Yves here. Even with the Mamdani victory in New York City (critically, bestowed by a majority vote) and Democrat wins in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, there is not much reason for optimism that the Trump team will cede ground to citizens’ wishes. Many are speculating that Trump will not leave office in 2028, via suspension of elections or another version of a coup, or some type of rigging (if nothing else to assure a cooperative Congress). For instance, Larry Wilkerson described how the bizarre Trump birthday parade should be understood as a mechanism for identifying particularly Trump-backing members of the armed services. In his latest talk with Nima, Wilkerson discusses (see starting at 11:11:45) how contemporaries of his believe there will be a coup and how the military is at least in part being reshaped to make that possible. Wilkerson points out that it takes only a brigade to effect a regime change, if the rest of the military stands pat, which is what he anticipates would happen.
In other words, it’s sound to be alarmed at Trump’s ongoing assault on what little voters have in the way of rights, and to call out the feckless Democrat opposition for its lack of a muscular response. Mind you, the post below explains how Trump’s latest attempt is bluster. But Trump keeps pushing on many fronts in the hope that something breaks his way. And with largely cooperative courts, he has the potential to gain more ground than should logically be possible.
A wild card I have yet to see discussed, if the shutdown isn’t resolved in the next say two weeks, is the risk of food riots, the sort of thing supposedly the province only of third world countries. If Trump were to deploy the National Guard to try to combat them and they shot into a crowd, the result could be Kent State on steroids. Recall at the time of the student deaths, most of the US still supported the Vietnam War and the press reports at the showed limited sympathy for the victims. But the images from the scene as well as major network news bringing some of the horrors of war to American living rooms turned the tide of opinion. With Trump already unpopular, a mis-step of that magnitude could provoke a real crisis.
Again, the above line of thought is speculative. But with Wilkerson’s colleagues anticipating a coup, the US is so far outside any old normalcy that it’s not nuts to ponder other outcomes that in the past would have been deemed to be tail risks.
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
President Donald Trump is drafting an executive order aimed at rolling back voting rights, a measure that may include attacks on mailed ballots, a top administration official said Tuesday.
“The White House is working on an executive order to strengthen our elections in this country and to ensure that there cannot be blatant fraud, as we’ve seen in California with their universal mail-in voting system,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
“Like any executive order, of course, any executive order the president signs is within his full executive authority and within the confines of the law,” she added.
Asked by a reporter what is her evidence of electoral fraud in California, Leavitt replied without evidence that “it’s just a fact.”
Leavitt’s remarks came hours after Trump baselessly attacked California’s vote-by-mail system in a post on his Truth Social network.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump alleged without evidence. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”
Trump has previously vowed to ban mail-in ballots, a move legal experts say would be unconstitutional.
The White House’s announcement also came as Americans voted in several high-stakes elections, including California’s Proposition 50 retaliatory redistricting proposal; the New York City mayoral race between progressive Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa; gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia; and a crowded contest for Minneapolis mayor highlighted by democratic socialist state Sen. Omar Fateh’s (D-62) bid to unseat third-term Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey.
The announcement also followed a federal judge’s permanent blocking of part of Trump’s executive order requiring proof of US citizenship on federal voter registration forms.
Democracy defenders have repudiated Trump’s attacks on mailed ballots and claims of voter fraud—a longtime right-wing bugaboo unsupported by facts on the ground.
“Voting by mail as permitted by the laws of your state is legal,” ACLU Voting Rights Project director Sophia Lin Lakin says in a statement on the group’s website about Trump’s order from March.
“In his sweeping executive order, Trump tried to bully states into not counting ballots properly received after Election Day under state law by threatening to withhold federal funding,” she continues. “A federal court has temporarily blocked this part of the executive order.”
“Trump’s effort to target mail-in voting is a blatant overreach, intruding on states’ constitutional authority to set the rules for elections,” Lin Lakin adds. “It threatens to disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters and would no doubt disproportionately impact historically excluded communities, including voters of color, naturalized citizens, people with disabilities, and the elderly, by pushing unnecessary barriers to the fundamental right to vote.”
I have long firmly been in the camp expecting that the only way Trump leaves is in a pine box. When you have someone who has no internal morals, he never has, will do or say anything and who tried to prevent Biden from being confirmed by the House once, his ego is too fragile.
There are signs and serious threats everywhere of his intentions. And, these are actions, not rhetoric.
He, an his acolytes, have already assumed a bunker mentality. They are increasingly detached from reality. This isn’t like Nixon where a group of leaders can go to the White House and say enough. He has already beat them into submission.
I think he would relish violence so he can trigger the insurrection act and send in the troops. I don’t think that a Kent State moment will have any impact on him.
I honestly have serious doubts about 2026 elections for the same reasons. I’m not expecting any elections in 2028.
I was not anticipating that a Kent State type event would move him to stand back but instead propel him into further violence when he might not be ready (as in ahead of a preferred timetable of shortly before an election).
