“A group run by Ohio tea party leader – Tom Zawistowski of the We the People Convention – took out a full-page ad in the Washington Times calling on Trump to declare martial law and have the military oversee a redo of the presidential election using only paper ballots — a call echoed in a tweet by Gen. Michael Flynn – a raucous “Stop the Steal” rally in suburban Atlanta urged Trump supporters to descend on the statehouse on Thursday and demand the resignations of Georgia’s governor and secretary of state.”
– Caitlin Dickson, Yahoo News (December 2, 2020)
Even as prominent Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, began to grudgingly acknowledge that Joe Biden will be the next president, a grassroots movement devoted to keeping Donald Trump in office is advocating seizing power in what would amount to a coup d’état.
Zawistowski, said …
“We wanted to express our concerns to the President, to the legislators, courts and Congress that We the People will NOT cede our exclusive Constitutional right to elect our Representatives to judges, lawyers, courts, Governors, Secretary’s of State, Congress, corrupt election officials and local politicians, the corrupt media – or Leftist threats of violence!”
(Caitlin Dickson. “Trump backers, including Flynn, edge toward a call to 'suspend' Constitution to head off Biden taking office.” Yahoo News. December 2, 2020.)
The ad states a vague warning that if Trump doesn’t declare martial law, violence will follow …
“Without a fair vote, we fear, with good reason, the threat of a shooting civil war is imminent. We will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own.”
With his fresh presidential pardon, former national security advisor Michael Flynn called on Donald Trump to suspend the constitution and declare martial law for the military to run a new election.
Captioning the tweet "Freedom never kneels except for God [pray emoji, US flag emoji]", Mr Flynn linked to ad from the TEA Party-affiliated group called “We The People Convention.”
And on December 2, pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell (who had been part of the campaign’s legal team, but no longer is) and Lin Wood (who is a personal-injury and libel lawyer that has never held elected office) hosted a press conference in Georgia where they repeated unfounded claims of voter fraud, called on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to be locked up, and urged supporters to boycott crucial runoffs in January that could hand power of the Senate to Democrats.
(Thomas Barrabi. “Pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, Lin Wood urge Georgians not to vote in Senate runoffs without changes.” Fox News. December 3, 2020.)
Though billed as a press conference, the event had the energy of a Trump rally, with tightly packed throngs of the president’s supporters – sporting significantly more MAGA hats than masks – waving flags and breaking into chants of “USA!” and “Lock him up!”
directed at Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who was endorsed by Trump in 2018 and has been a strong supporter of the president, but has refused to intervene in the tabulating of results from his state’s election.
The Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, also a target of derision by Wood and Powell, has maintained that the state’s election was honest and fair.
Though Powell and Wood have also both promoted the call for martial law on their social media feeds, neither of them mentioned it directly at the rally.
On December 2,Wood said …
“Thank God for President Donald Trump. He's going to president of the United States for four more years. Watch it happen … We are the rock. We're going to slay Goliath, the communists, the liberals the phonies. Joe Biden will never set foot in the Oval Office of this country. It will not happen on our watch. Never gonna happen.”
(Geoff Earl. “Donald Trump called attorney behind failed 'election fraud' suits to say he would NEVER give up - as lawyer demands Republicans boycott Georgia senate runoffs because vote is 'rigged.'” Daily Mail. December 2, 2020.)
Back on November 30, Powell also cited an affidavit from Ron Watkins, a man with significant ties to the Qanon movement, in her latest lawsuit challenging the election results. Coded messages or "drops" would be interpreted by Qanon followers to form what would evolve into the radical claims made by the movement involving satanic pedophiles and the "deep state."
Note: Qanon[ i(/ˌkjuːəˈnɒn/) is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against US president Donald Trump, who is fighting the cabal. QAnon also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as the "Storm,” when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested.
Powell appears to have embraced QAnon's backing of her slogan "release the Kraken." The Kraken was the name given to her lawsuits, which she said would prove fraud was committed in Georgia and Michigan. Elsewhere, a joint Twitter account between Powell and Wood called @KrakenWood was suspended just a few days after it was created. It is unclear why Twitter suspended the account.
(Ewan Palmer. Sidney Powell's Ties to QAnon Movement Explained.” Newsweek. December 3, 2020.)
Wood's Twitter bio includes the QAnon mantra “#WWG1WGA,” or “Where we go one, we go all.” Wood has also circulated conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. In a July 12 tweet, Wood shared the false claim that wearing face masks to protect against the virus can "harm wearer," a conspiracy theory that's been wildly popular among QAnon believers and peddled by the conspiracy theory's most ardent supporters. Wood added the QAnon slogan, "WWG1WGA," to the tweet.
(Rachel E. Greenspan. “The attorney for Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse appears to be a QAnon believer. Insider.com. November 23, 2020.)
The Insanity
“Violence requires a spark — often in the form of a charismatic leader, an 'entrepreneur of violence,' in economic terms, who can speak to the aggrieved people in all of their forms of desire for greed, power and grievance.”
– Gary M. Shiffman, Ph.D. and author of The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism
Trump has repeatedly refused to accept the results of the 2020 election. During one debate, he told a far-right street-fighting group to “stand back and stand by,” raising concerns about violence.
For the first time in its 25-year history, the International Crisis Group – a group dedicated to preventing conflicts around the world – issued a report about the United States, warning of the violence that could escalate from ongoing vote counts and President Donald Trump's "incendiary rhetoric." Four of the 11 risk factors that the group uses throughout the world to identify threats of violence particularly resonate in the United States.
The risk factors identified by the group are (1) polarization – both political and social, (2) presence of armed right-wing groups, (3) the contested election (held during the pandemic), and most concerning (4) the “Trump Factor” – divisive rhetoric and action has no parallel in modern U.S. history.
Stephen Pomper, senior director for policy at the Crisis Group said …
"The United States is a mature democracy, it has strong institutions and it hasn't faced the kinds of risks around elections that other countries that Crisis Group traditionally covers have faced. But then things changed."
(“The U.S. Presidential Election: Managing the Risks of Violence.” Report No. 4. International Crisis Group. October 28, 2020.)
Even before the election, Trump had set the seeds for discord. Here is Trump's own tweet on November 2 …
“The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”
Following the time-honored tools of dictators, Trump continues to claim fraud and to attempt to use government machinery to reverse the election. He is being aided by extremist groups, White nationalists and conspiracy theorists. Their views have been pushed on alternative platforms since the Nov. 3 election.
The risk for violence and the threats for violent actions are real. In fact, risks and threats are steadily growing as of today, December 4, 2020. Militia activity has been on the rise and armed pro-Trump “patriot groups” have appeared at protests across the country.
The fact the the U.S. is seriously facing the questions about political violence and military force to deal with fallout of the election is unfathomable, but the threat is real, says Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the AntiDefamation League.
Segal reports …
“It’s dystopian. This year has been unrelenting in so many ways and I fear it may even get worse by year’s end.”
(W.J. Hennigen. ‘Plan for the Worst and Hope for the Best.' Why Law Enforcement Officials Are Worried About Post-Election Violence.” Time. September 25, 2020.)
Trump could stop this insanity. He could concede and immediately speak to the American people to request that they all accept the Biden presidency. His concession could quell most of the threats of violence and help return the nation to normalcy. But, this will never happen. His pride, his enormous ego, and his misguided ambitions will continue to drive him to care nothing about the potential of deadly unrest and consider only himself – an unhinged leader fighting for a cause he knows he has already lost.
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