Frankly
US President Donald Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses November’s election.
“Well, we’ll have to see what happens,” the president told a news conference at the White House. “You know that.”
No. Nobody knows that. It isn’t true.
“I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots,” Mr Trump, a Republican, said. “And the ballots are a disaster.”
When the journalist countered that “people are rioting”, Mr Trump interjected: “Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very – you’ll have a very peaceful – there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”
Well yes, if we get rid of the ballots, there won’t be a transfer, and that’s called a coup. A continuation minus voting is a coup.
I fear it has come to this: In the next month or so progressives are going to have to face the question of what they are willing to do to stop this. We aren’t facing a loyal opposition bound by law. Reasoned argument will not prevail. US elections have historically been called an organized form of bloodless coup. This one isn’t likely to be bloodless. The very worst possible person on earth is the US President – a position with such authority and such little legal restriction that Constitutional scholars and leaders have feared it for generations. A man incapable of a single thought about the needs of another is in charge of our fate.
Trump actions are blatantly seditious. He is encouraging distrust and open resistance to our election process. He is undermining and polluting every one of our institutions that he can. He is creating an Alt-Right star chamber in place of SCOTUS. He is actively trying to disenfranchise opposition voters. He is a scourge on our house. If true patriots served in the Senate, he would already be gone.
Invented fears of voter fraud is his Reichstag fire and I fear that nothing short of a full measure of devotion will be required by many before this is over. I desperately hope I’m wrong. But there’s not a whiff of evidence to the contrary coming from any Republican leaders.
The opening salvos may be only a couple of days away since gun toting right wingers are scheduled to descend on Portland in 2 days. If you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse…
Politics has gotten too damned nationalized…
“What will Trump do when he loses?” is a less important question than “What will my police department do when armed yahoos invade my city?”. In Portland we know the answer, which is why they ought to have replaced their police department in July instead of just their police chief. PPD’s association with outside agitators had become well known long before then.
We’re not looking at Nazi Germany (being a vast, de-centralized nation that can’t even get its election laws lined up), but we are looking at plenty of chaos and potential violence that could well be even worse.
To further that:
A militarized police department could in fact be an asset, that is, if the right people are holding the guns.
America, a shining beacon to tyrants and would-be tyrants all over the world.
Reality is such a disappointment. At least Orwell’s O’Brien and his fellow oligarchs of the Inner Party, as well as Palpatine, Spectre, Hydra, The League of Shadows, the Illuminati etc. were “worthy” villains: Fiendishly brilliant masterminds with practically unlimited resources, operating with almost supernatural efficiency and a virtually paranormal ability to cover their tracks. People you had to be pretty damn clever to avoid being outsmarted by.
In reality, as it turns out, you don’t need to be (or even appear to be) remotely competent or clever. Nor is it necessary to even make any effort to cover your tracks. All you need is a sufficiently large minority of voters who hate the same people you hate, as well a rigged electoral system, and (as a result of the first two) people without any hint of integrity controlling most branches of government, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an obvious vacuumhead with “corrupt crook” written all over your face, telling the most obvious, outright, shameless lies and committing the most obvious crimes in plain sight every single day. The world is yours, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. As I said. Reality is such a disappointment.