Yesterday, I wrote a post here in Daily Kos where I basically asked the question “What are we doing now, 99 days before the election, to forstall Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power through extrajudicial means should the election go against him?” The responses to me and others who have raised similar issues have for the most part ranged from a sense of helplessness to a belief that it is somehow impossible for him to succeed to a belief the US military would step into the matter and save the rebublic by removeing him by force.
This morning I read a article (here) in the Boston Globe reported that:
“On the second Friday in June, a group of political operatives, former government and military officials, and academics quietly convened online for what became a disturbing exercise in the fragility of American democracy.”
:The group, which included Democrats and Republicans, gathered to game out possible results of the November election, grappling with questions that seem less far-fetched by the day: What if President Trump refuses to concede a loss, as he publicly hinted recently he might do? How far could he go to preserve his power? And what if Democrats refuse to give in?”
One of the group’s organizers, Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and former Defense Department official said “All of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse.” She then went on to describe the findings of the group in frightening terms,
“The law is essentially ... it’s almost helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.”
It is to this reality that I wrote yesterday’s post.
the group called the Transition Integrity Project used a role planning game and
“[E]nvisioned a dark 11 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day, one in which Trump and his Republican allies used every apparatus of government — the Postal Service, state lawmakers, the Justice Department, federal agents, and the military — to hold onto power, and Democrats took to the courts and the streets to try to stop it.
They issued a frightening warning:
A close election this fall is likely to be contested, and there are few guardrails to stop a constitutional crisis, particularly if Trump flexes the considerable tools at his disposal to give himself an advantage.
The following are the alarming comments by some of participants in the study:
Nils Gilman, a historian who leads research at a think tank called the Berggruen Institute,
“He doesn’t have to win the election, he just has to create a plausible narrative that he didn’t lose.”
Edward Luce, the US editor of the Financial Times,
“The more demonstrations there were, the more demands for recounts, the more legal challenges there were, the more funerals for democracy were held, the more Trump came across as the candidate of stability,”
Retired Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a Republican and former chief of staff to Colin Powell,
“The Constitution really has been a workable document in many respects because we have had people who more or less adhered to a code of conduct, That seems to no longer to be the case. That changes everything.”
There are those who have recommended taking to the streets to attempt to forstall the looming catadtrophe others believe the opposite. This may be the greatest public crisis any of us my experience in our lives. Is sitting back and seeing how it all turns out an option? What do you think the individual should or can do now? What will you do?