may keep silent, or join in the condemnation of Little Trevor, but should he object, “what about the Game?” he is, most certainly, now the new Criminal.
Our electorate is split into the affronted Right and the supine Left. Those who wish to preserve our Constitutional Republic, its rules, and the culture from which they spring, are indicted by those in momentary power (both political and asserted) ad-lib.
There is no merit in supporting various contemporary blasphemies (“Birthing Parent”, and so on). Unless they are untrue. The merit comes from the affiant’s vocal sacrifice of his reason, and, so, of his self-respect, in support of The Cause.
This is the contemporary terror. Not that we’re faced with the enormities, the crimes, delusions, and lies of a Politician (when were we not?), but that we are now frightened of whomever was screaming last.
From “New Business Item 39” posted on the National Education Association’s website on July 5, 2021: “The N.E.A. will provide an already-created, in-depth study that criticises empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeniety, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarcy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of oppression at the intersections of society.”
This is the country’s largest Teachers Union. What do these words mean? That the teachers will be put in charge of criticising. Whom? Whomever the N.E.A. designates.
And how might one, however convinced, ensure that he will not transgress the rules? There are no rules, for the categories are infinitely expansible. (Larry Elder, an African American running for Governor of California, and a lifelong champion of America and of his race, was called “the Black Face of White Supremacy,” L.A. Times, August 20, 2021.) And what in the world are “the intersections of society”?
In Woody Allen’s film Sleeper (1973) he is transported to the future. There he learns that the world he knew came to grief in 1989. He asks how and is told: “A man called Albert Shanker got his hands on a nuclear warhead.” Albert Shanker was the head of the United Foundation of Teachers, and then the American Federation of Teachers.
This may be the rock on which the Left comes to grief: the insistence on infecting one’s children with hatred. Young parents four generations away from The New Deal are insisting that they will not abandon their children to the blasphemies of the N.E.A. and its servitors, the Democratic Party. They are finding that there is a mechanism created to protect them from a despotic government, and that it is The Constitution and the organisations derived therefrom.
It is not incumbent on us Jews to prove we do not drink the blood of Christian Children, nor of white American citizens to apologise, nor of citizens to assert their loyalty to various confederations of thugs, and shriek heresies and treason or risk blacklisting as “of insufficient zeal”.
What does it mean to be “cancelled”?
It seems to mean that some group asserting power has mobilised its forces in social media and that their indictments have, in turn, been echoed and endorsed by multitudes. But we all know, or should know, that the controllers of the algorithms are constantly aware of and manipulate our prejudices through their presentation of that called information.
Fear of the heretic is spread through social media, but who knows, and how could one know, that the numbers and the tweets are real? One cannot. They are pixels on a screen which stampede the fearful into actual action against the indicted.
Would the controllers of the blogosphere stoop to such subterfuge as cooking the numbers? They limit access to their outlets ad lib, banning any person or idea they do not endorse. Why would they not also warp the number or content of the blogs to suit or, indeed, confect them? (I worked, for a year, as a Contributing Editor (utility man) at a very prominent national publication. One of my duties was Letters to the Editor. This involved not only answering but writing them. I assume the practice was universal and that it continues in the new media.)
I live in a liberal neighbourhood outside of Los Angeles. The residents here are miserable. Traditionally it was Not Done to acknowledge each other’s presence on the streets. A “good morning” uttered to a fellow dogwalker was considered as if one had exposed oneself. (This latter, in fact, now accepted as a permitted practice of the Homeless.)
Since Covid, the masked or the unmasked cross the street to avoid each other, glaring. Signs on the homes proclaim that Love Is Love, but the residents hate and fear each other. Nancy Mitford wrote of the Liberals, “they are all so unhappy, and all of their plans fail so miserably.”
I was elected a non-person by the Left many years ago. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s costly and sad to see the happy fields in which I played all those decades — Broadway, book publishing, TV and film — fold up and Hail Caesar, but there it is.
The question for the young is: what kind of country do you want for your children? The question for the aged (myself) is: “what did you do in the War, Daddy?”
