I have a gut feeling, supported by research and factual knowledge, that the approaching American election is going to be a total and overwhelming shitshow. Our media, election officials, and politicians occasionally utter mild words of warning, but no one seems willing to tell the whole truth about what’s coming.
And what, exactly, is heading our way — fast? From everything I’m hearing and reading, millions of Americans stand ready to use violence to overturn the election if it doesn’t go their way. Think of the crazed, violence-prone aftermath of the 2020 election — and then multiply it by twenty or fifty.
Think I’m exaggerating? In yesterday’s USA Today newspaper (9/18) I read a highly disturbing article headlined “Poll: 46% of Republicans won’t accept Trump’s loss.” Yes, 46%! This article is based on a poll conducted by the non-partisan World Justice Project, which found that 46% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats won’t accept their candidate losing.
Enraged ‘patriots’ will fight to overturn the election
That’s alarming enough, but another finding is even scarier: 14% of Republicans and 11% of Democrats said they would “take action to overturn” results they dislike. The poll didn’t dig into what specific actions respondents might take to “overturn” the election, but after witnessing the last four years, several worrisome probabilities come to mind:
1. There might be endless, outraged legal challenges mounted that could paralyze our legal and political systems and grind on for many months.
2. If Trump loses, he will start yelling ‘Fraud!’ and ‘It’s another STOLEN election!’ and will purposely incite his loyal MAGA base into a red-hot fury — and some will get violent.
3. Enraged and hostile ‘patriots’ — or right-wing militias — could band together and attack courts, judges, election officials, and vote-counting operations in targeted guerilla warfare.
4. Disgruntled, angry individuals could carry out numerous ‘lone wolf’ terrorist-style attacks, targeting sports arenas, concerts, government offices, and other public venues.
5. Angry ‘election deniers’ could, and likely WILL, do everything in their power to harass election officials, issue unending fake news about the election, and deny the validity of the results.
6. And scarily, if the protests and violence get intense and widespread enough, the authorities won’t be able to contain or stop them (short of declaring and enforcing martial law). The entire situation could easily spin out of control, ending with mass violence and the temporary(?) downfall of our semi-democracy.
How far will these supposed ‘patriots’ go?
Of course, a lot depends on just how far the most disgruntled, angry voters are willing to go. I’ve gotten several responses to past articles that pooh-pooh my concerns and insist that our U.S. system is strong and agile enough to handle anything that happens and that the threats of violence are mainly just talk. Some folks even insist that the election will play out normally and peacefully.
I don’t buy it — not for a second, after everything we’ve witnessed since 2020. And neither does my wife, who is very level-headed and well-informed.
Hell, we’ve got large numbers of ‘patriots,’ mainly Republicans, who are champing at the bit to fight a second civil war to ‘save our country.’ An even larger — and increasing — number say that political violence is justified and necessary in today’s U.S.
And when we’ve got 14% of Republicans and 11% of Democrats asserting they would “take action to overturn” election results they dislike, I’d say our nation is in deep shit.
Consider: if we assume that there are 39,000,000 registered Republicans (see this webpage), 14% works out to 5,460,000 willing to act to overturn the election. And looking at registered Democrats, if we use the 49,000,000 figure from the same webpage and multiply it by 11%, we get 5,390,000.
Can you imagine 5.46 million angry Republicans or 5.39 million angry Democrats choosing to take matters into their own hands and “take action to overturn” the election? Can we even imagine the social and political chaos and carnage that would result?
I don’t think we can — at least, not adequately or realistically.
Our nation is already destabilized and ‘on edge’
Of course, all 5.4 million Rs or Ds won’t really choose to actively fight to “overturn the election” or resort to violence. But even if only one in ten of this group DO choose that — we’re still facing over a half-million enraged, violence-prone Republicans or furious, potentially violent Democrats… enough to effectively paralyze our society and further wreck any remaining sense of stability and safety.
Sadly, we passed the ridiculous ‘it can’t happen here’ barrier quite some time ago — after the 2020 election and especially on Jan. 6, 2021 — so the above social/political scenario is no longer a far-fetched idea. It’s rapidly morphing into a likelihood.
In the past two weeks alone, there have been numerous events that have shaken our political establishment and our society. Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, keep repeating the racist lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing peoples’ pets and eating them; then Springfield got numerous bomb threats and other threats and had to cancel public events, evacuate schools, stores, and hospitals, and close down the local college for a day. Ohio Republicans (except Gov. Mike DeWine) are all tiptoeing around, playing nice, and trying not to anger Trump and Vance.
Plus, there was a foiled assassination attempt on Trump — attempt #2; and Trump and Vance then pounced and are now attacking Democrats for their ‘hostile rhetoric’ calling Trump a threat to democracy (which he is); they’re insisting the Dems are the true ‘threat to democracy’ and are inciting people to want to kill Trump.
This, despite the fact that Trump regularly insults and blames Harris for everything wrong with the U.S., attacks her race and sex, and labels her a ‘lunatic Marxist, communist fascist.’ Talk about hostile, violence-inciting rhetoric!
Yes, things are getting ugly and verydangerous. And we’ve got seven more weeks to go before the election — and then 11 more weeks before the January 20 inauguration. That’s plenty of time for all kinds of mischief, lies, and violence to occur and spread.
Meanwhile, Trump is clearly in total control of the GOP, and not one current GOP politician has directly challenged Trump’s racism and incitement. He is more emboldened by the day and is heavily employing his infamous ‘Attack, attack, attack!’ strategy. Both his words and actions are getting louder, more insulting, more racist, and more likely to incite rage and violence.
The Frankenstein monster of MAGA and Trumpism is careening out of control
The truth is, we’ve allowed this Frankenstein monster — Trumpism — to grow and strengthen over the past nine years, and now reining him and his MAGA supporters in and stopping or even reducing their surging anger is almost impossible.
Given all this, I find it utterly absurd to believe that everything is going to be ‘just fine.’ Some Americans seem to be existing on ‘hopium’ and delude themselves into thinking our situation ‘isn’t really that bad.’
But I prefer to face the truth and deal with reality head-on — and what I see and feel scares the hell out of me. It really IS ‘that bad.’
The Frankenstein monster we’ve created/allowed — Trump, MAGA, the Trumpified GOP, a far-right disinformation blitz, and all his millions of enraged supporters — is now careening out of control, and come the election and post-election period, is very likely to explode into carnage and violence.
We’ve stood by and watched all this unfold over the past nine years — and now our inaction, apathy, and denial are coming back to bite us in the butt, hard.
The next few months look to be incredibly painful, as well as incredibly dangerous. And it’s not at all clear that the U.S. will be able to withstand this amount of surging chaos, violence, and hate.
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This post was previously published on Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs.
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