Trump is a Real Threat to the Republic – the Smoking Gun
Trump and his team are laying the groundwork for challenging the legitimacy of the election in the event of a Clinton win. This is flatly anti-American rhetoric which brazenly states that a Trump loss will be met with an attempt to provoke “a constitutional crisis” and “widespread civil disobedience.”
“I’m afraid the election’s gonna be rigged, I have to be honest,” Trump told the crowd.
While Trump has often questioned the integrity of the primary contests in both parties, his newest remarks seemed to begin laying groundwork for him to contest the Nov. 8 election results.
It was a line of attack that longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone pushed on a podcast with Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos that was posted online Friday. Stone suggested voter fraud is “widespread” and said if Hillary Clinton wins a state like Florida after polls show Trump in the lead, the election would be “illegitimate.”
“If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government,” Stone said. He also promised a “bloodbath” if the Democrats attempt to “steal” the election.
Voter fraud is so statistically rare as to be virtually nonexistent, data has shown.
When Federalist John Adams defeated Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson in 1792 the nation held its breath. Would the country hold together in spite of the hostility between the two camps? Would national unity survive an evenly split electorate?
This November, if Trump loses narrowly will Republicans join Trump in this attack on our Democracy? Will people like Charlie Copeland once again put their party above the country? We should not have to wait until November to find out. Any American, Republican or Democrat that supports Trump after this statement is an accomplice and will own a share of whatever chaos and discord Trump as planned.
Hosea 8:7
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind
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I wish Gore had called for widespread civil disobedience in 2000, the year our so-called “democracy” was exposed as the fraud it is.
Until we have uniform voting standards including uniform standards for ballot design, poll worker training, polling place locations, ballot access, and verifiable re-countable vote totals, then confidence that your vote counts is simply hopeful thinking.
Voter fraud isn’t perpetrated by who is voting, it is perpetrated by those who control the voting process and “count” the votes, and even outside hackers. The election of 2000 should have shattered the illusion of democracy for all Americans, but some beliefs die hard. Here we are, 16 years later, and the problem has gotten worse, not better.
That’s dumb. I wish Gore didn’t run a shit ass campaign. I wish he didn’t pick that fuckstick Joe Lieberman. I wish he didn’t shove Bill Clinton into a corner. I wish about a million things before I’d wish for a Democrat to undermine the Constitution.
Who’s gonna ‘rig’ the election? The Republican governors in North Carolina, NJ, Michigan, Wisc., Florida, Ohio? If they have some involvement, they won’t rig it for the D, now will they?
Civil disobediance in support of voting rights is not undermining the Constitution. Google “Martin Luther King.”
You can ignore the problem of untraceable ballots and hackable electronic voting machines combined with corrupt partisan vote counters if you choose, but until those problems are addressed, the system can be assumed to be rigged. Which is exactly what we saw happen in Florida in 2000, and perhaps Ohio in 2004.
It is quite simple to throw an election by losing or adding a few thousand untraceable electronic ballots here and there, because there is no way to tell.
And there is no reason to assume untraceable and unverifiable vote counts are honest. None.
The wheels are coming off big time now. Nah ha
Is there verifiable evidence of any tampering or a pathway to tampering or is this just something from talk radio?
Well, in Ohio back in 2004, there were some very questionable ties between the SOS and the guy whose company provided the voting machines.
Which may or may not explain why the final results differed markedly from the exit polling, which showed Kerry winning the state.
I am sorry I don’t have my tin foil hat at work today; otherwise I’d be able to participate in this thread.
Disappointed, There is civil disobedience and there is civil disobedience. What Trump is calling for is a rejection of the result of a national election.
No one should be surprised when he refuses to accept the result of an electoral defeat and calls on his supporters to resist it with arms.
Nemski – Just be ready in November if the vote is close.
Here’s one account–of many–that may well shed some light on what happened in Ohio:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2319:new-court-filing-reveals-how-the-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked
We should be asks the Delaware Republican Party to comment on Trump’s statements. (Yes, it would be a full-time job.)
