In history and politics, a claim counts as established fact when (1) it is supported by independent convergent, reliable, and publicly checkable evidence, (2) it survives reasonable attempts to refute it, (3) it fits the broader body of evidence better than competing or different claims; and (5) it may retain some uncertainty, but only to a point that does not rationally materially affect the accuracy of the claim.
The 2020 election
An example is the fact that the 2020 election was not stolen. Trump and MAGA demagoguery still consistently claim the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by several different means, e.g., rigged ballot count machines, massive voter fraud, pedophilic communist Democrats, etc. For competing explanations, the question is: Which explanation best predicts the total evidence, including the evidence one would expect but does not find?
In over 60 lawsuits and lies repeated hundreds of times, Trump and MAGA elites challenged the 2020 election result. All except one of those lawsuits failed to find evidence of significant election theft. Nothing found would have changed the outcome. The two biggest single instances of election stealing probably were (1) Trump trying to get Georgia to give him over 11,000 votes so he would win that state, and (2) Trump’s 1/6 coup attempt, which tried to negate the entire election and overthrow the government by force. Other than those major attempts at election theft, there was no evidence of major fraud or theft. Every attempt to find the theft failed. That included re-examination of paper records, inquiries by local and state election administration officials, recounts, audits, adversarial litigation in courts, and federal investigations.
Despite all the intense scrutiny, there were no major discrepancies found ballots, ballot counts, tabulation records, voter records, recounts, canvasses, audits, sworn testimony, or litigated evidence. Repeated review across all of those channels failed to find any major discrepancy, other than efforts by Trump and MAGA elites, e.g., the fake electors fiasco. That is not just a situation where we have not seen proof. It’s affirmative, cumulative evidence against the stolen election hypothesis. There just was no persuasive evidence.
The boundary
Political matters do not become facts by majority vote, institutional prestige, or repeated assertion. They acquire fact standing when the evidence and procedures appropriate to the question converge. Despite that, the exact fact-truth boundary is pragmatic, not partisan or popular. One does not need to wait for absolute certainty, because then almost no historical, scientific, or political proposition would count as fact. And we cannot call something factual merely because an official, pundit, or expert announces it. Simply put, the standard is proportionate to the stakes and evidence. The higher the stakes, the more evidence and verifying is warranted.
For the 2020, the political truth to political fact threshold was crossed long ago. The outcome was certified, audited, recounted where requested or required, litigated, and independently investigated. Later repetition of allegations without new, credible, outcome-changing evidence does not restore the original uncertainty. This is a about continued rational, evidence-based belief, not questioning of the evidence due to some asserted epistemological, partisan or ideological belief detached from solid, verifiable evidence.
Source — Trump’s pants are on fire a lot — but usually he’s lying at least some
Q: Is it fact, truth or false that Trump’s public record supports describing him as a chronic liar, not simply a near-constant source of good faith mistakes.
Some info sources:
Transcript: President Trump’s Phone Call With Georgia Election Officials — The president pressured [Georgia’s] Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the results of the election in an hourlong phone conversation. Here is a transcript of the audio recording.
No Evidence Found that a Foreign Government Manipulated Any Election Results
Ballotpedia’s 2020 Election Help Desk: Tracking election disputes, lawsuits, and recounts
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