Tom Nomad on Nostr: OK, so for those of you that tuned out, come on back now. Let's talk a bit about what ...

OK, so for those of you that tuned out, come on back now.

Let's talk a bit about what this schedule means, and what we can anticipate from the campaigns in response. Considering that we are not talking about what happens after Inauguration Day, and assuming the Democrats will just roll over if they lose, the biggest immediate impacts will be an emboldened far right, and probably the beginning of protests before he gets into office. We saw that script play out before, so I don't want to belabor it. We'll talk about incipient authoritarianism in January (isn't US politics fun...) if we need to.

For now, and for the purpose of my calendar and the length of this post, I want to focus on what could occur if Trump loses, and to be able to discuss that we need to go back to what I was saying earlier about how votes are counted and results returned on election night, and the ways that this does not express the accuracy of the situation. In the last number of elections we have watched conservatives look like they had a chance on election night, only to watch that lead evaporate either overnight or in the coming days as absentee ballots are counted.

This reality of the collision between an arcane political system and a capitalist media is that there is always this rush to declare a winner. In that rush nuances are thrown out, a speed of coverage is maintained to keep viewers and readers, and the complex realities of the situation are often lost. It is in this space, where the vote counts do not reflect actual vote totals, but are being reported out anyway, that conspiracies can take root

The entire conspiracy last time developed in real time on election day, as it became increasingly clear that Trump was underperforming. On the evening of the election, when things were still very close, and absentee ballots had not been reported, Trump declared himself victor, based on the reporting of vote totals that were being given out live on TV. The ability to utilize real time media in the construction of a conspiracy is incredibly powerful, and Trump used it remarkably well after he lost in 2020.

This convinces me of two things that will almost certainly happen on election night. The first is that we are not going to know who won, it will still be too close and the media is likely to be a lot more shy about calling things after the last time. The actual totals are unlikely to be clear for at least a week, and likely longer as campaigns demand recounts. The second thing, and I am almost certain of this, Trump will say he won anyway.