What will happen if GOP steals the 2026 election? What should happen?

The BBQ Pit
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(Perhaps this belongs in P&E. But it’s a topic likely to provoke anger. I know I’m very unhappy about it.)

Some pundits say it will take decades for America to recover from Trump even if Ds sweep the 2026 and 2028 elections. I worry that Rs will win in November and that the nightmare gets even worse.

Mischief in elections is as American as apple pie. Nixon might have won the 1960 election without malfeasance in Chicago and Texas. Other recent examples abound. But most of the “stolen” elections were close anyway. When an election goes 49-51 instead of 51-49 it’s almost an an exaggeration to say democracy was subverted.

That is NOT what is going to happen in November. Polls are likely to make it clear that the Ds will win, perhaps in a “landslide.” Yet, due to a variety of cheats the Congress seated in January will be controlled by the GOP. The huge scale of blatant cheating will be impossible to ignore.

As one example of likely malfeasance, consider that mail-in ballots pass through the hands of the Trump-controlled Post Office. The Supreme Court MIGHT rule that Trump’s planned postal crimes are illegal, but Trump doesn’t obey court orders anyway. Simply destroying ALL mail-in ballots would be a major swing: Ds (37%) mail-in at half again the rate of R’s (24%), so a 54-46 D victory turns into defeat if mail-ins are not counted. (Note that some states have already started the mail-in process.)

And malfeasance by Post Office and election officials may be more selective: “True the Vote”, “EagleAI NETwork”, and “VoteRef” are examples of past GOP programs to disenfranchise voters specifically likely to vote D. Those programs were largely unsuccessful, but the criminals are much more in control now.

There are many other ways MAGA criminals might swindle in the coming election. ICE may seize and destroy ballot boxes. Just intimidating certain classes of voters can have big effect. I won’t be surprised if, with the support of a Trumpist judge, California’s redistricting is declared illegal. Trump may simply declare martial law and cancel the elections.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It’s true that Trump isn’t exactly helping the GOP win in November. That’s because he doesn’t want a “Republican” Congress: He wants a Congress controlled by extremists who will comply with his power grab and crimes.

So. What WILL happen when Rs and MAGA retain power in 2027 despite strong voter disapproval? What SHOULD happen? I’m afraid the only suggestions I might offer would be violent and labeled treason.

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What should happen: Prosecutions on a wide scale.

What will actually happen: I’m going to use the same arguments that Democrats kept touting in 2020 about election integrity: It’s highly difficult to steal an election because many precincts use many different voting methods and you can’t get enough people who are onboard and willing to risk prison to do The Steal.

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What worries me (slightly) about this one is a huge delay in processing the mail-in votes. Ballots seized, the thieves cry to their beholden SCOTUS who grants them a hearing. GOP idiots submit 200 ballots from nearby districts that ARE ILLEGAL!!! Why? Well, they’re not illegal and should be counted. But that might not happen until May.

Trump and his immoral orange dick suckers love to use the courts to delay, delay, delay. (I remember him delaying class action suits against him when companies went bankrupt, only to let the other side go bankrupt (like him!)) If they get one hearing like this, then another, and another like with Epstein, ballot bullshit, a few months delay could lead to a lot of further damage.

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Nothing much will happen, Schumer might write a letter; some Americans will whine, but nothing much will happen.

What should happen is the dissolution of the US.

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OP: Violence is our history, and it’s only treason if you lose. That said, as long as heads aren’t adorning the fenceposts in DC I think it’s fair to say MAGA is now our future. Looks like the country has outgrown the constitution and no longer wants democracy. Hardly surprising, I haven’t seen anyone fighting for it anyway.

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Yeah, I am in agreement. That’s what will happen. But I see this thread as positing a hypothetical, as unlikely as it might be, and it specifically speaks to what Republicans would certainly do if they could and what Democrats are rightfully terrified of if it could happen.

At least I assume so. @Gordon_G, are you meaning this as a thought exercise where we are just supposed to go with the premise, or did you mean to actually discuss the possibility of this actually coming about?

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OK, then, if it’s a thought experiment, I’m going to have to predict that even if the election is stolen, then most likely Democrats will just protest loudly but not reverse the steal (or be unable to do so) and just begin talking about “2026 was stolen, we can’t do anything about it, but let’s make sure the 2028 election isn’t stolen too. Everyone turn out to vote in 2028 to prevent it from being another 2026!”

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Yeah, that sounds like us.

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Mass strikes and general protests are what should happen. Specifically, they need to be at a scale and intensity that make Democrat politicians feel that there is so much overpowering public demand for action that their futures as politicians, lobbyists, and talk-show guests are at dire risk if they don’t mount a vigorous, vocal, and effective opposition.

