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Useful thread from Tom Nomad, who usually has some interesting stuff to say:
kolektiva.social
Whole thing is very long but here's some highlights:
tom_nomad (@tom_nomad@kolektiva.social)
Happy Halloween everyone! Time for a spoooooky post...not really, but we are going to talk about what is coming in the next couple of weeks (which is spooky in its own way). Today I want to focus our attention on gaming out the election, but with some specific caveats. Normally, when these...
kolektiva.social
The entire conspiracy last time developed in real time on election day, as it became increasingly clear that Trump was underperforming. On the evening of the election, when things were still very close, and absentee ballots had not been reported, Trump declared himself victor, based on the reporting of vote totals that were being given out live on TV. The ability to utilize real time media in the construction of a conspiracy is incredibly powerful, and Trump used it remarkably well after he lost in 2020.
This convinces me of two things that will almost certainly happen on election night. The first is that we are not going to know who won, it will still be too close and the media is likely to be a lot more shy about calling things after the last time. The actual totals are unlikely to be clear for at least a week, and likely longer as campaigns demand recounts. The second thing, and I am almost certain of this, Trump will say he won anyway.
For a while I have been saying, in a number of venues, that we have to take the things the right wing says seriously, even if we know that usually it is bullshit. If we take on that perspective, we can already start to see this strategy coming together. The first indicator of this is the non-involvement the Trump campaign has in its own on-the-ground outreach. For this entire cycle Trump has been pushing the RNC to move away from voter registration, and instead train "election integrity watchers". The Trump campaign itself has almost no ground operation.
Instead he has outsourced all of that to Elon Musk, who, in turn, has been running an outreach campaign so shady and haphazard that not only are the numbers that canvassers are returning (counting doors knocked, voter preference, etc) to the campaign potentially wildly inflated, they are potentially so off that they are essentially useless. This was also the result of America PAC (which Musk runs) outsourcing to subcontractors who hired random people, didn't tell them what they were going to campaign for, and then threatened to not pay for food or lodging unless the canvassers hit unbelievable and unattainable numbers.
The RNC, on the other hand, following the Trump campaign has also made a number of moves. They have followed through on training these "election integrity watchers", claiming to have trained tens of thousands. They have also undergone staffing changes, where all attorneys that were not on-board for the whole stolen election thing have been pushed out and replaced with Trump loyalists. The money that the Trump campaign would have been spending on ground outreach, they have instead used to hire attorneys as well.
The rhetoric of the Trump campaign itself is also notable. The Trump campaign started talking about a stolen election around 3 months ago. Since that time that narrative has done nothing but deepen. Now, the rallies he does are grievance filled conspiracy fests about how this election is going to get stolen by the evil Democrats, even though the election has not even happened yet. From a legal perspective it is absurd to claim that someone cheated in a thing that has not happened, but in right wing politics, that is preparing the ground.
This all seems to add up to the possibility of another Fall-Winter 2020-2021 again. It seems as if we have one party dedicated to tearing apart the electoral system to gain and hold onto power. They seem, just as then, willing to say anything, do anything, and manipulate anyone in the service of this goal. The political realities of elections in general in the US lead to this unique opening for conspiracies to arise. So, we should all be gearing up for mass right wing rallies and stuff...right?
Actually, the likelihood of this happening in the same way it did in 2020 are probably pretty slim. The rhetoric is heated like it was in 2020, but there are two major changes that have happened since that time in right wing political spaces. The first is a languishing sense of enthusiasm. Many people have commented on it during this cycle, but this is an important point, people are leaving his rallies early, and fewer are showing up. It is just not that exciting after a decade of the same guy yelling about the same stuff, especially when he aimlessly rants. That would never have happened in the past cycles.
Secondly, there is a sense now in the right wing that breaking laws in the name of political goals can have actual consequences. I think anyone that is involved in anarchist spaces has known this for years, as we have fought off wave after wave of mass repression. Remember, though, many conservatives felt that state violence against protesters was justified, because it was against "ANTIFA" or something, and that it would never happen to "good people". If that violence did happen to them, then it was just a few bad apple cops and Trump would pardon them. It sounds absurd to think this, but go back to boards on thedonald.win from back in 2020, and this perspective is almost universally held.
