Horror Stories

I have to begin today’s column with a bit of an introduction. First off, I apologize for the lack of a Friday Talking Points column last week. This was unavoidable, as my I.S.P. reacted on Wednesday to the global news of a security hole (in one of the programs that runs most websites and blogs) by upgrading the PHP code on my site without my approval or foreknowledge. If they had asked, I would have directed them to do their update in about two weeks, so that we could get past the midterm elections first. But they didn’t ask, so my site just broke.

After investigating for days, I came to the conclusion that it couldn’t just be easily fixed. So I had a web developer consultant create a new site from scratch that could run for a few weeks while we figured out what to do going forward. This is the site you now see. More on this situation as it develops, but first let’s get through next week!

Anyway, this was the reason why there was no Friday Talking Points column last week. Barring any unforeseen interruptions in service, these regular columns will resume next Friday.

But there will be no Friday Talking Points column this week either, because tomorrow is All Hallows’ Eve. From the beginning of when I started writing this blog, I used to have a lot of fun with my Hallowe’en columns, taking the time to go out and buy pumpkins and carve unusual shapes into them so I could use photos of them as subheaders within the column. Then I’d write spooky “nightmares” for both Democrats and Republicans. These followed a pretty basic formula: start grounded in the political reality as it was, then slowly move the story into more and more outlandish scenarios, culminating in a truly frightening (but hopefully humorous) conclusion for all, on both sides of the aisle. Some worked better than others, some were funnier than others, but it was still enjoyable for me to create these tales of horror each year.

Then came Donald Trump. And all of a sudden, nightmarish scenarios were no longer a laughing matter. They were becoming reality at a jaw-dropping pace. So I just threw in the towel and gave up. How could I feel good about writing amusing stories to scare people when reality was often scarier than anything my warped brain could think up?

This year, I am going to present some of these real-world nightmares, but they are definitely not to be seen as comedy in any way (also, I didn’t think carving pumpkins was appropriate, given the circumstances). They are all possible realities which could actually take place, and they’re all even more frightening than any satire I could write. All of them (obviously) are nightmares for Democrats and those on the left. In fact, the only nightmarish scenario I could even think up for Republicans and those on the right was: “Democrats sweep the midterms, take power peacefully in January in both houses of Congress, and begin doing their constitutional duty by acting as a check or balance on the power of Donald Trump.” Which I sincerely hope is what happens, but at this point even if Democrats do win big, there’s just no guarantee that the rest of it will play out that smoothly.

So here are the horror stories that I (and millions of other Americans) have been worrying about. I think I will present them from the worst case to the best case, in an attempt to leave the reader with at least a minimal sense of optimism (which is a tough thing, given the material). So here goes… here are my nightmarish scenarios for what could play out next Tuesday and beyond….

 

Bullets fly

The vote is held, ballots are cast. But then when the ballots are taken to the processing centers to be counted, all of a sudden armed federal agents show up in force. This could mean the F.B.I. or it could even mean the U.S. Army (in Texas, it wouldn’t even surprise me if ICE showed up). Either way, there are standoffs between state police officers guarding the processing centers and federal agents, as the buildings are besieged.

Some of these sieges result in the feds forcing their way into the processing centers and confiscating every ballot in sight. Some of these sieges end up in a standoff, with both sides refusing to budge. But in one or more of these clashes, the federal forces are given the order to fire upon the state police.

Most of the feds (to their credit) refuse to fire, on the grounds that it is an illegal order. This would be most likely if they are actual military forces, since soldiers are trained what to do about illegal orders. But not everyone does refuse, and so bullets fly in both directions. Both state police officers and federal agents are wounded and killed.

This one is so horrifying to contemplate that I can’t even finish it — draw your own conclusions about what happens next (most of which I will cover in other scenarios here).

 

Congress attempts a coup

After all the post-election dust settles (again, much of which is addressed in other scenarios here), current House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune go rogue and refuse to seat the newly-elected Democrats in the incoming Congress on January 3rd of next year. They point to the U.S. Constitution, which says that Congress itself is the judge of who was properly elected and who can be denied a seat.

This is immediately challenged in court, citing previous Supreme Court decisions which limited this constitutional power and directed Congress to seat certified winners of their elections. But this Supreme Court agrees with Johnson and Thune and essentially washes its hands of the whole matter, declaring that it is no more than a political question which the courts have no jurisdiction over whatsoever.

