Trump’s advisers have been working for months to move his focus away from baseless theories of election fraud. A group of outsiders is making that difficult.
Of all the outside advisers urging President Trump to seize control of federal elections this fall, the attorney Peter Ticktin can claim the deepest ties; the two men went to military school together as teenagers. In 2022, Ticktin helped Trump sue Hillary Clinton. This year, he pushed Trump to secure a pardon for Tina Peters, a former Colorado clerk convicted of charges related to tampering with election equipment.
Which is why it might be worth listening when Ticktin says that Trump could do something soon to take over elections. “He’s the only one that I know for sure has the understanding of the severity of it,” Ticktin told us this month before taking the stage at an election-skeptic conference in Las Vegas. The way Ticktin sees it, there are three possible outcomes this fall. The first—a smooth election—won’t happen in his view because, he claims without evidence, Democrats already cheated in the primaries. The second is that Trump takes action before the election to prevent cheating. The last option is that Trump tries to declare martial law on or around November 3. “Either martial law, or step aside,” he told us about Trump’s choices in the last scenario. When we asked about the prospect of riots if Trump tries to overturn the election results, Ticktin said he was not concerned. “Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are,” he said.
Trump has already tried to claim greater federal control over elections, which under the Constitution are administered primarily at the state and local level. In February, he said Republicans should nationalize voting in at least 15 places. In August, when the television and radio host Wayne Allyn Root pushed Trump to declare a “national-security emergency” to require proof of citizenship, voter ID, and other measures, Trump played coy: “Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that.” Later that month, Trump posted a Root column on the topic, with a headline that described the plan as “foolproof.” Peters announced after meeting with Trump in June that the president “basically said to his lead counsel to do what I was asking.” In a prime-time address at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump again repeated the false claim that he had won the 2020 election, and sarcastically encouraged his supporters to “cheat like hell” in the upcoming elections.
MAGAts are the worst form of scum.
As much as I hate Trump and all his policies, I have to disagree with you. Trumps supporters are mostly decent, but highly propogandized people. I have plenty of friends, family, and neighbors who are/were Trump supporters.
And while I am happy to vocally disagree with them, I always avoid making it a personal attack, as isolation from the rational people is how populist politicians like Trump maintain control. His power comes from his followers, and he wants nothing more than for his followers to be isolated from those who may lead them astray.
Please resist the hate instead of deepening it.
No. They had their chance and failed an intelligence test in the 2016 election. They have since repeatedly failed MORAL tests.
Multiple time trump voters are sadistic sociopaths that post things like ASMR videos of migrants in chains, laughing at immigrants in chains while eating tacos and smiling at the camera. They are not good people and have shown everyone their true colors. That’s the uncomfortable truth but about 22% of Americans are disgusting pieces of crap.
Even now you may say, “look at the polls”.
His Christian nationalist base is mad about Israel and doesn’t think he is locking up enough immigrants.
Republican “normies” are just mad about gas prices.
They aren’t good people at all
No, you’re wrong. MAGA cultists are pedophile supporters and scum, full stop.
That includes my immediate family.
I’m not so sure that they are mostly decent, etc.
https://www.psypost.org/trump-supporters-report-higher-levels-of-psychopathy-manipulativeness-callousness-and-narcissism/
no they’re evil, stupid, greedy people (or some combination)… it should be disturbing to you that you forgive that and don’t see it, they’re the most dangerous people in the US.
They’ve literally enabled a grifter, felon, paedophile sex pest to be The President of the US, there’s no walking that back, they’re not 12yr old children.
Get better friends.
While I agree that some of them are that,.most of them are the dumbest, most racist assholes you’ve ever met and you know it.
Just like the victims of con artists, they get suckered because they have character flaws that can be easily exploited. And many of those character flaws make them anything but decent people.
They’re still victims, to some extent, but they jumped on that bus because they wanted to see black and brown people, women and queer people tormented and brutalized.
It’s not hate, it’s cold, unblinking contempt.
As someone who also has family who are Trumpists, I have to disagree, most of them are in no way decent. They weren’t decent before Trump and are unlikely to be better after. I’m sorry that doesn’t make mending fences easier, but most Trumpists truly are not worth the effort, especially if they still are making apologies for everything he’s done. There are lines that are unforgivable, and for many of us, those lines are well and truly past.
