This is How Trump Steals the Next Election

There is No “If” About it — Trump is Going to Try to Steal the Election. The Question is, Will He Get Away With It?

Written by Umair Haque and published in Medium.com on 6/12/2020

There’s a man sitting in an oval shaped office in a big white house, staring out across a lawn that ends in a chain link fence, thinking to himself: “How am I going to steal the next election?”

Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting. Even his hardcore supporters — that fringe of American Idiots — is being chipped away at.

Trump is going to try to steal the next election. The question is: is America prepared?

I know this next part will sound scary. Bare with me until the end. those of us who’ve both studied authoritarianism and survived it can tell you with near absolute certainty that not only is Trump going to try to steal the next election, he’s going to try to do it in a certain way. A way that those who hope to be tyrants and dictators always do.

Put yourself in Trump’s skin for a moment. Sorry. You’re going to need a shower afterwards.You’re a malignant narcissist. Nobody’s ever really loved you, because you’re not capable of warmth, empathy, shame, friendship, caring. The only thing you know, and crave, is power, admiration, respect. As you yourself put it, “dominating” others.

Becoming President was your one bid for the admiration and respect you’ve always sought — but never earned. But now that’s failing, too. The world laughs at you. The nation has begun not just to dislike you — but to genuinely abhor you, as a man of no honor, a person with nothing inside but a giant void.

Protests wrack the cities. Statues are pulled down. A pandemic rages. The death count spirals into the realm of world war. Your nation is a failure, and the world knows it. You can’t get re-elected legitimately with a record like this. You weren’t really “elected” in the first place.

Now your back is against the wall. What is a person like you — a power-seeking narcissist, a man without honor, shame, courage, or principles — to do? That is when you are most dangerous of all, like a wounded animal. When you’re backed into a corner. You are going to take by force what you can’t have freely. You are going to try to steal the next election.

And then you chuckle. Because you’ve said as much, over and over again. You’ve joked about it, and you’ve brooded on it publicly. Not just stealing the election, but never giving up power, handing it your kids, building a dynasty of dictators all your own.

Only not very many people seem to really believe you. People are gullible. They don’t believe you when you show them who are, when you tell them what you’re going to do. Instead, they say you’d never try that. Their denial is your greatest asset. You’ve shown them who you are — authoritarian, fascist, aspiring dictator. Isn’t that kind of folly why you have such contempt for the very people you are supposed to lead? Why bother caring for them at all — when they don’t believe you when you show them exactly who you are, over and over again? People are there to be used. They always have been. Especially people who don’t believe what’s right before their own eyes.

That snaps you back into focus. Right now, you are thinking very, very hard, about one thing, and one thing only: how to steal the next election. That, by the way, is why you don’t care about any of the terrible things happening to the country you purport to lead: the pandemic, the deaths, the economic fallout, the social upheaval, any of it. You only care about one thing — one thing — right now. How to steal the election.

How will you do it?

You have an endless list of tactics at your disposal. All you need to do is combine them into a strategy now.

You can deter minorities who vote against you — with dirty tricks, with the brutal policing your country’s famous for, with “voter challenges.”

You can mount legal challenges, in the event you lose by a narrow margin. The Supreme Court is on your side, thanks to your first term, in which you stacked it.

You can count on a supine Congress, and the party which you lead, which will follow you into the abyss — hasn’t it already — to back you in trying to steal the Presidency, whatever the outcome of the election.

You’ve already threatened to declare martial law.All you need is one more event, in a nation already on a razor’s edge, to go through with it. And if you can do that, then you can control who votes where and when, and — hey presto! — the election’s yours. You drool with anticipation, hoping for that one event which lets you declare martial law.

Your party’s already published a stance calling for shooting people on the streets. You smile to yourself. People who can just be…shot…don’t tend to vote. You know how easily it will be to steal this election.

Then there are your friends, in the Kremlin. They will do whatever they can to help you. Flooding social media with propaganda and disinformation, just like last time? Planting all kinds of fake news?

Even hacking the vote itself? You laugh. Sure, you’re under their thumb. But isn’t it worth it? They’re going to help you steal an election.

But not just them. You remember how, during the last election, the issue had become her emails. Your opponent’s. It wasn’t your lack of character, judgment, experience, or even any remotely positive human qualities of goodness and decency. Nope. Her emails. How easy was it to trick the media into doing what you wanted? Hadn’t you done it all your life? A lie here, a half-truth there — and weren’t they always ready to pounce on the nearest woman, minority, person of color?

