The Washington Post reported that activists are working with the White House on an executive order to declare a “national emergency” over America’s elections and pave the way for a power grab.

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” reported the Post‘s Isaac Arnsdorf. “President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue.”

Peter Ticktin, a MAGA activist in favor of the executive order, told the Post that “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” and that “the president has to be able to deal with it,” including by banning mail-in ballots and certain voting machines.

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[–] 192 points 8 months ago (5 children)

He's already declared like 30 emergencies.

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  • [–] 29 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Because "emergencies" are the Wild cards given to the Executive Branch by Congress and SCOTUS. There's no clear definition and no boundaries until he's challenged in court or Congress overrules him.

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  • [–] 120 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    Man he's really got this civil war speedrun record locked in.

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  • [–] 74 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    Speed run it all the way to the guillotines plz

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    The French didn't exactly speed run it themselves.

    I'm currently listening to old episodes of the Revolutions podcast, and am midway through the French and it bares no resemblance to what's going on now. Which, when it gets to the reign of terror, might be a good thing... But that's the one part of it that I could see happening again.

    A lot of the terror was fueled by a murderous little shit with a bootleg newspaper. There's a reason why lible and slander laws are so powerful in that part of Europe.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    The administration bears no resembelence to the french revolution, more to when the rich back a dictator to ptotect them from reform and that dictator ends up cannibalizing them, like with Sulla in rome a generation before caesar. Or obviously hitler.

    He's so old though, the succession will decide it, if they can hold onto it and fix elections for the new guy, with dems being the opposition I don't see what would stop them either, certainly not newsome.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Along with a systematic elimination of the nobility and upper levels of the clergy, it was a post-revolutionary faction fight between the middle class (for example, provincial lawyers like Robespierre before he became a pamphleteer) and the working class.

    The 1789 revolutionaries didn't really have much of a plan to govern in the unlikely event of victory, so they started improvising, and that didn't go well. It also didn't help that the leaders of every other country in western Europe wanted them dead.

    The American revolution, on the other hand, was bourgeois-led, with minimal involvement by working people, and they learned a lot from their initial failed attempt at governance, the Continental Congress, so by the time they wrote the Constitution, they had at least some idea of what would work and what wouldn't.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Can we stop with this? This is a ridiculous fantasy that just makes you look immature.

    It's too boring for American audiences. Now, woodchippers on the other hand...

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    I’d be more in favor of sending them to their favorite place on earth: Epstein’s island. No supplies, no running water, no help. Just a webcam and maybe a drone once in a while.

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  • [–] 83 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Even if it were true that China stole the election, how is "something happened 6 years ago" an emergency? He won in 2024, so it can't be that effective anymore.

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  • [–] 48 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    It's an emergency because if he leaves it alone Republicans are going to tank hard in the midterms which will mean he loses power and might even be held accountable for his crimes.

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    might even be held accountable for his crimes.

    HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahabhababahabababHhahahahahhahaha....

    Ughh.... I hate that the thought of aliens coming directly to my house, handing me a winning lotto ticket, while they simultaneously get struck by lightning twice in a row and get bitten by a shark seems 1000000x more likely to happen than for Trump to ever face consequences for his actions.

    If anyone even started that process "judge" Aileen Cannon would jump from the top rope and bodyslam the case shut with a "Trump is immune because I say so" ruling like she's been doing this entire time.

    :(

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    So just as a bit of hopium. Bitch Cannon could be impeached by congress, if it's a bad enough wipeout for the Republicans in the midterms I could see some of them turning on Trump and cutting his little network up to make themselves look better. Assuming they don't decide to go scorched earth and impeach, convict, and execute Trump.

    Though more likely they'll lose the Senate and it gridlocks. Which would still fuck over Trump since then he would basically be locked from passing any laws.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Not that he's passing many laws now. The 119th congress has been the least productive congress maybe ever. Most of the shit he's doing is just illegally pretending he has the authority to do the shit, then waiting until someone proves he can't.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Yep which Congress if flipped could respond to in any number of ways. Anything from refusing to fund fuck all to something as actively malicious as dissolving presidential security. Really my point was moreso that if Congress is retaken Cannon wouldn't be able to do fuck all, hell if I'm not mistaken she could even be impeached by congress if they were able to scrounge up the required votes.

