Trump and Johnson’s ‘little secret’: Are they planning another Jan. 6th?

At his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, Trump said that he and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, left, have a 'little secret' for winning that they will reveal after the election. New York Congressman Dan Goldman warns it could be a plot to use Congress to steal the vote for Trump. | AP

Almost lost in the avalanche of outrage that was sparked by the raw racism and sickening sexism on display at Donald Trump’s Nazi-style Madison Square Garden rally was the hint he and GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson drooped about the “little secret” they have planned for after the election.

Though it didn’t garner much press attention initially, more people are beginning to scrutinize the allusion Trump made Sunday night to a shared secret while introducing Johnson on stage.

“We gotta get the congressmen elected, and we gotta get the senators elected,” Trump said. “We can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House. Our little secret is having a big impact,” the ex-president smugly asserted.

Referring again to the speaker, Trump said, “He and I have a little secret – we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”

At least one Democratic New York congressman, Rep. Dan Goldman, believes the two could be referring to a plot for another January 6th coup attempt should Trump lose the election like he did in 2020.

And with MAGA election deniers installed in county election boards across the country, GOP state legislators pledging to blockade slates of Harris electors, lawyers with draft lawsuits already in hand, and the possibility of a Republican-controlled House, Goldman fears Trump may have a better chance of success this time.

Should voters choose Kamala Harris on November 5th, Trump will no doubt declare the results fraudulent and activate his legions of MAGA loyalists at every level of government to help him steal back the presidency – and there are a lot more of them in positions of power this time around.

In the event of a contested election, the House of Representatives could play a pivotal role in deciding the outcome. Goldman speculates that securing a Republican lock on the House may have been the real motivation for Trump’s decision to hold his big fascist rally in New York – a state he has no hopes of winning.

“Why did Donald Trump come to New York nine days before the election?” Goldman asked during an appearance on CNN Monday. “This state is going to Kamala Harris,” he said.

“The answer is that [winning] the House really runs through New York. There are seven races that could go either way in the House, and that will likely determine the majority,” Goldman reasoned.

So, while much of the mainstream corporate press speculated that packing Madison Square Garden was mostly a matter of ego for the New York-born Trump, Goldman says it may have been an insurance policy: Help drive the right-wing vote tally in the Empire State in order to elect more Republicans to Congress and install representatives who owe Trump for helping put them over the top.

Before the ballots are even counted on Election Night, everyone assumes Trump will declare victory right away. Though no one doubts it, the Republican candidate’s ideological guru, Steve Bannon, declared that’s what will happen when he was released from prison early Tuesday morning.

“Stand up and say: ‘Hey, I’ve won this,’” Bannon advised Trump as he walked out of the prison gates upon completing a sentence for refusing to testify about his role in the last MAGA coup.

But if the vote count goes against Trump, that’s when the real election theft machinery will go into action: disputing totals, demanding recounts, hurling accusations of fraud, flooding the courts with lawsuits, using the county and state election bodies under Republican control to refuse certifications, sending fake sets of electors to Washington – anything it takes to deny Harris the 270 Electoral College votes needed to put the seal on her win.

If Republicans succeed in their assault on democracy, it could all come down to the House.

“On January 6th, the certification of the Electoral College will happen again, and as we know from 2021, whoever is in control of the House will have a lot to say on what happens on January 6th,” Goldman said in outlining what he believes to be the Trump-Johnson scheme.

“I suspect Donald Trump’s little secret plan with Mike Johnson is a backup plan for when he loses and he tries to go to the House of Representatives to throw out the Electoral College.”

If Republicans can win the House by taking key seats even in states Trump doesn’t win, like New York, then January 6, 2025, could end up looking a lot different than January 6, 2021.

Last time, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, and Trump had to rely on his vice president, Mike Pence, in his attempt to block the certification procedure. When Pence opted not to go along with the scheme, Trump sent his mob to attack the Capitol.

“If it’s the reverse,” and the GOP wins the House, “the Republicans have a lot more opportunity and a lot more possibilities for overturning this election,” Goldman said.

If neither Trump nor Harris has 270 Electoral College votes by January, one of those possibilities would be what’s called a “contingent election,” a scenario in which each state casts a single vote for president. In that case, with Republicans controlling 26 state Congressional delegations, Trump would capture the White House. Such contingent elections have happened before – in 1801, 1825, and 1837.

Johnson, who was a right-wing constitutional lawyer before becoming a congressman, would no doubt be eager to help execute such a scenario. He played a key role in the attempt to steal the election for Trump four years ago, supporting a lawsuit filed in Texas that tried to reverse voters’ decision in four different swing states. He was also one of the 147 Republicans in the House who voted to overturn the result.

Another aspect of the “secret plan,” a sort of double insurance policy, could also be refusing to swear in new Democratic members of Congress if that is what’s needed to keep the House in Republican hands.

The law says all winners of the November elections should be seated and prepared to meet on January 3, 2025, but as Speaker, Johnson would have control over who will be in the room. He already pulled the trick of slowing down the seating process when he delayed the swearing-in of disgraced New York Rep. George Santos’ replacement, Democrat Tom Suozzi, earlier this year.

Addressing a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning, Johnson claimed – unconvincingly – that the secret he and Trump have is “nothing diabolical.” He said, “It’s a thing we have about — it’s a get-out-the-vote. It’s one of our tactics on get-out-the-vote.” In his role as Speaker, however, Johnson plays little role in strategizing GOTV efforts, so a secret tactic shared by him and Trump related to that makes little sense.

In any “normal” U.S. election, few would expect the losing candidate to actually lead a conspiracy to overturn the voters’ verdict and trigger a contingent election. But as Trump has shown repeatedly, democratic norms and presidential precedent mean nothing to him.

He openly admits to having dictatorial aspirations, his own staff have exposed his admiration for Hitler, and he tried to overthrow the government once before in a desperate attempt to hold onto power.

The “Protect the Vote” movement that saved the 2020 election must mobilize now and expect the unexpected on November 5th and in the weeks that follow – because this “little secret” he shares with Johnson could be a plot for the next coup on January 6th, 2025.

As with all news-analysis and op-ed articles published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.

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CONTRIBUTOR

C.J. Atkins

C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People's World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left.