What do you think of the story that Trump was considering martial law to overturn the election?

I’m not at all surprised he considered it. I’m surprised he didn’t do it.

I wanna know who pulled him aside and talked him out of it.

I think that would be a grave mistake for any politician, here in the US, especially this year.

I thinks it’s laughable!

The sooner we see the back of him the better.

I think it is important to track down any and all fraud, or even attempted fraud in our elections. The yardstick of “was it enough to reverse the results?” should not be relevant. I am not certain how one goes about identifying and stopping all instances of fraud, if judges will not act without evidence and evidence is impossible to get without a court order.

The 2020 election is not over yet. One of the three governmental bodies is still up in the air. Time is of the essence. We have already had a million plus votes cast in the Georgia Senate runoffs. Are any of them fraudulent? Were any mail-in ballots mailed to unverified addresses? Will signatures be matched by handwriting professionals?

If martial law is necessary for a few weeks to get to the bottom of election fraud, I, for one, may be in favor provided its duration , purpose and authority are clearly defined. However, I think it is too big a sledgehammer. What would suffice is a temporary suspension of judges’ power.

“I am not certain how one goes about identifying and stopping all instances of fraud, if judges will not act without evidence and evidence is impossible to get without a court order.”

So is that the excuse now being tossed around for Trump’s repeated failures to make his case in court? A week or two ago it was “part of the strategy”.

@crazyguy You are willing to commit treason on unfounded allegations. Anyone can say there was fraud, that does not make it even close to being real.

Trump was advised to consider martial law by a known convicted felon who has complete disregard for the law. (Michael Flynn).

How to Coup 101…

@crazyguy: “If martial law is necessary for a few weeks to get to the bottom of election fraud, I, for one, may be in favor provided its duration , purpose and authority are clearly defined. However, I think it is too big a sledgehammer. What would suffice is a temporary suspension of judges’ power.”

@crazyguy: “The 2020 election is not over yet.”

Have you considered crying more?

Oh FFS

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so disturbing how quickly Republicans are willing to sell out democracy and embrace autocracy because they can’t handle an election loss. It’s especially ironic coming from the party of “small government”. Yeah, “small government”, but let’s let the military take over and abolish the judicial branch so our Dear Leader can be dictator for life!

(To be fair I only know a few Republicans in real life and none of them are Trump cultists. But the cultists are one of the loudest voices and they can’t be ignored).

The fact that drumpf is denying it, and calling it fake news, is proof to me that he did consider it.

After all this I don’t ever want to hear another Republican whine that a Democratic president is going to declare martial law and abolish the election again.

Next step artillery fire on the State capitals that didn’t vote for Trump ? Continue firing until the agree to elect Trump. J.K.

The 2020 election is most assuredly over.

@Dutchess_III: I think for some, it will never be over. The best we can hope for is the media will stop giving this (hopefully shrinking minority) coverage.

Like the Civil War STILL is not lost!

^^ Exactly.

To anyone and everyone who hasn’t already seen it my profile/bio : I HATE POLITICS!!! And outrageous abuses like this scheming, un-American treason are part of the reason I trust nothing and no one in our current system.

Is this rotten coup attempt pathetic, and doomed to fail? Yes, but that’s really not the point. What should be obvious to anyone who can still think is that we now have an autocrat in the White House, a degenerate inner circle of policy advisors, and an irresponsible group of partisan elected officials who feel perfectly comfortable with pissing on basic democratic principles to advance their own self interest.

And it can all happen again with even worse consequences. Because what’s been corrupted is not just the top end of our political system, but how ordinary people think and speak about their duty as citizens in a free society. Too many people believe their role is to just pick a side, choose a party, stop asking questions, attack any doubters, and stay loyal no matter what. But its not football people!! Your crazy-ass fan behavior does nothing to keep power hungry politicians in check, it empowers them.

And I’ve been watching this sickening process become part the public conversation here on Fluther. I was recently kicked off another so-called social media site (answerMug) for calling out biased “moderator” who abused her authority to plant obvious disinformation into question and answer posts. I don’t fucking care if I get banned here for the same reason.

“To anyone and everyone who hasn’t already seen it my profile/bio : I HATE POLITICS!!!”

