The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Make Citizenship Great Again

Lucretia hosts this week's episode, which takes up exactly where we left off last week's episode—with the topic of vote fraud and whether Democrats might (ahem) steal the election from Trump. Without revisiting the weirdness and irregularities of the 2020 result distorted by the Covind-induced election rules changes, we go over in some detail what changes have been made over the last four years, including serious preparations by Republicans and the Trump campaign not be caught flat-footed by any "irregularities" in the vote result.Have Republicans ever been any good at this? Actually the contested election in Florida in 2000 gives some reason for optimism, as John (who was there) and Steve reflect. And Steve reminds us of some old history, such as Jimmy Carter warning back in 2005 that mail-in balloting was a recipt for vote fraud, along the way debunking claims—subsequently bolstered by academic political science—that mail voting doesn't increase turnout overall or by minorites. Still sound advice, and Republicans ought to force Democrats into the uncomfortable position of repudiating Saint Jimmy.We take a couple of digressions, first into John's inaugural experience with the new McDonald's chicken Big Mac (two thumbs up!), and then some explanation of why the public polls and campaign polls are diverging (with all good news for Trump).The episode culminates with a Lucretia soliloquy on how the central principle of voting ought to be meaningful citizenship, not making voting as convenient as a trip to 7-11.