Was The Election Hacked? Maybe

DISCLAIMER:  (*holds nose while typing this*) All people named in the following article and comments shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty.  

(H/T to Rachel Donald, whose Substack article on the same topic I am citing for this article below.)

There is a theory making the rounds lately online, namely, that the 2024 presidential election was allegedly hacked in favor of Trump, presumably by his buddy Elon Musk.  In fact, some cybersecurity experts agree, and have sounded the alarm in that regard.  And there are indeed some notable irregularities that have been observed.

First of all, the very fact that Trump won ALL SEVEN swing states in itself strains credulity, seeing as how historically unusual that is.  Such a massive sweep should ring alarm bells as too good to be true.

But the most crucial issue this time is the unusually high percentage of "bullet ballots", that is, ballots in which the president section was filled out but the rest of the ballot was left blank.  Typically, including in the last two presidential elections, that percentage hovers around 1% or less.  And in the non-swing states, that same pattern remained true.  But in the seven swing states, the "bullet ballot" percentage greatly exceeded that (often off the charts) for Trump ballots, with the highest being 11% in North Carolina.  And the biggest tell of all:  it wasn't evenly distributed either, but rather heavily concentrated in only some localities.

(Voting only for president and nothing else, especially in a year where hot-button issues were on the ballot as initiatives and referenda in several states, is anomalous to say the least.  And that it would occur so unevenly skewed and off the charts is suspicious.)

In other words, it sure seems like something is rotten in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. 

I smell a (Musk) rat.  There are a number of ways in which such an alleged hack could have happened, and all were indeed possible.  Either way, it looks likely that a non-trivial number of Trump ballots may very well never have even existed at all.

No wonder Trump, Musk, and the rest of the insiders in their orbit were so smug in the days and weeks leading up to the election, let alone afterwards:  they must have known on some level that the fix was in. 

All of this can be very easily debunked, of course, if a hand recount was done in all seven swing states.  But of course, neither Musk nor Trump nor anyone in their orbit will allow that.  Since the totals were just above the margin where such a recount would be required by law, no one will do it unless the Democrats (or others) fight for it. And unfortunately, we all know that most people are too lazy and chickenshit to do it, especially against the richest person in the world and his orange menace buddy, both of whom are known to be very spiteful. 

Indeed, Musk himself threatened to use the "Hammer of Justice" against those who spread such a theory in a post on his very own social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).  Natch.  Is that a promise, Elon?

True, there is no actual proof, not yet.  And we shouldn't pretend there is.  But the evidence thus far is highly suggestive that something isn't quite right with the numbers, and thus all the more reason to investigate, even if only to put this all to rest.

FINAL THOUGHT:  I will concede that this outcome, cheating or not, would not have even been possible at all in anything even approaching a healthy society.  Granted.  And yes, the mainstream Dems leave a LOT to be desired, to put it nicely.  But the Substack article, and the cybersecurity experts that the author cites, still make excellent points.  I still smell a Musk rat.

The Generation Who Failed

Recently, I realized what my greatest disappointment of all really is right now, and that is at my own generation, the Elder Millennials, or whatever we call ourselves this week.  We were supposed to be the generation who saved the world.  And we had every chance to do so, and we blew it big time.  No wonder we look like we haven't aged very much if at all:  just like vampires, we sold our souls long ago.  

We failed to stop the Bush/Cheney warmongering.  We let the once-promising Occupy movement fall by the wayside.  We failed to stop Trump the first time.  We fell for the Covid lockdown, mask, and jab nonsense and leaned heavily into it, instead of either adopting the "flu strategy" or perhaps grounding only our parents and grandparents for a brief time as we built herd immunity, which would have saved far more lives in the long run.  We couldn't wait to throw younger Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha under the bus, because "I got mine, screw everyone else".  And now, the majority of us either voted for Trump or third party or not at all, in part because we didn't have the intestinal fortitude to demand years ago that the mainstream Democrats do better.

Oh, and the world is on fire too, both literally and metaphorically.  And also metaphysically.

And then we have the GALL to blame it all on our Boomer parents?  Well, the apple sure didn't fall far from the tree!

So to any younger generations reading this, or who will read this in the future, I sincerely apologize for what my generation did and failed to do.  What a "wonderful" world you will be inheriting.

Will future generations ever forgive us?  Because that would be a pretty tall order!

