To anyone still living in an alternate, pre- Trump reality:
Donald Trump and election denialist allies at Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other Maga stalwarts are spreading conspiracy theories about election fraud in order to lay the groundwork for charging the election was rigged if Trump loses, warn election experts and some veteran Republicans.
The consequences of the strategy could be dire. John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, who spoke at the Democratic national convention in August in support of Kamala Harris’s campaign for the presidency, said that former president Trump and his allies “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”, if Trump loses.
He added: “They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to foment insurrection if he loses the election.” [snip]
“A lot of false claims are masquerading as efforts to change policy to improve election integrity when in actuality they’re just designed to sow distrust in our system if Trump loses,” said David Becker, who leads the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “This is all designed to manufacture claims that if Trump loses, the election was stolen and to sow discord, chaos and potential violence.”...
If you accept this reality, then the next question is, what's being done about it? by the Administration, specifically the Departments of Justice and of Homeland Security? What's being done to address the most serious domestic threat since 1/6/21 and possibly since the Civil War? We should expect planning for the expected and unexpected has taken place, since we have confidence, not necessarily in some of the Departmental leadership, but in the professionals under them and in the President and those around him. That would be planning we wouldn't hear about for obvious reasons.
"When we fight, we win," yes. But when we win, we might also have to fight.
Barbara F. Walter writes in The New Yorker about the likelihood and direction violence might take if and when the Malignant Loser loses in November. Here's the relevant excerpt:
What would violence look like if Trump loses? It would likely start with protests against the election results, which could turn into riots. Far-right militias might join in. They would not begin by attacking Democratic voters. Instead, they would first target those they perceive to be traitors within their own party: Republicans who are deemed too moderate, those who have reached across party lines, refused to support maga, or who have enacted laws with which these extremists disagree. This is what happened in Nigeria in 2011. Buhari’s most ardent supporters didn’t start by killing Christians who happened to live in the north. They attacked groups who seemed to be collaborating with the federal government: police, party officials. The January 6th rioters who stormed the Capitol also seemed to have targets in mind, including Trump’s own Vice-President, Mike Pence. Rioters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence,” for his role in refusing to certify the election for Trump.
In the U.S., extremists would likely then target minorities living in red and purple states, attempting to marginalize supposed interlopers in their communities. In Nigeria, rioters in Muslim-majority areas attacked local Christians, burning their churches and shops. When people feel insecure, they seek to cleanse their communities of those they deem a potential threat. If the white, Christian males who make up the core of the maga base no longer have the votes to control the federal government, then they will insure that they have the votes to control many of the red and purple states in which they live.
But the most violence can be expected in the states with a fairly equal balance of white Americans and nonwhite Americans, where power is still being contested. Experts have found that some of the most volatile countries are the ones whose societies are divided into two relatively large groups. Some of the greatest racial tension in the United States has occurred in places where the white and nonwhite populations were relatively even. This included several former Confederate states during Reconstruction, after Black people were given the right to vote and hold office, as well as cities such as Birmingham, Memphis, Cleveland, Gary, and Newark, which experienced bursts of violence as they became minority-white, starting in the nineteen-sixties. It is the mixed cities, states, and regions—just like Kaduna, in Nigeria—where the declining side feels most threatened. In the United States today, this means that places like Georgia, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona could become hot spots of violence...
For our imperfect democracy to survive, we have to confront those who would tear it down right at the outset, starting with the Malignant Loser. We're not at all sanguine about violence being averted post- election, especially if and when the Malignant Loser goes down to defeat. We have to take the threat from these cowards/ bullies seriously. But we can't afford to flinch when and if the time comes to protect our democratic heritage. As we've said before, forewarned is forearmed.
(Photo: The first coup attempt / Robert Nickelsberg, Getty)
