How Likely is It that Trump will Try to Proclaim Martial Law?

Dunno that I’d call Greenwald “far right-wing” exactly, but that linked article sure has a lot of misleading omissions and misstatements, including this ridiculous bit:

The attempt to paint this as some kind of principled abstention from dictatorial power on Trump’s part is simply silly:

Nobody, actually. Or, at least, nobody of note. The statement is usually attributed to Sinclair Lewis, but it appears nowhere in his writings.

There are a few quotes similar to the famous one that can be sourced to around Lewis’s time period, but none that use the exact phrasing. The closest comes from a speech by another writer around 1935 (cite).

So the true author of that quote is probably “Anonymous (distilling previous material into pithy syntax).”

“The Ku Klux Klan comes wrapped in the American flag, as it were, advocating the American principles openly, with a Bible in its hand ,"

Lonnie Jackson, mayor of Central City, Kentucky, 1923.

Quote Investigator

I’ve been saying for about four years now that we need to change that line to past tense.

Well, since we are already a fascist state, then why bother to fight it, or vote or donate? :roll_eyes:

The resistance did not give up in France or Netherlands when they were occupied by fascists

There is a difference between using the powers of the presidency to help the American people, and using them to help himself.

He has no interest in the former, much in the latter.

No one said that. Fascism has certainly come here to America, and it is absolutely testing the waters and trying to gain hold.

That does not mean that we are already a fascist state. It means we are in danger of becoming one, which is why one would bother to fight it, vote, and donate.

Anyone who invokes, “It can never happen here.” is helping it to happen here.

Pretty much Smapti did.

Fascism is dead. It will never come back. Now sure, some right wing idea will take over that may have some of the elements of fascism, but it’s dead as well as classical communism. They failed.

I agree that Fascism has failed. This will not stop facists from trying it out again though.

Supply-side bullshit economics has failed over and over again as well.
This has not stopped Republicans from continuing to believe in it, and to enact huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

I think feudalism is coming back.

Wake me when platform shoes start to come back. I want a running (and screaming) head start.

So is the screaming from breaking your leg while running in platform shoes?

I wouldn’t be buried in platform shoes.

Of course that’s false. There is a non zero change he will try to proclaim martial law. I’d say one chance in ten.

The odds of it working are much less than that, but the OP asks if he would TRY.

What do you mean by “try”? Send out a tweet saying he was imposing it? Or give specific orders to specific military commands to take specific actions? Because Trump doesn’t have the attention span to do the latter even if he wanted to.

Well, to Trump, that might constitute an attempt he might actually think would work.

But it could also mean an executive order. He enjoys those.

What would such an executive order say? Specifically?

Gosh, that would be wizard!

You could if they’re big enough.

“I declare martial law in accordance with the Insurrection Act. The army is to hold new elections in the states I lost. Bring me a hamberder.” It might be stupid, but it constitutes an attempt.

Something like this, but a touch bigger: