The latest word from the Trump Cult is that Trump needs to declare martial law and have the military administer a new election. You may think that’s nuts. But this is America. And I don’t think we’ve ever had millions of our fellow citizens openly agitating for a coup d’etat:
Akron, OH: Today, Tom Zawistowski, President of the TEA Party affiliated We the People Convention (WTPC) and Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party, published a full page ad in the Washington Times newspaper demanding that President Trump Invoke limited Martial law in order to allow the U.S. Military to oversee a new free and fair federal election if Legislators, Courts and the Congress do not follow the Constitution.
Zawistowski said, “We wanted to express our concerns to the President, to the legislators, courts and Congress that We the People will NOT cede our exclusive Constitutional right to elect our Representatives to judges, lawyers, courts, Governors, Secretary’s of State, Congress, corrupt election officials and local politicians, the corrupt media – or Leftist threats of violence! It is OUR EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to elect our President and that sacred right has been infringed by the massive, planned, illegal election fraud conducted by corrupt Democrat/Socialist Party operatives across our nation to steal our vote. We will NOT stand for it.”
The Ad compares the Extraordinary Executive actions implemented by President Abraham Lincoln in his efforts to save the Union during the Civil War and the literal civil war that is dividing our nation today. Without full confidence that our courts or Congress will indeed follow the 12th Amendment of the Constitution and defend our electoral process, the ad calls upon President Trump, like Lincoln, to exercise the Extraordinary Powers of his office and declare limited Martial Law to temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections in order to have the military implement a national re-vote that reflects the true will of the people. Federal candidates only. Paper ballots. No computers. Hand-counted with both parties watching every vote. Only registered voters. Photo ID to prove residence. Conducted safely with everyone wearing masks and six feet apart, just like we did in Ohio.
You can laugh this off. This is a fringe idea. But I would just remind you of this before you get all “oh please, this is just a few kooks…”
A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Tuesday found that only 27% of Republicans consider the presidential results “reliable” enough to probably or definitely trust “who they declare to be the winner.”
The Politico/Morning Consult poll also found 67% of Republicans do not believe this was a “free and fair election,” with many providing reasons that echo Trump’s rhetoric: 77% believe “mail-in voting led to widespread voter fraud,” 76% believe “ballots were tampered with” and 61% believe poll watchers were blocked from voting locations, despite there being no actual evidence to support any of those suggestions.
I doubt that the vast majority of those people think Trump should call for martial law. But ideas have a way of metastasizing on the right because of their recklessly irresponsible media machine. Consider that we’ve just spent weeks watching Republicans openly entertain the idea of having state legislators overturn the will of the voters and reward Trump with the winning electoral votes. They were unable to carry that out because there were too many states involved and the elections just wasn’t close enough. Do you think they won’t try this in the future if the election is close enough?
Do you think their voters won’t demand it?
Obviously, Trump can’t really declare martial law and have the military conduct a new election. (At least I don’t think so.) But the mere fact that this line of thought is becoming common in the right wing is more than a little bit disturbing.