Well isn’t that special.

The story is hearsay and speculation.

It’s fun to think about, but the evidence of it ever occurring is as weak as all the claims of election fraud.

Of course, it’s one of those stories that’s plausible and believable, which is why it works so well.

It’s also funny to see right-wingers unironically nodding along and courting the idea of martial law. It’s quite obvious at this point that they are the ones who actually want to steal the election, because they’re such terrible losers, and can’t countenance the idea of a Biden Presidency, whom they delusionally view as some sort of anti-American radical socialist.

@Darth Algar – Yeah, it is. And so are you. Go patronize somebody you can intimidate.

@Kropotkin – New York Times, New York Post, USA Today, CNN, Business Insider, and The Independent all reporting the meeting took place Friday and quoting directly from sources who were there. That’s beyond “speculation” I think, but I can agree with you on the rest of your comments.

To those who are saying martial law might be a good idea, or taking away the rights of judges, I wonder what the next step after that would be. Re-do the election? I mean, I don’t think it’s logical at all, it’s not legal and I’m definitely against it, but I’d like an idea of what they’re thinking should happen. If they’re all high-fiving each other about what they perceive is a brilliant idea, then let’s take it a step further. And then what?........

@jca2 the next step is trump is dictator ! !

@JLoon The NYT is the progenitor of the story. Other newspapers merely repeated the NYT story with reference to the NYT.

The point is is that’s there’s no primary evidence of anything. The sources could be real or made up. The details could be real or made up. There’s no real way of knowing.

It’s true that Mike Flynn openly touted the idea of martial law, but that was weeks ago.

Funny how people who claim to “hate politics” always feel the need to chime in on political discussions.

@ Darth Algar – Are you trying to moderate this discussion, or just sharing more egotistical bullshit? Either way I’m not impressed.

But in fact this pointless exchange is exactly why I despise politics, and everyone who lets it define their whole identity.

I should have known better…

@JLoon

Neither. I’m just bemused by your need to waltz into the thread, scream your “I HATE POLITICS!!!” proclamation, right before engaging in that very thing.

@ Darth Algar – So, egotiscal bullshit.

How charming.

You two should get a room.

@zenvelo I think imposing martial law to root out a few instances of voter fraud is like the Civil War, in the sense that they both reflect abject failure of logic.

I think where we differ is in our level of tolerance of election fraud. Your and most posters’ attitude seems to be: “let it be!” Mine is to isolate it and stamp it out so it can never happen again. Perhaps that is impossible; however, access to ballots is essential to even find out the extent of the problem.

I think, given our penchant for solving problems, it should be relatively easy for a judicial inquiry into specific allegations. Instead what we get is “Yes, but where is the evidence?”. The judges stating that know that the evidence is in the actual ballots.

Do not underestimate the need to get to the bottom off all the allegations. Would you want the Georgia Senate races clouded by suspicions?

@_____ I consider the Senate runoffs in Georgia to be part of the 2020 elections, don’t you?

@Demosthenes I think democracy is sold when election laws are modified in order to benefit one party. Democracy is best served by stamping out all suspicion of fraud.

We need a brave court that steps up to conduct a judicial inquiry.

@cookieman I personally consider the Georgia Senate runoffs part of the 2020 election, don’t you?

Billy Barr got “Fired” because he told the truth ! There was not wide spread fraud in any of the elections.

Only delusional thinking on Trump’s part (Powell too) !

@JLoon I agree (believe it or not!). In fact I could not have said it any better: “Too many people believe their role is to just pick a side, choose a party, stop asking questions, attack any doubters, and stay loyal no matter what.”

@Kropotkin You say: “It’s also funny to see right-wingers unironically nodding along and courting the idea of martial law. ” It is even funnier to see left-wingers rejecting even an attempt at finding out if there is any truth to all the allegations. Are they afraid of what might emerge?

@JLoon I have zero doubt that the possibility of martial law has been mentioned. Mentioning possibilities is not exactly condoning them.

Even mentioning something like martial law indicates the hopelessness about the legal process.

@jca2 The next step, in my opinion, should be to determine what exactly transpired and make changes to ensure those particular abuses (IF ANY) can never be repeated again. If the abuses were bad enough to impact election results (highly unlikely), the Supreme Court may have to determine our next President. There is no way to re-do the election.