The new Congress is seated, and without the Democrats who are denied their seats, Johnson and Thune are re-elected to their leadership posts because Republicans still have a majority without the newly-elected Democrats.

Massive protests immediately erupt in the streets, growing larger every day. Some of these protests lead to violence. Donald Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and declares martial law everywhere in the country. The Army takes over.

In short, America descends to full-on fascism.

 

Ballots disappear

Federal agents show up, either at polling places or at the ballot processing centers. Shots are not fired, but the federal agents storm their way in and confiscate ballots en masse. Then agents from the Justice Department undertake their own ballot count, and (surprise, surprise!) announce that all the Republican candidates have won. They come to this conclusion after disqualifying tens of thousands of Democratic votes, for various flimsy reasons (or no reason at all). Such ballots are immediately destroyed in an incinerator, making a full count of what the voters truly said impossible.

This all could get tied up in the courts, after which Trump demands that new elections be held in all the states and districts in question. But these new elections are not scheduled, and never actually happen.

 

The courts intervene

Election Day happens without major conflicts, but after the votes are counted and Democrats chalk up enough victories to regain control of the House and possibly the Senate, the Department of Justice goes on a spree, filing over 100 lawsuits in federal court seeking to overturn the results one way or another (because there are so many lawsuits, every legal trick in the book is attempted).

As in 2020, most (if not all) of these lawsuits are laughed out of court because there simply is no evidence to back up any of the far-fetched claims. But some of these cases are overturned at the appellate level. And some make it all the way up to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in a move even more egregious than Bush v. Gore, rules for Trump and the Republicans and tosses out valid election results. Chaos ensues (see other scenarios here for details).

 

Certification refused

In red states, or in states where the governor or top elections official is Republican, certification of the election results in races where a Democrat won is refused. Democrats sue, and the federal courts order the Republican officials to certify the results, but they continue to refuse to do so.

This one ends up at the same point as the last one — these cases make it up to the Supreme Court, who rules for the Republicans, and chaos ensues.

 

Voter intimidation

Federal agents — whether soldiers, the F.B.I., ICE, or even just Justice Department “observers” — show up at polling places in precincts that are overwhelmingly Democratic (and probably have an overwhelming number of minority voters). These agents begin intimidating voters in various ways, and although elections officials stop the most egregious of these attempts, many voters (especially Latinos) are intimidated enough not to vote.

 

The usual snafus get worse

In heavily-Democratic precincts (especially in red states), there are not enough polling machines to handle the turnout. Or polling places are mysteriously closed. Or the machines mysteriously malfunction, but only in the minority-heavy districts, for some reason. Long lines are the result, which leads many voters to turn away in disgust.

This sort of thing happens in almost every election, but this time around it happens on a scale never before seen, intentionally.

 

People denied the vote

Voters turn up at the polls only to discover that they have been struck from the voter rolls for some mysterious reason or another. States are revealed to have performed massive purges of their voter rolls without bothering to inform the voters who were kicked off the rolls. Provisional ballots are cast by some of these voters, but these are mysteriously never certified and counted in the final tally.

 

The polling was wrong

(This is the only scenario in the entire lot where Republicans wouldn’t be at fault for causing it, I should mention.)

All of the polling showing big Democratic leads in very red states and districts turns out to be wrong (which has happened before). Maybe their methodology was flawed. Maybe there were lots of Republicans who refused to take part in any poll. Maybe Trump’s barnstorming rallies have had an effect and tons of low-propensity GOP voters actually showed up at the polls.

For whatever reason, this leads to massive Democratic disappointment on Election Day, as in race after race, their polling lead proves to be illusory. Republicans retain control of the Senate, and while Democrats do take control of the House it is only by two or three seats, which is not really enough to effectively counter Donald Trump.

 

Conclusion

I really hate that I have to do this. I hate that I have to even think about such things in the United States of America. But after the ham-fisted insurrection attempt on January 6th, we simply don’t have the luxury of just assuming that everything will work the way it is supposed to when Republicans lose elections.

I sincerely hope that none of these nightmares comes to pass. I would really love to get back to the point where Hallowe’en stories about politics are no more than a fun way to spend the holiday. I want to carve pumpkins again and come up with hilarious and outlandish Hallowe’en stories to amuse everyone — I really do!

Sadly, that is just not possible, in the Trumpian world we now live in.

 

 

— Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground