Republicans don't give a damn about your vote.
Case in point, Donald Trump's recent tweet where he floated the question on possibly postponing the election. He said, "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history."
The problem, of course, is that Absentee Voting and Mail-In voting ARE EXACTLY THE SAME DAMNED THING! This proves, once and for all, from Trump's own, damned, mouth, that Republicans cheat.
And this Tweet follows a general pattern in recent years of the Alt-Right not only not caring about the integrity of the vote, they see fairness in voting as their absolute enemy. They don't want the vote to be fair. They don't care that there's more of us than there are of them! Cheating means nothing to them. They want to rule us - from below.
Even in the reclusive world of science fiction, this trend can be seen. Case in point is the strange case of the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies." Between 2013 and 2016, a band of more conservative writers waged a campaign to shift the Hugo Awards away from what they saw as “touchy-feely,” feminist, and left-leaning writing to more masculine, right-wing, libertarian authors. To poke fun at those they were campaigning against, they riffed on an SPCA ad done by Sarah McLachlan (in which she appeared with a golden retriever) and called it the “Sad Puppies Think of the Children Campaign.” Later, this was shortened simply to, “Sad Puppies.”
The Sad Puppies were initially led by fantasy writer Larry Correia (1977 - ?) who strongly felt his popular fantasy novels, such as his Monster Hunter series and Grimoir Chronicles, were being passed over in favor of leftist, feminist, writers. He had been nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2011, and observed how many people had “freaked out” over his conservative views. When he didn’t win, he blamed “the liberals.” During the 2013 Worldcon, he organized a little over 100 voting members and used them to get more right-leaning and populist authors nominated, focusing primarily on his own novel, Monster Hunter Legion (2012). This initial effort fell 17 votes shy of getting Correia’s novel nominated. But the Sad Puppies were just getting started. None of the other recommended writers were nominated.
In 2014, he tried again. This time, he organized a slate so that people could vote as an organized bloc. The Sad Puppies succeeded in getting 7 out of 12 nominees onto the final ballot, including Correia’s novel, Warbound, Book III of the Grimoir Chronicles (2013). However, Correia lost to Ann Leckie’s novel, Ancillary Justice. None of the Sad Puppies slate nominees won a Hugo.
In 2015, the Sad Puppies tried once more to steal the balloting from “the Left.” This time, they were led by Brad R. Torgersen, who recommended five times the number of authors that Correia had. He also added a new twist to the Sad Puppies’ rationale. He argued that the Hugos had become too interested in high literary form, and needed to return to its more traditional pulp fiction and populist roots. He even included a few minority and female authors on the slate to diffuse potential criticism. In the end, this new tactic fooled almost no one.
By this point, the Sad Puppies had gotten the attention of a radical named Vox Day (Theodore Robert Beale). He organized a second slate, even more extreme-focused than Torgersen’s. He called his block “Rabid Puppies,” emphasizing that his was the more radical version of the same idea (and creating no end of confusion, as two groups with the same goal now had completely contradictory names). The year before, there had been a controversy known as “Gamergate,” in which several women who spoke out against sexism and misogyny in the video game industry were harassed for speaking out. Vox Day, in a particularly sleazy move, reached out to those who sided against the women of Gamergate so they could add their votes to the Hugos and stuff the ballot for the Rabid Puppies slate.
The net result of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies’ joint slates (although both differed somewhat), was devastating. 51 out of 60 Sad Puppy recommendations were nominated. 58 out of 67 Rabid Puppy recommendations were nominated. The effect was so overwhelming, that in five categories, Best Related Work, Best Short Story, Best Novella, Best Editor (Short Form), and Best Editor (Long Form), all the nominees were Puppy nominees!
Some within the SF community saw what had been happening in previous years and were worried, but now they became outright alarmed! Key people withing science fiction and fantasy began rallying their fan base to the cause of beating the “Puppies” back, and the counter-campaign worked! They were too late to correct the nominations, but they could influence the final voting, and DID! Voting memberships for Sasquon (the 61st Worldcon in Spokane, Washington) went through the roof! George R.R. Martin rallied fans to the cause on his blog. He called the incident “Puppygate,” and suggested that the Hugos may be irrevocably broken. John Scalzi rallied his fan base. Scalzi’s friend and frequent narrator, Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation), spoke out against the Puppies. Connie Willis withdrew as a presenter. Mark Kloos withdrew his novel, Lines of Departure, from consideration. Several other nominees also withdrew. Edmund Schubert tried to withdraw his nomination for Best Editor, but missed the deadline.
The sci-fi fan base prevailed! In the end, the Sad/Rabid Puppy votes were only 19% of the overall total. Cixn Liu’s book, The Three Body Problem, which had been translated from Chinese, and was one of the few nominees that weren’t Puppy-influenced, won the Hugo for Best Novel. In other categories, the Puppies lost outright. In all five categories where all nominees were Puppy-nominees, the award went to – no one! The votes for “none” outweighed any other considerations. The presenters – David Gerrold and Tananarive Due – tried their best to retain their composure every time another “No Award” was handed out, but even they couldn’t keep from looking a bit awkward and embarrassed as things developed.
And yet, despite the fans’ success in thwarting the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, it should be noted that the Puppy-bloc was successful in keeping many other deserving authors from being nominated. With five Hugos lost, potentially five careers missed their opportunity. All for the sake of right-wing politics.
At the 2016 Worldcon, the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies tried again. This time, many media outlets were on to what had been happening. The previous Worldcon had gotten the attention of media outlets such as Slate, Wired, NPR, and Vox, and no one was sneaking up on the nomination process this time. But the Puppies, too, were on to the game changes, and expected such a move. This time, the recommendation list was put together by Australian short-story writer, Kate Paulk, and she changed tactics in an interesting way. Instead of pushing hard to get specific recommendations through, she watered down the recommendations by adding so many names to the Puppy list that it became nearly impossible for protest voters to exclude them all! On the Sad Puppies 4 list, there were 10 recommendations just for best novel alone. Altogether, the Sad Puppies recommended a whopping 123 names! The protest vote couldn’t keep all of them from being nominated, no matter how hard they tried! The Rabid Puppies, again organized by Vox Day, followed suit by making 81 recommendations, many of which were already popular minority writers. Of course, this tactic had the additional effect of watering down the intended outcome of the vote, but this time, they wanted to send a different message. Instead of, “We want the right-wing authors to be heard!” the message was, “We’re not going away, and you can’t make us leave!”
After 2016, the Hugo Awards Committee finally had enough. They implemented a change in the vote tally system (cleverly nicknamed “E pluribus Hugo”) so that bloc voting could not stuff the ballot. In other words, the more names that got written down on a ballot, the more that ballot’s point totals for each nominee got subdivided. This change had been proposed after the 2015 Sasquon fiasco, but it had taken a couple of years to work its way through the system. Never again would the Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies be able to put their thumbs on the scale.
The Puppies tried in 2017 anyway. This time, Sarah Hoyt led the Sad Puppies campaign. But she failed miserably, and it fell dead off the table. The recommended list was supposedly forthcoming, but never came. The Rabid Puppies, still led by Vox Day, altered tactics by recommending only one name in each category to maximize the impact of the vote. This succeeded in getting one nominee in most categories, but it also revealed how paltry a minority the Rabid Puppies were. None of the Rabid Puppy nominees won.
In 2018, neither group staged an attempt to steal the vote, and thus ended “Puppygate.” But it was a lesson to all that even the literary world was not insulated from political extremism.
Now, if that's how much the Alt-Right is willing to cheat over a science fiction award, imagine how much they'll want to cheat in 2020!
Eric
*
Even in the reclusive world of science fiction, this trend can be seen. Case in point is the strange case of the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies." Between 2013 and 2016, a band of more conservative writers waged a campaign to shift the Hugo Awards away from what they saw as “touchy-feely,” feminist, and left-leaning writing to more masculine, right-wing, libertarian authors. To poke fun at those they were campaigning against, they riffed on an SPCA ad done by Sarah McLachlan (in which she appeared with a golden retriever) and called it the “Sad Puppies Think of the Children Campaign.” Later, this was shortened simply to, “Sad Puppies.”
The Sad Puppies were initially led by fantasy writer Larry Correia (1977 - ?) who strongly felt his popular fantasy novels, such as his Monster Hunter series and Grimoir Chronicles, were being passed over in favor of leftist, feminist, writers. He had been nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2011, and observed how many people had “freaked out” over his conservative views. When he didn’t win, he blamed “the liberals.” During the 2013 Worldcon, he organized a little over 100 voting members and used them to get more right-leaning and populist authors nominated, focusing primarily on his own novel, Monster Hunter Legion (2012). This initial effort fell 17 votes shy of getting Correia’s novel nominated. But the Sad Puppies were just getting started. None of the other recommended writers were nominated.
In 2014, he tried again. This time, he organized a slate so that people could vote as an organized bloc. The Sad Puppies succeeded in getting 7 out of 12 nominees onto the final ballot, including Correia’s novel, Warbound, Book III of the Grimoir Chronicles (2013). However, Correia lost to Ann Leckie’s novel, Ancillary Justice. None of the Sad Puppies slate nominees won a Hugo.
In 2015, the Sad Puppies tried once more to steal the balloting from “the Left.” This time, they were led by Brad R. Torgersen, who recommended five times the number of authors that Correia had. He also added a new twist to the Sad Puppies’ rationale. He argued that the Hugos had become too interested in high literary form, and needed to return to its more traditional pulp fiction and populist roots. He even included a few minority and female authors on the slate to diffuse potential criticism. In the end, this new tactic fooled almost no one.
