Trump Is Inviting An Attack on the 2018 Election

The idea that the President would be asking a hostile foreign power to destroy the US election system seems at first to be beyond belief. However, based on the evidence, this is exactly what seems to be happening.

A fair election is the greatest threat to the Republican majority and to his own survival. Therefore, he will do everything in his power to make sure that such an election does not take place, or if it does, that its results will not be believed.

So, to minimize or prevent his party’s impending losses in the midterms, it is apparent that President Trump and his allies are now allowing or even encouraging the Russian hacking, manipulating and rigging of the 2018 US electoral process, with the goal of discrediting the election itself.

Bill Maher once said, “You remember the Cold War? That was when the White House was on our side.”

Imagine a soldier of some strong-walled castle town under siege, who hears the whispers of the enemy spies that he would be the rich new lord of the castle if he would just let the besiegers in. If he then opens the castle gate to them, leading to the cruel pillage of the town and the oppression of his country, is his betrayal not an act of treason? It would not matter if by doing so he became the new lord.

But the treason would be even worse if he then used his new powers to protect the enemy plunderers, and even join in their crimes to enrich his circle. Even if the foreign enemies announced their new attacks in advance, they could be confident that there will be no defense ordered to stop them, and the betrayer would open the gates for them once again.

In doing so, Trump’s betrayal is breaking his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the country.

Losing the War

America now finds itself in an information war, and it is losing it. The Russians themselves described their 2016 campaign as “information warfare against the United States of America” with the goal of “spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.” Their method is to create “political intensity through supporting radical groups.” Now the final phase of this direct attack on our democracy and on American independence has already begun.

This information war began in earnest when the world attempted to oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 by imposing harsh sanctions, many affecting the fortunes of the ruling oligarchs, and the Russians fought back with their usual indirect tactics of subversion and denial, which should not be underestimated. The troops sent into Ukraine were kept under a thin disguise, and Moscow continued to deny the massive presence of these “little green men” even as the takeover of Crimea was taking place, then certified by a bogus election. Meanwhile, disinformation campaigns were launched on a wide scale, and no amount of evidence was enough to make them admit to what they were doing, until years later, when they smugly congratulated themselves on getting away with it. As the Russian author Peter Pomerantsev describes the “active measures’ methods used to control Russia, which they are now trying to apply worldwide, “The goal is to confuse rather than convince, to trash the information space so the audience gives up looking for any truth amid the chaos.”

It was natural for the Russians to gravitate toward Trump as a candidate, not only because they hated their opponent Hillary Clinton, but also because, as former FBI counter-intelligence agent Clint Watts pointed out, Trump was already known for also embracing “active measures” to destroy his opponents. Trump’s fixation on flashy rich people has made him want to build huge hotel projects in Russia for years, and the Russians have seen how corrupt he is prepared to be from the money-laundering projects that he has already put his name to in many places, no questions asked, and how pathetically susceptible he is to flattery. The likely criminal conspiracy that was at the heart of the Trump campaign will eventually be uncovered and described by the Special Prosecutor. The question is whether, after the destruction of the election process, there will be anyone left in the government with the power and the will to do something about it. As Jon Stewart said, “If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they’re not values; they’re hobbies.”

A Lucky Bullseye

As Carl Bernstein points out, “In the whole Cold War, the Russians were not able to do what Putin has done through Trump – to destabilize the United States and its democratic institutions. It’s stunning. It’s ruinous.” The shocking realization of the extent of the manipulation of the 2016 US election was already what Dan Rather called “a psychological Pearl Harbor - a surprise attack that was devastating to our confidence in our whole situation of elections, and therefore our whole system of government.” However, unlike Pearl Harbor, no defense of America has been allowed. The Russian actions included a break-in of the Democrats that echoed the burglary that started Watergate, but unlike Watergate, the results of the break-in were then gleefully spread by the Republicans. Authorities were stunned and paralyzed. "The President [Obama] was not prepared to go there [to retaliate against the Russians during the 2016 election]," reporter Michael Isikoff found. "He was worried that too aggressive a response would escalate, create a cyberwar with the Russians and could actually, in some ways, blow up the election, cause more chaos and therefore serve Putin's needs. The problem is that the people on the White House staff were saying, 'No, if you don't respond in real time; if you don't punch back when you've been hit, it's sending a signal to the other side.'" Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also stepped in to protect the Russians after the leadership of Congress was briefed on the interference and urged to take action – he saw any attempts to call them out or oppose them as being partisan.

