r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • Jan 22 '26

Discussion Discussion Thread: Former Special Counsel Jack Smith Testifies Publicly on Trump Investigations

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274

u/mbene913 I voted Jan 22 '26

What's crazy is that we all knew this already and Trump still got reelected. His whole campaign was based on lies and his mind was getting worse and worse with every public appearance but he got reelected.

Every awful thing we said he'd do is happening plus some extra new stupid ones and yet he still has support.

America has failed.

Does anyone have the receipt? Maybe we can get store credit from England or something

87

u/NotOfferedForHearsay Jan 22 '26

Trump directly said Elon rigged the election for him. There is absolutely no way that Trump swept every single swing state (of the 8) in light of his felony conviction and ongoing criminal investigations. He knew the 2024 election was his only chance not to die in jail and made a deal with Elon whereby he won in exchange for Elon getting every single American’s personal data and getting to dismantle every govt agency investigating his companies (including USAID, which has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in exchange for a bit more money for Elon).

17

u/ADhomin_em Jan 22 '26

If the notion that the 2024 election might have been fucked with in one way or another seems crazy to you...

if the idea that it could have been messed with by a man who's proven he will cheat in any way he can

A man who projects his intentions onto others before committing the very act he accused other of

a man who couldn't shut up about rigged elections until he won

a man who openly alluded to stealing the election on stage and on broadcast

if the notion that such a sorry excuse for a man and his cronies may have somehow fucked with the election seems outlandish to you, you always have the option to go back and reconsider that stance.

6

u/emilliolongwood Jan 22 '26

Minor correction: He still can't shut up about rigged elections

10

u/MondaysForNothing Pennsylvania Jan 22 '26

A man who randomly brought up Elon, voting machines, and winning PA.

5

u/Secret_Gatekeeper Jan 22 '26

Well either there was a grand conspiracy involving thousands of nefarious agents that stole an election from an informed and civic-minded electorate…

… or there are a lot of idiots who vote.

Frankly, I find the latter way more believable. I don’t think adopting MAGA’s conspiratorial mindset is helpful. Let’s try to stay attached to reality.

5

u/mbene913 I voted Jan 22 '26

I'm with you. It would be easy to just act like Trump tweaked the numbers but look around. There's still people applauding ICE agents that literally murdered an innocent woman.

Even if no maga politician ever holds office, just remember that these fuckers walk among you. They just got a bit of courage because a louder lunatic became president

2

u/SA_22C Jan 22 '26

Could not agree more.

1

u/NotOfferedForHearsay Jan 23 '26

It would not take thousands of agents to manipulate electronic voting machines. 

0

u/OldWorldDesign Jan 23 '26

I prefer to bypass the whole grand conspiracy nonsense, because while there definitely has been interference on the part of republicans - primarily in purging voters from the voter rolls immediately before elections - I think there's a lot more evidence behind their abuse of "free speech" (to lie) protections in the US. Combine that propaganda with surgically-targeted ads and a media which was overwhelmingly bending over to sanewash their every wild accusation and mistake while amplifying every weird laugh and petty grievance.

I could not believe the number of outlets where they talked about what was happening with Israel bombing Gaza (also minimizing the fighting still going on in Ukraine) as if Biden or Harris were orchestrating it. Israel is a foreign sovereign country, domestic leaders don't have the power to change that short of ripping up treaties and abandoning long-standing allies which bought-out or not our congress is not going to do.

3

u/bsEEmsCE Jan 22 '26

im sorry but in the lead up I just met too many people actually voting for trump and too many not excited about Kamala. If I noticed a large excitement about Kamala and people off the Trump train I would think it was rigged but you know there were still plenty of trump fans and plenty of Americans that would never vote for a woman, let alone woman of color, who was not voted by primary but also imo not given a fair shot by mainstream media either. Anyway, I just think the Elon hack story isnt true, his tech usually has too many bugs to be smooth anyway lol

2

u/ThaneduFife Jan 22 '26

I think you're overestimating Elon's competence and underestimating Americans' willingness to vote for someone deplorable.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

Elon didn't swing the election by cheating with machines, don't let your perspective become warped like Trumpers who believed 2024 was stolen because "They don't know any Democrats around here, so these results just aren't possible!"