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  • [–] 30 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    He will just never get over the fact that he lost in 2020. And he's willing to make all of America suffer for his butthurt.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    He cheated in 16, he cheated in '20 and still lost. Him being a man who has never competed fairly in his life assumed the Dems cheated harder. Turns out the high number of mail in ballots threw off his scheme and he lost. The time to declare a national emergency over voting was in 2016 after he won. The silent majority doesn't exist. The polls are accurate. He's a fucking loser who aligned himself with adversaries to steal democracy and fuck this country supremely and make the wealth divide even worse. The fact that the Dems went along with him winning in '24 and didn't contest it at all despite the statistical anomalies in swing states is just fucking unbelievable. This ass clown is supposed to be in a cell, but he's the fucking president because Joe and Kamala were fucking spineless. Trump did not win all 7 swing states, and once they nationalize voting, it will be forever rigged, and in Trump's own words, "you'll never have to vote again".

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago

    Yeah the guy who cheats against kids in golf is not playing a clean game in a national election. Mean the dude lies like a sidewalk and aome people wonder why he doesn't do what he promised. Cause he's a fucking con man, grifter. He's the guy they'd tar and feather back in the day if he stuck around long enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    The fact that the Dems went along with him winning in '24 and didn’t contest it at all despite the statistical anomalies in swing states is just fucking unbelievable.

    THANK YOU. I was starting to think I was the only one still incandescent with rage over this.

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  • [–] 70 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    And none of that actually gives him any power to do anything like that.

    He is not the States.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    He's probably going to wait until closer to November so the courts won't have time to respond.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    That's the thing though - there are no courts to be involved here. Every state runs their own elections. There's nothing he can do other than send federal law enforcement to essentially be poll watchers in every single voting location.

    The red states can continue their bullshittery. I don't see any blue states allowing that.

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  • [–] 67 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Another article acting like the executive has any power over elections. They portray this as a warning, but all they're doing is normalizing the idea.

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  • [–] 40 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    This is absolutely the most important thing to keep in mind here.

    Remember, this is a memo being circulated by Trump supporters. It's actual legal basis likely sits somewhere around "political fan-fiction."

    The same thing happened in 2020. Trump supporters invented completely nonsensical legal justifications for how Trump could sieze power. None of them held water.

    Can Trump just ignore the law and declare shit anyway? Sure. Self-coup is always an option in any democracy. But he is deeply unpopular; I don't really see that working out for him, although the process of it not working out certainly might be a very violent one.

    Trump tried to self-coup in 2020, and the result absolutely fizzled. It was violent, and messy, and innocent people died, but in the grand scheme of attempted insurrections it was pretty fucking pathetic. He's got a cult of personality, but he's never actually done the work to build the kind of organized support he'd need for something like that.

    I'm never going to tell Americans that the danger is over and everything is fine. There has probably never been a more dangerous time for American democracy. But don't mistake that danger for inevitability. While Trump is carving a path of destruction through your government, norms and institutions, he's also bleeding power every single day. You can win this.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    He's got a cult of personality, but he's never actually done the work to build the kind of organized support he'd need for something like that.

    ICE

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    ICE has 22,000 agents. They couldn't even sieze power in Minneapolis.

    Again, I've been very clear; he has supporters. A coup would not be defeated easily or bloodlessly. But having support and having sufficient support are not the same thing.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    This is exactly the Project 2025 playbook. Doing things by the law takes time. In that time, they do as they please.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    How is an executive order going to change anything about how state employees act? EOs matter for systems where federal employees make decisions, they're not magic.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    They're emboldened. You're assuming they care and people play by the rules. This is all about breaking political norms.

    Let's say, for example, Trump wrote an EO that said "State and Federal employees don't have to marry gay people if it's against their faith". Remember Kim Davis? A person who did that unprompted by the POTUS. There's plenty of asshats like her in important county positions around the country.

    Given the success of recent Democratic elections, sometimes swinging districts by 20 points in previous Trump districts for the win...all it takes is some people in some key places to do some nefarious shit.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Everything he's done besides for the budget has been by executive order.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Yes, and they're all carried out by his own employees within the executive. If they didn't do the thing, he fires them. They may get their jobs back eventually from the courts, but he has very real power over them until then.

    Executive orders have zero power over people who can't be fired by him. He's got exactly as much power to dictate the jobs of state employees as he has over how I do my own job.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I understand that, but they're going to go for it anyway. You know as well as I do that these red states can't wait to turn over their elections to Trump. They're just waiting for the signal. There can be no elections once that happens. I don't see how the country survives at that point.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    The issue is, his people have been selected based on their ability to tell him what he wants to hear, and that’s mirrored up and down the hierarchy. Everyone up and down the line is fudging what they can do or the reality of the situation, and that gets amplified as it travels up, and seemingly meaningful orders get diluted while traveling down.