Russian attacks on elections had already been seen on a massive scale in Europe, where Russian-financed hacking, disinformation and financial support of far-right candidates such as Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are intended to weaken the European Union’s will to continue with their own versions of the sanctions.

Since their success with the 2016 election, Russians have already gotten much of what they wanted from Trump, and Trump is trying to appease them even more. The signs of collaboration are everywhere. Immediately after the Inauguration, work was ordered on ways to lift the sanctions, and Trump’s own lawyer delivered a Kremlin-backed plan to end them to the White House. Instead, Congress affirmed and even passed further sanctions, by a near-unanimous vote. Trump raged for four days before he would sign the bill.

The Denial Reflex

Trump is a Russian tool, even though he may deny it. The denial reflex by Trump of past Russian interference, and his own possible role in it, is blinding. He thinks the reporting on it has been invented to belittle his upset victory, which he clings to more and more desperately for validation. Any mention of the topic is sure to put him into a rage. “For 11 months, they’ve had this phony cloud over this administration, over our government, and it has hurt our government,” Trump said. “It’s a Democrat hoax that was brought up as an excuse for losing an election.” A great many of his followers are willing to agree to ignoring any Russian problem. But the unacknowledged attacks have continued, in preparation for the coming assault this year.

This denial reflex can be seen elsewhere as well. Facebook, for example is now under fire not only for allowing the Russians to buy thousands of misleading ads during the election, but also for allowing the Trump data operation Cambridge Analytica, headed by Steve Bannon, to get away with 50 million individual profiles, which the Russians especially showed an interest in using for their own purposes. Facebook at first strenuously denied its role in the election, then belittled its importance, then floundered for a response, especially when they realized that thousands of their ads were from the Russians, and that as many as 10,000 other apps may have also harvested Facebook data. The weaponization of social media profiles seemed to take them by surprise, even though their business model seems to be built on selling people’s privacy for money. It was as if they built a big house with all the windows open and no locks on the doors, invited us to live there for free, then were surprised when criminals looted the place. The company’s attitude toward being the means for mass manipulation of voters at first was airy denial of their responsibility as a media platform and a preference, for legal reasons, not to know, like the willfully ignorant German prison guard Sergeant Schultz in the TV show Hogan’s Heroes, who constantly announced “I see nothing, I see nothing!”

Despite the abundant evidence of the Russian attack has taken place, the Administration and their Republican enablers would rather try to wish it away. They would rather:

• Claim that is all a hoax and fake news.

• Sow confusion as to the identity of the attackers.

• Refuse congressional subpoenas to produce evidence or testimony about the many contacts between the Russians and the campaign, while doing everything, including obstruction of justice, to stop any investigation into what was done.

• Repeatedly lie about meetings during the campaign between Trump officials and Russians, even when asked under oath.

• Invite the Russians to join into a partnership to supposedly assist with cybersecurity for Americans. As Sen. John McCain dryly noted, “I am sure that Vladimir Putin could be of enormous assistance in that effort, since he’s doing the hacking.”

For someone known for his copious and indiscriminate insults, Trump has nothing but praise for Putin, as he also fawns over other bloody autocrats. He seems to have given Russia veto power over the selection of the US Secretary of State, ousting the anti-Russian Mitt Romney for the pro-Russian Rex Tillerson, who, together with the National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, was fired as soon as they became critical of Russia. Mike Flynn and the white nationalists may have filled Trump’s head with the alt-right image of Russia as the white people’s knight combating the scourge of evil Muslims, so he sees Russia as an ally instead of an enemy. The Russians must be amazed at their luck in having such a willing tool. It has already been noticed how readily he and his followers will dutifully pass along the stories and conspiracy theories invented by the Russians. One favorite Kremlin line duly echoed by Trump many times before the 2016 election was that the election was rigged and could not be trusted. This can be expected to be his approach to 2018 too. And if he thinks the election was dishonest to begin with, just like the media, law enforcement, and everyone else against him, then why respect it?

Opening the Gates

The historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on the rise of autocracies, says, “My new concern is that there will be something that happens around the time of the midterms. This will allow Trump and his allies to say that the midterms don't really count or that we have to have the midterms under exceptional conditions.”

