After Jan.6, US election overturn could be more organized, perhaps more lethal
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A Sputnik interview with professors and renowned personalities revealed that after Trump's failure of overturning the election outcomes, the next election may witness 'smarter' logistics.
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The January 6 Capitol Riots: How US 'democracy' can go so extreme it leads to killings.
According to analysts who spoke to Sputnik, efforts to overturn the coming US presidential election will be more rigorous and better planned out than last year's, which witnessed the storming of the US Capitol.
Last year's attack on the Capitol was made to block the vote certification. Trump and his administration attempted to reverse the election results through the court system but failed. However, despite losing 50 lawsuits (amounting to a big fail), the series of events exposed the outdatedness of the electoral college system and vote certification process, both of which can be manipulated.
Read more: White House to hold Trump responsible for Jan. 6 'chaos and carnage'
John Eastman, Trump's legal advisor, proposed in a 2-page memorandum that Mike Pence, then-Trump's Vice President, had the legal authority to reverse the results of the elections.
"Skeptics argued the so-called coup was no more than a riot by right-wing nuts," historian and political commentator Dan Lazare told Sputnik. "But subsequent disclosures such as Trump adviser John Eastman's six-step memo on how to overturn the vote have put all speculation to rest. The attempted coup may not have been very competent. But it was still quite real, and the only lesson Republicans have learned is that next time they should do better."
For this reason, a "more efficient" and "better planned" schema must be planned out for the year 2024, as a similar incident is likely to happen.
"If enough are tied up in court by the time it comes for Congress to certify the results, then the contest will wind up in the House where the voting will proceed on a state-by-state basis as mandated by the Twelfth Amendment and where Republicans enjoy a built-in advantage because they control a majority of state delegations," Lazare explained.
A professor in American History, Peter Kuznick, said that all of the right conditions are set to witness another chaotic year in US elections. "The Republicans in the red states have been putting mechanisms and laws in place to limit potentially Democratic voting," Kuznick said.
"The Republicans in the red states have been putting mechanisms and laws in place to limit potentially Democratic voting," Kuznick said.
Disunity and extremism may be on the horizon - two factors that may lead to violence again, like what happened in the Capitol in January.
A year after January 6, according to Political Science Professor Beau Grosscup, the US has grown increasingly more divided - Grosscup, as a matter of fact, believes that January 6 was a "trial run", as Trump's actions have encouraged right-wing extremism in the US, made martyrs of the rioters, and convinced people that US governance was illegitimately seized.
"If they make major inroads into the military command structure they would have the final tool for their assault," Grosscup warned. "On the other hand, those with the levers of power at this moment still have a chance to stall the more dangerous 'process' efforts now underway."
On the other hand, there are those in the US who are increasingly clinging to "lefter" ideologies as dissatisfaction with globalization and a neglected working class grows.
Read more: The Guardian: Next US civil war is already here
"This gnawing anxiety triggers lefties to embrace a theory that socialism or even communism will work in America," Political analyst and former hedge fund manager Charles Ortel said. "And, a feeling that the system is rigged against the common person also animates those who bet on Trump to bring 'deep state' proponents of corrupt globalism to justice."
Back to square one
Ortel suggested that the real threat to US stability and "order" is when Trump supporters find common grounds with Bernie Sanders' supporters, as they may on several national security, civil rights, and "foreign entanglement issues."
The elections may be hijacked again, and Lazare expresses worry that this may be the case again. "The autogolpistas will succeed whether or not a raging mob gathers on Capitol Hill. Whether the results are quasi or pseudo-constitutional will be unclear.," Lazare said. "But it won't matter because America's 18th-century plan of government will be so broken down by that point that it will be impossible to tell. The only thing that will be clear is that the age of democracy is rapidly fading."
