And it gets worse.
Last week Roger Stone, a convicted felon who was pardoned by Trump, stated on a right-wing radio show that Trump should declare "martial law" if he loses the election.
Roger Stone continued to say:
"The ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state. They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if that turns out to be the provable case."
Stone is following the rhetoric from Trump that mail-in ballots will be "rigged," and the election should be called into question before a single vote has been counted.
And just a few days ago Michael Caputo, a right-wing political operative who, incredibly, is the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, made the outrageous suggestion that left-wing voters are planning an armed revolt following the election. He stated in a video to his social media followers: "If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be hard to get."
Think about that. A senior Trump official is telling Trump supporters to purchase ammunition for an armed conflict here at home.
Trump himself has recently threatened to use the Insurrection Act -- a law that allows the president to bring in the National Guard to confront civil unrest. If there are protests on election night, Trump says: "We'll put them down very quickly if they do that. We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that, if we want."
At a time when Trump is urging tens of thousands of his supporters to intimidate voters by becoming "poll watchers," he is now threatening to bring in the National Guard if there are protests.
It is becoming clearer by the day that Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to maintain the power of the presidency.
Miles Taylor, a life-long Republican who previously served as chief of staff inside the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security, warned that Trump will stop at nothing to defeat Biden.
"Put nothing past Donald Trump," Taylor told the Associated Press. "He will do anything to win. If that means climbing over other people, climbing over his own people, or climbing over U.S. law, he will do it. People are right to be concerned."
In addition, after Trump proposed postponing the election, another Republican, Steven Calabresi, one of the founders of the conservative Federalist Society, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times condemning Trump. Calabresi called Trump's comments "fascistic" and said that his call to delay the election was an impeachable offense.
So, given this very dangerous situation, what are we going to do about it?
Here is what I believe needs to happen in order to prepare for what could be an unprecedented chain of events following the November election:
- First and foremost, we must do everything we can to ensure Joe Biden wins by the largest possible margin on November 3. The better Joe Biden does, the harder it is for Trump to overturn the election.
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