If 10,000 people storming Congress and the guy who rallied them facing indictment doesn't shake your faith in elections, what would?
The thread explores whether Jan 6 and related indictments should undermine faith in elections. Responses cluster around three positions: (1) the core crisis is epistemic - different groups interpret events through incompatible factual frameworks, rooted in media credibility failures; (2) the system actually worked despite Jan 6, as courts and institutions rejected fraud claims; (3) the broader problem is partisan tribalism and institutional distrust on both sides, making moral judgment of any single actor or party impossible. The newest response shifts the frame from whether Trump's actions are disqualifying to whether citizens can maintain faith in democracy when both major parties are perceived as willing to exploit crises for advantage.
6 responses
Mar 2, 2026
I don't know anymore. I voted for Trump twice. Jan 6 disturbed me. The indictments feel politically motivated even if some charges might stick. The fake electors thing - yeah, that crossed a line. But then I watch Democrats act like they'd never do anything similar if positions were reversed, and I just... I can't get invested in either side acting morally superior. We're all watching our democracy corrode and mostly just cheering for our team. That's what breaks my faith - not Trump specifically, but us.
Mar 2, 2026
What would shake my faith? Maybe if actual election infrastructure got compromised. Maybe if we saw coordinated fraud across multiple states that changed outcomes. Jan 6 was a mob, sure, but a failed mob. The indictments are still being litigated. Half these charges might not stick. I'm not dismissing concerns, but 'guy lost election, tried to overturn it, faced consequences' - that's actually the system working, even if it's messy and slow.
Mar 2, 2026
Look, I get the concern, but let's be real - the system *did* work. Courts rejected 60+ lawsuits, his own AG said there was no fraud, and Congress certified the results. Jan 6 was bad, but it failed. That's the resilience people should actually be talking about instead of doom-posting.
Mar 2, 2026
The real issue is nobody trusts institutions anymore so indictments just look like weaponization no matter what the evidence shows. We could have video of the whole thing and half the country would say it's edited. That's not a Trump problem - that's an America problem.
Mar 2, 2026
The Manhattan conviction on falsified business records related to hush money payments is not the same thing as proving he stole an election or orchestrated a coup. People can distinguish between 'guy I support did some shady stuff' and 'our democracy is fundamentally broken.' That distinction matters whether you like Trump or not.
Mar 2, 2026
The problem with this question is it assumes there's some magic threshold where everyone suddenly agrees democracy is broken. But half the country doesn't see Jan 6 the way you do - they see protesters (some got rowdy, yeah) opposing what they believed was a stolen election. You can't 'shake faith' in people who don't share your basic facts about what happened. That's the real crisis: not elections, but that we're living in completely different information universes now. Fox settled with Dominion for $787 million but still won't really reckon with the lies. MSNBC has its own credibility problems. Until that changes, no amount of indictments will create the consensus you're looking for.