Even if they’re not, and even if Trump and his political allies are so inept that they can’t pull off the election heist, it’s not wrong to have these kinds of fears. We’ve gone far enough down this road already.
I mean it’s good to be optimistic and hope that things will work out as they typically have - we can still do that while being prepared for the unthinkable. But not being prepared gives the opponents of democracy an opening.
Not mine. In a situation where Trump is the head of the civilian government, I would be thrilled at the idea of the military NOT following his orders and in fact deposing him and declaring a military provisional government. This isn’t the military of Mexico or Myanmar that we’re talking about. By and large, the flag officers of the US military are great people, very smart, very competent, and very honorable. The graduates of the service academies take their honor codes very seriously - I have far greater trust in America’s generals and colonels and senior NCOs than I do in Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.
My biggest fear is, encouraged by him or not, his punybrain “2nd Amendment people” (his words) hit the streets (especially D.C.) to do what they feel is righteous and Christian and do whatever they can to keep the orange pustule in the White House.
Even if Trump supporters wanted to go all “2nd Amendment,” there are no targets for them to go after.
Suppose they scream “election was rigged for Biden.” So…what? Who are they going to go after? The Supreme Court? Biden? Pelosi? Their Democratic neighbor? The state legislature of Michigan?
They have no targets.
Those are all targets
Their targets wouldn’t be people (hopefully). Your guess of state legislature is most likely - not to kill the legislators, but to disrupt government by occupying places like state capitols and courthouses.
No targets?
You can’t go online without hearing about some preacher, state legislator or radio host – or POTUS – calling all Democrats evil anti-American anarchist child traffickers. A non-zero number of GOP supporters take that shit seriously, and quite a few of them are armed.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see a few of them randomly shooting up crowds in any area they suspect to be mostly Democrats.
I don’t worry about the blowhards who attend Trump’s rallies. They’re loud and assholish, and they’d probably get into a bar fight over Trump, but they’re not going to grab an assault rifle and kill anyone.
I worry about the loner middle-aged white guy who got dishonorably discharged from the military, lives out in the sticks, has enough guns to have his own gun show, and is perpetually pissed off at the world - and thinks that his misery is the fault of liberals. We see them pop up once in a while, but between now and then Trump, his allies, and Russian trolls trigger these types with conspiracy theories, one of which finally sends them over the edge. And instead of one crank that pops up once in a while, we suddenly have a many-headed hydra.
Do you worry about someone like Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services who is busy spreading conspiracy theories about left-wing hit squads being trained to be put in action after the election if Trump refuses to step down? This is not some loner out in the woods. This is an official at HHS who is saying things like:
…when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin…The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.
If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get
There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.
Caputo isn’t some crank on the fringes - he is a high ranking official at HHS. He has been interfering in reports the CDC has tried to put out when he thinks what they are saying contradicts what the President says.
Do you worry about the fact that Trump buddy Roger Stone is encouraging POTUS to arrest Zuckerberg, the Clintons and Tim Cook if he loses? Stone also is also encouraging Trump to declare martial law if he loses and crush the opposition? Do you not think Bill Barr will find any pretext he can to support such actions and deploy federal agents to carry out these arrests?
I don’t find myself actively worrying about these scenarios but when government officials appointed by Trump and one of his close friends talk like this it does give me pause to consider how things could take a very ugly turn after Election Day.
Agreed on all points. Moreover, even if this is just bluffing and bluster, it still normalizes the thoughts, which is how government or politically-orchestrated conspiracy theories work. They are intended to make people believe that you can’t really know the truth, that you can’t believe the reports that you see on television or in print, and that you can’t trust “facts” because science is reported by humans, and humans are political. People don’t understand the purpose behind smearing Fauci or climate scientists for that matter: it’s not to smear them as individuals. It’s to tear down the idea that facts can be reported fairly and without bias.
The same is true of launching conspiracy theories against the Clintons, the Obamas, or the Bidens, accusing them of imagined crimes they committed while the administration blatantly commits actual crimes of its own - even treason, arguably. Trump and the GOP have broken so many political norms (and I dare say laws as well) that they almost compel an investigation and response by Democrats should they regain power. And yet, should they follow through, they would in a sense be proving the conspiracy theorists right: “See, they really are out to get us!”
It was asked what would be the worst things that he could do in a scorched earth scenario. That is what I am answering.
My rationality is just fine, thank you very much.
You are right, he doesn’t need one. The chain of command is clear.
Short of, as I said, his cabinet invoking the 25th, he doesn’t need a reason or a pretext.
The OP is not about him staying in office, it is about the damage that he may do on the way out. He’s a toddler on a tantrum, wanting to break all the toys rather than give them to someone else.
You know how when people get foreclosed on or evicted, they tend to tear the place up, tear out walls and carpeting? What pretext do they do that under? How does that keep them from being removed?
I do question your reading of the OP, or lack thereof, to have responded to my post in such a way.
And it will end up just like 1916. Them dead.
Maybe you trust their judgement, and maybe you should.
But, if they set that precedent, that the military’s judgement should sometimes supersede that of the civilian government, are you sure that you trust the judgement of the military commanders in the future?
Yes.
Is your “So what?” that you don’t care that they will go after these targets?
Except the ones that you just named.
With all due respect, the Tutsi and Hutu genocide was an intense ethnic/tribal conflict that had been building for quite some time. I don’t know if I would quite go so far as to use Rwanda as an appropriate analogy. There’s definitely an element of ethnic tension and racial animus, but I think America’s conflicts are more about cultural, social, political identity and defining what “America” is. Race is a part of that conflict for sure, but it doesn’t completely define it, IMO.
It’s an example of the direction the US is going in. Perhaps not tomorrow, but given the trajectory your country is on, this is the end result.
I just heard on NPR that the day after Election Day is the first date on which the US can officially withdraw from the Paris climate accord. No doubt, Trump will do so, even if it is obvious that the new president wants the US to stay. Have previous lame duck presidents proactively done anything like this?
The Republicans in general and Trump in particular have been doing that for several years now, starting with a Supreme Court vacancy delayed for ten months.
This thread may interest you: What's the most damaging thing a lame duck president has ever done? - #10 by aurora_maire