• Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      13 hours ago

      This is the one I see as most likely. Post an ICE squad outside random polling places in big cities throughout the day (and every day in states with early voting), ostensibly to “ensure vote security” and “make sure illegal immigrants don’t vote like they have before.” Move them around throughout the day so you never know when or where they’ll show up (I don’t think they have the manpower to really sit a squad at every polling place in every big city). That will discourage some non-trivial number of people from showing up to vote for fear of getting murdered or disappeared. Given the margins for everything, that’s probably enough to ensure a landslide win without actually “rigging” anything or cancelling the elections.

  • CthulhusIntern [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    The Democrats will do it for him.

    There will be some Democrats in the primaries who will be vocally anti-ICE, and actually run on things like prosecuting them, but the Democratic Party will ratfuck them in favor of candidates who say “train them better”.

  • SovietyWoomy [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Elections are held as normal unless an anticapitalist party gets popular enough to have a shot at winning. If the repiblicans win, liberals punch left even harder because we should’ve voted blue no matter who. If democrats win ice will be “reformed” and will quiet down for a few weeks before going back to what they were doing but with less resistance from the public.

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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    1 day ago

    He’s gonna try his very best to cancel the midterm and all other elections for the simple reason that he enjoys playing dictator and “triggering the libs”, but I think that election stuff is all pretty “set in stone” constitutionally, and election results are something the capitalist class has pretty solid control over without cancelling them and still recognizes as a pressure valve for working class outrage.

    Alternatively, if either of those two premises fail (constitutional protections for elections and capitalist control of elections), then cancelling the midterm would be plausible in my view…but then why didn’t previous presidents do it?

    • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      6 hours ago

      but I think that election stuff is all pretty “set in stone” constitutionally

      Birthright citizenship is literally stated unequivocally in the constitution.

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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        6 hours ago

        You’re referencing this executive order (Wikipedia), right? (For what follows: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I am just some Internet dweeb!) I think the order has been struck down as unconstitutional. Not that ICE is gonna respect that, not that the feds are gonna follow the laws that they wrote unless it benefits the capitalists they serve. As I said, Trump will try to cancel midterms like he tried to cancel birthright citizenship, but he won’t be able to do it unless it is a matter of survival for the capitalists.

        And it is my view that the elections serve capitalists as a class, if not the current ruling faction of capital, since from their perspective, this is a democracy. If, say, PSL had a chance of winning, then elections would get yeeted into the Sun. But since both parties are captured, in particular the Democrats, then the occurrence of elections is safe for the system.

        • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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          6 hours ago

          I think the order has been struck down as unconstitutional

          Nope. The supreme court (Partisan trump loyalists) are voting on it later this year.

          • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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            6 hours ago

            The supreme court (Partisan trump loyalists) are voting on it later this year.

            Add that to the list of reasons to hate AmeriKKKa amerikkka amerikkka amerikkka

            But I still think that elections benefit the capitalist class enough to keep them around, at least as long as there’s no serious working class parties at the level of prominence of the Democrats.

    • rubber_chicken [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      You give a good argument of why a strategic, non-unhinged (hinged?) president wouldn’t cancel elections and then ask why the previous ones didn’t. It’s like you "but why male models"ed yourself. Or am I misunderstanding something?

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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        1 day ago

        Basically, in the last couple sentences, I am saying that even if someone rejects one or both of the two starting premises (i.e. that elections have strong constitutional protection, and that election results are under capitalist control), then why have midterms never been cancelled before, and if never before, then why now?

        • rubber_chicken [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 day ago

          OK, so you’re asking, from the perspective of a lib who thinks Rs and Ds are actually opposed, why one hasn’t seized power previously. Hm. I think they’d say that all previous presidents really did love american norms and institutions in their own way and trump is a unique bad guy, first ruzzian president, etc.

          • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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            1 day ago

            OK, so you’re asking, from the perspective of a lib who thinks Rs and Ds are actually opposed, why one hasn’t seized power previously.

            Yeah pretty much.

            Hm. I think they’d say that all previous presidents really did love american norms and institutions in their own way and trump is a unique bad guy, first ruzzian president, etc.

            My response would be “no good presidents lol amerikkka amerikkka amerikkka”…or on a day where I’m not absolutely fucking out-of-control furious at life and 🧊, I would carefully but firmly explain that Trump is really the logical conclusion of the amerikkka project as opposed to some aberration.

  • dkr567 [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Considering how both parties from top to bottom are all in the same group and vote pretty much the same way, Trump regime really don’t need to do anything with respect to midterms.

  • Inui [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Recently, someone informed him that you don’t have to have elections during a war. His response was something like “So if we happen to be at war X months from now, we don’t have to do elections? Interesting”. So probably that.