Yves here. Even with the Mamdani victory in New York City (critically, bestowed by a majority vote) and Democrat wins in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, there is not much reason for optimism that the Trump team will cede ground to citizens’ wishes. Many are speculating that Trump will not leave office in 2028, via suspension of elections or another version of a coup, or some type of rigging (if nothing else to assure a cooperative Congress). For instance, Larry Wilkerson described how the bizarre Trump birthday parade should be understood as a mechanism for identifying particularly Trump-backing members of the armed services. In his latest talk with Nima, Wilkerson discusses (see starting at 11:11:45) how contemporaries of his believe there will be a coup and how the military is at least in part being reshaped to make that possible. Wilkerson points out that it takes only a brigade to effect a regime change, if the rest of the military stands pat, which is what he anticipates would happen.
In other words, it’s sound to be alarmed at Trump’s ongoing assault on what little voters have in the way of rights, and to call out the feckless Democrat opposition for its lack of a muscular response. Mind you, the post below explains how Trump’s latest attempt is bluster. But Trump keeps pushing on many fronts in the hope that something breaks his way. And with largely cooperative courts, he has the potential to gain more ground than should logically be possible.
A wild card I have yet to see discussed, if the shutdown isn’t resolved in the next say two weeks, is the risk of food riots, the sort of thing supposedly the province only of third world countries. If Trump were to deploy the National Guard to try to combat them and they shot into a crowd, the result could be Kent State on steroids. Recall at the time of the student deaths, most of the US still supported the Vietnam War and the press reports at the showed limited sympathy for the victims. But the images from the scene as well as major network news bringing some of the horrors of war to American living rooms turned the tide of opinion. With Trump already unpopular, a mis-step of that magnitude could provoke a real crisis.
Again, the above line of thought is speculative. But with Wilkerson’s colleagues anticipating a coup, the US is so far outside any old normalcy that it’s not nuts to ponder other outcomes that in the past would have been deemed to be tail risks.
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
President Donald Trump is drafting an executive order aimed at rolling back voting rights, a measure that may include attacks on mailed ballots, a top administration official said Tuesday.
“The White House is working on an executive order to strengthen our elections in this country and to ensure that there cannot be blatant fraud, as we’ve seen in California with their universal mail-in voting system,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
“Like any executive order, of course, any executive order the president signs is within his full executive authority and within the confines of the law,” she added.
Asked by a reporter what is her evidence of electoral fraud in California, Leavitt replied without evidence that “it’s just a fact.”
Leavitt’s remarks came hours after Trump baselessly attacked California’s vote-by-mail system in a post on his Truth Social network.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump alleged without evidence. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”
Trump has previously vowed to ban mail-in ballots, a move legal experts say would be unconstitutional.
The White House’s announcement also came as Americans voted in several high-stakes elections, including California’s Proposition 50 retaliatory redistricting proposal; the New York City mayoral race between progressive Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa; gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia; and a crowded contest for Minneapolis mayor highlighted by democratic socialist state Sen. Omar Fateh’s (D-62) bid to unseat third-term Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey.
The announcement also followed a federal judge’s permanent blocking of part of Trump’s executive order requiring proof of US citizenship on federal voter registration forms.
Democracy defenders have repudiated Trump’s attacks on mailed ballots and claims of voter fraud—a longtime right-wing bugaboo unsupported by facts on the ground.
“Voting by mail as permitted by the laws of your state is legal,” ACLU Voting Rights Project director Sophia Lin Lakin says in a statement on the group’s website about Trump’s order from March.
“In his sweeping executive order, Trump tried to bully states into not counting ballots properly received after Election Day under state law by threatening to withhold federal funding,” she continues. “A federal court has temporarily blocked this part of the executive order.”
“Trump’s effort to target mail-in voting is a blatant overreach, intruding on states’ constitutional authority to set the rules for elections,” Lin Lakin adds. “It threatens to disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters and would no doubt disproportionately impact historically excluded communities, including voters of color, naturalized citizens, people with disabilities, and the elderly, by pushing unnecessary barriers to the fundamental right to vote.”