I’ve been involved for near 50 years in dealing with folks in the mass. It was not a social experiment for me, but a game: The Theatre. I learned very young that the correct study of the dramatist was neither his own feelings, nor those of the actors, but the attention of the audience. I understood that it was not my job to teach them anything, nor to induce a feeling in them, but to perform a sort of magic trick — to understand their behaviour in order to control their concentration. Why? In order to give them a treat. Just like a magician.
I sat with them night by night and year by year, and it was a joy to feel their conjoined attention, and to learn from it and its absence how to improve the play. As Billy Wilder said, “individually, they’re idiots, but together they’re a genius”.
The horror of the last year’s slide into despotism has showed me the reverse of the medal.
Watching the good play, the audience suspends its reason in order to be entertained — at Hamlet, as much and identically with watching a woman be sawed in half. The audience enjoys the trick while knowing, and because they know she is not going to be harmed. Just as they know Hamlet’s Dad is not coming back from the dead.
But just as the techniques of stage magic are identical with those of the confidence game, the understanding of the dramatist — that the mass can be suggested, and, so controlled —is the same as that of the Dictator. Here fear replaces happy anticipation; and, as we see, outrage at the indicted masks an unavowable fear.
The children in the car must immediately come to support the new regime or risk abandonment. The protection it offers is illusory (as who knows who will be next), but the illusion, to them, is preferable to knowledge of their powerlessness.
In the mass the alternative to submission is blacklisting, poverty, censure, et cetera. Finally, this is the same alternative offered to the children. They may court protection from fear only by remaining submissive. Just like the Electorate.
© David Mamet 2021
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SubscribeWhen I was a student thespian many years ago I did a couple of David Mamet things. He was incredibly clever and astute then – seems like he still is. I very much enjoyed this.
You can agree with the idea that the USA is sliding (or has already slid) into tyranny. But when did this start?
Biden? Yes the argument holds. Trump? Appealed to the masses. Obama? Many Presidential edicts. G W Bush? Iraq. Clinton? George H W Bush? Ronald Regan? The incidence of tyranny weakens the further back you go, but the thread runs true. Basically as soon as the incumbent President ‘gets around’ an unhelpful balance of powers the democratic rot starts.
And now radicals within the general public have learned the lesson. Laws don’t apply if they don’t help your cause.
I’ve long suspected that religious instincts are as much biological as theological; and when, for reasons of cultural fashion, established religions fall out of favour, that instinct will manifest itself in secular religions. Hence why so much of today’s so-called discourse / polity is relentlessly intolerant.
cisheteropatriarcy Huh? Since this came after Patriarchy in the list of transgressions, as a refinement, it must mean there’s a transhomopatriarchy, a cishomopatriarchy and a transhetropatriarcy.
I’ll send the NEA a letter.
Fantastic, thought-provoking article.
The only thing I can add is that societies, unlike the family in the car, can reset to a point before Dad said the Bad Thing. Each new generation grows to adulthood without the cynicism and sense of innocence corrupted that weighs down their fathers – so there is always a chance of something better.
Also – Mamet’s “Oleanna” predicted cancel culture decades before it was a force. It’s an extraordinary, wonderful, terrifying work.
Brilliant and thought provoking article.
Now how can this game be made to work for better government?
Shurely “work better for the people”?
Good article yet somehow more disjointed and thus less easy to read than something by, say, Peter Franklin or Tom Chivers. This is odd considering David Mamet is such an experienced writer. I can only assume that writing good plays and writing good columns require slightly different approaches.
I am constantly on the look-out for articles to send to people I know who are on the edge of falling out of the acceptable narrative. I cannot decide if this extended car metaphor will go down well. The first half of the article is well pitched and illustrative of your point, I’m not sure the second half lands.