I just went to DE GOP Facebook page and I got sick to my stomach.
Wow, that’s scary in Ohio. We need some assured stability/accountibility/verifiabliity in our system. Who would have benefited from Bush being fradulently elected twice? Satan?
Trump has no choice but to call the election invalid and refuse to concede. He’s painted too far into a corner now.
The question is, how far will he push it? I think he is SO unhinged, and SUCH an egomaniac, that he WILL call for armed “freedom taking-backing” and he will actually commit treason. I, for one, eagerly await his trial and subsequent…. “lawful consequence”.
Nemski now needs a tin foil barf bag.
If the results aren’t verifiable and traceable and re-countable then anybody, with or without a tin foil hat, can and should question election results.
If people are unable to vote without standing in line for hours then anybody, with or without a tin foil hat, can and should question election results.
If people are unable to vote because of poorly designed ballots, faulty and/or hackable electronic voting machines, or poorly trained poll workers then anybody, with or without a tin foil hat, can and should question election results.
If the Trump supporters start shooting, the rest of us get to shoot back.
Remember the recent report on death by self-destruction (suicide and addiction) rising sharply among middle-aged white dudes. This is just another symptom of it.
@Jason wrote”What Trump is calling for is a rejection of the result of a national election.”
Anybody who studies how voting is conducted in America should similarly be calling for the rejection of vote counts in many many situations. If it can’t be proven that they are legitimate, then they should be assumed not to be.
And it isn’t that we don’t have the ability, resources, and technology to have verifiable and fair elections. We do. Most Americans simply don’t care, and some, like Nemski, ridicule those of us who do.
@disappointed: Ever had the experience of being right yet completely missing the point? If so, you’re doing it again.
So help me God, if these spoiled rotten petulant BernieBros make common cause with the racist Nazi Trump on this point, I will flip the fuck out.
Disappointed is a Republican troll. He gets it.
Seriously, Jason330? It is Dems that have been bitten hardest by stolen elections, and yet you think I’m a “Republican Troll?” As El Som pointed out, it may be Dems again that could have the election stolen from them. What are you going to do if that happens? If history is a guide, probably nothing.
And DD, you sound as off-your-rocker as Donald Trump. I thought that Bernie gave a pretty unequivocal endorsement of Hillary. In spite of your tribalism, try not to be such a bitter sore winner.
I regret that I fell for a typical troll move. Shift the thread from the point of the post, to a side issue. The side issue is valid, that’s what makes it such a crafty troll move, but it doesn’t address the point of the post.
DD: Hillary is 7-9 points ahead in the polls. Most Bernie supporters are not going to vote for Trump, and Bernie is saying that Trump needs to be defeated.
Get a grip, man, the primary is over. Your candidate won.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-smaldino/carl-jung-and-donald-trum_b_9320554.html
“Most Bernie supporters are not going to vote for Trump”
DD is just tending the blame list.
What I am talking about is this.
Trump: “It’s a rigged system. The election was stolen by Crooked Hillary”
Disappointed: “Well, there is a lot of voting fraud and hacks.”
Whether he/she wants to or not, Disappointed is being supportive of Trump’s lies there.
We had one obvious stolen election on the national level in 2000. The 2004 national election may also have been stolen (no one can say for sure one way or the other).
And nobody can tell how many elections have been rigged on the local and state level because the voting and vote counting in America is not secure and not recountable.
So, like most Americans, you can stick your head in the sand and ignore it. But if the election is rigged by Trump and the Republicans so he wins, what are you going to say then?
And what about Republican-rigged house and Senate races?
At one point I thought Trump had a pretty compelling point on trade and jobs (even though his plan is an inch deep) and had a shot at winning on that message. But now Trump is such a blithering idiot I don’t think he knows how to effectively run on that message.
@disappointed: Yeah, what about it? If this, then what? Yawn. Go jerk off on somebody else’s thread.