Now that hundreds have been convicted of serious stuff, taken away from their friends and family, fired from their jobs, and sent to prison, without Trump stepping in, that sense has changed. Now, when journalists talk to Trump supporters, outside of the agro dudes, you find a lot of people that are not willing to take things to that level again, that recognize that there are significant consequences, and that they are just going to wait out the next 4 years if Trump loses. We also don't have the far right escalating things this time (they are relatively disorganized right now), and playing the role of open, state sanctioned vigilantes.
If we are to game this situation out, that means that we can start to expect things to heat up right about now. We are already seeing an uptick in this talk about a stolen election, this setting of the ground, and that is just going to escalate until the election. Lawsuits are already being filed by Republicans all over the country, trying to purge voter rolls.
On election day itself I would speculate that we are not going to know what the result is going to be. The reality of this election is that this is all about 5% of people in 5-7 states; the rest of us don't matter. With margins that small, it is very likely that these states will be close, and will require recounts, at least in some cases. As a result, like last time, we are unlikely to have any sort of result for a little while.
At that same time we will probably start seeing their legal strategy play itself out. Just like last time they seem poised to utilize a staged strategy, escalating their approach as they watch their ability to resolve it to their liking within the legal system dissolve with every lost case. I would argue that, especially because they have already started to claim the election was stolen before it was over, they are going to have an equally difficult time in court.
The pattern that was followed last time was the attempt to essentially create a parallel electoral outcome, and invalidate the official outcome. This took the form of fake electors, sending in fake documents, to the National Archive falsely certifying election results. Many of the people involved in this scheme the first time are now either convicted felons or under indictment, and it is going to be a lot harder to find people to do the same things again.
Now, of course we all know what happens when that strategy fails, they unleash their supporters on state capitals all across the US, culminating in January 6th. It is important to remember that January 6th happened in pretty specific conditions; pandemic, lockdown, mass unemployment, lots of lost businesses, lots of divorces, the fragmenting of the social fabric. It was a climate uniquely suited for the proliferation of conspiracies through a fusion of extreme messages and social isolation due to lockdown. Those conditions have changed, many people have gone to prison for January 6th, Trump did not save them, and so there is not likely to be the same sort of outpouring of violent support.
That does not mean that MAGA goes quietly into the night, probably far from it. If Trump loses two dynamics will emerge very quickly, and already are starting to. The first is the lone wolf action targeted politically. Many of those types of actions have been based in social violence, attacking a group of people. What we are seeing emerge now is the emergence of a similar figure, but this time targeted at politicians and other political targets.
The emergence of this dynamic, when coupled with the long running discussion among the far right about infrastructure attacks, leads to a disturbing possibility; the emergence of wide scale social attacks as a way to "attack the system" or something along those lines. We already see that rhetoric among accelerationists, but the people that have emerged recently come from outside of those circles by all accounts. We are watching a bit of leakage of that mentality and tactic set out of the traditional far right, and watching it morph into a new form.
Though your average Trump supporter is probably not going to go as wild as they did in 2020, that does not mean that we won't see either localized right wing violence or attacks against whole cities, or parts of cities, and the infrastructure that supports them. For those of us, and this includes me, who live in leftist areas of otherwise right wing parts of the country, we need to be watching what is happening around us, and taking it seriously.
That does not mean that everyone should go dig a bunker right now or something. Rather, and regardless of what the outcome of the election is, this is a reminder to have some basic things in place to make yourself and your community more able to deal with crisis. Whether we are responding to right wing violence or state repression having access to communications networks that are encrypted, backup means of communication, a place set to meet with friends if that is your threat model, and at least some supplies so you don't need to get them in the middle of a crisis.
These are things we should probably have in place all the time, but let us use this as a reminder of the importance of resiliency and mutual support. The next period of time is going to probably get difficult. Anarchists in the US, we have been through this before, and have been locked in a conflict with the state that has been more or less acute for the better part of a decade, without a break. We know how to prepare, to back one another up, and to defend the things we hold dear. All I can ask is that you all hold those principles close, take solace in our experiences, and steel ourselves for what may come.
