This is very sobering and depressing, but unfortunately, I think it may be true. We are 29 days out from the most consequential election of our lifetimes — and yes, that’s what we said in 2020. And we were right then, too. Somehow the guardrails held and Joe Biden was elected by a very decent margin, 306 electoral votes to 232 for Trump. Ironically, Trump characterized his 306 votes in 2016 as a “landslide” but the same figure in 2020 is now said to be “by a whisker.” Intriguing how the same number can be interpreted both ways and by the same person, ne c’est pas?
But in 2016, Hillary Clinton did the right thing, the Amerian thing, and conceded the election and the transfer of power happened according to the Constitution. Not so in 2020. Trump was all in for the electoral college and the Constitution in 2016, when it suited him. In 2020 it was a different story.
Now we’re coming up on 2024 and Charlie Sykes, a political pundit from way back, is playing Paul Revere and warning us of what’s to come. And while it depresses me, on the one hand, on the other, he’s probably right and it behooves us to listen. Let’s put it this way: I remember when Michael Cohen spoke before Congress and said that Trump would not leave office peacefully if defeated in 2020. I knew, internally, he was right. But I hoped that January 6 wouldn’t happen and lo and behold, it did. And now the stakes are even higher for Trump. So I do suggest we listen. Forewarned is forearmed.
There’s less than a month until Election Day. Kamala Harris is a slight favorite, but it won’t be over on November 5. In fact, the worst will have just begun.
And, yes, it will be worse than the aftermath of the 2020 election. Potentially, much worse.
How could it possibly be worse?
I’m glad you asked.
Donald Trump no longer sits in the White House, and he no longer holds the reins of the federal government; he doesn’t control the DOJ and there isn’t a Republican VP to mess with the counting of electoral votes. So, what could go wrong?
Let’s start with a throat-clearing caveat: Trump could win on November 5.
But what if he loses?
It doesn’t matter if the race is close. It doesn’t matter if Harris wins 270 electoral votes or 420. No margin will prevent Trump from claiming victory and MAGA from embracing his claims.
As we’ve seen this week with the MAGA lies about everything from Haitian immigrants to FEMA’s hurricane recovery efforts: No lie will be too flagrant. No invention too incredible.
Trump is already laying the groundwork: He will claim fraud; blame election “interference”; float conspiracy theories; blame migrants and voting machines. If he thinks it’ll work, he’ll make up stories about how Italian satellites rigged the election. Via CNN:
Former President Donald Trump has escalated his long-running assault on the integrity of US elections as the 2024 presidential campaign enters its final stretch, using a new series of lies about ballots, vote-counting and the election process to lay the groundwork to challenge a potential defeat in November.
Nonpartisan democracy experts say they’re seeing many of the same warning signs that were blinking red before Election Day four years ago, when Trump flooded the zone with election lies and conspiracy theories that he amplified after losing to Joe Biden. His campaign of deception culminated in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
**
But how could it be worse than four years ago? Let us count the ways:
- Desperation. Trump knows he may face prison if he loses. A desperate man is a dangerous man, and Trump is a man without scruples who has nothing to lose if he burns it all down.
- His base absolutely expects him to win and will not accept the fact that he lost in a legitimate election. A Trump defeat will set off shockwaves of disbelief that he will ride into January — and beyond.
- This time, Trump has the infrastructure in place, including an entire political party that has been conditioned to acquiesce in or actively support his complaints — no matter how full of shit.
- He will try again to get GOP legislatures to overturn the results. In 2020, the GOP resisted his more flagrant attempts to vaporize millions of votes. This time, they might go along. Republicans control the legislatures in Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. (Democrats, however, control the governorships of North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.) Here’s a map of state legislative control:
- Trump has already flooded the zone with lawsuits. Last time, the courts were a firewall. This time, he has a Supreme Court majority that has shown a willingness to accommodate and protect him.
This is one of those articles worth reading in its entirety. The New York Times is reporting an “onslaught of litigation, much of it landing in recent weeks,” which “includes nearly 90 lawsuits filed across the country by Republican groups this year. The legal push is already more than three times the number of lawsuits filed before Election Day in 2020.” This is ominous. And you heard J.D. Vance at the vice presidential debate. He will not say that Trump lost the 2020 election, he evades the question by saying, “I’m looking at the future.”
