@tknarr @va3ekr@mastodon.radio Trump has abused the powers of his office in many previously unimaginable ways. But that doesn’t mean that he’s an all powerful monarch who can do whatever he pleases. The people who want you to believe that he is mostly work for HIM. It’s weird that they’ve somehow convinced many his opponents of it, too.
Discussion
Loading...
@mattblaze but deploying ice around targeted polling stations could be very worrisome
@va3ekr That would be a bad thing, but it’s not “nationalizing elections”. There are plenty of bad things that a president might do to try to tilt elections that don’t involve federalizing them. But he can’t actually federalize them. Full stop.
Elections are run by states. This is spelled out in the plain text of the constitution. Changing that would require ameding the constitution. Amending the constitution is a very involved process. I’m not sure what’s difficult about this.
@mattblaze I see a large federal deployment of ICE during elections as a functional equivalent as federalization, and something to be very worried about. To imagine that a federalization of elections would appear as some mythical federal agency descending and "taking over" seems a lack of imagination. ICE may have origins in the domain of immigration, but really they are just a private military with no oversight.
For me, this is the "this isn't hard" moment
@va3ekr whatever You’re the elections expert.
@mattblaze wow, that got childish quickly. Not going to engage with that rude outburst
@va3ekr oh noes! A random stranger disapproves of me!
@mattblaze unnecessarily rude. V shouldn't you be on Twitter?
@va3ekr @mattblaze He can *try* to federalize them, Constitution or no, but succeeding depends on whether that state goes along with him or not. More than a few state governments would probably go along with him, which is a problem. If course if he's as heavy-handed as he's been with immigration, the whole exercise would backfire on him leather spectacularly.
@tknarr @va3ekr he can declare himself to be president for life, or create a fifth branch of government, too. But those things don’t actually happen without a constitutional amendment.
Maybe it’s better to worry about things he actually CAN do, which is quite a bit. Because the US presidency is a very powerful office even without the ability to unilaterally alter the constitution.
How many times have they violated the constitution already and gotten away with it? I’ve lost count.
We can’t rely on the constitution to protect us because as long as he’s got enough co-conspirators in the senate, the people whose job it is to protect the constitution will protect him instead.
He doesn’t need to take over every state’s elections, just enough swing states to matter.
@tknarr @va3ekr@mastodon.radio Trump has abused the powers of his office in many previously unimaginable ways. But that doesn’t mean that he’s an all powerful monarch who can do whatever he pleases. The people who want you to believe that he is mostly work for HIM. It’s weird that they’ve somehow convinced many his opponents of it, too.
@mattblaze
Thanks for all you do, Matt! I was wondering if you had any general recommendations for what citizens who are concerned can do to help do something about the different negative potentialities in regards to election security?
@tknarr
1 more replies (not shown)
@tknarr @mattblaze It's less that he's an "All powerful monarch", and more that he can attempt these things he's apparently not supposed to be allowed to do...and nobody is stopping him.
That is, if he "tries" to "nationalize elections" by having ICE stand around polling stations and attempt to suppress the vote by jailing citizens that "ICE think are not proven citizens"...nobody seems like they would stop him *before* citizens were wrongfully detained under an attempt to suppress election turnout.
Like, we had a similar issue here in Canada where the current Mayor wasn't allowed to suppress votes, but he *was* allowed to slash the budget for byelections so that we had two days of City Hall as Advanced Voting polls...and then every polling location on day of was *heavily* with 3+ hour wait times in lines...even when polls closed.
1+ more replies (not shown)
@tknarr When someone says “the constitution doesn’t matter any more”, they’re doing Trump’s work for him.
The constitution matters a whole fucking lot.
2 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze thanks for all your posts and work here! It helps me as a foreigner to put all that stuff a little bit more into context when talking with my friends and family about what is going in the United States!
Matt, I suspect that your point of view and mine are not really in opposition.
It might clarify matters, if you would point out 2 or 3 very real, immediate threats to democracy to get worked up about right now. Are they direct, immediate threats to 2026 elections? If so, are we really disagreeing? Or is it just choice of words?
