The Washington Post reported that activists are working with the White House on an executive order to declare a “national emergency” over America’s elections and pave the way for a power grab.
“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” reported the Post‘s Isaac Arnsdorf. “President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue.”
Peter Ticktin, a MAGA activist in favor of the executive order, told the Post that “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” and that “the president has to be able to deal with it,” including by banning mail-in ballots and certain voting machines.
Everything he’s done besides for the budget has been by executive order.
Yes, and they’re all carried out by his own employees within the executive. If they didn’t do the thing, he fires them. They may get their jobs back eventually from the courts, but he has very real power over them until then.
Executive orders have zero power over people who can’t be fired by him. He’s got exactly as much power to dictate the jobs of state employees as he has over how I do my own job.
I understand that, but they’re going to go for it anyway. You know as well as I do that these red states can’t wait to turn over their elections to Trump. They’re just waiting for the signal. There can be no elections once that happens. I don’t see how the country survives at that point.
Well, for starters, you don’t get to stay in office after your term is up.
The issue is, his people have been selected based on their ability to tell him what he wants to hear, and that’s mirrored up and down the hierarchy. Everyone up and down the line is fudging what they can do or the reality of the situation, and that gets amplified as it travels up, and seemingly meaningful orders get diluted while traveling down.
Their understanding of their own capability and what options they have is massively distorted. They think they have more capacity and influence than they actually do, and what real power they do have will be poorly allocated when the time comes.
He and his people will absolutely try, and it’s going to create a bunch of messes, but, it’s like a toddler trying to fly a passenger jet, they can hit a bunch of buttons and switches, but the chances of that actually leading to the engines starting and the plane taking off are near 0.