The entire Republican party has spent the past four years whitewashing the January 6 riot. They bemoan the fact that their forward-looking party wants to leave it all in the past, yet look at them focus on Tim Walz forgetting a date or two when speaking extemporaneously from the podium. The past is of urgent importance in nailing a faux pas of Tim Walz’s but it is negligible if the topic at hand is Trump’s inciting a riot when he lost the last time.
Here’s one more thing to look at from Sykes’ article and it is sobering.
This is horrifying, if true, and I venture to say it’s not far off. If 40% of Americans think that Donald Trump, the Father Of All Lies, is the only one telling the truth, I don’t know where that leaves us. Up the creek without a paddle, definitely. We need to get ready now. If you heard Trump speak in Butler, Pennsylvania yesterday, you saw a bouncing Elon Musk declare that if Trump didn’t win, democracy was over. No, quite the reverse. But the people who heard it believe it, and that’s all of our problems, now.
It’s bad. I just finished a fervent discussion with a well educated,(nurse), in Chapel Hill who kept insisting Kamala is NO DIFFERENT than Trump. She also insisted a vote for Jill Stein is a legitimate protest against our support for Israel. She wouldn’t admit Hamas is a terrorist group and that the Palestinians were the original inhabitants of Palestine.(Wrong). I can almost accept,(almost), that uneducated folks buy Faux News as ‘truth’, but someone who should know better, and I haven’t covered all of her crap. I kept pointing out it was Republicans who passed laws allowing the constant lies of Fox and the buying of politicians. She is a rich lady with multiple properties worth over a million dollars and is clearly not voting for Kamala. She refused to see how that helps Trump and that the world and the Palestinians will be much worse off. She refused to accept its a binary system. It’s disheartening to see how stupid people are. All I can say is I’m not desperate YET…but you phucking nazis thought you had it won until the rest of US got desperate in 1941-1945. You aren’t the only phucking assholes who can inflict pain.
Rereading she thought the Palestinians were the original inhabitants. Nope. I didn’t point out, based on her ideal, that the jews should get out of the area, then she should sell her properties and donate the proceeds to Native Americans.
I was wondering. Ok, all good. Thanks for correcting your comment, Scott
Yeah…I realized it wasn’t clear. She also denied Jill Stein is a tool of the right wing no matter what lies she spreads. She has used trump’s former attorneys and trump supports her to steal votes as she did in 2016. I suspect she’s just another person who drinks the Kool aid all under the guise she is protesting the genocide committed by the war criminal running Israel. I have no problem questioning why we have supported Israel in giving arms given the apartheid they’ve been running since 1948. That being said she wants Israel gone and that isn’t going to happen nor is killing and bombing going to eliminate radical Islamic terrorists. If she can’t admit that Hamas is a terrorist group then she has her head up her ass. She’s a rich lady who is looking for her tax breaks I suspect while wanting to believe she’s a ‘liberal’.
IMO, I think Pres’ Biden & VP Harris have prepared for this & have people in place, also! Knowing the RW CRIMINALITY & Evil, We have already Witnessed & Endured!
idk why it’s such a terrible thing to say out loud I wish Trump was shot dead in Butler, Pennsylvania. Who cares about the f-ing trial that may or not be especially with Robert’s on the court. Talk about sane washing the guy who wants to ruin this country, Jesus!
If Harris and Walz win, it comes down to whether Republican office holders will say “Enough is enough!” and oppose all attempts to overturn the election results. Reportedly, many of them privately hope Trump will lose, but how many will stand up to him and the MAGA crowd? I’m doubtful.
Does EVERYBODY think President Biden is just sitting on his thumbs in the oval? I cannot believe he is not, right now, planning for whatever idiocy the magats have planned up to and INCLUDING johnson’s “fix” (and yes, that particular moron will try). This sykes person sounds like he has about as much education in…well…pretty much anything, as any other “journalist” (that’d be about nothing looking at what they write) so for everyone to set themselves on fire INCLUDING P.Z. readers-my word when did P.Z. folks become such pussies?
Do you all honestly believe President Biden is in cognitive decline? I mean, if you think something that stupid it certainly explains much. How about we at least wait until the votes are tabulated, ‘k? How about if you all are so damned worried President Biden is loonier than even von shitzi is, you all volunteer at your polling places and keep watch so that at least you’ll be able to sleep easier knowing you did all you could do.
To me this reads kind of like an extended “NYTimes Pitchbot” headline. Something like:
“Democrats win landlside vote. Is this just the beginning of their troubles?”
If Trump.loses,how will they explain that the other GOP candidates in that state won?