If this is true, we’re dealing with an unprecedented Shock Doctine maneuver.
If true, the purge is not confined to Trump’s enemies from the Russia investigation. They are getting rid of anyone who could possibly stand in the way of Trump stealing the election.
I don’t mean to be alarmist but it seems that the threat is real:
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, refused on Tuesday to rule out postponing the presidential election in November, a comment that fed directly into Democratic concerns that President Trump might use the coronavirus crisis to delay or delegitimize the contest and one that contradicted Mr. Trump himself.
“I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,” Mr. Kushner told Time magazine in response to a question about whether the election could be postponed because of the pandemic.
The opinion of a White House staff member has no bearing on when the election is held. Even the president himself does not have the authority to unilaterally postpone Election Day, which by law takes place the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.Postponing or canceling the general election is highly unlikely. Here’s what that entails.
But Mr. Kushner’s comment raised alarms both because of the expansive power Mr. Trump has conferred on members of his family who serve in his administration and because it played into the worst anxieties of Mr. Trump’s detractors — that the president would begin to question the validity of the election if he feared he was going to lose.
It doesn’t just “play into the worst anxieties of Mr. Trump’s detractors.” It is clear evidence that Trump’s inner circle is more convinced of his dictatorial powers than ever or still doesn’t understand how the Constitution works. That the thought of postponing the election is even considered by such a high level, albeit ignorant, member of the Trump administration is just chilling.
The article makes clear that they don’t have the power to do this. But we used to think the president didn’t have the power to unilaterally ignore congress whenever it wanted either. And we once thought that the House and Senate would guard its prerogatives regardless of party but we’ve learned otherwise.
And, by the way, Trump and his cronies are idiots about vote by mail. It doesn’t advantage one party over another. Indeed, for years, the Republicans had the advantage with vote by mail, with their older constituency and the military. But vote-by -mail is harder to suppress so they are concerned that if there is an equal playing field they will lose. And that much is true.