Rigging elections is not what the thread is about, and it’s not what your comments are about. Yes, we are at the mercy of the voting machines. There’s lots of anecdotal evidence that machines are being hacked, but you haven’t cited any of it. You just want to flap your hands in dismay.
Yes, voting might be rigged. But that’s got little to do with Trump’s broaching of the subject.
As I noted, you seem to have a passion for missing the point here. Is it intentional?
@anonymous:
This isn’t your thread.
“I’m afraid the election’s gonna be rigged, I have to be honest” is the only Trump quote in the post. The other quotes are from another certifiable nut-job, Roger Stone.
So discussions about election rigging are certainly relevant to this thread. If we had uniform federal elections standards, it wouldn’t be a question. The lack of a uniform transparent voting process in America is the true attack on our so-called democracy.
And if the election is close, it could just as easily be rigged for Trump. And nobody could prove it wasn’t. Then, what are you going to do?
Ah, I see. Reading comprehension is your problem. You might have gotten a clue when your hobby horse was ignored.
The thread is about Trump sowing the seeds of possible violence after he loses. Do try to keep up.
And anyway, then what are YOU going to do? All you’ve done so far is wring your hands. Take it to the Department of Elections.
It’s not your thread, either, and at least I understand what the topic is.
@anonymous:
Please point out where “Trump [was] sowing the seeds of possible violence” in Jason’s post.
There is only a single quote from Trump in the whole post, and it isn’t about “possible violence.” It is about election rigging, which is what I am writing about. The other quotes are from Roger Stone, not Trump.
Perhaps you should think twice about your own “reading comprehension” problem.
The article is not about what Trump said. It’s about what’s being said about what Trump said. You might have deduced that from the fact that most of the post does not quote Trump but rather others who are writing about this.
Now back to my questions: What are you proposing we do about it? Why are you hectoring us about it? Why are you changing the subject?
Also, too: The headline of the post might give you a hint that you’re off-course here. Or is your point that Trump is right to complain about his probable loss as soon as possible?
@anonymous:
You are so funny: “It’s about what’s being said about what Trump said.”
All my posts were about what Trump actually said and what others said. Also, Stone wrote his piece on Friday; Trump said his “rigged” quote on Monday. So there was nothing in the piece about “what’s being said about what Trump said.”
Again, suggest you investigate your own “reading comprehension” challenges.
And the headline is misleading; the republic is not threatened; it is dead. The smoking gun was fired in broad daylight in 2000. Nothing has been done since to prevent a repeat.
It probably goes without saying that if it were to happen to Hillary this year, the Dems would just roll over. Again.
@a “If the Trump supporters start shooting, the rest of us get to shoot back.”
And that would pretty much be the end of the 2nd amendment.
“The headline is misleading; the republic is not threatened; it is dead.”
Now you’re a goalpost-mover in addition to a hand-wringing hysteric.
“investigate your own “reading comprehension” challenges.”
Apparently you don’t understand that the shaded portions of the post are block quotes from another article, and that Josh Marshall has specifically cited Stone’s words — perhaps “bloodbath” has a meaning to you? — as a threat that THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN will reject the results of the election if he loses Florida. Stone is a Trump surrogate.
So the stakes here are politically incited violence.
What you say is true. So fucking what? That’s not the subject on which conversation was invited.
I believe some of us (including the author of the linked article!) are using the term “voter fraud” in place of the term “electoral fraud,” and they’re not interchangeable! Voter fraud is a single person misrepresenting themselves when casting a vote, electoral fraud is a systematic interfering with the whole process of voting. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/9/28/1137404/-Terminology-is-important-Election-Fraud-v-Voter-Fraud
I am a Bernie supporter but surely don’t want Trump to be president so will likely hold my nose and vote Clinton in November. I’m new here so I’m not sure if these videos went around but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSNTauWPkTc, (or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbA3OWinYY for the short of it) – this looks like electoral fraud to me.
You’re right @DD, I can’t say that I think Trump is “lying” here. As spoiled or rotten or petulant as that makes me.
Turtle, that second video proves nothing. It is hear-say. It also is just someone who is upset at the outcome of a hand count.