(I spent the equivalent of 2-3 years sitting in faculty meetings, listening to people yell about stuff where there was no real disagreement.)
@oldclumsy_nowmad I said what I said. Perhaps you find it useful. Perhaps not. I don’t particularly feel the need to sell it to you, random stranger.
@mattblaze i disagree. this is part of their plan to prep the battlefield. will trump successfully nationalize elections? probably not, but that's not really the goal. the goal is to make it so they win regardless of how many votes they get.
so this at least an attempt to undermine public perception about voting in the US, which on its own is bad for democracy. trump will say fine, 'we won't nationalize the elections, but we will send our brownshirts to all the districts we shouldn't win, and make it so we win."
we dismiss trump at our own peril. the guy attacked another country and kidnapped the president. he's murdered hundreds of people blowing up boats. the man raped a woman in a department store dressing room. do not underestimate this person.
@arrrg I don’t know what the goal is, but I do know that president has no power to nationalize elections, which are a state function under the constitution.
Perhaps you don’t find my observation helpful to you. Perhaps others do.
@mattblaze @arrrg@kolektiva.social I don't know what you are observing!
It seems to me that Trump makes the rules and nationalizing the elections is well within his power. Apparently you haven't seen that so far, the Constitution means nothing to him and he has a few thousand well armed storm troopers to see that it continues!
@Waldorf again, you are obviously too well informed, savvy, and attractive to be in the target audience for my posts. I suggest you follow accounts better suited to your high level of intellectual prowess than mine.
The quality of the sarcasm on display here is worthy of an award of Honorary Englishman
@mattblaze@federate.social @arrrg@kolektiva.social I'm sure raiding election offices and arresting election officials leading up to the election is on the table for them
He says "nationalize" the elections, but he doesn't mean nationwide. He knows that if he "nationalizes" the elections in Alabama or Texas or GA or NC or SC or... his "base" won't stand for that. Same for rural parts of Minnesota, Ohio, etc., etc.
By "nationalizing" he means Federal goons and military stealing ballot boxes and voting machines (and arresting voters) in Democrat-leaning cities of the states he hates. "15 places" or thereabouts. Just enough to steal the election.
@oldclumsy_nowmad he was very specific that he meant the federal government runs the elections in some states. Which is simply not a thing that the constitution provides for.
I'm with you. Nationalizing elections is totally contrary to the Constitution.
But how much of the Constitution have they already thrown away? A bunch! They're confident they can toss it all out. I'm not sure they are right about that, but I'm also not sure they are wrong. If the 15 cities include the State capitals...
We can't assume the Constitution will hold, unless we make a fierce fight. And be prepared to support the honest judges and governors with whatever it takes.
@oldclumsy_nowmad please explain how they actually do this. There are already states currently running elections, with enormous infrastructure and staffing at the county level that follow state laws. How does the federal government take them over? How exactly is this supposed to work?
@mattblaze @oldclumsy_nowmad to the best of my understanding, if they are not planning to have free and fair elections, they don’t need most of this infrastructure or staffing. Something as simple as putting a designated official (DHS if they justify by illegal immigrants fraud) to scare/arrest undesirable voters in locations that already favor them and shut down others; or switch to “secret” online voting through an app by one of friendly tech oligarchs.
@mattblaze @oldclumsy_nowmad it would take a self coup, basically, because it means extrajudicially overturning all elections. I don't think he has the military support for that. If he does, well, that's a done deal, election or not. It would be civil war.
@oldclumsy_nowmad @mattblaze my best guess would be: on election night have armed goons (FBI?) turn up at counting centres in Democrat areas, claiming there's election interference afoot (all the rhetoric from the Biden election), and rummage through the ballots removing "fake" ones, claiming they're evidence of a crime. States stop the counts and enter prolonged legal battles to get them back, election result is postponed Trump exploits turmoil to remain in power.
I really, truly, fervently hope you are right. I'll be ecstatic when/if my worry turns out to be needless.
@mattblaze and saying this is completely disingenuous, misleading, and ignores reality.
