This time Donald Trump was telling the truth. We’d better listen when he tells us what he’s going to do.
Tuesday’s debate revealed that Trump and his corporate supporters know that not only is he not able to win the votes of the majority of the American people, but he will not be able to win the vote in the Electoral College this time either like he did in 2016.
Trump is no longer trying to win over voters.
To stay in office—to ensure policies that protect Big Oil, the prison industry, freedom from taxes for large corporations, and the destruction of health care for American families—Trump staying in office can only be accomplished by making sure that an election does not take place.
When Trump used the debate to signal fascist militias like the “Proud Boys” to “stand by,” he took the second step in putting the pieces in place to move from voter suppression to election prevention.
Here it is—1, 2, 3:
- Step 1: Stack the Supreme Court with judges beholden to him.
- Step 2: Mobilize thugs to prevent voting—terrorize voters, start fights, close down polling places, destroy ballots, whatever it takes.
- Step 3: Use the mayhem his thugs initiate to take away the power to choose the president from the voters—the American people—and give it to the Supreme Court.
Voter suppression wasn’t enough for Trump to hold onto power.
Even the measures of voter suppression already ratcheted up by Republican legislators across the nation were not enough to guarantee Trump’s reelection. The support for even an Electoral College win just isn’t there in the face of his refusal to protect Americans from disease, death, and financial devastation from a pandemic in favor of protecting Wall Street profits.
Voter suppression measures have escalated—draconian voter ID requirements, purging millions of voters (especially people of color and students) from the voting rolls, closing polling places, sabotaging the postal service, and a massive disinformation campaign about supposed voter fraud.
Nevertheless, while damaging, these violations of democracy have not been enough to overcome the determination of the American people to end the four-year nightmare of Donald Trump.
The threat to democracy:
Voter intimidation? GOP sending ‘poll monitors’ to watch who votes
Trump uses debate to trash democracy and empower white supremacists
Trump wants the Supreme Court, not the people, to decide the election
‘Saving American Democracy’: Sanders outlines plan to combat Trump’s election threats
Trump’s last hope is to call on white supremacist thugs and militias to incite a virtual civil war. He’s tweeting every racist dog whistle in his collection. This is a dangerous provocation in the most heavily armed country in the world.
The Republican National Committee is already putting in place the mechanism to stop voters on the spot, right at their polling place. The party is recruiting an army of 50,000 so-called “poll watchers” who will be deployed to heavily Democratic (i.e., heavily minority) polling places to intimidate and challenge voters. The white supremacist crowd that Trump has put on standby will no doubt enlist in this RNC army.
These dangerous provocations call for the broadest united front—the main force being the working people who realize their health care, jobs, homes, education, planet, freedom of speech, and equality are all at stake. But it must also include people like those in the military communities and, yes, even the defectors from that very Trump administration whose vision of patriotism includes protecting democracy.
We must be ready to join together to fill the streets with peaceful protestors, resist all provocations, and demand that every voter be able to cast their ballot and that every vote be counted.
Trump told us plainly what he’s going to do. Unlike the TV debate, this election will not be a spectator sport.
ELECTION 2020: Everything you need to know to vote in your state
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