Trump’s conspicuous inaction in the face of the Russian threat is obvious. It is hard to explain why the United States is in thrall to a country that has the GDP per capita of Greece. The retired four-star general Gen. Barry McCaffrey says “Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr. Putin.” The current head of the NSA, Admiral Rogers, recently told Congress that he is troubled that Trump has so far given him no orders to combat the intrusive “active measures” that have plagued Americans since 2016, and now threaten the 2018 election as well. He says, “Putin has clearly come to the conclusion there’s little price to pay here, and that therefore I can continue this activity.” The Secretary of State announced that the US is powerless to stop the Russian election attack: “If it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that… once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to pre-empt it.”

The rest of the intelligence community agrees that they have been told to remain passive in the face of Russian attacks. After any actions by Obama or Congress to punish them for what they had done in the elections were stopped by Trump, the message that the Russians could interfere without consequences was made clear. Following this action, the heads of the three Russian intelligence services, including those responsible for the previous attack, were allowed to come to the US, despite US sanctions, and Colonel General Igor Koborov, the head of the GRU (the military intelligence service responsible for many of the hacking attacks) apparently met with no Americans, but was left alone to presumably prepare the ground for the next attack. When asked how he had received a US visa despite sanctions, the US State Department said we should ask the Russians.

Damage Done

The next Russian attack will add a deadly new dimension to the damage already being done to elections by Americans themselves. Republicans especially have persistently made laws for structural changes to the election process for reducing or negating the impact of non-Republican voters.

These structural changes include extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression, which includes laws for forcible disenfranchisement and targeting of minorities, as well as intimidation, including by vigilantes with guns at polling stations, campaigns of outright lying, including fevered inventions of voter fraud and other fantasies, and the weakening of the courts as guarantors of our liberties by the appointment of partisan hacks who allow these suppressive legal tactics to continue. Trump’s election commission, which was formed to look for a massive imaginary voter fraud problem, has demanded sweeping voter records from every state, including confidential information, which they were going to keep on unsecured servers before the courts and their own incompetence stopped the effort. The head of the commission was hoping to put in place voter restrictions like those in Kansas, which could disenfranchise one out of seven voters.

For an Administration obsessed with stopping individual illegal immigrants from voting, it is strange how open they seem to be to allowing a hostile foreign enemy to change votes on a mass scale.

To these traditional election theft tactics, there are now three tactics being added which seriously now threaten the integrity of the 2018 election.

• weaponizing of mass misinformation,

• hacking of voting systems that leave election officials unable to certify the results

• an electronic attack on critical infrastructure to create confusion.

Such actions are still all well within the power of the Russians, who have already shown that the destruction of democratic elections is their ongoing and active goal.

Trump and his enablers are now in effect turning a blind eye to the Russian hacking activities in 2018, thereby inviting further attacks. They would rather lose democracy than lose an election. In effect, they will be letting the Russians do the dirty work of wrecking the election, as they maintain what they think of as plausible deniability while reaping the rewards of continued power. This is what they have already done in 2016, and they can be expected to do it again in 2018.

The right wing seems to have no problem supporting the Russian interference. As Chauncey DeVega points out, there have been surveys and interviews in which Trump supporters said they did not care if Vladimir Putin interfered in the election because "their guy" won. And the historian Steven Levitsky points to Gallup polls throughout 2017 that showed that Putin has a much higher approval rating among Republicans than Hillary Clinton.

A Look Ahead

We can expect that the unnervingly erratic nature of the White House will continue in 2018. Unlike almost every other politician who strives to be competent and to create order Trump is a disruptor and violator of norms, and welcomes conflict and chaos, which he thinks he can use to his advantage. He ignores his advisors, acts on his gut reactions, and is reportedly in favor of being his own Chief of Staff. He has surrounded himself with yes-men, with his actions controlled from day to day by whatever is on cable TV and especially Fox News. As justified as he may come to think an attack on the election is, it would be like reacting to losing a game by blowing up the stadium. As for his ultimate reason to do so, as David Frum says, “the benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent; more the power to protect the guilty.”

The first Russian tactic we can expect for 2018, abetted by American collaborators and dupes, will see stories that focus on “whataboutism”, intended to distract from the mistakes of the incumbent Majority by saying that what the other side does is worse – even if that is not true. We can expect to see more hacked files, which may include forged documents, released through WikiLeaks to attempt to discredit Democratic opponents in Congress and elsewhere. We can expect to see attacks on disapproving media through tax prosecutions of their owners, such as Amazon due to their ownership of the Washington Post. There will also be mass dissemination of fictional but attractive stories intended to be spread through social media and elsewhere, amplified by Russian bots pumping up the popularity of especially destructive ones. These lies will all be designed to confuse voters to destroy their capacity for informed judgement. To an alarming degree these stories will be believed by credulous and uninformed people.