He can't deport people illegally. He can't send people to foreign countries to be tortured illegally. He can't rename the Kennedy center illegally.
These are not self-enforcing things. If they are saying they are going to seize control of elections by force, then guess what? They sure as fuck are going to try. And they don't CARE if they screw it up. Screwing it up is the POINT.
@mattblaze He can't "nationalize" elections, for the reasons you give, but I wouldn't call it "meaningless blather" either. It fits into and reinforces what he *is* doing to disrupt elections in his favor, not by preventing them, but by intimidating voters and officials in key places. We have plenty of historic examples of voter suppression and bias in running polls, and he's already been able to shift other behavior in some states (and universities) via "orders" that shouldn't have legal force.
@mattblaze the sheer amount of nonsense that comes out of that man, gets "supported" by the GOP, and amplified by a credulous press is just astounding. He has weaponized the signal to noise ratio and is using it to his own benefit (and his supporters lack the critical thinking skills to realize it's all misdirection)
@mattblaze Ok so nationalizing by decree is out. What are the election dangers we/the US people should be worrying about?
@mattblaze I don't have the legal authority to drive 75 in a 60 mph zone, but if nobody writes the ticket, I get away with it.
@hellomiakoda but if your car can’t go 75, you can’t do itnin the first place. And there is simply no mechanism through which a US president can nationalize US elections, which are run by state and local governments.
@mattblaze the "practical ability" thing is the one I'm most curious about here.
He's broken laws (has he not?) so far, and people complied? Is that being mis-represented in media? e.g. there's lawsuits around tariffs? People told Trump "you can't do it, it's illegal", and yet he still did it, and his goons followed through? Why wouldn't the same work with elections, given he still has a compliant base of supporters, incl. among officials?
@dominykas It’s like asking why he can’t suspend laws of thermodynamics or declare himself to be eight feet tall. It’s simply not a thing he controls.
@mattblaze @dominykas He declares himself to be 6'3" and while that doesn't make it so. That's what's recorded in many records and what many choose to believe. If a similar number of people chose to believe that Trumps self appointed authority to nationalize elections was valid, what are the practical limitations there?
@mattblaze @dominykas Matt - first of kudos for your patience and for your long years of expertise in the topic (and the fact you engage with the public).
As an outside observer (not from the US, so certainly cannot appreciate all the intrinsic issues for the US), I think that the sentiment fueling the fear is based on things people see ICE (or similar schenenigans). The federal gov't seems to operate ICE outside the local law in many places, not adhering to the rule of law >>>
@mkilmo @dominykas Trump has done all sorts of terrible things. That doesn’t mean that his powers are unlimited, or that every terrible thing he might want to do is equally achievable.
What ICE is doing is terrible, but enforcing immigration laws has long (and uncontroversially) been an executive branch power. Running elections, on the other hand, simply isn’t.
@mkilmo @dominykas Elections are simply totally outside of what the president controls, not to mention what anyone involved in them thinks he controls. This is very different from almost everything else he’s done, which involved misusing or abusing existing presidential power in some way.
It’s like if he declared that Rhode Island is no longer a state. Everyone would just shrug.
Normally speaking. But aren't things changed now? His personal law firm, also known as DOJ is putting the screws on blue states to get voter data. And his personal police force, also known as FBI, has taken actual physical voter material from a state.
1+ more replies (not shown)
@mkilmo @dominykas And he’s done this ineffective stuff before, including with elections. A few months back he issued an executive order “banning” vote-by-mail, which had exactly no effect whatsoever. This is the same as that.
1 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze @mkilmo @dominykas Serious Q: do you trust J. D. Vance to certify the election count is accurate on January 6th 2028? (Assuming Trump lasts that long.)
1+ more replies (not shown)
Before the laws of thermodynamics we had folklore.
You can't put the genie back in the bottle but Trump can decimate it's followers with his threats.
@mattblaze @dominykas Wait. So you consider human laws to be of the same order as the laws of nature? That seems like a very dangerous assumption, a luxury of privilege.
@lastofthem @dominykas I may be rude, dangerously stupid, and endowed with unearned privilege, but Trump still has no ability to nationalize US elections.
