“That’s because you don’t have a criminal mind”
Back in my table-waiting days, a customer who had just signed his credit card receipt asked for the carbon copies (yes, that long ago). Noticing the quizzical look on my face, he explained it was because of reports of thieves dumpster-diving for credit card numbers. That never would have occurred to me, I told him.
“That’s because you don’t have a criminal mind,” the customer smiled.
On that, Ed Kilgore considers what steps Donald Trump took to steal the 2020 election. Several tactics he used four years ago are now “off the table.” But considering he would not admit defeat in 2020 and what he demonstrated he was capable of, what else might he try if he loses a 2024 reelection effort premised on keeping himself out of prison?
“Rolling Stone is reporting that the Biden campaign is examining a ‘comically long’ list of ‘nightmare scenarios’ that might develop. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, to a considerable extent,” Kilgore writes.
Trump won’t have the presidency this time, nor access to the Department of Justice or Department of Defense, nor to invoking the Insurrection Act.
“It’s easier to hold power than to seize it,” Kilgore advises. He runs through a list of tools Trump-the-challenger won’t have for turning an election loss into a stolen win.
Getting to the nub of it, Kilgore explains:
So what new election-coup tactics could Trump pursue in 2024? There is one terrifying possibility: the deployment of MAGA bravos to disrupt the casting or counting of Election Day votes in order to justify nondemocratic methods of determining the presidency. To put it another way, the more legislators and judges close off nefarious legal methods of subverting an adverse election result, the more Trump and his supporters may be tempted to resort to good old-fashioned ballot-box-stuffing violence. It would be immensely helpful to secure as many pledges against this lurch into open authoritarianism as possible among Republican elected officials and party leaders. And as an added safeguard, Joe Biden might want to win by a landslide.
Brynn Tannehill’s long Twitter thread considered what Trump and his MAGA allies might do to turn the U.S. into a Trumpistanian dictatorship if Trump gets elected. But my old customer reminds me that it’s not so easy for someone without a criminal mind to anticipate what Trump & Co. might cook up to seize dictatorial power after losing. The Biden-Harris “comically long” list of “nightmare scenarios” is likely not long enough.
They might have to hire former felons to thwart prospective felons.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.