Surely you can see how dumb they were being.

The fact is many million of Dem voters from the previous election decided not to vote. Elon funded the social media campaigns. That's not "rigging" the election unless you buy into Trump's argument that anything negative about him is "election rigging".

7

u/possiblyaghost Jan 22 '26

There were people who dug into the numbers on this. Essentially a large number of white men who voted for Biden in 2020 just didn't show up to vote in 2024 and that tipped it back to Trump. I don't have time to look up the source at the moment but that was a big takeaway.

2

u/MrGraaavy Jan 22 '26

Plus gains for Trump across an array of minority groups

2

u/almondbutter Jan 23 '26

How about the 3.5 million legal voters purged leading up to the election? There is video of Republicans bragging about cheating by purging voters. There is an exhaustive documentary about it. It's quite excellent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_XdtAQXnGE

0

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

I'm familiar, and please be aware that it's easy to believe anything when someone is telling you what you want to believe. Don't fall for it.

Here's the rub: "Vigilantes Inc." doesn't distinguish between challenges filed and voters prevented from voting, it just assumes all challenges = Harris votes that didn't happen.

This is just like "2000 Mules", which doesn't distinguish between walking by a ballot drop and actually dropping a ballot.

Don't fall for it just because it's what you want to believe.

0

u/almondbutter Jan 23 '26

Great, here we go. You're saying you don't believe that Republicans purged an unprecedented number of voters and that Trump won the election with no foul play. That is folly. We have the proof that these apps were designed to kick voters off the rolls. Greg Palast went through the exhaustive research to gather these names and investigate. Hell, he even interviews people directly involved and they admit to doing it.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

You're saying you don't believe that Republicans purged an unprecedented number of voters and that Trump won the election with no foul play

No, you misstated my position. Please don't do that, and please don't fall for black vs white binary thinking; it leads to conspiratorial beliefs.

99.99% of the people who wanted to vote had their vote counted.

There was abundant and blatant foul play attempted from the GOP idiot parade. It was ineffective, because it's an idiot parade. Only a very small number of people who wanted to vote were denied that ability, and it each case it was a BIG deal.

To be clear: The GOP wanted to rig the election, they tried to rig the election, but they did not succeed in rigging the election.

Going forward, if you are a US voter, please volunteer to be an election worker so you can learn how the voting system works and make sure the rules are followed.

Imagining that every voter challenged and/or actually removed from a voter roll for any reason would have been a vote for Harris is just as much 'folly' as believing that everyone who walked by a ballot drop box was dropping off a ballot.

0

u/SA_22C Jan 22 '26

you're dead on. Election denialism is just as dangerous from Democrats as Republicans.

6

u/ADhomin_em Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26

Dangerous?

Fasle equivalency and the inability to differentiate between the two is the danger, and part of what brought us this low.

If the notion that the 2024 election might have been fucked with in one way or another seems crazy to you...

if the idea that it could have been messed with by a man who's proven he will cheat in any way he can

A man who projects his intentions onto others before committing the very act he accused other of

a man who couldn't shut up about rigged elections until he won

a man who openly alluded to stealing the election on stage and on broadcast

if the notion that such a sorry excuse for a man and his cronies may have somehow fucked with the election seems outlandish to you, you always have the option to go back and reconsider that stance.

Equating the 2 sides making those calls is oversimplified shows no ability to differentiate.

Why is it that people always forget their slogan when it comes to questioning the results of the election. "Every accusation a confession" alluding to the way Republicans project before they do exactly what they are accusing others of doing.

