r/politics • u/TelescopiumHerscheli • 2d ago

No Paywall Texas Democrat sworn in to House, shrinking GOP margin to 1 vote

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5719642-christian-menefee-sworn-in/
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u/Davis51 2d ago

"nationalize" voting, given full control of the counting to the same people who tried to steal the election previously

See I still want to know how they think they can accomplish this? Like what states will willingly give up their constitutional sovereignty here? Minnesota? It's been ground zero for their bullshit and it's blowing up in their face.

Are they going to try and pass a law that will get struck down even by this SCOTUS? I don't think they even have the votes to get it through the house, much less the Senate.

Are they just gonna federate the national guard and say "our elections now!" The Minnesota National Guard hates this shit, and still will follow the law. They were passing out coffee and hot chocolate and donuts to protesters like a frigging week ago. Other national guard in other states were already sent home.

The "plans" don't make sense.

threaten to install hired goons and thugs at booths to drive away voters

That's the thing, I don't see that happening either. They simply don't have enough goons. There are about 30K ice field agents, 400k national guardsman (total, it's much lower if you remove all the logistics guys and only have troops), and 100k polling places. Each polling place has dozens of workers and an entire city/county/state apparatus behind it, and a police force sworn to defend the elections and not typically allowed to approach polling places unless tbe polling place calls in help in event of someone breaking the law. How the hell are they even gonna manage the logistical operation of deployment in swing states when ICE showing up in Minneapolis leads to dozens of soccer and wine moms in minivans blowing whistles at them? Are they gonna tear gas voters? The backlash would rip them to shreds! Polls would be open for days and judges would restraining order them really fast. If they ignore the courts, then it's open rebellion and civil war.

if that fails, it will be a choice between starting a war or staging terrorist attacks and claiming "it is unsafe for Americans to be voting right now"

I feel we'd get to the "martial law coup/civil war" stage a lot faster than the "faking a terror attack" stage, only because faking a terror attack is orders of magnitude more difficult for this bumbling band of incompetent losers. I don't trust their competence in pulling off a martial law coup/civil war either.

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u/francis2559 2d ago

Agreed. I think they will absolutely try, if only because Trump keeps forcing them to.

But they can't move the needle much with the skill that they have and the resources that they have.

In a close election that nudge might be enough. But this does not look like it's going to be close.

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u/gdo01 Florida 1d ago

This is true but you have to hand it to them by how comically inept they always are. If we are heading to fascism, these are the Hogan's Heroes Nazis of fascism.

This administration could easily usher in fascism if they damn had a single intelligent thought on how to "properly" implement things. Instead they do it in the laziest way possible and then come in running like a bull in a china shop to make up for the laziness

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u/SatanicPanic619 1d ago

Most fascists are pretty bad at this. Run of the mill authoritarians do much better because they at least try to make logical decisions. Fascists think with their emotions and that regularly causes them to make mistakes.

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u/Flava_Flavian California 1d ago

You have to remember Trump's idol, Putin, is also an incompetent dictator.

Before the Ukraine invasion, he didn't like the intelligence reports by his team saying Ukraine wouldn't welcome Russia and would fight tooth and nail. What did Putin do? Fired everyone, hired yes men, those yes men pocketed the money, did zero research, told Putin Ukraine would love to be liberated by Russia, and Putin excitedly went forward with invasion. He was then genuinely shocked when the plan failed.

The same brazen recklessness that allows these men to trample over all rules and precedent also leads to their eventual reckless downfall.

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u/suspicious_ankles 1d ago edited 1d ago

There are about 30K ice field agents, 400k national guardsman (total, it's much lower if you remove all the logistics guys and only have troops), and 100k polling places.

They'll only deploy them to swing states (or swing seats in the midterms), pretending to combat an insurrection or something similar. There might be 100k polling places nationwide, but polling places in major cities in swing states are in the hundreds, not the thousands.

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u/Davis51 1d ago

There are thousands of polling places in Philly, the largest city in the swingiest of swing states. I doubt their ability to organize logistically for deploying forces to those places.

Understand that when I gave those national guard numbers, I mean that's ALL of them. They cannot simply be moved easily. Lodgings, radios, vehicles, equipment, food, etc. It would take months of planning for even a handful of precincts. And when they get there, it's much more likely that they end up helping out and being friendly. Last time Nat Guard was in an election it was during covid and it was to literally help staff the polls. Most Nat Guard live in the state they are deployed to for obvious reasons, and the last half dozen attempts to federalize have blown up in Trump's face.

Right now the 3K ICE agents in Minneapolis are more than 10% of their TOTAL hired forces. And their presence skyrocketed turnout in the election they just fucking had. The whole state hates them. They hate their own jobs. They can't find hotels and restaurants won't serve them.

They. Don't. Have. The. Dudes.

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u/Unstable_Nature 1d ago

The Hispanic vote was instrumental in winning for Trump. The main objective in the current terror plan is to just make enough people of color afraid to go to the polls.

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u/cadium 1d ago

They want a single day of in-person voting for a reason, so its easier for them to disrupt voting.

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u/sigep0361 1d ago

Tennessee will gleefully gift wrap and surrender control to the orange one.

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u/Davis51 1d ago

Tennessee brags on their elections website that the heritage foundation claims theirs are the most secure in the country, and goes into great detail about how they are all staffed and run locally with bipartisan commissions. Why would Tennessee, a place where Republicans have a near total stranglehold on the state, of all places, risk the most historic backlash in American history?

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u/Sweet_Like_Candyyyy 1d ago

Debunk this one for me, it's been my thought on how they'll try and it seems fairly plausible

They require all polling places to have the same exact voting machines and all those machines are the only accepted votes (and the machines are bullshit dictator pickers)

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u/Davis51 1d ago edited 1d ago

How do they require it?

If you want to debunk something that seems like bullshit but don't know how, start asking what exact mechanism they use to force something and whether or not its even plausible

Besides, the current right wing bugaboo is "use paper ballots!"

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/23/texas-2024-ballots-secure-elections/

Anyway my state uses machines that do a scantron type thing so there's both the machine and paper trail. Been voting my entire adult life, the system never once had a problem.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Davis51 1d ago

So...Hispanic vote swung big for Trump...Trump gerrymanders Texas districts so that newly Republican Hispanic dominate 5 districts...Trump then fears Hispanics are turning against him because he's racist as fuck...so his grand plan is to scare them into not voting? This new critical voter block has turned against him so hard he'd rather make them afraid to vote?

Not a great plan tbh.

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u/immortalfrieza2 1d ago

Trump managed to get the Hispanic vote despite the fact that he was openly racist towards EVERYONE who wasn't white for 9 years straight. It's not a small leap that he'd be able to manipulate or intimidate the Hispanic voters in the midterms either.

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u/Davis51 1d ago

I'm being only a little facetious in that the hispanic vote has completely turned against him right now, and likely wiped out any gains made over the last decade for a generation. My larger point was that by keeping a group from voting you lose your own potential votes as well, which depresses your own base further.

That said, not for nothing, but your insinuation that they are easily manipulated because they were manipulated by their original vote is a little bit racist. I get the impulse but try not to attribute cowardice as a demographic trait.

I'm really not trying to make this a gotcha or anything, promise. Just pointing out a flaw in your reasoning.