As David Leonhard says, “Trump is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.” This shameless lying to manipulate fears was begun years ago by conservative media such as Fox News and is now being amplified to a grotesque degree by the Russians. This cultivation of “alternative facts” has now led to a large gullible population that is committed to believing a myriad of things that are demonstrably false. The “low-information” voter is especially susceptible to flashy but false memes if the fit with a pre-existing stereotype.

The author Katharine Dunn said, “The truth is always an insult or a joke; lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern with anyone’s comfort.” Administration staffers admit that they now lie for sport, as a contest to see who can smuggle the biggest untruths into print. A conservative journalist says, “They all lie; it’s a game to them.” The method is to deny the truth and promote false but appealing lies. As Newt Gingrich said, “I’ll go with how people feel, and I’ll let you people [CNN] go with the facts.” But any actual reported facts are then disputed, by a knee-jerk conservative rejection of the mainstream media, leaving gullible voters ready to believe anything they are told, and to then cling to that lie as part of their identity. Hannah Arendt said, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between true and false no longer exists.” And as Thomas Paine said, “to argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

The second new tactic is the Russian hacking of voter systems, which is expected to be a serious problem in 2018. The Center for American Progress’ report says, “Experts have warned that a future attack on our election infrastructure, by Russia or other malicious actors, is all but guaranteed.” Apparently in 2016 Russian hackers attacked voter databases in at least twenty-one states and succeeded in penetrating the database of Illinois. Officially they changed nothing, but any changes made would be hard to spot. Yet the consequences for voters in the database could be serious, such as changes of status to make voters ineligible, or having voting information sent to the wrong address. The database hacking may be the most serious threat of all, because it affects the ability to maintain the accurate list of voters needed to certify the results of an election. There are other known vulnerabilities as well, such as the hacking of electronically transmitted absentee ballots, and maintaining a solid chain of custody for paper ballots. The voting machines without a paper trail has been a known problem for years, but these have still not been replaced, even after it has been demonstrated how easy it is to break in and change the vote totals without a trace. Despite this, the Republicans voted to cut off funding for the Electoral Assistance Commission, which is supposed to defend election security.

Since US elections are administered by the states and local authorities, the safeguarding of voting systems is ultimately up to many local officials, including citizen volunteers. The federal government can only act when requested to assist local efforts. But the problems in the state systems are glaring and obvious. A recent comprehensive report by the Center for American Progress of the voting systems of all 50 states found that none of them rated an “A” rating, and 17 states received a “D” or “F” rating, including Florida. Ten states do not provide cybersecurity training to election officials. Five states use paperless voting machines without a paper trail, and fourteen more use them in some jurisdictions. Thirty-two states allow electronic transmission of absentee votes, which are known to be subject to hacking. Thirty-three states have post-election audit procedures that lack security, and eighteen states do not require post-election audits, or restrict their use.

If a substantial number of votes are shown to have been changed, including by the Russians allowing the fact that they have done the changes to be known, the first impulse would be to suppress the news, to suppress an unsolvable problem. But if the news came out somehow, and was believed, that would spark a crisis of credibility. It is hard to predict what would happen next, but the election would either have to be repeated under controlled circumstances, or the questionable results thrown out and a solution imposed somehow.

The third tactic involves a targeted electronic attack that creates chaos to destroy the authority or ability to conduct a normal election. The 2018 midterms are decentralized by nature, and the key races will be in distinct regions. It is easy to imagine the chaos if, for example, a power outage struck a district that was dependent on electronic voting machines.

According to Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, “We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States. There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

Secretary of State Tillerson, right before he was suddenly fired, said that he had "become extremely concerned about Russia," arguing that after spending a year trying to work together with Russia on a number of issues, "we didn’t get very far. Instead what we’ve seen is a pivot on their part to be more aggressive … this is very, very concerning to me and others, that there seems to be a certain unleashing of activity that we don’t fully understand what the objective behind that is.”