Consider this. The scale of fraud that you bernie hold-outs are alleging is SO MASSIVE that surely SOMEONE would have broken by now. There should be SOME smoking gun. Instead, there is a lot of emotion and a lot of echo-cambering. 20000 people all share the same meme that says “PROOF! CLINTON STOLE THE ELECTION” and folks think it’s true. It is not. She’s not that good. You are unhappy that your candidate didnt win. Me too. Get over it… or at the very least, stop it (not just you, everyone) with the bullshit conspiracy theories. You damage the entire cause and movement.
And btw…… i would be absolutely fine with the election being rigged against Trump. It wont be…. unless you count reality’s liberal bias… It will be a fair election and America will turn out to vote against this pile of shit. People who allege that it is rigged (you and the rest of the bern-outs included) are insane, and you dont understand what he actually represents.
@Ben wrote: “i would be absolutely fine with the election being rigged against Trump.”
Perhaps the most anti-democratic statement that I have read in years from anyone, either on the left or the right.
Perhaps the most anti-democratic statement that I have read in years from anyone, either on the left or the right.
Really? So you must have missed the ones by Trump where he declared that the Constitution is not always relevant, or the one where he said that when he was President he’d be using the power of the State to go after hostile media, or the times where he’s encouraged his supporters to beat up protesters, or the times when he’s suggested that if he didn’t win the nomination, or doesn’t win the Presidency that there would be violence in the streets?
I don’t for a moment think Ben would really rig an election, or even fail to report election fraud, but what he does express is the danger so many people feel regarding a Trump presidency–that it would represent a lesser threat to the republic to cheat him out of office than to allow him in.
@D “Perhaps the most anti-democratic statement that I have read in years from anyone, either on the left or the right.”
The Republicans “say” it every time they pass a voting restriction law.
That is de facto rigging an election.
Until yesterday, I haven’t read or heard anybody on the right or left say overtly that they’d be fine with rigging a Presidential election. Sure, there are a lot of election shenanigans happening with the intent to suppress voting and fix elections, there’s massive gerrymandering by both R’s and D’s, but the perpetrators don’t say that that they want to rig elections (even though they do).
Some people hate Hillary with the same vehemence and passion that many here feel about Trump, but I have not heard anyone overtly say that they would want to rig the election for Trump.
Just like many things Trump and others have said, saying that you’d “be absolutely fine with the election being rigged” automatically disqualifies you from any serious conversations about democracy and politics. End of Story.
hy·per·bo·le
hīˈpərbəlē/
noun:
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Yes, Pandora, I am sure that you would dismiss it as hyperbole if someone from the right said, “I would be absolutely fine with the election being rigged against Clinton.”
Not.
It would depend on who said it. If a person in position to make it happen said it I would be concerned and take it seriously. If a random internet commenter says it I’m not going to worry about it.
And I’m really tired of this BS argument of both sides do it. It’s a flat-out lie. To believe you, we’d have to put Ben’s comment on a par with Republican elected officials who are actually passing laws restricting voting rights. You see them as the same. I don’t.
trolls gotta troll.
Really Pandora? – Are you actually claiming that Democrats have not gerrymandered congressional districts, too?
Wow, that is tribalism at its finest.
Gerrymandering is one of the most insidious and pervasive forms of election rigging.
Dis, they probably have. but the scale at which the republicans have done it…… Tell me… do you know the breakdown of total votes cast for congressional races VS the congressional make up? Are you actually aware of the past 15-20 years or gerymandering? Show me evidence that “both sides do it” at the same rate, and with the same effect, and I’ll eat my hat.
This thread reminds me of that old Woody Guthrie “troll on, Columbia troll on…”
You are right though. It is a way of rigging an election… and as of this moment in time… not 50 years ago, not back when the Democratic party stood for slavery…. not when dead people voted in Chicago…. Right Now…. The republicans have rigged the congress in their favor. Reality has rigged the presidency in the D’s favor.
