Historian Timothy Snyder "Not a Normal Election"

[LymphocyteLover]

Excellent piece--
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-election

During a normal campaign, both candidates take for granted that they will walk free after the election. One will be in the Oval Office; the other will go home. This year is different. One candidate, Donald Trump, knows that, should he not remain in power, he will descend into poverty, go to prison, or both. He can hold the ongoing criminal investigations at bay so long as he is president, but not thereafter. Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to his creditors and has no visible means to pay them back. As president he can expect his creditors to wait; as a private citizen he cannot.

If someone can maintain wealth and freedom only by holding onto power, that person will fight to hold onto power. Behind the ideologies and the propaganda, this is the core history of tyranny: government becomes the bodyguard of a gangster. Modern authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin have much to say about why they must remain in power, but the real issue is that they wish to die wealthy and in their own beds rather than poor and in prison. In authoritarian countries, the anxiety of the tyrant can be allayed by a promise not to prosecute the leader and his family, and to leave their bank accounts in peace. Because the rule of law still (more or less) prevails in the United States, no one can offer Trump such a deal. He is therefore in a fight for his life; from his point of view, he needs to spend the rest of it in the White House. His predicament might not be obvious to Americans, but people in authoritarian countries see it right away.

(snip)

If we take Trump at his word and begin from the premise that he cannot win the election, then his actions make sense. The plan is not to win the popular (or even the electoral) vote, but rather to stay in power in some other way. We don’t even really have to guess about this, since Trump has spelled it out himself: he will declare victory regardless of what happens, expect state governments to act contrary to vote counts, claim fraud from postal ballots, court chaos from white nationalists (and perhaps the Department of Homeland Security), and expect the Supreme Court to install him. In general, the idea behind these scenarios is to create as much chaos as possible, and then fall back upon personal ruthlessness and an artificial state of emergency to stay in power. If Trump creates a constitutional crisis while his supporters commit acts of violence, the Supreme Court might be intimidated.

In this transition from democracy to authoritarianism, otherwise known as a coup d’état, the actual number of people who vote for Trump matters less than it would in an ordinary election. In this scenario, it matters more how angry they are, and how willing some of them are to endorse extraordinary actions by Trump, or to take such actions themselves. Since he is treating election day as the occasion for a coup, Trump has good reason not to soften his message to reach more voters. In doing so he would risk losing some of the emotion he needs when he tries to stay in power by non-democratic means. He only has to stay within about ten points of Joe Biden to avoid the demoralization that arises when even core supporters realize they have been deceived by their leader and overwhelmed by their fellow citizens at the polls.

Read the rest:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-election

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Any attempted coup is doomed to failure without the complicity of 100's-1000's of armed USagents

Unless Trump orders armed US agents to seize ballots or otherwise Illegally disrupt the initial counting of ballots, and those agents comply, at the risk of their own incarceration or being shot by state officers, his coup will fail. It will fail regardless of how much violence his supporters bring to the streets.

As long as the initial vote count proceeds unimpeded, the Secretaries of State will certify the results, and the governors will appoint the appropriate slates of electors, who will be certified by congress, and the new president will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. All of these steps are outside the jurisdiction of SCOTUS. Only if there is evidence of fraud, after the initial count, or of recount in case of close results, could SCOTUS have a role, and only after all appeals have been exhausted through the state courts.

Other than that, I completely agree with Snyder’s premise that Trump is motivated to stay in office primarily to avoid prosecution and bankruptcy.

[LymphocyteLover]

3. PROBABLY... but he will try, and I worry about Republicans in swing state legislatures

like AZ, PA, WI, MI, NC, OH-- they will do what they can to fuck up the vote.

But at least Dem governors in WI, MI, NC, PA should be able to suppress to worst abuses

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. And WI, PA, and MI are the states that matter most

Trump needs ALL the states you listed, and Biden only needs the rust belt states, which he currently has strong leads in.

And the rust belt states all have Dem governors and SOS’s.

[LymphocyteLover]

10. Yes! Fingers crossed!

[Thekaspervote]

2. No doubt these are trying times. To continue publishing every dark scenario...not helpful

Biden is prepared to meet any and all assaults with his own 600 strong team of attorneys. Can we just stop reacting, we know they are going to try. They already are. In court battles so far they have had zero wins.

Can we first get thru the election

[LymphocyteLover]

4. I think the piece was just painting an accurate picture of what Trump is trying to do

whether he can successfully do it is something else entirely, and my guess is he will fail, but it's not inconceivable either.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. Snyder is an important voice on resisting authoritarianism

But the excerpts you posted don’t give the whole picture.

[LymphocyteLover]

8. of course-- the whole piece is excellent

[Laelth]

5. Credit where it is due ... to our founders.

Ours is an outrageously UN-democratic republic (as shown by our Senate and our electoral college). It is complicated and cumbersome. It’s hard for government to get anything done, but it is also remarkably resistant to tyranny because the states remain supreme, and the states control elections.

It’s very important that we keep it this way.

-Laelth

[LymphocyteLover]

9. yes, true...

assuming Russia doesn't get into our systems

[Laelth]

11. Even then, we're particularly resistant.

There are over 50 different systems to hack.

-Laelth