However you want to see it, half the country thinks Trump was an illegitimate president, elected thanks to external manipulation of the Russian government. This is a fact that has consumed all of media and good chunk of the population for 3 years.
It's true it's not an exact mirror copy of the current election predicament. Nevertheless, the outcome of questioning the election and democracy in general is the result of both cases.
That's factually incorrect. The vast majority of voters on both sides viewed Trump's election as legitimate. [0]
There is a substantial difference between claiming that you lost for reasons that are problematic (i.e. propaganda and the structure of the electoral college) and claiming that you didn't lose at all, despite being behind by 7 million votes, because of a massive conspiracy so powerful as to make our democracy meaningless.
> The vast majority of voters on both sides viewed Trump's election as legitimate
In 2018, 66% of democrats believed it was “probably true” or “definitely true” that Russia “tampered with vote tallies” to help Trump win the election. That’s a majority of voters on one side.
Note this poll was taken a year and a half after the poll you cited. This emphasizes the point that the media drove this issue as a wedge through the populace and corrupted its viewers’ faith in the election.
> In 2018, 66% of democrats believed it was “probably true” or “definitely true” that Russia “tampered with vote tallies” to help Trump win the election.
It's worth noting that (at least with the phrasing you're giving) that does not necessarily imply a belief that Trump did not in fact win in 2016.
Also, given the amount of legitimate criticism that electronic touchscreen voting machines have gotten in the tech community for decades, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd have gotten a similar result in a poll of technology professionals & enthusiasts.
There is a difference between difference of opinion and difference of facts. And yes it’s true popular opinion affects things irrespective of their factual basis, yet having a factual basis does play a strong and often determining role.
Trump lost the election, objectively. Elections are the basis of democracy. if you do not accept their outcome, you do not support democracy. The vocal left did not LIKE the outcome of the last election, and did not approve of the electoral colleges role. But they did not at any poin reject that the democratic process was valid . They are arguing very different things ultimately.
I am replying for the sake of the hidden sibling comment:
I don't watch any major media coverage of politics, but a mathematician and comedian I follow on YouTube (from a different country who presumably has no horse in the race) has analyzed some of the numerical allegations of fraud:
