'Noise may be all Trump needs': Fears grow over a return of 'Stop the steal' chaos
With the presidential election just a little over two weeks away, there is a growing sense of alarm that Donald Trump will definitely launch a multi-prong attack on the results should he lose that will, once again, plunge the country into chaos.
According to a deep dive report from Politico, it is widely expected that the former president will copy and expand upon his efforts from 2020 when he claim the election was stolen from him and will set that in motion by declaring himself the winner not long after the polls start closing.
Outside of the chaos, there are worries the former president will make enough "noise" that it may provide a path for Trump partisans in key states to either refuse to certify the vote totals or, as was attempted in 2020, offer up as alternate set of electors who will try and hand their state's electoral votes to the former president.
That, the report warns, could hand him the presidency.
NOW READ: Signs of what will happen on Election Day are everywhere
According to the report, "Overturning a Kamala Harris victory would require an enormous amount of help from Republican power brokers in statehouses and Congress, some of whom spurned him four years ago," adding, "But Trump is heading into the 2024 election informed by his failure to overturn the results four years earlier. And his incentive to obtain the powers and protections of the White House is likely stronger than ever: If he loses, Trump will face an avalanche of criminal proceedings that could last the rest of his life. If he wins, they are likely to go away."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was blunt in admitting, "No one knows exactly what Trump’s attack on the electoral system will be in 2024.What will he do this time?”
In one scenario, Politico is reporting, "A key swing state takes several days to finish counting votes. Harris edges Trump by a few thousand ballots, appearing to clinch the election. Trump then blankets the state with ads exhorting officials to “stop the steal,” sends top allies to rail daily outside counting facilities about a crooked process, files a blizzard of litigation urging judges to throw out ballots being counted after Election Day and spreads claims that the vote was swung by non-citizens. Threats rain down on election officials and vote counters, with protests driving up the local and national temperature. Then, Trump allies on a handful of county election boards resist certification, threatening to disenfranchise thousands of voters and disrupt the state’s effort to finalize an accurate count."
According to a former senior adviser to the Jan. 6, the threat of violence against electors is a very real possibility.
“Anybody involved in certifying Trump’s defeat should he lose is a potential target,” explained Tom Joscelyn, “The extremists or even just rabid wackadoodles firmly believe it’s being stolen yet again.”
You can read much more here.