Sure, the Republicans have gerrymandered more now because they swept into power in the last census year (2010) after Obama had fired Howard Dean and installed Tim Kaine as head of DNC. If the Dems can regain more control in 2020 (the next census year), then they will certainly gerrymander more districts in their favor.
And the electoral college is another election-rigging scheme. The ratio of electoral votes/number of voters is higher in smaller states like Delaware and Wyoming than in large states like New York or California. So in Delaware, your vote has more influence on a Presidential Election than most other states.
Yeah, Obama was really a tyrant coming up with that whole electoral college thing. Probably Crooked Hillary’s idea. We should go back to the days of Lincoln when it didn’t exist.
“the electoral college is another election-rigging scheme.”
First time I’ve ever heard an Article to the Constitution referred to as “election -rigging”
The electoral college was an alternative to election by Congress, which many thought might compromise the independence of the Presidency as well as be prone to backroom deals by representatives.
The popular vote was not used because more populous states would have a greater influence and much of the electorate was relatively ignorant and uneducated. Plus it reduced the risk of factionalism.
A state’s number of electors equals the number of representatives and senators the state has in the United States Congress, which is consequence of each states share of the aggregate population of all the states. It’s not election rigging. It’s a formula, with actual math involved.
Also, I didn’t realize Obama was one of the signatories to the Constitution. I mean, he’s got some grey, but I thought that appeared within the last few years.
This guy is a troll.
“Perhaps the most anti-democratic statement that I have read in years from anyone, either on the left or the right.”
This, too, is hyperbole, which the author purports not to know the meaning of.
He’s a troll.
Take a hint, pal. You’ve done nothing but act like a dick since you got here.
“First time I’ve ever heard an Article to the Constitution referred to as “election -rigging”
Oh, great. Now we’re going to descend into a frenzy of nit-picking.
What difference does it make if someone has “ever heard” this or that? Who gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut?
You can call the Electoral College anything you want, just don’t call it democracy.
America is not a democracy either. It never has been and god willing, it never will be. I want solid checks on my fellow citizens ability to vote for things that affect me.
Its a democratic representative republic… Or maybe a federal presidential constitutional republic
But that is farrrrrr to many syllables and far too much nuance for most Murkins.
We have representative form of government governed according to a constitution. It’s called a republic. It’s been that way from the beginning. You may prefer a different form of government, such as a democracy that is ruled by the will of the people, but that’s not the country you live in. I suppose you can always roll your donut to someplace else that meets your requirements.
If you’re going to lecture people on democracy, let’s get our definitions in order.
A democratic republic elects its leaders democratically — one person, one vote. Virtually all officials in this country are chosen this way now, except for president. The Electoral College does not use democratic rules; it over-represents smaller states, as we all know. I didn’t think you would need instructions to figure that out.
I would prefer the president be chosen the same way, as would a lot of other people.
As for the Constitution, please. We follow the parts we like and don’t follow the parts we don’t. I’m not impressed by that hobby horse, no matter how staunchly you feel about it.
Yes, the Electoral College was designed as an election-rigging scheme.
Part of its design was to deal with the issue of slavery:
“There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.”
James Madison
And, of course, the system of selecting electors was left up to the states.
So, yes, an election-rigging system.
Fun Fact: The term “Electoral College” is not in the Constitution.
The words are not, the concept is.
“God, these dumb trolls who quote my fellow Founding Fathers without really knowing dick about how their country was formed are really making me regret this whole ‘free speech thing’, now pour me another rum, Franklin”
~Abraham “boner champ” Lincoln”
But “electors” is in the Constitution. The College thing happened later to describe the body of electors. But that isn’t especially important. The electors were supposed to be representative of the two part government created — the population represented and the states represented. And if you look at the Senate (the states representation), small states are over-represented there too. But this is how this republic was formed.
It is another artifact of a Constitution that was written by white male property owners to protect the wealth and property of white male property owners and to preserve slavery.
@c “The College thing happened later…”
Probably when someone wanted to charge tuition for worthless courses.