Kent State: I doubt that the current corporate-ladder climbers, alleged newspersons, would report such an incident in a form that even approaches honesty. Narrative maintenance workers is more like it.
I think Matt Taibbi (before he lost his way a bit) nailed them some time ago – happily being able to hang out with the rich and powerful so they feel important. No concept of what a real journalist does. Speak truth to power???? Pffffff!
Entirely Coincidentally, this mornings rabbit hole, on lyrics for Wish You Were Here led to the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, who was ‘caught up in the Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970, in which the boyfriend of one of her friends was among the four victims.’
Every vector arrow continues to align with the interests of the larval trillionaires. I keep putting Neuralink together with the Pi scene (trigger warn’g). ‘Finally, someone smart enough to talk to me!’ (Uh, sir, it’s mirrorly reflecting your own words back to you.) ‘Yes, it’s Brilliant!’
Anyway, another mechanism for subverting elections are them voting machines. There’s a wu wei here, in that he’s figuring he just has to make sure that Nothing happens, no election, no media outrage. Turchin:
> losing state legitimacy is often a trigger (either that or sudden fiscal collapse) the state loses control of the coercive force, and then all hell breaks loose because the different elite factions now start fighting it out amongst themselves.
Which sounds just fine if you think you can win.
I wonder what the public health consequences may be of in-person voting on Election Day in densely populated districts. Superficially, it seems like it ought to be a major CV spreading event.
I’ve been mail voting since the beginning of the pandemic.
Maybe you’re right, Donald. It’s all rigged against you. Who could have known voters didn’t go for your “Let Them Eat Ballrooms” policy? That they didn’t like your selfless ICE crew, just trying to do their job of Making America White Again? The only honorable act would be to resign. Think about it: You can retire to Mar-A-Lago and cheat at golf every day, maybe grab some pussy like you did with your old buddy Epstein. You’ve made a bundle off crypto, you’ll still be a billionaire with the mind of a very stable genius. Sound good to you?
Yes, it feels as if they are pushing hard to create a faux crisis, and don’t really seem to care how it comes about, armed NG & ICE in Donkey Show Big Smokes is so egregiously over the top, just asking for gunplay.
Cutting off SNAP benefits, could be the catalyst.
First, there is only so much in the way of extra pockets of money Trump can tap for SNAP even if he wanted to.
Second, the distress goes way beyond SNAP. Lotta Federal workers not being paid, such as TSA employees.
Court says he has to pay in full, but I’m wondering where the judge expects Trump to find the money – or where he CAN find the money, as you say, “even if he wanted to.”
Maybe a compromise? Deliver 90 Meals Ready to Eat to every SNAP card holder (with another 90 for each dependent)? That covers November’s allotment…
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/snap-trump-food-stamps-shutdown.html
ETA re: Thread Content.
I wonder how Oregon, with its “everybody votes by mail” will get handled in that “no more mail voting” scenario.
> limited sympathy for the victims.
Thousands join protests in Rio favela after deadliest ever police raid
>> At least 121 people, including four police officers, were killed on [last] Tuesday during a police assault on the Complexo da Penha and the Complexo do Alemão, two large tapestries of favelas in north Rio. The operation made global headlines when scores of mutilated bodies were dumped at the entrance to one of those favelas.
>> Yet while many are outraged by this week’s massacre, a large chunk of Brazilian society and its media has applauded the killings, as have many prominent rightwing politicians positioning themselves as hardline “law and order” candidates before next year’s general elections.
This may be the first time in US history that a sitting president is trying to cause a recession/depression evemt.
Tariffs (No I don’t buy Wolf’s explanation that tariffs just reduce corporate profits. Someone is paying more taxes on the same goods.)
Restricting cheap labor
Cutting off of government programs
All of this together is causing a recession right before our eyes.
IIRC, many Americans were fine with the shootings at Kent State (the score is four and next time more). It was only after people had time to think and debate on it that it that the sympathy gradually swung to the students especially after the details became clear.
I am thinking that many Americans who are not in SNAP are particularly sympathetic to people going hungry or getting hurt after protesting, but forty million people is a lot of Americans. What shows just how disconnected many Americans are especially the politicians from the reality of poverty and hunger is just how strict the income limits are for SNAP when many are complaining about welfare cheats. Then add the increase in homelessness and the costs of medical care. Many people are just not making the connections between the cost of living, the lack of income, and the likely blowback.
I realize that my last sentence is obviously true, but it is frightful to see the blindness, the willingness to not see what actually is and the likely consequences of that.
The sad part of this is that I could easily believe that the Democrat Party could accede to this in hopes of ‘replacing’ the Republican Emperor with their own Pontifex Maximus at some future date.
As mentioned above, armed coups are often small unit affairs. Nasser carried out his revolution in Egypt with the help of junior officers and some “loyal” troops. So, the idea of an armed coup is not out of the question. The operational problem for any plotters would be secure communications. Given that everything that passes over the air or wires in America is read and filtered, plotting becomes truly a face-to-face business. If the present administration is plotting in earnest, what will the “Watchers” in the spy agencies do; blow the whistle, join in, sit back and passively watch?