    Their understanding of their own capability and what options they have is massively distorted. They think they have more capacity and influence than they actually do, and what real power they do have will be poorly allocated when the time comes.

    He and his people will absolutely try, and it’s going to create a bunch of messes, but, it’s like a toddler trying to fly a passenger jet, they can hit a bunch of buttons and switches, but the chances of that actually leading to the engines starting and the plane taking off are near 0.

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  • [–] 56 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    activists

    The Washington Post thinks that traitorous conspiracies on the right are equivalent to protests and demonstrations by other types of "activist?"

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  • [–] 40 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    so it's been leaked that they're "working on" an executive order to declare a national emergency?? for the midterms????? you don't have to "work on" declaring an emergency!??!?! it either IS an emergency or it ISN'T.

    Dear heaven to think how dumb they think everyone is

    wait, everyone might actually BE that dumb

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  • [–] 39 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I'm sat here in Europe watching Trump and his sycophants systematically dismantle American democracy and I'm honestly shocked that they're being allowed to do it.

    I'm assuming it's the end if he's allowed to nullify the midterms as he intends, the final remaining shred of democracy will be well and truly gone.

    What a sad way to see the "Land of the free" fall.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    Fun fact: if you're shocked, that means your model of the world is incorrect. Luckily, you can learn and switch your world-interpreting paradigm to one that works better.

    Historical materialism predicts this pretty well. I haven't been surprised by the US since I became an anarchocommunist.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Yeah, we'll see IF he does this AND it stands IF people will let it happen. I'm not sure that they (we) will. But it could. But I've had so little hope since 2016, and it just got worse in 2024. Still fighting as best as I can, and hoping others will.

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    The only thing holding a lot of Americans back from violence is the knowledge that that's exactly the excuse the regime wants to declare martial law and suspend elections. If they just jump to suspending fair elections anyway, then there will be nothing to stop the gloves from coming off. The billionaires and Congress creatures better run for their bunkers. Anybody that the people perceive as having a hand in getting us to this point, either through direct action or failure to react, won't be safe.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    The only thing holding a lot of Americans back from violence is the knowledge that that's exactly the excuse the regime wants to declare martial law and suspend elections.

    The only things holding Americans back from violence are relatively abundant food, entertainment and comfort. All of which will still continue to exist once free elections are gone. Plus what they replace them with will be branded super duper free elections, and that will be enough for a lot of people.

    There is little to no evidence that the 1/3rd of eligible voters who didn't vote in Nov 2024 are any more engaged with what is happening than they were back then.

    All they have to do is orchestrate this coup in a somewhat intelligent way that doesn't immediately collapse the economy and they can absolutely pull it off.

    Most Americans are not going to fight for abstract rights when their immediate tangible needs are being met.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Prediction: None of this so called evidence will ever make an appearance in a court room.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    we held elections during a literal civil war. What "emergency" could trump that with all our modern life improvements and.... checks notes. No civil war in America...

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    What "emergency" could trump that with

    He has no trouble pulling random excuses out of his ass.

    And on the rare occasion the courts eventually tell him to stop, he will have been doing whatever he wants for months and moths before he is told to stop.

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  • [–] 30 points 8 months ago

    Donald Trump is the national emergency.

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  • [–] 29 points 8 months ago

    States should declare emergencies first and protect themselves from the fed. Elections are handled by each state, not the government.

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    His MO has been to use "emergency" as a power grab even when nothing gives him any powers over these issues even if he claims an emergency.

    Fuck you, you fucking orange turd. If everything is an emergency, then nothing is.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Well that's because the courts avoid defining what an emergency is in every single case. No court is ultimately willing to limit his power. Even the last tariff case was shot down because the law he used didn't have language about tariffs in them, not because it wasn't an emergency.

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  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    If this happens and civil war doesn't break out than I fear good people will have lost.

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  • [–] 24 points 8 months ago

    By Wikipedias count there are presently 51 on-going national emergencies in USA, 19 of them have been declared by Trump.

    The oldest still active one was made by Carter in 1979, it's a sanction on Iran.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago

    Are we in the greatest American period ever, as claimed during his long-ass speech to the union, or are we in a national emergency? It can't be both.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago*

    we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes

    Of course he is, he benefitted from it. America ain't coming back until the people take it back, and that's gonna be done the hard way.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    If he starts the civil war by ending our vote, do we get to start hitting Ice agents with our cars?

    Also make sure to be going 40 or over or they get back up.

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