Regardless of the rationale, and notwithstanding the twisting and squirming to find justification (e.g., The Insurrection Act of 1807), if Donald Trump can cause the election to be held when and how he believes it to be proper, if ever, the United States of America is done. One man, a rogue narcissistic president will have jammed a sharp knife into the heart of American democracy, killing it almost instantly. Unless this autocratic threat is eliminated almost immediately.
Trump is working overtime to create a myth that armed insurrection is roiling through US cities – all in Democrat-controlled areas – from anarchist radical leftists. He is justifying sending federal forces, using tear gas, pepper spray, “non-lethal” bullets and random arrests by unmarked vans, by creating visuals – blurred by the smoke – as evidence of the “threat.” “Law and order” Trump, in his message, is the only person who can save this country from those made-up threats.
Even as the mayors reeling from the incursion of federal “police” are describing unnecessary provocation and abusive violence from those federal forces telling us the feds are actually the source of the problem, not the local protestors. Trump’s lackeys back their “strongman,” like his “personal-attorney-masquerading-as-US-Attorney-General” William Barr who has perjured himself in Congressional testimony to contradict what senior officials and raw footage have provided via clear and convincing evidence that there is no such anarchist uprising. Mostly peaceful protestors exercising their First Amendment Rights.
There is no way for this American ship to be righted by the November election. The Trump administration’s incredible mishandling of the pandemic – dramatically proven when the results in Europe and many parts of Asia are compared to ours – the willingness to dump young children back into schools (under threat of withholding federal funding if they do not) just as the COVID-19 infection rate is soaring, the collapse of the economy made so much worse by forcing reopening before containment (violating federal guidelines for reopening), and Trump’s crashing and burning poll results have obviously terrified him.
Although there are more than three months until the election, and anything can happen, Trump is rapidly coming to the conclusion that he is exceptionally unlikely to be reelected unless the America people believe normalcy has returned or is imminently certain to return. And he knows that, notwithstanding his promises of a widely deployed vaccine or his pledge of a strong economy, that will not happen by November. So in addition to fabricating the threat of armed insurrection, and even though in past elections in red states the GOP has dominated the vote-by-mail constituency, Trump has also fabricated – without a shred of evidence – that voting by mail will produce a fraudulent result. If the polls are correct, and clearly Trump now believes them, he feels the overwhelming shadow of a massive defect looming over him.
His tirade against the well-established vote-by-mail process (which under the Constitution is controlled by states) has even backfired in those states where his most passionate supporters, who have used vote-by-mail in past elections, are now burning and destroying their notifications from their own states inviting them to use mail-in votes during this pandemic. Strangely, Trump just might have effectively cut those voters out of the voting process if the live vote process is as abysmal as in recent elections, with long lines and failing voter machines, and if the pandemic pushes his traditionally older voters, a major Trump constituency, from leaving their homes to vote. But none of that is getting in the way of a dictator wannabe who know believes that he cannot otherwise win an election. And by hook or by crook, Trump intends to remain President.
“President Donald Trump on Thursday [7/30] suggested delaying the November presidential election while baselessly warning that mail-in voting will lead to ‘the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history.’… ‘It will be a great embarrassment to the USA,’ he tweeted. ‘Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???’
“States are increasingly offering mail-in ballots due to concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic, but Trump has repeatedly tried to dissuade people from voting by mail, claiming — without any supporting evidence — that it will lead to voter fraud.
“Trump has no power over the election schedule; moving it would require changing federal law. The Constitution states the exact date and time when a president and vice president’s term ends. There is no clause that would allow a president to remain in office beyond that date, which is the Jan. 20 following the presidential election.
“Trump’s urging came on the heels of the release of dire new economic figures from the Commerce Department, which showed that the U.S. economy shrank by 33% between April and June — the worst quarterly plunge ever… There are fewer than 100 days until the election, and he is trailing badly in the polls.” Huffington Post, July 30th.
Persuading Congress to postpone the election is not happening. His support even within his own party, as least on the date of the election is dwindling: “Congressional Republicans quickly sought to distance themselves from the president over his suggestion. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told a Kentucky television station that the election date was ‘set in stone’… Senator Marco Rubio, a loyalist on most issues, said: ‘I wish he hadn’t said that, but it’s not going to change: We are going to have an election in November.’… Lindsey Graham, normally a cheerleader for the president, told CNN he did not think Trump’s tweet about the election was ‘a particularly good idea.’…
“The Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, simply tweeted quoting the US constitution stating: ‘The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.’… [As for vote-by-mail fraud,] Trump himself and numerous members of his administration, including Vice-President Mike Pence, have voted by mail.” The Guardian UK, July 30th. You’d think by now, some Republicans – who still seem wary about alienating Trump’s evangelical base – might begin to worry that tying themselves to Trump might be their own undoing.
If Trump cannot stop the election but refuses to recognize the results if he is defeated on the basis of “mail fraud,” he is effectively negating the election process of the states that have implemented mail-in voting (which has been around for a long time in many states). He even seems willing to allow the US Postal Service to shut down by defunding it to make vote-by-mail impossible.
But if the federal government allows Trump to negate those votes, any state can file a lawsuit against the federal government directly with the US Supreme Court without having to resort to starting at the District Court level and working up the system. Even with Trump’s conservative appointees, I cannot conceive of much of anything other than an overwhelming rejection of Trump’s efforts. Those justices know that if they rule otherwise, they will have killed the American democracy. State attorneys general are already preparing to file the necessary lawsuits… if necessary.
The next fear is that those die-hard and well-armed Trump constituents rise to begin a civil war in support of their fearless leader. The consequences, regardless of the ultimate result, will cripple this nation for a very long time, assuming it even survives as an integral unit. If treason is on the Trump agenda, if maintaining power at all costs is the priority, every single American – left, right and center – is at severe risk politically and economically… we could just lose it all. Is the self-described “stable genius” out of his mind?
I’m
Peter Dekom, and it is scary to contemplate how close to the brink of collapse
we just might be and how many people are willing to kill our nation to get
their way.
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