REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

 THE NOVEMBER ELECTION IS THE “STUFF OF NIGHTMARES”

 

                       …Why are Trump and his advisers meeting outside?

 

Few US presidents have ever been asked about their willingness to give up their power

 

It is time that we seriously understood just what the president will be attempting if he doesn’t win in November.  Today, casting a vote is not the foundation for a democracy.  There are a number of nations that have elections such as Belarus and Russia, but the leaders of those nations stage the results of their faux elections.

The real example of a democracy is if those running for leadership respect the will of the voters and will accept the results of the election.  Today, this great nation has a so called leader that will use whatever powers he can corral to remain in control.  President Trump will not willingly give up his power if he loses the election, which is looking more and more likely.

The above picture is from a meeting being held outside the White House.  Is this meeting being held in this location to prevent others from hearing the conversation or away from any recording devices?  Why else would the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, and White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, be meeting outside the White House on the terrace?

In good times and bad, for more than two centuries, few presidents have even been asked about their willingness to give up power because the answer was so obvious.  But this president, so well known for lying every time he opens his mouth, will use whatever power he can harness to stay in power.

We must all be aware that if he is removed from office, there is a 100% chance he will be charged with everything from tax evasion to out-right illegal activities for other issues.  He, and his children are already being sued by his niece, Mary Trump, for keep her from her rightful inheritance when her father, Trump’s brother died.  She has the documentation to prove her claim.

When Trump was asked this week whether he would commit to a “peaceful transfer of power,” President Trump did not say "yes."  He instead said: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.” He then said we should “get rid of the ballots.”   This meant all the mail-in ballots.  But then he ended with these chilling words: “There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.”

This is how the dictators that Trump so admires speak. “It’s funny, the relationships I have.  The tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Bob Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

This is not funny, it’s frightening, and the explanation is obvious: Trump shares with men like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan a contempt for the democratic process.

No US president has said things like this before.  Ever.  This, by itself should be disqualifying.  Even if Trump had been the best president in our history, rather than the worst, this refusal to play by the democratic rules should, all by itself, a guarantee of his electoral defeat.  But his supporters apparently want a dictator instead of a democratic president.

Trump has even said he would, "Agree with the results of the election.....only if he wins"….period.

As Barton Gellman lays out in the Atlantic magazine, Trump’s talk has a real purpose.  He is claiming that mail-in ballots will be fraudulent, but not because any evidence of fraud exists.  He is doing so because Democrats in recent years have had a big advantage in ballots that are counted after the actual Election Day.  As an example, in 2018, Republican Martha McSally was ahead in the Arizona Senate race on election night, but she lost after all the mail-in ballots were counted.

This year, the “blue shift” (mail-in ballots from Democrats), is certain to be even bigger, with more people voting by mail than ever before, and there are more Democrats than Republicans expressing a desire to do so.  By calling the mail-in ballots a “hoax,” Trump is laying his foundation for throwing them out and demanding that he be declared the winner based on walk-in ballots counted on election night.

The US Constitution provides that each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” The Atlantic’s Gellman reports that the Trump campaign is already “discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority.”

Trump’s eagerness to confirm a Supreme Court justice before the election is based, in no small part, on the assumption that the outcome of the vote will be adjudicated. “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” Trump said this week.  This is more proof that Trump is seeking to hold on to power any way he can.

This is the stuff of nightmares. Already social scientists warn that we may be backsliding into an autocracy. Now, we may be facing the worst threat to our democracy since the 1930s, the period that is the setting of the dystopian novels: “It Can’t Happen Here” and “The Plot Against America.”  It can happen here.

The Republican Party is unlikely to restrain Trump’s authoritarian instincts.  While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledges that “the winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th,” the GOP will do everything possible to ensure that Trump is certified as the winner, even if he should rightfully lose not only in the popular vote but in the electoral college, too.

The only way to avoid the worst election crisis since 1876, the most contentious and controversial presidential elections in American history.  That is, for Joe Biden to win by a landslide on Election Day.  Anyone who cares about the fate of American democracy should pray that happens.

Copyright G. Ater 2020