The photo at the top of the article almost turned me off reading it. It looked like the photo of yet another an article about race and the rate of incarceration. But when I saw the author’s name I decided to start reading. Then as I was slogging through his lengthy description of a hypothetical unhappy and dysfunctional family I almost gave up again, as I could not see how this long writing had any relevance to me, but again, because of the author’s name, I skipped to near the end to see what the ultimate point — if any — was. It was only then that I realized that there was a point, and scrolled up to read more.
I wonder how many potential readers were lost by the top photo and the opening part of the article.
‘..a lifelong champion..of his race..’ – which one is that? I think Mr Mamet may find that there is only one: the human race.
I do mourn past participles from British English but I suppose in the grander scheme of things of whether someone is sawed or sawn, it’s a moot point if the author is American [sigh].
As I was taught at school – the magician sawed her and she was sawn..
While I agree that there is essentially only one race, though quite a few breeds, like horses, I can imagine why the British might feel that saying “sawed” sounds rude.
I don’t think it sounds rude, and when used as the past tense there is no problem, its just a problem when it’s used as a participle when it is not a particple.
This is an interesting article, but I wonder why Mamet coined the term “designated criminal” when the already known terms “scapegoat” or “identified patient” may have sufficed?
To me, ‘scapegoat’ has a strong moral or religious connotation; whereas ‘designated criminal’ has a clearly legal connotation. This, in my mind, connects with the trend in US politics to cast one’s political adversaries as criminals and turn all political contests into legal contests (Watergate, impeachments, endless investigative hearings in Congress and Senate, special prosecutors, etc). Of course, this could just be my imagination in overdrive 🙂
Patsy?
A brilliant piece of writing. And all too true.
A very thought-provoking article.
Terrific playwright, turgid polemicist. Ex the tortured metaphor the whole thing could have been reduced to a couple of paragraphs.
How is this different from any other anti-change whinge?
What is Mamet saying should be done to resist Woke, and what’s he saying should be done to bring about his preferred culture model?
Isn’t it “co dependent” not “co dependant”?
Very good writing. The Family Road Trip is an irresistible hook! And implies analogous references to Ship of Fools etc. In my life so far, we Americans have gone from the era of Starship America to twigging that we’re in actuality on The Raft of the Medusa. Repel all boarders!
The designated criminal is a great idea but stretching it to the body politic doesn’t really work.
Really? I think it does. Isn’t the designated criminal the ‘racist’, the ‘transphobe’, the ‘white supremacist’ and on and on and on? It’s all of us if we are unlucky to be designated as such. For example, should the NEA’s platform be universally incorporated into every public school everyone involved in the system is a potential criminal. What is the crime? The list of potential offenses in their declaration. Likewise, should it be agreed upon as some sort of enlightened national code of conduct (as some already insist it should be) who is not a potential criminal? We all are if we utter the wrong statement and run afoul of ‘Dad’.
I really enjoyed reading that, thank you.
“In the mass the alternative to submission is blacklisting, poverty, censure, et cetera”
As the two million unvaccinated in Austria have just discovered…others will follow. My guess is France next.
Bravo! It’s a rich and sometimes electric experience reading Mamet—clarity with complexity and poetry and sizzle.
Huh?
What did you say?
I swear, this is the LAST ‘click bait’ article that I am going to read on UnHerd.. but then again, I said that last time..
Obviously, the busy body journalist tactics are working for them.
So, at least something works!
Thought-provoking article. I share most of his concerns, and agree how important it is to jointly back up the system (game) that keeps power rotating and everybody on board the same show. But there seems to be a few things missing in his story. How would he see people who use a systematic strategy of making it harder for their opponents to do their voting as their main strategy for staying in power? Or who decide, based on no evidence, that they really won the election, even when they clearly have fewer recorded votes in both the population and the electoral college?
Has mr Mamet considered whether he has any beams in his own eye?
Notwithstanding the somewhat bizarre and/or patronising suggestion that a subset of specifically Democrat voters struggle with basic citizenship procedures, I view the actions you mention as those of the political party labelled Republican rather than of the Jeffersonian principles loosely espoused by the author.