@crazyguy Do you think the Supreme Court should elect the President of the United States? Might the Supreme Court Justices have a reason to choose a certain candidate (for example, if the candidate put them there in the first place, such as Trump and Kavanaugh)?

@crazyguy You would overturn the Constitution based on a specious argument.

That is treason and a violation of every Federal oath, including the oath of the Armed Forces and the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America.

“Even mentioning something like martial law indicates the hopelessness about the legal process”
Have you considered the possibility that, with 60 lawsuits lost, the legal process did exactly what it was supposed to do, and rightfully threw out meritless nonsense?
In many of these cases, they did not even allege fraud, because they knew they had nothing to support it.
Even in that farcical texas lawsuit, they claimed that ‘the fraud was so well hidden, that of course they had no evidence for it’.
You are advocating enacting martial law to overturn an election, based solely on the lunatic and repeatedly court-defeated claims made by a compulsive liar and fraud.

@ragingloli To date, I have been impressed by your ability to create some separation between very close concepts; don’t let me down now.

1. I did not advocate “enacting martial law”. My exact words were: “If martial law is necessary for a few weeks to get to the bottom of election fraud, I, for one, may be in favor provided its duration , purpose and authority are clearly defined. However, I think it is too big a sledgehammer. What would suffice is a temporary suspension of judges’ power.”

2. I think a judicial inquiry is all that is required, in order to estimate the extent of fraud and to try and stamp it out.

3. How will you feel in January if both Democratic Senate candidates lose and there is suspicion of fraud?

@crazyguy

Serious question – after 50+ lawsuits lost or being tossed out of court for being without merit, after few, if any, of those suits actually alleging fraud, after numerous state election boards, the Department of Homeland Security, the US attorney General, etc all saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, after ordinary folks being harassed, threatened even, without merit over alleged voter fraud – at what point after all that do you acknowledge that there was no significant voter fraud and that the election was legitimate?

I have no doubt “Martial Law” was brought up. I also have no doubt that it’s just grasping at straws and nothing will come of it.

@crazyguy LOL. There’s no evidence for the allegations.

Look, I know how the psychology of true believers and right-wingers works.

Any imagined investigative process would simply be judged on its conclusions. If the conclusion is that there’s no fraud, it would be dismissed as part of the conspiracy to steal the election. The only tolerable outcome would be that there was fraud and the election was stolen.

Allegations need some sort of evidentiary foundation, otherwise they’re dismissed as frivolous. You can’t just say stuff you imagine or suspect are true, and expect them to be earnestly accepted and investigated with no real justification.

@Kropotkin If you have a sworn deposition from a postal worker stating that s/he along with others were instructed to backdate ballots, but you cannot get at the actual ballots, is that evidence?

@crazyguy The one who recanted under questioning?

I mean, it seems it immediately fell apart under scrutiny, so what do you think?

@Kropotkin I was using the postal worker as an example of the various people who have signed sworn depositions in Pennsylvania and other battleground states. To my knowledge, few, if any of these people have been called to court to testify. So I am a little mystified by your comment. Do you have a link?

this?

@crazyguy Right, so here’s the thing. Allegations need to be accompanied by evidence for courts to take them seriously.

When there’s no evidence, it gets dismissed as hearsay.

Individuals coming out and claiming that they think they saw something that proves fraud, when there’s no hard evidence, no corroboration, and their claims being based on some subjective interpretation of events, will invariably be dismissed.

Given that there’s a significant moral panic and widespread belief of voter fraud, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people will come out making allegations of observed fraud.

It’s just one detail that keeps getting in the way: there’s fuck all actual evidence of any fraud.

@crazyguy Your hero lost – – - get over it !

@Kropotkin You need an egg to produce a chicken. Or is it the other way round?

Biden should declare Martial Law after Jan. 20 and arrest those loonies who keep lying and insisting there was massive election fraud. Each straight-jacket for the captured loonies would bear the logo of the corrupt trump corporation.

@mazingerz88 What charge would you use? Or does it matter any more?

@crazyguy The charge would be treason, as you continually advocate throwing away the Constitution.

^^Also possibly sedition as well?