The Russians seem to understand how an autocrat creates and maintains power, and how the media can be manipulated to distort the truth. Although many believe that Trump’s supine attitude for Putin is inexplicable except for someone who is compromised, it could also be true that he would be a willing accomplice because he aspires to the same degree of control of America, through the same methods. The freedom of the press, or even the ability to tell the truth, is the enemy of this type of control. After hearing of the elevation of President Xi of China to president-for-life, Trump said to Republican donors, “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”

Trump apparently has no problem with Russia’s killing of opponents, or how Putin was re-elected, even though it obviously was a rigged process with jailing or exile of opponents, blatant media bias, and open ballot box stuffing. When Trump called Putin afterward, despite his national security staff’s pleas, including an all-caps note “DO NOT CONGRATULATE”, he went ahead and did just that, and did not object to Putin’s blatant nerve gas assassination in London.

Shoot the Ref

It is worth asking the question – who is now fighting for America’s independence? Who is willing to stand up to insist on our sovereignty? Any American patriot should be outraged that a foreign enemy can now tell us how to think and govern ourselves. The sacrifices of previous generations over hundreds of years to establish and keep these hard-won rights will be in vain if Americans now let this happen.

It is easy to imagine how the final attack on the 2018 election would be done. After the forces for the defense of the laws and norms for the election have been systematically weakened, then the attacks begin on many fronts, until finally an emergency and a power vacuum would be exploited to deny or change the election result.

The defense of the country is already being weakened in several ways that can be expected to continue through the election. This erratic and impulsive Administration not only regularly generates distracting horrors and scandals, but also earns the contempt of our enemies and the alarm of our allies. Trump keeps all meetings with the Russians secret from American media. Typically, we learn about them from the Russian reports. We can only wonder at what was discussed and agreed with them. In one, he revealed secret information recklessly, apparently out a need to brag to the Russians about what he knows. His carelessness has already allowed many unqualified staff members to have continuous access to some of the country’s most sensitive secrets.

Meanwhile, our allies are left in a state of bewilderment, with American diplomacy crippled, with the Secretary of State abruptly fired, with 60% of our career diplomats gone, and of the usual six Under Secretaries for different departments, none now remain. A fund of $120 Million made available by Congress to combat Russian meddling has gone untouched.

Counterespionage at the FBI, which has been the front-line defense of the country since the Cold War, has been demoted and put under harsh control as punishment for their involvement in the President’s Russia investigation. The spitefulness shown against any FBI critic, even a seasoned veteran, has already cost the jobs of almost the whole leadership, especially witnesses to the credibility of James Comey. In the last instance the pettiness extended to firing Andrew McCabe two days before his retirement, costing him a major part of his pension. The President regularly attacks the FBI, which represents the force that would protect us from espionage.

The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference, headed by the Trump lickspittle Rep. Devin Nunes, concluded with a whitewash report issued by the Republican majority. Now instead of being able to combat any new attacks, the committee will be off chasing imaginary conspiracies involving the Democrats. As Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member of the committee, put it, this wrongheaded response is “as if the response to Pearl Harbor would be to go after the air traffic controllers.” He said that “The Republicans' decision to shut down the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation sends a bright green light to Russia to continue its interference at America's ballot boxes. Our duty to every American is to protect the right of free and fair elections.”

The 2018 campaign can be expected to produce many distortions of the facts, and even traditional voter suppression tactics. But what will be especially new and dangerous would be if the hackers were somehow allowed access to voting systems to change the results. A doubtful result would be a victory for Russia, and a grave wound to democracy. A doubtful result, either by itself or in combination with a manufactured disaster, will create an emergency situation that could be used as an excuse for a suppression of the results, or a Federal takeover, or both.

Trump has already shown his contempt for the election process in the 2016 election, which he expected to lose. In the last televised debate, he would not say that he would accept the election results, saying “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”. Since the Democrats seem to be ahead once again, it is likely he will not accept the 2018 election results either.

A Convenient Disaster

The classic pattern of a tyrant, as described by Plato, involves an election of an outsider promising lavish gifts, followed by purges and corruption, and finally by war, so that “the people will be in need of a leader.” The President now seems to be on the verge of causing an actual disastrous war, most likely against North Korea. The appointment of the rabid hawk John Bolton, who Bill Maher called an ‘asshole’s asshole,” is a glaring signal that this war will from now on be continually and heavily recommended to him by his closest advisor, who has publicly claimed that we would be justified in starting the war. Trump may also see advantages to starting a war, namely the distraction from his legal and political struggles and a bump in popularity. He surrounds himself with generals and fantasizes about playing war with the military, who he imagines are bound by oath to follow his orders. At one point during the campaign, he even said “I love war.” He may imagine this will be a splendid victory that will make him look better. As General “Buck” Turgidson jauntily predicted in Dr. Strangelove, “Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.”

