President Donald Trump is openly hinting at taking over the midterm elections by declaring a national emergency.

Newsmax’s Wayne Allen Root interviewed Trump just after midnight Tuesday morning, and said that Trump had the right to declare a national security emergency next month, forcing through photo identification, proof of citizenship, limits on mail-in ballots, and other heavy voting restrictions. Trump seemed to like that suggestion, but didn’t want to tip his hand.

“Let me just say stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump said.

Trump is afraid of massive Republican losses in November’s midterms, and has been unsuccessfully pushing his allies in Congress to pass the draconian SAVE Act. With that appearing more unlikely each day, Democrats and other Trump critics are raising concerns that he may take drastic action, such as declaring a national emergency and maybe deploying legions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the polls.

In fact, Democrats have been trying for close to a year to get documents from the Department of Homeland Security regarding its policies and memos on sending ICE agents to polls. Agents were seen at polling places in Texas during its May primaries and in California in June, but when Democrats used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate, they were sent useless press clippings.

If Trump tries to invoke national security to take over federal elections, it would shatter precedent and could set off lawsuits and protests across the country. His repeated, disproven claims about voter fraud and rigged elections suggest that he’ll make the same excuses in November. The question is how to ensure a fair and accurate result that can stand up to his attacks.

  • disorderly@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    We need to all be eyeing the break glass solution: a general strike. If Trump subverts the elections, then we turn off the economy until fair elections are held.

    • Bluedragon012@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Now get people to actually do it. I’ll gladly do it but I don’t think my neighbors would. not because they are on the side of evil, but because they can’t afford a day without money. (At least that’s what they think, the reality though might be different)

    • littlewonder@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      IIRC, in the decades leading up to the 20th century, workers and other pro-labor bamfs in the US would go on parades around town to signal their collective strength to the bourgeoisie/industrialists and intimidate them into compliance.

      Bring back the bullying of capitalists, please. Also, who doesn’t love a parade?

    • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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      20 hours ago

      A general strike is functionally impossible in the US. You’d need every major industry, every freight industry, and every service industry nationwide onboard. Most of the workers in those industries can’t afford a weeks long strike. You’d need every major port on board. You’d need the capitalists to coordinate it because Americans fucking hate each other. We will have an open civil war with atrocities every day before we have a general strike.

      • ViceroTempus@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Which is why I believe a rent/mortgage strike is far more viable. Builds up our resources as the working class, instead of depleting them. Imagine just a single month of no rent/mortgatge how much you could stock up in terms of supplies for a general strike.

        Now imagine a whole neighborhood doing that, a whole town, a whole city, a whole state. It would do severe economical damage, and possibly even crash housing prices.

        Especially if paired with weaponizing local homeless populations by encouraging them to take residence in the various empty homes we have here in the U.S.(which last I think I heard was like 22 empty homes for every homeless person).

    • AmyAye@nord.pub
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      1 day ago

      I feel like fucking with the election could actually be the trigger for more people to actually act and even march in mass on Waahington. Its the one thing I can think of that I would very likely go for.

      It would basically be the final break for “Are we permenantly broken as a country.”

      • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I don’t know. We let an insurrection happen and then re-elected the leader of it. Not sure how many final lines we can have to cross. I think our government has already proven it’s completely broken and needs to be replaced.

          • EldritchFemininity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            12 hours ago

            You do realize how close we were to elected officials hanging from the gallows on the front steps of the capitol, right? 1 locked door and a half dozen cops.

            But regardless, the point is that the ringleader was never punished, and he was reelected and is sitting in the Oval Office right now talking about committing more election fraud after Elon “fixed those machines right up” in 2024.

      • ViceroTempus@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        Is that right? Because I’m not convinced. Even with data like this the knowledge of Trump’s remarks about Elon “knowing computers”, his completely lackluster few rallies before the 2024 elections, the bomb threats, the millions of mail-in ballots in ditches, and the various other election interference, we still haven’t organized as a nation and removed the cheater.

        In fact getting most people to actually look at the data is like pulling teeth.
        I think instead we’ll just roll over like the livestock we are for our oligarchic masters, as we’ve done so far.

        Would love to be proven wrong though. Please my fellow Americans, prove my doubts wrong. Organize and become Wolves.

      • hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        We need to start getting ready for the mass strike right now. The one that temporarily shuts off power plants, water treatment plans and grinds the entire economy to a halt. Evaporating 50% of their stock market assets should grab their attention.

      • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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        1 day ago

        If striking is breaking glass, what would civil war be?

        When they send in the cops and military to try and force people back to work, and people start shooting back.

      • AmyAye@nord.pub
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        1 day ago

        How does that even work? Its not “North and South”, its racist idiots in the sticks and everyone else.