“Get Rid of the Ballots”
Angry Trump. Angry, angry, Trump.
This is not a chaotic election year. There is no widespread election fraud. None.
It simply isn’t happening. That doesn’t mean there isn’t stress, isn’t worry, isn’t anxiety over the pandemic and voting. Be calm, be clear of your goal in this election. Take a breath.
Counting the votes might take a little longer, but the outcome isn’t always known on election night, it’s not a big deal, and definitely not unusual not to know the winner right away.
So where is the fear, the shouts of ‘voter fraud, the stress over the election coming from, ’? Why are people running around, hair pulling and hand wringing? Because of the one person who should be calling for calm, who should be reassuring people and working to make sure that everything will go smoothly; the President of the United States.
Donald Trump is working hard to undermine the election, to cast doubt on the voting, on the voters, on the process, on holding elections themselves. He’s interfering with the Post Office, slowing down deliveries and hampering their ability to process what is looking to be a huge increase in mail-in ballots. He is trash talking the ballots, and whole concept of mail-in voting as is it were some illegal and alien thing, full of evil intent and dubious outcomes.
He isn’t even subtle about it
“Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?” a reporter asked.
His answer:
“Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens. Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a peaceful—there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”
Throw out the ballots, get rid of those bad, non-Trump votes and there will be a “continuation”. He’ll win, one way of another.
He wants to create chaos. Chaos is his brand, he lives and breathes chaos. In chaos, in doubt, in uncertainty, things can happen; votes can be tossed, election results ignored, boards of illegitimate electors put in place that don’t reflect the will of the people, and another Republican who lost the popular vote is installed with the assistance of the Trump/McConnell engineered 6-3 split on the Supreme Court. It’s Bush v. Gore, again.
I remember watching the GOP steal that election. I had already realized they had no morals after the stupid 'Whitewater/Vince Foster/any bullshit-they-want-to-investigate nonsense of the 1990’s. The GOP was incredibly partisan, spittle-flinging partisan, but I didn't realize they wanted to completely undermine democracy until that 2000 election. Here I learned they would stop at nothing to kill democracy and seize power by any means.
All they had to do was say "The Democrats would do the same" and that justified anything. Obviously, this was not true, as the Democrats didn't fight tooth, nail and congressional interns to stop the counting Florida as the GOP did, so fuck that. The GOP relied on getting the case to the SCOTUS, who stepped in and gave the election to Bush in a decision even they were embarrassed by.
Insane, but Gore (who won the popular vote and the Florida vote (which wasn't fully counted until after Bush was declared the winner) stood by and let Bush be inaugurated, even though many wanted him to protest it.
He didn't.
He was actually worried about America and democracy.
You think Trump and the GOP are worried about that?
No,
They are trying to figure out how they can stay in power despite the vote.
This is what we face: the same GOP in 2000, but even more desperate, more racist, more angry and more convinced of their own grievances. Anything they do, even bringing down democracy as we know it, is justifiable.