The Autocrat Appeals for Tribal Violence
President Donald Trump promises violence during the next election. I know it’s hard to listen, but it’s important.
Yesterday evening, Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. You’ve likely heard the exchange. It started with the very first question to the President, from Brain Karem (Playboy magazine):
Karem: Right here? Mr. President, real quickly. Win, lose, or draw in this election—
[Trump makes an odd, dismissive gesture as the reporter kept speaking, apparently miming that the President was unhappy that the reporter was wearing a mask and should remove it. The reporter keeps talking, ignoring Trump’s odd hand gesture.]Karem: —Will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of power after the election. And there has been rioting in Louisville. There’s been rioting in many cities across this country, red and… your so-called red and blue states. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?
President Donald Trump: Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster, and—
Karem (interrupting): I understand that, but people are rioting.
Trump, speaking as the Karem asks his question: I know… I know… I know… we want…
Karem: Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power?
Trump: We want to have… Get rid of the ballots, and we’ll have a very transfer… a very peaceful… There won’t be a transfer; frankly, there’ll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.
Then Trump skipped to the next reporter. This time Trump insisted he couldn’t hear her question through her mask. Well, that, or maybe it was more the ‘woman’ part. (He’s never been subtle.)
With “Get rid of the ballots,” Trump essentially promises violence if we dare to hold the full election.
Liar Trump is an Honest Man
Earlier, I wrote about Trump before the election, attacks on the election, election cheating, and that scary period after Trump loses.
Now we have Trump scoping out how armed insurrection and overthrowing the country plays on national television. To say we’re not surprised isn’t enough. It’s almost ho-hum. If you haven’t seen that coming after Portland, then dude, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re not showing anywhere near enough imagination. This is a guy who’d sell your daughters for coffee money. He doesn’t care spit for the American republic.
There’s a temptation to just sigh sadly. Just another day ending in “y” during a Republican administration. The GOP sure worked their charms on us, didn’t they?
I know we’re numb to the disaster. This week, we found that the DHS gave $6M in sweetheart contracts to the firm where illegal acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf’s wife works. They’d had zero DHS contracts before, but now that Chad’s in the house, they get millions of government dollars. A juicy story during normal times, right? It ended up below the fold at most papers. It’s a nasty bit of corruption, but we memory-holed it almost immediately. Six million dollars is chump-change in the Trump era.
I mean, during that same week, a thousand Americans gasped their last, suffocating, painful breaths before dying from COVID-19. A million underemployed people lost their shitty damn jobs. The economy continued its record-breaking nosedive. The poor got poorer, and the Republican Party decided only the rich needed help. We found out that Rex Tillerson has been trying to score a $20 billion energy scam in Ukraine. And now our President threatened to hurt us all if we don’t let him stay in office forever. You’ll have to do way more harm than $6M to play in that league.
We need to take Trump’s threats seriously. Sure, he lies with every sentence, but he also tells us the truth. That instant gratification poster-child can’t keep a secret for more than a few minutes before it spews out his mouth. Trump was threatening violence back in the 2016 election. You can’t say Trump didn’t speak his mind right at you. At every rally, the President of our United States is giving his faithful directions for overthrowing the rightful government five weeks from now.
Mindful Violence and Bad Suits
Will Trump send paramilitary forces into Wisconsin on election night? Probably. He’ll burp out some facile excuse that uses “Antifa,” “rioters,” “our brave police officers,” and “treason.” Personal DHS paramilitary might not cut it. Imagine if the National Guard marched into minority urban areas in a critical swing state because of reports of rioting. They shut down critical city neighborhoods, directed to block all access to polling places because of ‘threats.’ Suppose the Guard has orders to seize the polling machinery and election results to “protect the vote.” And then a Trump loyalist burns all the mail-in ballots when nobody’s looking.
Oopsie?
That possibility cannot surprise you. To quote Masha Gessen, “Trump didn’t run for President; he ran for Autocrat.” After he won, Trump fumed that he couldn’t simply order all the things he wanted to happen. He had his people argue — in court — that the nation couldn’t hold President Trump to any laws. When Trump skimmed money for his family, people complained. Trump was shocked and snidely dismissive. And no, he didn’t stop the graft; he accelerated. That’s what autocrats do.
Trump used the National Guard to clear protesters — people who had been following police instructions — so he could hold a bible upside down in front of a church he’s barely visited once. His DHS goons organized illegal jump-out squads wearing fake military fatigues to grab protesters, throw them into unmarked vans, take their stuff, and hold them against their will without charges. He was happy.
Again, quoting Masha Gessen in “Surviving Autocracy”: “Rule #1: Believe the Autocrat. He means what he says.”
Trump Survives Because of Our Failure of Vision
Part of the problem is that America couldn’t envision someone like Trump. We don’t even have the language to describe him Time and again, year after year, our high-minded media would give this blatant, pathological, incompetent liar the benefit of the doubt. Trump would routinely spout the most egregious nonsense, but our media couldn’t find the words to descript what should have been a howler. Instead, they interpreted his latest bad faith idiocy using mincing fluff, layering the shit with “appears,” “considered to be,” “some call,” and other mealy words. They’re so terrified that the bully Republicans will call them biased that they can’t speak the obvious truth.
Honestly, I’m running out of patience. Republicans — the party of bad faith incarnate — have been pulling exactly this same shit for decades. A slant-head toad could have figured this out by now. This is our own fault.
And now the President promises violence if we don’t just let him stay in power. I know we’re tired, but we only have to pay attention a little longer.
The Anti-American President
Our President promises violence. Trump’s not kidding. (He has no sense of humor; he doesn’t know how.) Along with hundreds of trash lawsuits and emergency orders, cheating and hysteria, there will be armed provocations and physical violence. Lots of people better informed than me are listing the possibilities. Trump promises violence. We need to be ready. There will be Astroturf Books-Brothers rioters willing to break down doors to stop the vote counts. Will the polling places be protected? Right-wing goon squads will threaten people in the streets. Some of them will be off-duty police officers in uniform. Is that acceptable? I want answers now, ahead of time. Will our governors allow Trump to deploy the state’s National Guard in American cities on election night? We need that decision now, not later.
Here’s the most important part: count all the votes. The initial election results will favor Republicans, and the later counts will favor Democrats. (More Republicans will vote in person; more Democrats will vote by mail.) That’s why Republicans work so hard to block mail-in and provisional vote counting. The earlier they can bull into the room and cut off the counts, the more they benefit.
It will be several days before we know the election results. It’s a pandemic with unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots. That’s normal, and not a surprise.
Expect Republicans to scream about fraud and corruption from the moment the polls close. They’re lying.
Expect Trump to scream about the fake election. He’s lying.
Expect it to take several days before we know the results. Really, not kidding about that part.
And consider that Republicans already decided there is nothing they won’t do to win. We saw that long before Trump. And the Donald? The dysfunctional man-child President can’t admit he lost anything, ever. It’s ground into his very genes. What do you suppose Trump will do when the numbers go against him? He already promises violence. Think he’ll have any limits?
This will get very ugly.
Updated Sept. 26th, 2020: In the first version, I forgot to credit Brian Karem, Playboy magazine’s White House correspondent. Mr. Karem deserves significant credit for his persistence despite the obvious hostility from the administration. Plus, having this bulldog of a reporter from, of all publications, Playboy magazine, tickles me.
