How Trump Can Steal the 2020 Election

by Margaret Kimberley, published on Black Agenda Report, August 5, 2020

The election was stolen from Clinton four years ago and the even weaker 2020 candidate can expect the same fate.

“No one in the media or the Democratic Party gives a basic civics lesson or talks about how elections are really stolen.”

Republicans win the presidency when they steal votes. Democrats need a huge turnout to undo the impact of so-called “spoiled ballots,” electronic vote machine theft and the removal of Democratic voters, i.e. Black people, from the rolls. These methods will of course be used in November and ought to be the basis for concerns regarding any electoral malfeasance.

It is important to remember the real electoral threats when Donald Trump decides to have fun with America’s collective reptile brain. When he tweeted that he might postpone the election, people who should have known better immediately began responding with anger and fear. The corporate media, who love the president because he is always good copy, failed to inform the public about American law and how presidential elections are regulated.

Simply put, election day can’t be changed absent congressional action. Nor can a president stay in office if he loses. If Trump loses he will no longer be president on January 20, 2021. While the Trumpian desire to mess with our heads continues, no one in the media or the Democratic Party gives a basic civics lesson or talks about how elections are really stolen. Once again Trump is used as the perfect foil, a poster child for vote blue no matter who. His every nonsensical remark is a substitute for policy change that would motivate the high voter turn-out that democrats need.

“Trump is used as the perfect foil, a poster child for vote blue no matter who.”

This year presents a new opportunity for wrong doing. Many states are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with increased availability of voting by mail instead of at polling places. That process solves one problem but creates many new ones. In New York City mailed ballots are still being counted  six weeks after a primary. Not only was there a deluge of 400,000 ballots but rules about whether postmarks were or were not needed led to disqualified votes and court challenges. Voting by mail presents the prospect of a delayed count and a possibility that the outcome may not be known until long after Election Day.

Meanwhile Republicans in states like Wisconsin are still working to remove 120,000 people  from the rolls. Wisconsin is among those states that were supposed to be safe for Hillary Clinton but voter identification laws and restrictions on college student voting took thousands of votes away from her. During primaries in 2000 long lines resulted when people who requested mail-in ballots didn’t receive them. They didn’t receive them because they had been purged from the rolls. They may have been given provisional ballots but those are nearly always thrown out and are worthless. But none of these tried and true methods are discussed by the corporate media which prefers to give credence to Trump’s rants.

They don’t give attention to the possibility of Trump doing something that would be extraordinary but quite legal. He can contest the election and the electoral college results and demand a vote in the House of Representatives as the 12th amendment  to the Constitution allows. Despite a Democratic majority, more state delegations are under Republican control and would give Trump the victory.

“Provisional ballots but those are nearly always thrown out and are worthless.”

Polls showing a Biden win must be ignored. The same pollsters said Hillary Clinton would prevail in 2016 but she isn’t the one in the White House. The election was stolen from her and the even weaker 2020 candidate can expect the same fate.

But Republican treachery is not solely at fault. Despite having the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections stolen from them, the Democrats won’t point out the obvious. They cynically go along because their corruption steals votes from progressives. Bernie Sanders lost 500,000 votes  in the 2020 California primary through a complicated system meant to keep challengers at bay. Election integrity would put the power of the Democratic Party establishment at risk. It would also force them to stand up as a real political party and not a happy member of the duopoly who masquerade as an opposition.

Trump can steal the election but not in the ways we have been told. Election theft is an American tradition. Denying that it exists is also a tradition and 2020 may look like 2016.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere.  Her new book, Prejudential, looks at the history of US Presidents treatment of people of color.  She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and she regularly posts on Twitter @freedomrideblog.   She is a member of the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Movement.  Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.