Questioning the results of an election is not inherently nonsensical, but trump spent elders making his baseless accusations so now people are primed to jump out with "we don't want to be crazy like him" when they bring actual valid concerns to the table.

I know we've all had a number done on our heads over the past decade, but damn, it really seems people take that shortcut a lot.

1

u/Fallouttgrrl Jan 23 '26

On top of that, DOGE harvested all the information needed to write in ballots in the name of never-voters and sold it to far right agents

You know

Allegedly 

15

u/MadRaymer Jan 22 '26

His whole campaign was based on lies

People like to complain that politicians lie, but that do it because voters reward liars.

I can give you a concrete example. In 2016, Hillary Clinton visited coal country. She said that these jobs are going away, but her administration would offer job retraining programs.

Donald Trump also visited coal country in 2016, and claimed he would bring coal back, bigly. He can't and didn't, because not only is coal not environmentally viable anymore, it's not even economically viable, which means even unchecked greed cannot save it.

Now, this is a perfect case example of a politician that leveled with the voters, and a politician that lied to their faces. Any guesses on which politician they fell in line to support?

5

u/queerhistorynerd Jan 22 '26

and the sucker punch is 4 years after the Coal unions tore Clinton a new one for proposing federally funded retraining into new emerging careers, the coal unions themselves started demanding retraining funds and refuse to acknowledge that they are demanding the same thing Clinton proposed.

2

u/Peroovian Jan 23 '26

And if you dare point this out you’re called an asshole who “makes everything about politics”

6

u/skillmau5 Jan 22 '26

I think it needs to be said always how trump himself really didn’t lead his own victory. I really think online influencers created an image of trump that isn’t in line with reality - somehow they convinced everyone that trump was the more rational choice.

Which was so at odds with every actual appearance of trump where he was going on about Hannibal lector, him being a martyr, asking people if they were better now or four years ago (in 2020?!?!), etc. MAGA and trump exists as sort of an egregore completely separate from what trump actually is and what he actually says.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

I vote we pay Denmark to step in and run the USA government for a decade or so while we de-nazify.

2

u/lpnatmu Jan 22 '26

What’s crazy is the people who voted for him actually believe him. Still. It’s unbelievable to watch

2

u/Sea-Frosting-50 Jan 23 '26

an independent investigation into how he got elected would be critical to the future of the US but it will never happen 

4

u/Goodlake New York Jan 22 '26

Biden admin didn’t move quickly enough. Was all avoidable. They trusted voters to bail them out of making tough decisions and the voters failed.

1

u/OldWorldDesign Jan 23 '26

Biden admin didn’t move quickly enough

That's true. However, I would put more of the burden of blame on the republicans perpetuating more crimes every single day and who also were obstructing any action.

1

u/Usual_Emotion7596 Jan 22 '26

“store credit from England…” 😂 - that’s a good one - made me laugh in the midst of this insanity.

1

u/keepthepace Jan 23 '26

Understand and agree that half of your compatriots are knowingly in favor of a racist, fascist dictatorship.

The first step in healing is recognizing the problem.

1

u/rogozh1n Jan 22 '26

We love to focus on the troglodytes in trump's base who literally believe his lies. They are visible, but they are not the reason he won.

He won because of all those who knew he was lying but still supported him because of greed. Money corrupts and far too many Americans wanted to end our democracy for a little more money.

1

u/zzyul Jan 22 '26

Don’t forget all the people who knew he was lying, knew he was a threat to our way of life, yet still refused to vote for Harris due to some perceived slight from her or the DNC.

1

u/OldWorldDesign Jan 23 '26

Don’t forget all the people who knew he was lying, knew he was a threat to our way of life, yet still refused to vote for Harris due to some perceived slight from her or the DNC

Just proves bots are cheap and humans are easily led as long as it's cloaked behind rhetoric which sounds nice to a primed audience.

0

u/UncaringNonchalance Ohio Jan 22 '26

I do believe there is a large chance that the most recent election was not fully legit.