Apart from general principles, the author has some quite specific attacks on the Left and its policies. If he is not similarly considering the policies of the Right, it is not because he is sticking to principles. Could he have a blind spot?
As for ‘basic citizenship procedures’, Republican efforts seem uniformly to try to make voting more difficult, and include at least one measure that makes it illegal to provide food and water to people queueing up to vote. Which basic citizenship procedure are we talking about here?
Which policies of the Left would Mamet be attacking? It seems that he is observing how political ends have long outweighed the political means. In my view, it is overwhelmingly the Left who pay lip-service to the political framework and consistently try to game the system. As the entire piece compares the history of the political process to a rotating chair, I would aver that he is neither ignorant nor dismissive of the pendulum pattern and it’s consequences.
In what way is it being “illegal to provide food and water to people queueing up to vote” discriminatory or suppressive? The putative ID laws feel long long overdue to me. I still maintain that it is unsupportable to assert that such of these measures that I am aware of are in any way either difficult to comply with or unjust.
Which policies is he attacking? Imposition of ideological taboos on race and gender (“Birthing Parent” etc.), woke orthodoxy, cancel culture. I share all his criticisms by the way, but it is specifically an attack on the Left. In my view, both sides are gaming the system – I do not know enough to say who does it more – in part because neither side fully accepts that it can be legitimate if the others win. I would argue that the shenanigans around when to put forward candidates for the Supreme Court, the continued threats to shut down the government via the debt ceiling, and the unsuported claim that the election was stolen, are things that do not belong in a healthy system (as, of course, are ‘Sanctuary cities’). And I think you have a moral obligation to at least face up to the negative consequences of the policies of your own side, and the times when they, too, are trying to game the system. It is too easy – and dishonest – to ignore the failings of your own side and just attack the others. Which is what Mamet, and you, seem to be doing.
For the rest, mail voting is a known weak point in electoral systems, and ID laws have at least a theoretical justification – whether either is a real problem in the US today is debatable, but they are valid points. But reducing opening hours, removing drop boxes, making registration harder, making it more cumbersome to queue – what is the purpose of that if not to reduce the number of people who vote? And what can you say of a political party that tries to reduce the number of voters – except that they clearly think they can improve their chances by excluding more enemy voters than friendly ones?
Rasmus, I presume you are aware that the voting requirements of Delaware, President Biden’s home state, are far more restrictive than the new requirements in Georgia. You currently must show an official id and proof of vaccination to eat in a restaurant in many states. Yet the Democrats oppose the requirement of a government issued id to vote. Do all these people who supposedly do not have ids not eat? Just asking.
Zuckerberg spent billions of dollars to “fortify” the 2020 US elections. One thing he did was to donate money directly to the local election officials to get out the vote. The bulk of the money went to blue areas, such as where I live in Philadelphia, with a pittance going to areas that were more likely to vote red. This is legal, amazingly. So Pennsylvania, a hotly-contested, key state, had money given by a billionaire to government officials to encourage the Democrat voters to vote.
I can’t agree with withholding food and water from people in a queue! I can agree with having appropriate ID, that seems a no-brainer to me.
The likely reason it is mostly the Left which tries to game the system is the progressivist roots on which it feeds – where notions of truth are more constructed.
As opposed to the classical liberal premises of ‘perceived and proven timeless principles’, such premises on which conservative parties insist their raison d’etre is founded.
But have long strayed from in their own versions of that practised, by both Left and Right, which is the game of bribing key voter segments with other people’s money
But Mamet is right in his charge that the tacitly agreed game of rotating or oscillating Blame Carrier, including the built-in incentives for the aforementioned voter bribery, has been dangerously fractured by abandoning a plurality which accepts that differences aside, we’re all in this together as accepted, common citizens.