If There Was A Single Thing That Cost The Dems The Election, It Was This

This election has truly been a rout for the Democrats.  Now the Republicans basically hold all of the cards, as they now fully dominate all three branches of government for the first time in literally decades.  And on November 5th, it looked like the Dems had it in the bag.  So what the hell went wrong?

It was a number of things, to be sure.  But the increasingly neoliberal, out-of-touch, and yes, elitist mainstream wing of the Democratic party came to utterly dominate the party in recent years while sidelining the genuine progressives like Bernie Sanders et al.  And if there was ONE decision they made that truly cost them the election, it was the conscious choice to allow the expanded child tax credits (a sort of "mini-UBI" in place during the pandemic) to expire, without extending or replacing them with something similar or better (like UBI for all).  This program, which cut child poverty rates in HALF while they were in place, was truly a resounding success by any rational measure, but child poverty and hunger then predictably rebounded after they were allowed to expire.  Yes, you read that right.

The Dems were apparently too hung up on identity politics and other wedge issues to embrace true economic progressivism.  They were basically blinded by their own class privilege, in other words.  So "woke" they were, that they sleepwalked into defeat.

Not that this actually justifies anyone voting for Trump or Republicans, of course.  Everyone should have known by now that he is a grifter, grafter, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, convicted felon, misogynist, serial liar, hothead, and madman.  But when people are hungry, and grocery and other prices are high on the heels of the worst inflation in four decades (even as it is finally abating), and a conman is promising everyone "a chicken in every pot", while the opposing party seemed to be out to lunch in that regard, or at least not nearly progressive enough on economic issues, such people may not vote rationally.  Most who voted for Trump would have voted for him regardless, but there were enough fence-sitters at the margins that genuinely voted with their wallets.

In other words, "it's the economy, stupid".  At least for the non-trivial fence-sitters who swung this election, it was.  Hindsight is truly 2024.  The Dems absolutely must remember this next time.  That is, IF there even IS a next time at all, of course.  Which, with the way things are going, is by no means guaranteed. 

It's Midnight In America

It's midnight in America, and the sun may never rise again.

Well, it's official.  Trump won the 2024 presidential election.  Again.  And this time, we can't blame it on the Electoral College or Russian interference or anything other than We the People.  Or rather, about half of us.  

Only this time around, literally everyone knew what he was all about, and yet so many still voted for him.  So literally NO ONE can credibly claim naivety or ignorance (unless truly willful) this time.  They had an easy out, and yet they chose to go right back to Trump.  They are NOT victims, they are volunteers, often very eager ones, which makes them complicit with the oppressors.  In fact, in the two weeks leading up to Election Day, Trump deliberately darkened his already vile rhetoric even more to get more undecided or apathetic folks off of their couches to go to the polls.

I mean, they literally chose the rapist, racist, misogynistic, convicted felon, lunatic, and insurrectionist candidate over the admittedly imperfect but highly accomplished woman of color candidate, because reasons.  Or they simply didn't vote at all, or they voted third party, because they chose to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and we all ultimately got neither as a result. 

They had ONE job this time, and that was to simply get off the damn couch and cast a secret ballot for Kamala, the only person really standing in the way of Trump, and no one would ever have to know.  And they couldn't even do that!  And now that they have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind!

Unfortunately, ALL of us will.

America is basically dead and done now, and it will truly take a miracle of miracles to be able to transcend this madness and come out the other side in one piece.  Of course, once could argue that America was already slowly dying for quite some time now.  The fact that anywhere near half of the country would even remotely consider voting for Trump in the first place, again, would have been unthinkable in a truly healthy country and society. 

So as the darkness settles in once again, we need to keep all of this in mind.  And once again, we all must #RESIST tyranny of any kind.  If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. 

UBI Is The Only Way To End Modern Slavery (Updated Re-Post)

Most of the objections to Universal Basic Income (UBI), from both the left and the right (usually the right), are fundamentally patronizing, paternalistic, and/or sadistic in nature, whether subtly or not-so-subtly.  Those are, of course, very easily debunked as void on their face in anything even remotely approaching a free and civilized society.  But what about the very few supposedly ethical objections that don't quite fit this mold?

One such objection to UBI is that it is really just "crowdsourced slavery", both within nations as well as (especially) with the imperialistic Global North continuing to exploit the Global South.  Or something.

Tell me, how exactly does one "crowdsource" slavery?  And if everyone is getting free money, and all work thus becomes de facto voluntary and optional, who exactly is really being exploited or enslaved?  How would anybody be able to economically coerce anyone else?