But her emails! You giggle at the stupidity of it. And you know that this time around, you can misdirect the media with any number of similar scandals. Maybe that irritating woman who heads the opposition against you will have a scandal. Maybe this other woman will. Maybe that Latina in Congress will have one. Scandal after scandal appears before your eyes. And you remember how easy it is to pull the wool over the eyes of a nation that’s already gone half-blind with ignorance, fear, and rage. But her…emails. LOL.

You remember, too, then, how the warnings had been ignored. A tiny number had called it all correctly. That you’d do the things fascists do, because you were a fascists: camps, raids, bans, purges, Gestapos.

But nobody much had listened to them. The nation’s intellectual class had warned, instead, of calling you a fascist or an authoritarian.

This time you laugh, hard, sneering in contempt. What fools! You told them exactly who you were, and what you were going to do. You spent election season rallying your base of American Idiots by calling refugees and immigrants vermin, promising to ban them and build walls. But these intellectuals — these ivory-tower fools — didn’t believe you when you said it out loud.

You guffaw, realizing: they probably don’t believe you’re going to try to steal this election, also, even though you’ve told them that, too.

You suddenly feel a surge of confidence.

You can steal this election. Why, it’s going to be easier than last time. This time, you’re already President. You can order the soldiers into the streets. You can create havoc on a scale the nation has never seen before. Your friends in the Kremlin will do anything to keep you there. And this nation, especially its intellectuals and media — how easy are they to fool? They still don’t believe you, every time you tell them exactly who you are, and what you’re going to do. LOL. You can steal this election just like grabbing a p*ssy. Isn’t that all it is? Grabbing a society’s p*ssy, and never letting go? And isn’t that what a real man has to do?

A doubt crosses your mind. What if you lose the election, though, and they send in the military to remove you from office? What then?

Ah, but you’ve been making deals your whole life long. You realize that all you have to do is make the military a deal it can’t refuse. Maybe this general becomes the ruler of this province, or that general owns this energy grid, water system, utility, company, stock market, or that general simply inherits the entire nation’s treasury. That’s what every good dictator does, in the final moment, when the military challenges him. He strikes a deal.

It’s never cheap. That’s how the war criminals of the world buy penthouses in Paris and go on mega-shopping sprees at Harrods. They’ve gone from generals to oligarchs. Now they don’t just control a military — but they own a nation’s vital assets. How much money would you make if you owned an entire energy grid? You realize that you can offer payoffs that would corrode even the sternest, noblest heart.

Sure, the military’s made of fine and noble people. But how many will turn down a payoff so large that it would suddenly make you as rich as a king? Maybe they will turn it down, you brood.

And then you chuckle. But that’s the bet, isn’t it? That that last final safeguard will fall, too, because, now, as President, you can offer payoffs that nobody else can, buying off the last protectors of democracy — and thus become dictator.

You’re willing to take that bet. It sounds pretty good to you, actually. Who’s going to turn down a billion dollars? Five? Ten? Generals in places like Russia and Pakistan don’t. Do they ever? Have they anywhere? Didn’t they ultimately turn into decadent and fat fools in Rome, too?

You laugh. You know, suddenly, that it can be done. You are understanding how to become a tyrant.

The glimmers of a plan now flash through your mind. It glitters, like a great and vast scaffolding, made of silver and steel. You see its girders and bolts joining together. You frown, as you try to see the whole picture of it, this grand edifice, this plan. How to become a tyrant. So many have done it before you. Why can’t you do it, too?

Adrenaline surges through you. Dopamine rushes. Your blood roars and your heart pounds. This is how it can be done. This is how you become the dictator of a nation.

You shake with excitement. Your face is flush. Your lips are twisted in hot, thrilling rage.

What are you going to do these last five months? Govern? Lead? LOL.

You are going to hone your plan. Fine tune it. Account for every eventuality. Plan exactly how to fool the media and intellectuals again, which scandal to offer them, all over again. How to drive your base of American Idiots into a frenzy, all over again. When to drop your friends in the Kremlin a note for help, all over again. When to declare emergency, martial law, send the soldiers into the streets, put the nation under curfew. And what to offer those last few good souls standing in the way of your ascent, as glittering prizes that no one else can, to get the hell out of the way.

You have five months to think this all over carefully. How to steal an election. It’s plenty of time. And the more you think about it, the more you realize: it’s not even going to be that hard. In fact, the more surprising outcome would be if you didn’t.