@lastofthem @dominykas You know what’s *really* dangerous and full of privilege? Ignoring the details of how complex things you don’t actually understand(like how US elections work) work in order to make dramatic but unwarranted pronouncements of doom.
@mattblaze @dominykas Pointing out that the US president making claims about 'nationalizing elections' is a worrying state of affairs is neither dramatic nor a 'pronouncement of doom'. A US president who talks carelessly about democratic processes like that, is kind of disturbing and shouldn't be laughed away.
@mattblaze They should put that on billboards to remind everyone, every day.
@mattblaze @lastofthem @dominykas what is your point now if I may ask politely?
@diasyy11 My point is what I said it was: Trump, for the reasons I mentioned, simply has no legal or practical ability to nationalize US elections.
3+ more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze @dominykas He has no legal ability. He has plenty of illegal ones he may or may not risk.
@dominykas @mattblaze laws of thermodinamics are not political laws. Not saying that states will comply, but he can push a lot on that.
@theklan @dominykas Feel free to worry about whatever you want. Trump federalizing elections, monsters under the bed, witches, whatever. I don’t really care. I said my thing.
@mattblaze @dominykas you don't to be rude. I wanted to note that political laws may change, it's the basis for an authoritarian regime.
@theklan @dominykas Wow! What an interesting and insightful point! I had no idea!
1+ more replies (not shown)
I dread when Trump makes these proclamations, because it’s a denial of service attack against me and every other election expert with better things to do than explain why this is BS over and over. But other than that, it’s just empty, meaningless blather.
@mattblaze reminder.
Nobody took Johnson's blabbering about "brexit", either, when his group of chuds *suggested* a non binding referendum about it. And ::motions at UK::
Law is only what people make of it, and only valid if they are willing to enforce and defend.
MAGAty trial balloons are dangerous.
@mattblaze Are you concerned that he will simply "make it happen," as he has with other illegal orders he's made over the last year? Apparently the Constitution and the law have no force against his will.
@jonkl no, for the various reasons I mentioned.
@mattblaze it's really hard to find the balance between "I can't let this ignorance go unchallenged" and "I can't waste my life challenging every ignorant thing this man says." Am I responsibly responding to dangerous misinformation or am I being suckered into rolling around in the mud with a pig who enjoys rolling in the mud? It is so frustrating because the uncertainty just adds to the sense of hopelessness and feeds apathy.
@mattblaze this is unsurprisingly similar to when they make new public health rules these days
@mattblaze What else did you expect from Donald Trump? What you say here applies to every stupid utterance the goon makes.
@khleedril no, some of the things a president says have immediate, highly consequential, impact. But this is not one of them.
I could go into detail about what the limits on executive and federal control over US elections are, and what the president could do to exert influence over them, but it would be extremely tedious and irrelevant to the actual reality here, which is that this is a nothing burger.
@mattblaze Honest question:
What are the practical limits on these power if Congress, the Supreme Court, and the entire Executive Branch is all aboard Trump's extralegal agenda?
@soatok that’s an extremely broad question. I’m specifically discussing Trump’s ability to nationalize elections (which aren’t run by the federal government).
@mattblaze And many of the things his administration havs done are also illegal. That didn't impede him much.
"It's illegal for him to-" okay but who fucking enforces the law here?
In too many instances, the answer is, "People loyal to Trump." He has a literal cult following.
@soatok about what? Some laws are easier for a president to violate than others. It’s easy for a president to make unlawful arrests of immigrants, because the executive branch has broad authority to enforce immigration laws. It’s harder for a president to take over a state election administration because he doesn’t control states.
1+ more replies (not shown)
Scale of US elections:
51 states (and DC), each with its own election laws
Most ballot questions are for state and local offices and initiatives
~ 5000 local election administration jurisdictions (mostly counties and townships), which run election logistics
~ 115,000 local polling places, mostly borrowed for election day
~ 750,000 election day workers
~ 138,000,000 ballots cast in 2016, 82,000,000 of which at local polling places on election day.
