Trump is going to do everything he possibly can to stay in power. That’s the basic assumption that one has to make.
By Jeff Schechtman
Radio Who.What.Why (7/10/20)
Mary Trump, President Donald Trump’s niece, has written a tell-all book that portrays her uncle as a man unhinged, obsessed with winning, and still afraid of what his father might say if he loses.
Which inevitably raises the question: What might such a man do if he senses his bid for reelection slipping away amid a punishing pandemic with a rising death toll, unemployment in double digits, racial division, and plummeting poll numbers?
In the opinion of Timothy Wirth, former Democratic senator from Colorado and current president of the UN Foundation, Trump could lose both the popular vote and the electoral college — and still find a way to cling to power and the presidency, perhaps taking democracy down with him.
How he might do it, what’s at stake, and what can be done to prevent this coup d’etat is the subject of this week’s WhoWhat Why podcast with Senator Timothy Wirth.
Link To Transcript And 18-minute Audio
(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use to www.thecommonercall.org )
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How Trump Could Lose The Election—And Still Remain President
By Timothy E. Wirth & Tom Rogers
Newsweek (7/3/20)
t is increasingly looking as if Joe Biden can beat President Donald Trump in November. The president seems more and more out of step with the national mood, from his handling of the pandemic to his response to racially biased policing, not to mention a wide array of other issues. Even in key swing states, Trump is losing ground that will be difficult for him to make up.
For Trump, there are two broad pathways to maintaining power. …
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GOP Recruits Army Of 50,000 Poll Watchers To Fight Voter ‘Fraud’ No One Can Prove Exists
Republicans are recruiting an estimated 50,000 volunteers to act as “poll watchers” in November, part of a multimillion-dollar effort to police who votes and how.
That effort, coordinated by the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, includes a $20 million fund for legal battles as well as the GOP’s first national poll-patrol operation in nearly 40 years.
While poll watching is an ordinary part of elections — both parties do it — voting rights advocates worry that such a moneyed, large-scale offensive by the Republicans will intimidate and target minority voters who tend to vote Democratic and chill turnout in a pivotal contest already upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
Some states allow poll monitors to challenge a voter’s eligibility, requiring that person’s ballot undergo additional vetting to be counted. …