And instead aggressively pushing in plurality’s place, an ecclesiastical style of those Included, who may participate and direct, and the Excluded, who by vitrue of designated category, must be stripped of their social licence to participate
It is a good thing to make voting more difficult for the ineligible. It is also quite revealing that the Democrats are so opposed to this
A lot of the measures are making it more difficult for eligible and ineligible both. To justify them you need to show that ineligible voters are a real problem, and that the impact on the eligible is proportionate to the effect you claim to want. If you have convincing proof of that, all you have to do is present it – but I, for one, have not seen it yet. Failing that, it looks uncomfortably like one party trying to suppress the vote of the competition and that the talk of ineligible voters is mostly just a pretext.
Republicans are making it difficult to cheat, you mean.
Allison, thank you for the most sensible 9 words on the issue.
If he is, it is possibly because the Left is overwhelmingly culturally and institutionally dominant in the United Sates, and, for the time being, politically dominant as well. I am always being attacked on here for criticising Trump, but his breaking the rules, if such it was, and even the ‘insurrection’ failed and ended up weakening the Right.
Postal voting is far too open to fraud, as has been shown here and in the US. The need for ID seems to me absolutely obvious. If the Republicans are using other methods to make it difficult for some groups of voters per se, then I’d be opposed to that.
As to “Republican efforts” you are inadequately informed. I speak to the voters in line issue: Food and drink can be given to the voting site personnel, to be distributed. When private parties were allowed to do that, they were known to slip in a bit of bribery and corruption. Nothing wrong with protecting the integrity of the vote, albeit in a minor way. Nor any sanity in practices which demand a talismanic piece of paper around a dubious “vaccination”, and yet demand no identification to cast a vote … Mamet is right in his assessments, although he does communicate in a leisurely parable.
Historically, western democracies have tried to guard against the practice of entreating of voters. We roll our eyes up when reading of favours handed to queues of voters by the dominant party, say in African or other countries with shorter democratic histories.
However entreating tries to turn up everywhere all the time because of the political incentives to entreat.
It’s surely vital to resist entreating, both by maintaining a consensus
for voter respect and acceptance of voting outcomes, as well as rules guarding the integrity of the voting system
The ultimate privilege and power of citizens to ‘throw the bums out’ every few years without bloodshed, is an absolute necessity.
The history of liberal democratic governance is too short for to yet become normalised as a deep cultural meme we collectively reflex to. Maybe it never will and freedom is forever tenuous, as others have taught us
OK, that was useful information. I would have concluded that there was nothing here for Europeans to debate about after all – were it not that the ‘food and drink’ issue was just one of a multitude of ‘make it harder to vote’ initiatives.
The Georgia law didn’t make it illegal to provide food and water to people “in line” to vote. Electioneering (partisan activity on election day within close proximity to the polling place) is prohibited in every state.
Georgia amended their existing statute against electioneering by adding food and water to the list of prohibited activities. Self-serve water stations would not be affected—only activity by partisans within a certain radius. Here’s the statute, I’ve underlined the new language:
Said chapter is further amended by revising subsections (a) and (e) of Code Section 21-2-414, relating to restrictions on campaign activities and public opinion polling within the vicinity of a polling place, cellular phone use prohibited, prohibition of candidates from entering certain polling places, and penalty, as follows: “(a) No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector, nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition, nor shall any person, other than election officials discharging their duties, establish or set up any tables or booths on any day in which ballots are being cast:
(1) Within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established; (2) Within any polling place; or (3) Within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.
I doubt if Mamet is a Republican at all. Your post echoes the problem in the US – tribal binary thinking.
Funny, I think that is his problem, not mine. He is saying that you need a system that guarantees a exchange of power, that all parties can feel part of, and that functions. And for that to work, all parties need to feel at home the system and respect its rules. And I absolutely, totally, completely agree with him. He then proceeds to blame only one side of politics for things going wrong. And that is no way to get where he wants to go. For both sides to sign up to the system,both sides need to respect the rules, listen to their opponents, and take responsibility for the way their own actions might harm the system. All I am saying – I am European and anti-woke, I do not belong to either tribe – is that you need to at least acknowledge the failings of your own side even as you blame your opponents for most of it.
