Altruism v. Sociopathy, Democracy v. Authoritarianism
It is very important that you understand what MAGA may try to do between the election and the inauguration, & what they are preparing to do after the take power, whether legitimately or illegitimately.
What They Are Planning for the Time Between the Election Itself & the Inauguration
First, Republicans need to make sure they’re in control of the House of Representatives on January 6th, 2025, when the new president will be certified. To do that, even though Democrats might have won enough seats to take back the House in the 2024 election, Speaker Johnson will refuse to swear into Congress on January 3rd a handful of those Democrats, claiming there are “irregularities” in their elections that must be first investigated …
There’s nothing Democrats can legally do to stop Speaker Johnson from pulling this off: he can postpone swearing a member in for as long as he wants. That keeps Speaker “MAGA Moscow Mike” Johnson in charge of the House, so they can also refuse to accept the Electoral College certificates of election from a handful of states where they claim there are “problems” … Then, regardless of how many votes Biden won by, electoral or popular, the House simply refuses to certify the electoral college votes of enough states that the minimum of 270 isn’t reached. Under the 12th Amendment, like with the election of 1876, that throws the election to the House, where each state has one vote. While a majority of Americans live in a state run by Democrats, a majority of the states themselves are run by Republicans. Each state gets one vote for president in the House, and right now 26 state delegations are GOP-controlled, meaning that a majority of the House would simply vote to put Trump back into the White House, 26-23 (Pennsylvania’s delegation is 50/50). All totally legal. The Putin/Trump caucus in the House — led by Speaker Johnson — has largely given up on democracy when elections don’t give them power. As outrageous as this scenario sounds, they justify it to themselves as being essential to “save America” from “woke” Democrats … The best way to prevent this from happening is to widely publicize their scheme so public opinion will become so intense that they fear the consequences. It’s a thin thread holding our republic together, but at least it’s something. Pass it along. – Thom Hartmann, “The New ‘Over the Top’ Secret Plan on How Fascists Could Win in 2024” (2/26/24)
What Are They Planning to Do If They Regain Power
Project 2025 is an initiative of the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing think tank that has helped staff and set the agenda for every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan … GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access. The document explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion ... - Rolling Stone, Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill, 12/22/23
Former President Trump's allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios ... Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents …His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47” … - Axios, “Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab” (11/13/23)
Former top officials from Donald Trump’s administration are warning he is likely to use a second term to overhaul the nation’s spy agencies in a way that could lead to an unprecedented level of politicization of intelligence … POLITICO talked to 18 former officials and analysts who worked in the Trump administration, including political appointees from both parties and career intelligence officers, some who still speak to the former president and his aides and had insight into conversations about his potential second term. - Politico, “The prospect of a second Trump presidency has the intelligence community on edge,” 2/26/24
