Politico, a fairly right-wing news source, is very worried about Trump’s new rhetoric delegitimizing the election. To the point where they are concerned that he could destroy our democracy. They are calling on top Republicans “to defend the legitimacy of the electoral system”. But will rabid Trump supporters listen to anyone other than Trump?
It is easy to believe something terrible could happen. Trump is already throwing a giant temper tantrum. On Sunday he tweeted “Polls close, but can you believe I lost large numbers of women voters based on made up events THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Media rigging election!”
Indeed, alt-right websites are now blaming the release of the Billy Bush tape on either “GOP elites” or even on a giant Jewish conspiracy. Trump knows he is losing, and true-to-form he will blame his loss on everyone else, including the media, his political opponents, and even his fellow Republicans.
Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and Ari Fleischer of George W. Bush’s campaign are worried. Schmidt said about what Trump is doing “What this would be is an assault on the foundations of the long-established traditions of the country, an assault on democracy, vandalizing it.” Fleischer contrasted how “Al Gore graciously accepted the outcome” to Trump’s rhetoric that has him “disgusted”, and predicting that Trump will never concede.
Do you doubt that Trump would do this? He is already threatening to throw Clinton in jail, accusing her of conspiring with the media to destroy his campaign, claiming that the Democrats are fabricating accusations of sexual assaults against him, and saying that she stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders.
Will Trump destroy our democracy? It certainly looks like he is going to try. Is there anything we can do to stop him?
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I’m worried about this as well. The Boston Globe has had a few articles along these lines:
Warnings of conspiracy stoke anger among Trump faithful:
Vote overwhelmingly democratic. Some who are voting for Trump say that the country needs a shakeup. If so Trump is the bad kind of a shakeup. Why not vote for a democratic senate and house, which BTW the country had when it pulled itself out of the worst recession ever. Teach the republicans a lesson because they need to be taught one and then maybe out of it all we get a republican party that becomes more socially responsible while staying fiscally conservative
However its not only Trump that HRC has to overcome. While the leaks haven’t exposed anything earth shattering the reality is that people who hate/dislike HRC only read the headlines and the headlines are sensationalist to say the least http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-trump-wikileaks-229864
There are things, like the Arizona Republic’s editorial responding to the death threats they have received for endorsing Clinton, that give me hope.
And I have updated my
sour ovalsurvival plans and restocked my ammunition.“Sour oval”, I thought you were referring to the possibilty “el cheetos face” getting in the white house. That would be a sour day for humanity indeed.
Although if he did we could look forward to the endless debate over tiny handed cheetos stains on an interns dress. Maybe in eight years we could get him impeached as he leaves office, being all things being equal.
Mike Pence is on tape saying they will accept the results of the election.
Even in this, Trump is just adopting an established thread from the far right fringe.
Surely I am not the only reader who remembers Michelle Bachmann, at the time a sitting member of the US House, calling on Minnesotans to arm themselves and rise up against the new, “illegitimate” President, Barack Obama.
For myself, I would almost welcome an armed insurrection by Trump’s brownshirts. Our judicial system has been treating the militia movement with such extreme tenderness one could be forgiven for not understanding there’s anything wrong with it. If the militias, the white supremacists, et al, start an open war by engaging in terrorism, we will finally be free to fill the prisons with them.
Interesting Politico article presenting some legitimate concerns. But if our democracy has become so fragile that it can be derailed by a totally unqualified miscreant running an increasingly impotent campaign, then perhaps we’re in bigger trouble than we may realize. A major source of our electoral and hyper-partisan troubles, I would argue, is Citizens United and statewide district gerrymandering.
Regarding the continual stream of hacked emails and documents coming out of Wikileaks lately, and aside from the shock value that privacy is effectively dead, who’s to say those docs weren’t “doctored up”, tampered with and embellished to suit before being released to the public? Are we supposed to take these revelations at face value as though hackers with who-knows-what ulterior motives working through nefarious channels have some high standards of integrity and are simply doing us all a favor out of the kindness of their hearts? Please! We don’t even know who these people are or from where on earth, and Wikileaks’ Assange clearly has a major Clinton bias. Talk about rigging!
I thought Assange had his server severed today so he can’t produce any more leaks. Maybe I misunderstood.
Poltifact.com has copies of the e-mails up on its site.
Southern Poverty is begging for donations as they have to hire extreme protection from those White Supremacists who Donald has incited to riot. Wonder if the Supremacists have any idea of the Indigenous people holiday we celebrated on the 10th?
from Southern Poverty
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Just last month, a white supremacist in New York was sent to prison after purchasing a MAC-10 machine gun, an M-16, and 120 armor-piercing bullets from an undercover agent. Authorities say he planned to “execute kikes [and] coons” and organize a “hit squad.”
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We were fortunate this time.
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Listening to NPR tonight — Secretaries of State in all kinds of States scrambling to document the soundness of their voting systems , the President addressing the issue — it suddenly struck me as deeply ironic, and in a weird way good for us all, that Trump has started playing the “rigged” card.
Because even when Democrats have clear evidence that voter rolls have been jiggered (Ohio 2000 and 2004, e.g.) and the process of collecting and compiling votes has been tampered with (Diebold machines, same years), the collective Us just scratched sand over those messes and didn’t want even to report they had happened because a) we didn’t know how to fight out the results, and b) everybody knows Democrats are orderly people and won’t make a stink.
Now, the Rs are just having an attack of their persistent fantasy (Dead people on the rolls! D’s voting twice! Illegal aliens voting!), augmented by Trump’s own contribution, the “rigged”fantasy — and our collective structures are being turned inside out to check for those imaginary flaws.
And we’re doing this even though we know perfectly well that proving things aren’t rigged will not persuade these people of a damn thing. The most elaborate and partisan investigations of “voter fraud” have turned up not a shred of a problem, but that doesn’t shake the conviction that fraud is a fact.
Anyway,I’m actually glad. This is the first time I’ve heard public electoral officials discussing the fact that a recount isn’t worth spit unless the process of voting produces a piece of paper that a voter can check to make sure it reflects their vote accurately, and then be securely handled to allow for recounts.
We’ve known this for 16 years now, and have been weirdly relaxed about addressing it — until a blustery old demagogue from the alt-right starting trumpeting his fantasies. NOW we have to fix it — as if that will make a lick of difference to Trump’s delusional Brownshirts.
I always get a paper ballot and I think everyone should insist on that. Perhaps you could vote on both the paper and the touch screen, and then use the paper ballots if there was a problem. We have the ability to make sure voting is done correctly, but for some reason it’s not a priority. It’s much more important to disenfranchise certain groups.
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