Rasmus, you present us with an fine example of the illusion being preferable to knowledge. You take comfort in the illusion that both sides are responsible for fueling the unreason which is consuming America and its institutions. But only one side writes stuff like this:
That is pablum for the politically insane, it is the language and currency of the left, exclusively.
Not sure why this comment has attracted so much negativity. The systematic strategy referred to is clearly a reference to the Democrats ‘import the third world and gerrymander’ method.
No, it is not.
As a voting redident of Cook County, IL, The home of the Democrats’ infamous Chicago Machine, I am very familiar with vote fraud and how hard it is to stop.
For example, chain voting was quite common in Illinois at one time. The precinct catain started with blank ballots. He marked the ballot, then gave it to one of his paid voters. The voter walked into the polling place, cast the marked ballot, then brought out a blank ballot and got paid.
To make this harder, all ballots in Illinois are printed with a precinct number on them, identifying the voting place where they are to be cast. During the count, ballots from other precincts are not counted.
Absentee ballots were often used fraudulently, so all absentee ballots in Illinois are returned to the voter’s precinct to be counted. Of course, absentee ballots for Republican areas are often lost by Democrats controling the process. That’s why Republicans, like me, vote in person on election day unless we’re dead. Then we tend to vote Democrat.
The voter suppression meme is complete bunk. Black voters support voter ID by over 60% in polls. Democrats want to make the world safe for vote fraud.
Claims that anti-fraud measures are unnecessary are also ludicrous. At the height of vote fraud in Chicago, the Chicago Machine cast 100,000 fraudulent votes in the 1982 race for Governor of Illinois. The Republican, Jim Thompson, beat the margin of fraud by just under 9,000 votes. Federal prosecution put 63 Machine Democrats in prison. You can do a web search for it.
Most amusing — “…I vote Republican unless I’m dead. Then we tend to vote Democrat.” And isn’t Chicago the place where the phrase originated “Vote Early. And often” ?
I can understand that people forgot about the clouds of suspicion over Kennedy’s results in Illinois – it’s a long time ago – but Bush v Gore was not so very long ago. How can anyone deny there is a problem with voting integrity in the US? And, in case my point is not clear, I mean that the mere appearance of a problem is just as bad an actual problem. Lack of faith in the voting system is just as corrosive as actual fraud. Remedying this gap in public trust should be a top priority for all sides. This is not acceptable in a democracy.
My impression (and I read the MSM) is that Bush v. Gore was essentially too close to call, but that both sides accepted (if sometimes with ill grace) that the result was legitimate. Who says fraud was a problem there?
As for lack of faith that is a real problem, but it is too easy to allow people to whip up unfounded suspicions and then demand measures (that favour you) to allay those suspicions. A surprising number of people seem to think that Hilary Clinton was involved in a cabal of satanistic paedophiles. Should she had been banned from running (e.g.) to allay those suspicions? Before you start fixing the voting system, surely there should be some kind of credible evidence that it is broken, and how. Otherwise a better measure might be to stop supporting people who spread unfounded accusations
My impression (and I read the MSM) is that Bush v. Gore was essentially too close to call, but that both sides accepted (if sometimes with ill grace) that the result was legitimate.
Not accepted. It was litigated before the Supreme Court.
Who says fraud was a problem there?
No, I don’t think it was fraud. As I remember, it was a something about ballot punching irregularities.
As for lack of faith that is a real problem, but it is too easy to allow people to whip up unfounded suspicions and then demand measures (that favour you) to allay those suspicions.
In a democracy people are allowed to question the integrity of democratic processes. These should be transparent. It’s entirely reasonable to demand that standards be enforced. I don’t understand why you would attribute this demand to bad faith. If the standard is applied uniformly, it cannot favour either side.
A surprising number of people seem to think that Hilary Clinton was involved in a cabal of satanistic paedophiles.
Wasn’t her husband taking trips with Jeffrey Epstein?
Should she had been banned from running (e.g.) to allay those suspicions?
I don’t see the connection…..
Before we start fixing the voting system, surely there should be some kind of credible evidence that it is broken, and how.