You smile, the dopamine afterglow’s lightning sizzling across your cortex. You sneer at the stupidity. Everyone’s. The ones who support you, and the ones who don’t. The ones who are against you, and the ones who are for you. All of them. Isn’t this how you rose? Because you were born for it? Because you were always better, stronger, smarter, cleverer than them — only no one knew just how much? Who’s laughing now?

Around you, the cities burn. A gigantic wave of death rips across society. The nation has fallen into poverty, despair, sickness, ruin.

Things have never been better.

Umair
June 2020

What can YOUR government do about violence?

There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it’s the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism.

~Bell Hooks~

Lately our government, at least at the national level, seems to have forgotten who it works for. Congress recently passed a tax bill into law despite it being in great disfavor with a significant number of voters. A slight majority of Congress appears to be pandering to its wealthy donors and other wealthy citizens to the detriment of the rest of the country.

Violence remains a significant problem in our country although it has not shown an overall increase in recent years. Yet our communities across the country are rife with violence. We have too many mass killings, sexual assaults, suicides, drug overdoses and incidents of family violence.

In the past few articles, I have addressed what violence is and what causes it, what individuals can do, what families can do and what communities can do to reduce violence. Governments at all levels have approached the problem of violence mainly by looking for ways to punish perpetrators. Yet many violent people are motivated by anger, fear and pain. Punishing people for any of these only compounds the problem.

So what can government officials, citizen representatives at various levels, elected bodies and agencies created by them do other than punish people?

Here are some goals our representatives can address on our behalf:

• Set up and fund programs in our communities to understand why people feel angry, powerless, fearful and in pain.
• Establish community programs to address these concerns.
• Do what it takes to help people rise above poverty.
• Help neighborhoods find ways for their residents to live in safety.
• Help citizens learn that skin color, national origin, religious affiliation, gender identity, sexual orientation and personal wealth have nothing to do with the value on anyone’s life.
• Make sure that all citizens have adequate health care.
• Help every citizen find a way to be a productive member of society.
• Find a responsible way for citizens to own guns.

How do we get elected representatives to adopt such an agenda? Remember that all of them at every level are elected by those who they represent. They work for you. You will be bombarded by political advertising in every election cycle. Rather that listening to the onslaught, we need to start listening to each other person to person and in community forums. Once we understand what we all need we can elect people to act in our best interest who are willing to listen to each other and to us. It sounds daunting, but it can be done if we set our minds to it. Start doing your part today to build a more responsive government.

 

How to earn respect as a voter

 Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. 

~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
A recent opinion in a letter to the editor stated that politicians should respect voters’ intelligence. This seems to be a fairly common theme in political opinion writing these days. I have wondered lately whether we as voters deserve respect for our intelligence.

Complaining about our elected representatives and officials is also quite common these days. A telephone survey in May, 2015 found that just eighteen percent of voters think most members of Congress care what their constituents think. If they are so out of touch, where did these officials come from? We elected them of course. Well, the fifty-five percent of voters who showed up at the polls did.

So what’s the problem here? Why do we keep electing people who don’t care what we think? What are we thinking when we vote for them? Are we thinking about whether they are willing to work together for the common good? Or do we vote based on our fears or self interest? Some of us don’t bother to vote at all.

When you read what goes on in congress and what happens in our society, you might not find a great deal of difference.  Most of the time congress is in deadlock over just about every issue. Congress reflects the conflicting views and interests we see in society. We find ourselves pitted against each other on just about every issue you can think of. It is no wonder that congress reflects our society. Do you like living this way and being led this way?

I don’t either. Our nation started with a common ideal. We wanted a country in which our citizens could pursue their own happiness without restriction on our free speech or religious views. Although this was the goal, our founding fathers were not perfect. They forgot that everyone is human and convinced themselves that slavery was acceptable.

In more recent times, we came to see the pursuit of happiness as a way to get what we want without regard to the implications for our fellow citizens. Everyone for themselves. We have become short-sighted and selfish in many regards.

When we don’t consider others’ needs, getting what we want just makes them envious and leads to class wars as well as individual skirmishes. I don’t suggest that we can all agree on everything we think, say and do. Then we would be robots. But I think there is a way out.

Imagine living in a nation in which we can again see each other as brothers and sisters. Would you let your family starve or struggle or would you help them to the extent you can? That is the choice we have. We can continue growing more selfish or we can take each others’ needs into account as well as our own.

Life Lab Lessons

• Think about what you need and what you merely want.
• Use you eyes and ears to discover what others want.
• What are you willing to sacrifice to help others with their needs?
• How can you share what you have?
• Vote and engage your conscience when you do.