undefined

points

[-]

> He simply needs to

I think a lot of people struggle to imagine the kinds of dirty-deeds ("ratf***ing") that are both possible and effective, especially when the perpetrators don't (feel) constrained by an implicit baseline of plausible consistency or morality. Being unable to brainstorm them up is, perhaps, a kind of backhanded compliment.

Imagine trying to warn someone in 2010 that in a few years an outgoing President, stung at an election loss, could foment a violent mob that would break into the Capitol to hunt and chase legislators that were formalizing that loss, issue blanket pardons for everyone involved, and his party would still protect him from being impeached over it.

For that matter, some people are still surprised to learn about the "Brooks Brothers Riot" [0] of 2000, where a crowd of Republican campaign staffers threatened workers into stopping a recount of certain ballots.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/24/us-elections...

by cdelsolar10 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

they're going to arrest 150 million people?

by jshier10 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Why would they need to arrest 150 million people? They'd let everyone in heavily Republican districts vote just fine, perhaps just a few random arrest at any precincts in Democratic areas. Their main focus would be urban areas, especially in blue states. And it wouldn't have to be everyone to get many, if not most people, to stay home. Early voting in your district? Great way to get ICE's arrests of people in line on the news before the big day, further driving down turnout. Filtering mail in ballots at the USPS not enough? Just happen to have some ICE agents drive by the drop boxes and oops, we saw an "illegal" voting, all these ballots are invalid, we'll be taking those. Local police try to step in (as if)? Insurrection Act, military deployed to all voting locations, ballots seized.

This shouldn't be hard to understand: there are any number of things an unfettered executive can do to turn the election that isn't simply cancelling them.