And how exactly can it possibly be any worse than the status quo?  (Don't think too hard about that.)

Even the biggest degrowth advocates like Jason Hickel openly support UBI, and he is certainly no imperialist shill.  Ditto for Charles Eisenstein and David Graeber.

True, the Romans had the Cura Annonae (aka "the dole"), and slavery still persisted for quite some time then.  But what they didn't have, of course, was anywhere near the number of "energy slaves" that we have now, let alone today's technology that should have made all forms of slavery obsolete long ago, but for the system of late capitalism under which we live.

True, UBI is unlikely to be global overnight, and will have to start at the national or subnational level.  To avoid the worst unintended consequences, particularly those related to currencies and inflation, a global UBI (especially one directed primarily towards the Global South) would best be funded by a Tobin Tax on foreign currency exchanges, while a national, subnational, or local one would best be funded by seigniorage via national or local currencies, and/or Georgist-style taxation on the use of natural resources.  But until then, even a globally lopsided national-only UBI is highly unlikely to be any WORSE than the status quo, even if we do still maintain a sizable "trade deficit" in the near term.  In other words, if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, you ultimately end up with neither.

(Some may counter that they are really "making the necessary the enemy of the convenient", but that is really just begging the question.  Any way you slice it, it is an unserious argument to oppose UBI.)

Over the lifecycle, we ALL subsidize each other to one degree or another.  Period.  And whether we like it or not, the globalization genie is out of the bottle, and has been for some time now.  And while all empires should of course go back to being republics, returning to complete autarky (whether it be national or small-scale autarky) is a practical nonstarter for the foreseeable future, so a new model of "alter-globalization," perhaps combined with some partial economic relocalization, is the least worst way forward.  (The scarcity mindset sure doesn't help.)

Until then, we need to meet people where they are at.  Dismantling an empire this massive is best done very, very gingerly to avoid catastrophic unintended consequences, even if it takes a bit longer to do.

(Sorry, Tereza Coraggio, but history has shown that strictly small-scale sovereignty also has it's own set of pitfalls as well.  And unfortunately, NOT all people are inherently good either, and thus to blame any and all bad behavior entirely on The System is to rob individuals of agency.  Better to be protopian and not utopian, as the latter, which literally means "no place" in Greek, ultimately leads to dystopia in practice.)

As for slavery, I hereby cordially invite anyone reading this to go look up your own slavery footprint under the status quo.  Go on.  I bet your hands don't feel so clean now, do they?

If you still feel guilty about receiving UBI for whatever reason, then by all means, feel free to to donate it to GiveDirectly then.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Otherwise, silence is golden.

Bonus points for those who decide they now support UBI, even if only so they can now finally afford to buy ethically sourced, fair trade products instead of the usual cheap junk often produced by slave labor.  (Because, let's face it, "just doing without" is not only a political nonstarter, but often is not even a viable option at all under the current system, at least for those who are not extremely privileged, and is really like saying "let them eat cake".)  If you just spotted the very, very glaring "collective action problem" in the status quo before I mentioned it, you are thus quite astute, and even more bonus points to you.

If that's still not purist enough for you, dear reader, then feel free to "sell all you have, and give the proceeds to the [global] poor", as Jesus of Nazareth famously instructed the rich man.  (You may not feel rich, but you are far, far richer than even the very richest person was back then on an absolute basis, albeit admittedly ignoring relative wealth and poverty.)  And while there is no guarantee that you will "find treasure in Heaven" after doing so, at least then you could finally honestly oppose UBI for moral reasons without being a flaming hypocrite.

(Cue the crickets and cicadas)

Honestly, NO ONE's hands are truly clean in the system we currently live under.  Except for those at the very top (the oligarchs) and the very bottom (literal chattel slaves) of the global pyramid scheme, we are ALL effectively varying degrees of slaves AND slavers at the same time under the global kyriarchy.  (And yes, contrary to popular opinion, it is entirely possible for slaves to own or rent other slaves, as Harriet Beecher Stowe noted in her famous, and now politically incorrect, book whose very title was since converted into a mild to moderate racial slur.  There was then, and still is now, a pecking order that goes ALL the way down, in fact.)  And clearly some form of UBI is necessary, even if not sufficient by itself, to finally end this evil system once and for all.

(TL;DR version:  there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and the sooner we move beyond it into post-capitalism, the better we will all be.  UBI is a crucial key policy tool that, while not perfect, will still help further that goal from a protopian perspective.  After all, life doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.)

(Mic drop)