Of course it would be nice if we could put that same fear into Republicans, but I expect they’ll be too far gone down the doubling-down route. They need to be afraid too, but of things that can’t be described in detail here.

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What should happen is the implementation of ranked choice voting, but I have zero faith that it ever will.

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Sounds about right. The Democrats will worry about not speaking up too loudly because they want to maintain decorum as the Purge is happening right outside their doors.

(Not all; there will probably be a few speaking the truth but they’ll be dismissed as “extreme loony left” and “communists” and other scare terms.)

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NOT a thought exercise. I think there is high probability that blatant election theft WILL happen. USA’s famous “checks and balances” are no longer operative. States’ rights also operate poorly. ICE operates with no regard for state laws. Trump’s Post Office retains authority over mail-in ballots. Election results are certified in Washington by Federal officials

Did you read Trump’s speech at the recent MAGAthon? He literally announces that cheating is the way.

Exactly how will they cheat? I don’t know; there are MANY possibilities. Voter intimidation will be active. I expect flagrant ballot thefts and sabotage. The Post Office may deliberately destroy D-leaning ballots. Et cetera, et cetera. After witnessing what this man and his cabal are capable of, how can anyone NOT believe this will happen?

To stand back and file a lawsuit Trump’s cabal will laugh at is to give up. If these fascists consolidate power in the 2026 election, destruction of the democracy will be complete by 2028.
Comments in this thread give a pessimistic view of what WILL happen after the popular will is defined and Trump and the MAGA Congress retain power anyway. This is disappointing.

It is not unusual for a military to wrest control from an autocratic regime which has subverted democracy. Such “democratic coups” happened in Portugal 1974, Mali 1991, Niger 2010, Guinea 2021, Gabon 2021. Of course nobody would ever advocate a military coup on this message-board, but it seems interesting that some recent democracies have been restored by military intervention.

Naysayers who will now tell us that “military coups are un-American” are simply befuddled: It is the American government which is now un-American.

Hegseth has fired many generals and colonels whom he suspected of disloyalty. A successful coup might now be a distant longshot anyway.

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Yeah, no.

So this is a conspiracy theory thread, got it. Good thing you put it in the Pit.

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So the whole offering a $5,000 bribe on TV to vote Republican thing? Let me guess: both sides do it.

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I expect them to break the law left and right. And get away with at least 90% of it. But they don’t have the ability to steal the election.

Yet. They’ve been working on it. Give it time, it might happen.

Are you sad that I dared to say that Democrats would react in a weak way to an election steal if it ever happened (in some theoretical situation)? Is that what makes you think I’m a “bothsider”? Do you think they did all they possibly could to prosecute Trump during the Biden administration?

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I guess you’re not aware that social safety net programs are the way Democrats bribe the poors to vote for them?
According to many Republicans.

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Racist morons like you are why America collapsed.

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Umm, I’m manyclouds not many Republicans.

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I pointed out in another thread that Biden did do something similar, but as is usually the case the difference comes down to nuance and it’s pretty damn important.

Biden says $2,000 checks to ‘go out the door immediately’ if Democrats win in Georgia

The nuance being that Democrats didn’t have control of both houses of Congress, and couldn’t just pass the bill if they wanted to. They’d tried to pass legislation and actually had the support of outgoing president Trump, but Republicans blocked it.

Democratic lawmakers supported the larger checks, but the increase faced opposition from some Republican lawmakers expressing concern about the bill’s price tag.

Biden was saying that they needed the numbers to do it, and they did eventually do it. When it passed, it passed purely on party lines. The checks ended up being $1,400 each, and when combined with the $600 checks that had been passed earlier, the promise was kept.

The nuance is that when Democrats say it, it’s actually true. When Republicans say it, it’s a lie, and they are only dangling a carrot to get something they want, they’re not asking the public for help to make it possible. They could make it possible, they just don’t want to, because they don’t want to make lives easier for all Americans, just for the top 1% wealthiest people they keep giving tax breaks to.

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I worry about the future.

People want to believe that the system works. But the Republicans are working hard to undermine that trust. It’s not helping that Donald Trump is a moron (although the problem runs a lot deeper than Trump).

Don’t blame the Democrats. We have no provision within the Constitution for a minority party to declare that things are fucked up and we’re overthrowing the government.

If the Republicans keep undermining democracy and messing up the economy, there will be some tipping point. Which in political situations, means a revolution and the overthrow of the government of the United States.

Don’t get excited about that. History has given us a lot of examples of revolutions and their outcomes, and the results are almost always bad. Usually you end up with a dictatorship that uses violence to keep itself in power.