Despite the fantasies of his advisors, any attack against North Korea would almost immediately go nuclear, with massive strikes against South Korea, Japan and the United States. North Korea’s whole defense posture is built upon such a hair-trigger response to such a strike, and they have clearly warned us that they would do so. The whole long and painful process of this war will go on for years, and cost the lives of millions, including Americans, who would see mass casualties from a nuclear attack in this country even worse than what were seen in the Civil War. The obliteration of North Korea would be meaningless at that point, and probably bring us into open conflict with China, where we would be the wounded and confused behemoth confronting a new, confident world power. Holding an election under those circumstances could end up being impossible.

Even if the country avoided war, the ability to create an emergency is now also in Russia’s hands, due to its recently discovered ability to control major US infrastructure systems, including utilities, power plants, aviation, power grids and communications. Any one of these could be the cause of a national security emergency affecting a targeted portion of the country - a disaster on cue, expected to overwhelm local authorities, including police and the National Guard and election officials, triggering a Federal intervention.

Whether due to war or other reasons, such an emergency would be a national crisis, especially if the election was suspended. For much of the country, the emergency will seem to happen quickly, by surprise, but the steps being followed to derail an election by some kind of crisis are familiar from how autocracies have been established in other countries, so we can see imagine how the American democratic experiment would also come to be in danger. Although the airwaves will be full of impassioned arguments about what to do, concrete steps will need to be taken to fill the vacuum of authority.

The laws and norms that underpin the election are crucial not only to the operation of the election, but also to the final perception of its fairness, accuracy and legitimacy. If the electoral process results in confusion, then a lengthy, confusing legal process would be expected to attempt to craft some sort of acceptable result.

The last time this happened, in Florida in 2000, there was over a month of delay and chaos, and the Supreme Court finally stepped in to impose a result, in a decision which Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, a deciding vote, later bitterly regretted, and said damaged the credibility of the Court.

Even if a law dictating the results of the 2018 election were passed by Congress, it would be challenged in the courts, so inevitably the Supreme Court would again be called on to impose a solution. Given the Republican and increasingly extreme current nature of the Court, especially after the expected retirement of Justice Kennedy, they do not appear to be the best guarantors of the liberties and future of the country.

If this court solution is challenged, not only on the airwaves but also with bullets, then the police, then the National Guard, then the US military would be called upon. It is worth remembering that thanks to the offloading of surplus Iraq War gear on police departments, many municipal departments are very heavily armed now, so the casualties in any insurrection or suppression of protests will be substantial. Half of the guns in the country are now in the hands of 3% of the population, mainly heavily armed white men . Some of these vigilantes may show up, claiming to be a force of order, and may be endorsed by a gullible and desperate President Trump. At that point, the credibility of the government, and the maintenance of civilized law and order, would be under serious threat.

In the wake of an emergency such as outlined above, Trump would be glad to pretend to be the force of order and discipline, at least for a few days. Then his natural awfulness will take over. This will weaken his ability to command the forces of law and order, which he already holds in contempt for their investigative threats to his crooked business dealings. To re-establish a credible authority, with the President, Congress and the Court discredited, it is entirely possible that the next step will be a takeover by the institution that still maintains a 70% approval rating – the military.

Martial law would mean the suspension of Constitutional rights. And it is questionable whether the military would continue to accept the command of someone like Donald Trump as a military dictator.

What to Do

The fight for this country’s future is up to each of us. We must be vigilant to not be misled by appealing lies or the whispers of foreign enemies. We have to immediately put in place the safeguards for the defense of the election recommended by the Senate Intelligence Committee and outside election experts, including funding for replacing voting machines, two-step verification for access to voter databases, a voter-verified, auditable paper trail for all ballots, and a secure chain of custody for these ballots. In addition to these urgent steps, there should also be an end to partisan laws that weaken the credibility of elections in favor of laws guaranteeing equal voting rights. Because of the decentralized nature of US elections, this fight will have to be won in many places, in every individual state, and in every individual precinct. It is vital to remember that it has taken this country hundreds of years to achieve any fairness and credibility in the voting process, and that it is the source of the strength of our country. This is no time to throw it all away with wishful thinking, willful ignorance, and complicity in crimes.

“What is the precise moment in the life of a country when tyranny takes hold? It rarely happens in an instant; it arrives little by little, and, at first, the eyes adjust. … Tyranny does not begin with violence; it begins with the first act of collaboration. Its most enduring crime is drawing decent men and women into its siege of the truth.” - Evan Osnos