No. There is an absolute obligation to maintain integrity in the voting system. You seem to have imported some criminal law principles that don’t apply here.
Otherwise a better measure might be to stop supporting people who spread unfounded accusations
Sure, that’s a problem but how do you suggest controlling this?
The supreme court was brought in to solve deadlock, effectively. They did, and Gore conceded.
I would suspect that these demands were in bad faith when I cannot see a rational reason for those fears, and when the remedies proposed benefit those who demand them. If your four-year-old son became convinced that the big bogeyman was coming to get him in the night, and only eating a big bar of chocolate at bedtime would keep the bogeyman away, would you maybe suspect an ulterior motive?
It is not true that uniform standards cannot benefit either side, because the sides are not symmetrical. To take a fairly simple example, you could demand ownership of real estate, a test of English proficiency, a high school diploma, or a proven grandparent with US citizenship as a requirement for voting. Do you think those requirements would hurt both sides equally?
It is too easy to claim without evidence that the system is broken, and then demand you own list of fixes. Anyway,the Democrats could make their own claim that Republican measures are turning away many more legitimate Democrat voters than illegitimate ones, and demand a fix for this problem to ‘restore their faith in the system’. Elections are not fair, either, if the voters of one side are preferentially discouraged from voting.
Ultimately, as David Mamet writes, a functioning system requires that both sides are on board, refrain from undermining it, and are willing to make some sacrifices in the interest of keeping things together. If the Republicans want US democracy to maintain legitimacy, it is not enough to make demands of their opponents, however legitimate many of those demands may be. It might help if they would also consider solutions that could satisfy both sides, provide some evidence for their fears of voting fraud, and find a way to distance themselves from people who refuse to accept the official election result and/or pressure officials to declare winners that do not reflect the tally of votes cast.
I do not have time to pull this apart but I will just point to this one remarkable sentence: It is not true that uniform standards cannot benefit either side, because the sides are not symmetrical.
First of all, someone always ‘benefits’ in an election. There is always a winner. That is the entire point of an election. The issue previously raised was whether someone was unfairly ‘favoured’. Second, in a system with universal suffrage, a uniform standard will apply to all voters rather than ‘sides’. Outside of South Africa during Apartheid, I struggle to think of an example where voting is consciously and explicitly organised around collective sides rather than individuals.
Short version:
A standard that is apparently neutral and that is applied uniformly to all voters can still make an enormous difference on election results and favour one group or party over another. This is something you have to deal with, not just deny.
This is actually interesting. I was aware in general terms of problems with fraudulent machine voting in the past. LBJ, ‘Landslide Lyndon’, is another one you hear about. The thing is, the way you do it is that you identify a problem, you show that it it real and that it is serious, then you introduce measures that solve that problem. And for the current list of measures I have seen no actual evidence that there is a current problem these measures would solve.
I have asked in the past on Unherd about evidence that voting fraud is actually a current problem, and that the proposed measures, like voter ID, actually solve it. The only answer I got was a link to a republican-run list of thousands instances of voting law infractions going back 50-60 years. Most were of a kind that was unlikey to make a material difference, like ‘NN used his cousin’s voting card to vote for selectman in Podunkville’ or ‘three voters (who otherwise were entitled to vote) were registered after the registration deadline’. If you can point me to somewhere that shows evidence that fraud is a problem for current elections, and that the proposed measures would help, I would love to see it. I might even change my mind then.
Is this a pitch for House of Games II? Or Car of Games?
As always, when I encountered the capitalisation of “black” I immediately stopped reading.
You shouldn’t have – it’s an excellent essay.
“And we know of the continual indictment of The Jews, the Witch Trials of Salem and McCarthy, the chattel slavery of Black Americans, and the continuation of that vile racism as the indictment of Whites.”
If you had continued, you would see that he does the same for ‘Whites’. Maybe give it another chance?
How peculiar that people should comment only to share a unique neurosis apropos of nothing. Drahcir’s comment is the didactic equivalent of “every time I smell strawberries I immediately open an umbrella.”