By this point, the Sad Puppies had gotten the attention of a radical named Vox Day (Theodore Robert Beale). He organized a second slate, even more extreme-focused than Torgersen’s. He called his block “Rabid Puppies,” emphasizing that his was the more radical version of the same idea (and creating no end of confusion, as two groups with the same goal now had completely contradictory names). The year before, there had been a controversy known as “Gamergate,” in which several women who spoke out against sexism and misogyny in the video game industry were harassed for speaking out. Vox Day, in a particularly sleazy move, reached out to those who sided against the women of Gamergate so they could add their votes to the Hugos and stuff the ballot for the Rabid Puppies slate.
The net result of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies’ joint slates (although both differed somewhat), was devastating. 51 out of 60 Sad Puppy recommendations were nominated. 58 out of 67 Rabid Puppy recommendations were nominated. The effect was so overwhelming, that in five categories, Best Related Work, Best Short Story, Best Novella, Best Editor (Short Form), and Best Editor (Long Form), all the nominees were Puppy nominees!
Some within the SF community saw what had been happening in previous years and were worried, but now they became outright alarmed! Key people withing science fiction and fantasy began rallying their fan base to the cause of beating the “Puppies” back, and the counter-campaign worked! They were too late to correct the nominations, but they could influence the final voting, and DID! Voting memberships for Sasquon (the 61st Worldcon in Spokane, Washington) went through the roof! George R.R. Martin rallied fans to the cause on his blog. He called the incident “Puppygate,” and suggested that the Hugos may be irrevocably broken. John Scalzi rallied his fan base. Scalzi’s friend and frequent narrator, Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation), spoke out against the Puppies. Connie Willis withdrew as a presenter. Mark Kloos withdrew his novel, Lines of Departure, from consideration. Several other nominees also withdrew. Edmund Schubert tried to withdraw his nomination for Best Editor, but missed the deadline.
The sci-fi fan base prevailed! In the end, the Sad/Rabid Puppy votes were only 19% of the overall total. Cixn Liu’s book, The Three Body Problem, which had been translated from Chinese, and was one of the few nominees that weren’t Puppy-influenced, won the Hugo for Best Novel. In other categories, the Puppies lost outright. In all five categories where all nominees were Puppy-nominees, the award went to – no one! The votes for “none” outweighed any other considerations. The presenters – David Gerrold and Tananarive Due – tried their best to retain their composure every time another “No Award” was handed out, but even they couldn’t keep from looking a bit awkward and embarrassed as things developed.
And yet, despite the fans’ success in thwarting the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, it should be noted that the Puppy-bloc was successful in keeping many other deserving authors from being nominated. With five Hugos lost, potentially five careers missed their opportunity. All for the sake of right-wing politics.
At the 2016 Worldcon, the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies tried again. This time, many media outlets were on to what had been happening. The previous Worldcon had gotten the attention of media outlets such as Slate, Wired, NPR, and Vox, and no one was sneaking up on the nomination process this time. But the Puppies, too, were on to the game changes, and expected such a move. This time, the recommendation list was put together by Australian short-story writer, Kate Paulk, and she changed tactics in an interesting way. Instead of pushing hard to get specific recommendations through, she watered down the recommendations by adding so many names to the Puppy list that it became nearly impossible for protest voters to exclude them all! On the Sad Puppies 4 list, there were 10 recommendations just for best novel alone. Altogether, the Sad Puppies recommended a whopping 123 names! The protest vote couldn’t keep all of them from being nominated, no matter how hard they tried! The Rabid Puppies, again organized by Vox Day, followed suit by making 81 recommendations, many of which were already popular minority writers. Of course, this tactic had the additional effect of watering down the intended outcome of the vote, but this time, they wanted to send a different message. Instead of, “We want the right-wing authors to be heard!” the message was, “We’re not going away, and you can’t make us leave!”
After 2016, the Hugo Awards Committee finally had enough. They implemented a change in the vote tally system (cleverly nicknamed “E pluribus Hugo”) so that bloc voting could not stuff the ballot. In other words, the more names that got written down on a ballot, the more that ballot’s point totals for each nominee got subdivided. This change had been proposed after the 2015 Sasquon fiasco, but it had taken a couple of years to work its way through the system. Never again would the Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies be able to put their thumbs on the scale.
The Puppies tried in 2017 anyway. This time, Sarah Hoyt led the Sad Puppies campaign. But she failed miserably, and it fell dead off the table. The recommended list was supposedly forthcoming, but never came. The Rabid Puppies, still led by Vox Day, altered tactics by recommending only one name in each category to maximize the impact of the vote. This succeeded in getting one nominee in most categories, but it also revealed how paltry a minority the Rabid Puppies were. None of the Rabid Puppy nominees won.
In 2018, neither group staged an attempt to steal the vote, and thus ended “Puppygate.” But it was a lesson to all that even the literary world was not insulated from political extremism.
Now, if that's how much the Alt-Right is willing to cheat over a science fiction award, imagine how much they'll want to cheat in 2020!
Eric
*
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