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My read on the current state of the election and how violence could contour in the coming days.
Most experts believe that Biden will secure victory today or tomorrow but a Biden victory doesn’t mean we are out of the woods yet in terms of street violence or large scale chaos...
Trump is still one of the most powerful people in the world and retains a whole host of Federal and emergency powers to deploy at his fancy, a politicized Justice department amping them. He has a history of throwing tantrums when he loses and this isn’t an exception.
With this said, the Republican Party writ large has been surprisingly quiet and not punching with the president as hard as I anticipated they would out of the gate as Trump declares victory early and contests the results.
There is widespread reporting that Trump is upset with Fox News, it’s decision desk and the reporting they have done thus far. There is a clear schism at Fox between the opinion talking heads at Fox and the legit news reporters.
Trumps pathetic and deflated national address last night and the responses to it show this clearly. Here is Christi withdrawing outright support. https://twitter.com/abc/status/1324588321721393152
However some big R people have come out supporting the president. Folks like Lindsay Gram and Ted Cruz are out there swinging. Notably though ol Mitch has been pretty quite.
Hollowed out braid Republican support and enthusiasm for Trumps contesting the election, combined with the early defeats in several of the court cases Trump has brought is making a SCOTUS decision on the election or an unfaithful electors situation less likely imo.
But what about the MAGA cult and Trump mobilizing his base? Well this seems to be the main threat at the moment. Just one example https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/11/06/2-heavily-armed-men-found-outside-pennsylvania-convention-center-taken-into-custody-as-police-investigate-threat-of-attack/amp/
A friend pointed out to me that the Right often takes more time to mobilize onto the streets as the conspiracy machine needs to create new narratives and convince people to take action on it. But it’s spinning up and starting to take form as Trump articulates his grievances.
Steve Brannon just called for the beheading of Fauchi. https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-and-his-co-host-discuss-beheading-dr-anthony-fauci-and-fbi-director
Alex Jones is out there losing his marbles and hyping folks up for political violence. https://twitter.com/perez4az/status/1324559557918556161
Hannity is peddling outright conspiracy theories https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1324721750475743232
And pushing this golden nugget of Federal interference in the election. https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1324716604702208005
I think the strategy of the Trump administration after the election is called for Biden is to mobilize their base onto the streets via conspiracy to cause as much chaos as possible while leveraging federal agencies to obstruct to the extent possible.
Af the left mobilizes into the streets, as we should, Trump and sympathetic LE may be poised to allow violence from the far right to materialize and create the conditions to invoke the insurrection act as communities mobilize to defend themselves from MAGA cultists.
We have already seen LE across the nation posture itself to stop demonstrations in their tracks with mass arrests and quickly kettling demos as soon as they start. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/04/election-unrest-hundreds-march-several-arrested-protests-continue/6158310002/
While at the same time allowing armed MAGAs to disrupt vote counting places https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/maricopa-arizona-trump-supporters-guns-2020-election-b1608315.html
Don’t forget that we’ve already seen Federal Deputization of local LE, essentially making them unaccountable to the city and state they operate out of, even in the face of mayors and governors maneuvering to limit those powers. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/09/oregons-us-attorney-wont-cancel-federal-deputization-of-local-state-officers.html
And don’t minimize the cozy relationship between local police, and pro-police MAGA militias https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/09/01/right-wing-militias-and-police
So no we aren’t out of the woods yet. Trump got the wind knocked out of him with this loss, but the game board is just starting to be set. A Biden presidency doesn’t mean immediate peace and although it’s encouraging that many mainstream Rs seem appalled by his behavior rn...
That doesn’t mean his core of supporters won’t ramp up the violence in the next week as their God has blood drawn, and a situation where the left masses on the street as Trump contests results, could end in mainstream Rs becoming sympathetic to trump again based on the BLM/...
../ANTIFA boogyman. I’ll admit, I’m surprised that things didn’t kick off in the first few days but I did expect a more definitive Biden win. Altogether though, we need to prime our minds to be in the streets and perform community defense. Don’t let a Biden win out you to sleep.
From the liberal angle, I’m concerned that a Biden victory and election fatigue will leave antifascists and anti racists with small street numbers for the immediate time being as they try to reinvest energy into the system and normal democratic processes under their new president
The first targets of the Far right will be politician boogy men/women of the opposite party (like Michigan’s governor, the Squad, etc), known progressive figures in the community, technocrats of the electoral count caught in the wrong place, wrong time, like BOE officials...
and of course demonstrations and participants of those demonstration in general. #communitydefense is more important now than ever.
I’m just someone with experience in the streets. This is how I read the landscape rn. Things could definitely change & what happens in the couple of days after the election will give us good indications... if you don’t believe me, here are some “experts” https://www.npr.org/2020/11/05/931829801/election-dispute-increases-risk-of-political-violence-analysts-warn