One thing to watch for in the ongoing “government shutdown” is any attempt by the Administration to secure funding for the Organs of State Security alone. That would be a Praetorian Guard scenario. Trump and the other lusters after outright Authoritarianism had better read the Roman Histories of Emperors such as Caligula, Elagabalus, Galba, and others.
We live in interesting times.
Perhaps it’s naive on my part but I think analogies to other coups bump up against the very different context in America. Clearly TPTB have decided it’s better here to keep at least the facade of democracy while buying the power they want with gobs of money. And for them keeping Trump around would only make sense if he was popular which, increasingly, he isn’t. Trump gets this too I think and worries about those sinking approvals. He is not his own master–just plays that on TV.
Or labeled, “conspiracy theory.”
Tail risks… so true… like with the Russian Revolution… most Russians didn’t support the Bolsheviks at the start, but ultimately we know who got the upper hand and won. Same with the French Revolution. When and if the real violence gets going there is a real possibility it will not go as anyone planned.
>>>When and if the real violence gets going there is a real possibility it will not go as anyone planned.
Historically, it never goes as planned even if the plotters win. There are always unexpected costs to be paid, but when has that stopped anyone?
Of course Trump’s challenge to the 2000 election was premised on the notion that mail in ballots had stolen it so as with all things Trump this latest action is a long standing grievance rather than a recent coup plot.
Probably.
And not to rehash that year’s ago dispute but in the runup to 2000 some Dems did say they would do anything necessary to keep Trump from being elected and before that cooked up Russiagate to keep him from being able to govern. Which is to say just because Trump is paranoid doesn’t mean many have always been out to get him.
And rightly so perhaps. He’s obviously a terrible president. FWIW he did recently say he was just kidding about running in 2028 and healthwise it’s doubtful he could last that long anyway. Perhaps whatever mayhem he’s about to create (er, continuing to create) overseas is more of a concern.
“FWIW he did recently say he was just kidding about running in 2028 and healthwise it’s doubtful he could last that long anyway.”
And the people throughout the system – nationally and internationally – funding the Trumps or, variations of, will stll be around.
He’s got people around him that make and propose plans. He goes along because he’s convinced it will keep people off his back like they were during term one and he missed out on more money making opportunities for himsel, family, and associates.
He’s another frontman for billionaires, mostly trust fund, with regressive ideas. Some are calling themselves “accelerationists”. They are…in a Back To The Future kind of way.
The obsession with surveillance indicates heightened paranoia.
Listening to the L Wilkerson Nima interview while reading NC.
The key section coup related is at 1 hour, 11 minutes (not 11 minutes and 11 seconds).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KivkUkCCQ60
Of more immediate concern are the status of the 2026 mid term elections. I believe the dispatch of armed ICE agents employing terrorist tactics against helpless populations while being backed up up by National Guard troops is setting the predicate for a massive armed response to any potential protests that may occur after massive election fraud. A Democratic takeover of Congress means a myriad of investigations and the high possibility of impeachment proceedings to follow. Trump et al has no intention of allowing that to happen. They will use any and all means at their disposal to prevent it.
With all due respect… He’s already been impeached twice. So, it’s either third
time is the charm, or the Senate is a three-time loser.
Trump was on record in 2016 inviting his supporters to commit fraud by casting both mail-in and in-person ballots, so he does have a factual basis for his accusations…
I do believe that the strategy is to provoke sufficient street protests to allow Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Pushing the military into committing lawless acts is an interesting strategy to draw some of the non-Academy middle ranks into the conspiracy.
San Francisco showed that Our Billionaire Overlords don’t like the optics. Most people saw the ineffectiveness of both the BLM Movement and the January 6 riot and just want to go on about their lives in peace — with subsidized transit, child care, health care, and nutrition access.
I’m all for not having Mail-in ballots. But in return, there must be the removal of all e-voting systems. All ballots paper and hand-counted. Also, it would be nice to have voting on a weekend or a holiday.
Yes, this is the way. I think peeps here are getting a little too carried away with the whole Trump=Dictator thing.
Dominion voting machine corp. was recently sold to Republicans. I am doubtful
they can keep their fingers out of that particular pie. Never mind mail-in ballots…
these folks are going for the jugular next election!
Maybe they will do a feint with mail-in
ballots to direct all the attention there while the actual robbery takes place in e-voting.
Not sure we don’t see articles actually focused on the massive amounts of evidence of voter fraud and corruption led by the Democrats now for years vs yet another ‘Trump bad’ article, so over the nonstop lefty hysteria..how can you even trust anything you see, hear or read anymore given the latest BBC scandal. Acknowledge the good things he has brought about and the way he is reshaping what is important for the US. At least we know who is making decisions vs the endless Dem administrations with essentially someone acting as President while unelected officials run the country time and time again.