“The stakes are much higher now”
It’s been pretty much love and light for Democrats since their national convention in August. The ceremonial roll call that named Vice President Kamala Harris the party’s 2024 presidential nominee became a dance party. Descension was minimal and all but invisible. Harris crushed Donald Trump at last Tuesday’s presidential debate. Polling looks good. Momentum is with the Democrats. But even if Harris wins in a popular vote landslide, this election won’t be over until she and Tim Walz are sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025.
That’s because Republicans are working feverishly to make it harder to vote, harder to count votes, and harder to certify election results in a timely fashion.
Between now and Jan. 20 anything might happen. Last week, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, GOP candidate for vice president, gave oxygen to an internet rumor that was false both backwards and sideways. It might have triggered a pogrom against legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and elsewhere. Trump on Saturday refused to condemn bomb threats made against Springfield, saying, “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened.”
Should he reclaim the Oval Office, Trump is determined to launch massive roundups and deportations of nonwhite residents of non-European heritage. Their status as naturalized or birthright citizens doesn’t matter to him. Expelling anyone whose complexion he doesn’t like is what he’ll do (with Stephen Miller’s help).
The First World War was not exactly an accident — geopolitical fault lines were in tension and ready to slip — but a wrong turn based on misunderstood directions triggered it. When Trump loses in November, something as minor as a hyped internet rumor or as deliberate as a MAGA propaganda campaign could trigger violence.
The U.S. Secret Service last week designated the Jan. 6 electoral vote count a National Special Security Event. Security will look more like what I saw in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in August. Meaning, federal officials will secure the perimeter of the U.S. Capitol with more than bicycle racks. Oath Keepers and Proud Boys brushed those aside in 2021 when MAGA insurrectionists stormed the building shouting “Where’s Nancy?” and “Hang Mike Pence!”
MAGA plotters failed to overturn the 2020 election when faced with less security and with the Oval Office still in Trump’s hands. They won’t attempt that route when Trump loses again but commands no troops or law enforcement.
The stakes are much higher now
What MAGA activists and attorneys will do is throw a metric fuckton of rhetorical smoke bombs at state capitals, loudly scream “VOTER FRAUD,” and swear that where there’s smoke there’s a stolen election. Sanewashing media will accord Trump’s and fellow authoritarian travelers’ frivolous lawsuits and evidence-free allegations credibility by reporting them uncritically. The press will give cover to MAGA politicians willing to lie and subvert the will of the people and the U.S. Constitution. Trump lackeys will interfere with states certifying their elections so they might turn over deciding the presidential election to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
That’s one scenario, anyway.
Trump’s estranged niece, psychologist Mary Trump, offers a similar warning:
The stakes are much higher now than they were in either 2016 or 2020, and he will stop at absolutely nothing to get back into the White House—which, at this point, is the only thing that will save his dwindling fortune or keep him out of prison.
[…]
Donald is signaling clearly to us what’s coming and we can’t depend on corporate media to confirm it. This election is too important to for us to rely on outlets that continue, against all evidence to the contrary, to normalize a deeply unwell traitor just so they can preserve the horse race of it all.
For Donald’s part, he’s not really trying to win anyway. He knows that he just needs to keep it close enough so he can cheat by having his friends in the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court throw the election to him.
As a reminder, this is just one of the ways Trump attempted to hang onto power in 2020. He still faces a federal indictment stemming from it:
We watched that movie four years ago. Now there’s a sequel in development and its plot is more sophisticated than the last.
We know that the Secret Service is securing the Capitol. We know that in Washington, D.C., military veterans gamed out what might go down between the 2024 election and Inauguration Day 2025. They considered “what happens if the military fragments on January 6, 2025, and we’re faced with a crisis?”
What I don’t know and need to is this. What are Democrats in state capitols prepared to do to secure the election from a post Nov. 5 coup when it starts closer to home? When it’s perhaps a physical intervention, not just a court battle? What contingency plans for dealing with intimidation and violence have they made beside lawsuits, press releases and harsh language?
I’ve been trying to get answers from my election protection people. It’s been 10 days. I’m still waiting.