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TokenBoomer@lemmy.world

Is this even possible for the midterms? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 hours ago by snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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"With provisional ballots still being counted, Donald Trump claims the GOP held the House and alleges Democratic fraud. While Republican lawyers sue to stop the count, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel use federal authority to threaten local officials and spread fraud rumors. Despite Democrats leading by slim margins, conservative media amplifies claims of treason.

The situation escalates when Trump claims a county recorder agreed to hand over voting machines to the Department of Homeland Security. Though a judge and Justice Elena Kagan attempt to block the move, Marines seize the machines and ballots. Patel declares the Republican candidates the winners, effectively breaking the chain of custody. Following local protests, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to declare martial law. Ultimately, House Republicans reject Arizona’s official Democratic certification and seat the GOP candidates instead."

Would Trump throw the election into chaos in order to claim victory.

I think so.

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Don't get dragged down by doomers.

Will Trump and his ilk do all manner of dirty and fascist tactics to destabilize the country rather than let us have a fair democratic process? Absolutely.

Will it work? Absolutely unknown. The country is a much larger and more complicated place than other countries that have been subverted by dictators, Trump wouldn't need to do this once across one country, he has to do it across 50 individual states, each with it's own electoral systems and security methods. They are constantly overreaching and their only tactic, albeit and effective one, is to just make things confusing and chaotic.

This can only go so far. His "ICE army" isn't going to be strong enough to function as his own private police force because again, the country is too large. He would need hundreds of thousands of more agents just to barely scratch the surface. The marines are not going to be involved in any electoralism because they can't and no amount of bullying is going to make that change. Martial law is not a "magic switch" that just cancels elections, he's actually hoping enough people think it works that way I'm sure, but that will also get shot down by judges.

I'm not saying that the chances for massive corruption and losing the midterms is impossible, it's just that we have a lot of momentum and a lot of recent elections that have not been compromised, so if he had the power to do it, he would have by now.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 45 minutes ago

I mean, he only needs to target a couple states. Isn’t this already happening in Georgia?

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You can doom all you want, but ultimately there's nothing stopping a president from causing a civil war. There's no point really worrying about it, other than being vigilant. They can declare what they want, but they have no authority here. If they choose to just ignore the Supreme Court, well if they really want a civil war, they will have one.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I guess the term "civil war" has lost all meaning entirely. I won't even try.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

No, you just don't understand how serious this is. If the federal government starts outright cancelling or invalidating elections, we are officially in civil war territory. That is the time for states to start seceding from the union. Democracy is worth fighting for. Democracy is worth dying for. Again, if the federal government really wants to force a civil war, it can do so. But that's always something the federal government can do.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Civil war means internal, opposing armies between clearly defined groups.

What you're describing would be widespread social unrest and the like, but without an army on our side we don't have opposition, and without leadership and organization we won't even be able to make an underground army. We don't even have boundaries and targets and clear agendas, so we're years and years from "civil war" if not decades.

You may think this is pedantic but in these matters it's very important we stop using inaccurate or hyperbolic terms because it gives people the wrong idea of what is going to happen and what we need to actually do. There is a hollywood-like infatuation with "civil wars" that is not doing this conversation any good. It makes reasonable people who know these facts tune out and take the whole thing less seriously. We can turn it around electorally but the reigning powers really, really want us to create false narratives around what's happening so that average people roll their eyes and tune out.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You ignored what I wrote and wandered off on a tangent. No, I'm talking about the actual formal dissolution of the Untied States. States literally seceding from the union. When the federal government starts invalidating elections, that's when you need to be contacting your state representatives formally demanding that your state secede from the union. I am literally talking about second civil war, with the US military breaking apart into opposing sides, just like it did in the first civil war.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Yah I know what you're talking about and I think you're lost in the sauce also, this isn't happening anytime soon. It may happen, but a lot more has to happen beforehand.

You may be confused, I am not saying "everything is going to be okay", in fact what I'm saying is far, far worse which is that, right now if we lost election integrity entirely and the electoral process was supplanted or compromised, we would have a lot of protests, but then nothing would happen. We don't have any organization, we never even got anything from BLM, No Kings or the recent wave of national protests about ICE. Nothing changes until the majority of comfortable Americans start getting uncomfortable enough that they are willing to sacrifice everything, that is when armies start forming, state militias, and rhetoric of secession.

That would be an inevitable consequence of destabilizing democracy, but the big force here is still the biggest force, that the US is a slow turning boat and companies, the corporations who run the country, are not going to accept anything that rapidly hurts their bottom line, so none of this happens over a timespan less than decades.

[–] DarkShaggy@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Yes