Yep. Exactly.
Trump didnt turn good, wholesome people vile.
He turned racist assholes into out, loud, and proud raging racist assholes who felt they were finally free to drop the mask and reveal who they really were deep down and fully.
Who only find decency and decorum necessary when the focus is on them, and their orange lords, misdeeds, and only have empathy and concern for when their hate policies come home and hit them, instead of the poors, and browns, and blacks, and liberals that they wanted them to.
My experience is different, I know plenty of current and former Trump supporters, and like all people they run the gamit of human experience, and importantly they are normal flawed human beings.
When I say decent, I don’t mean “good”, I mean that they do not purposefully cause others to suffer, most of these people are scared, un/misinformed, a little(or very in many cases) stupid, and subject to the largest propaganda machine ever built.
I have to believe that at least most, if not all, people are deserving of a good life, and are capable of being caring compassionate individuals, because if I cease to believe that life suddenly seems a little meaningless. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
There is no other group that more purposefully causes people to suffer than conservatives. 35-40% of humanity is not capable of being caring compassionate individuals. As resources dwindle and the world heats up, that percentage will rise.
That misconception is why we are in the predicament that we are in. By your own admission you embrace the misconception because the alternative is too painful to bear. You must accept that except to yourself, friends and family, your life is meaningless aside from the qty of value you can produce to sustain the system.
That’s an incredibly dim view of the world, and one I feel confident is entirely incorrect.
The giddy glee and laughter I hear from my local trumpets while they watch short form videos of people getting hurt and abused (whether by accident, stupidity, or governmental brutality) suggests that it’s a deeper character flaw in many of them.
I’m aware that some are nearly propagandized and ill informed. But plenty are maliciously cruel and want fascist rule, even if they might be on the wrong side of it.
Reality fucks your feelings
At some point Hanlon’s razor becomes a distinction without difference. The wall of lies is too complete to penetrate and whatever their motive, they cannot be recovered. I know you want to believe that most can still choose to be something other than harmful to everyone outside their inner circle. I used to believe it to. I no longer believe that’s true. This is a struggle for survival now.
I think if we all give up our humanity then we’re fighting to persist something which ought to die out. I’ll choose to hold onto mine.
It’s not hate that informs how you treat someone with rabies when you know they’re beyond saving. You know there’s still a person in there somewhere, and you also know you can’t save them, and they’re a danger to everyone around them. They’ve driven themselves rabid with their own ghost stories and phantasms. If they’re only weakly connected to “The Cause” there’s still time, but when they’ve closed that last door tight against the monsters in their head, you can’t undo what’s been done. The only thing left to do is to protect those who aren’t dead from the heart up, from those who are.
I see where you’re from, I really do. But what you are saying is incongruent with reality. I’d highly encourage you to think on this more, and consider changing your mind.
I’m gonna check out of this conversation though, really tired of the threats in my DMs.
I agree. Humans are inherently good and social. It’s the money/power portion of the world that has everything so fucked up. How a proportionally tiny insignificant amount of thugs can control the rest of the world is beyond belief, but here we are.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say inherently good, but I do absolutely agree the money/power dynamics cause almost all our current issues.
I spend a lot of time researching and studying how the elite control the world, and their biggest asset is their ability to manipulate the rest of us into fighting eachother.
What!? How dare you!!! Whoa…I see what you mean…sorry about my temper. I guess you’re right. /s
I know some too and they’re white supremacist Karens.
Fuck ‘em.
I’ve known that type as well, and they make me quite sad, but they are a minority. If we can’t operate on the assumption that fences can be mended, then we will never ever be passed this, and we will be doomed and dooming future generations to the same suffering.
I’m not suggesting any kind of capitulation, just that we be better than those we fight against.
We are where we are because Andrew Johnson sabotaged Reconstruction.
Finish the civil war. Accountability for racists and traitors.
Found the Magat bottom. Yes daddy must be your only words to them.
Wow, mixing homophobia in is so totally awesome. Like seriously do you think that mindset helps anyone other than Trump and his Epstein-class buddies?
much better than a yes daddy I want to compromise one.