@mattblaze While I agree that the full scale is huge, what would be the smallest subset that Trump needs to take control of or interfere with, to achieve his aims? Is it still in the realm of the impossible?
@mattblaze I'm not an election expert, but it's interesting to compare this with the electoral apparatus in India, which is considerably larger, but also more federalised (and presumably more recent) and now completely dependent on electronic voting machines. (It's also been pretty thoroughly subverted in recent years, but that's as an aside, because I'm not mentioning it to disagree with your point about US elections.)
@mattblaze I should stop declaring things "non-starters" but Americans like and trust their local elections.
It’s hard to overstate just how huge this system is, or how many moving parts are involved. And almost all of it operates at the local level, governed by state laws and local practices and tied to the structure of local government.
This is not something you can just snap your fingers and take over by fiat or force, not to mention the fact that it’s all deeply embedded in federal and state constitutional structures.
@mattblaze having worked in a presidential election at a data engineering role, while the apparatus is huge and federated, generally the end result can be influenced by narrowly targeting a small number of precincts. If they try to use force or intimidation, it will be applied at those points unfortunately.
@phredmoyer that’s still not nationalizing elections. That’s just intimidation.
Elections are run by states. Period. It’s literally in the constitution.
@mattblaze what do you think happens if the SAVE act passes?
@mattblaze With all the other craziness going on, the complexity and decentralization of the election system is a great comfort to me. Every guardrail in opposition to petulant felon kings is a blessing.
One (very risky) thing that Trump could potentially do would be to use federal law enforcement and/or military to *disrupt* elections to prevent them from happening altogether. It’s not clear that doing this yields him any benefit, or that enough people would obey his orders to have wide impact.
This is essentially a nuclear option. The outcome is no legitimate government, and likely civil war. And if he really wants a civil war, he can start one in other ways without taking over elections.
@mattblaze I feel like this could be done with a very minimal footprint by deploying ICE in pivotal neighborhoods in swing states to suppress the vote through intimidation and delay, targeted using voter rolls (where he's gained access to them) and personal information extracted by DOGE from various federal agencies
1+ more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze what mechanism would govern one or two states' results being so obviously disrupted that they can't be verified? Is there an explainer for this kind of contingency you can point to that's reasonably correct? Or is there stinky no plan, and it's just whichever states manage to send electors, that's it?
1 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze I keep trying to tell people this. "Cancelling elections" via martial law/civil war kind of creates a bigger issue than “no elections”
@mattblaze Trump can deploy ICE to drive around and pick up anyone "looking suspiciously like foreigner" in all counties that historically vote democratic.
Doesn't matter if they're really foreigners, just having ICE driving around and potentially arresting you is enough to suppress voters.
1 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze dc elections are quite vulnerable
@mattblaze election worker here. I simultaneously believe our elections are secure, and that they are vulnerable to a fascist takeover. When the laws are followed, any fraud is easy to detect and on an individual level that won't change the outcome. /1
1+ more replies (not shown)
But this is far fetched and almost certainly counter to Trump’s interests, which presumably include not getting himself killed in a coup if he fails. And again, disrupting elections isn’t really essential for this.
4 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze
It aeems to me that his "power" across the board (that is, irrespective of which elections & where they occur) appears to be theatrical declarations to the press & on social media — which do affect many people when they hear/read them — and the general ability to create chaos and more intimidation by, for example, putting any sort of "enforcement" agents on streets & around polling places. Those could be ICE, National Guard, regular military, et al., legal or not.
Correct assumption?
@RunRichRun he has an enormous platform to promote chaos, as we saw on Jan 6. But that’s not unlimited. Being able to summon an angry mob to break things isn’t the same as being able to take over and actually run complex systems.
1 more replies (not shown)
@mattblaze what do you make of the DOJ and DNI taking possession of Fulton county GA's 2020 ballot machines?
@pinsk not going to rehash this. I posted a lengthy thread about this it the weekend.
@mattblaze I'll look for it again, didn't see it, thanks
@mattblaze I disagree only to the extent that we should pay attention when Trump says his intentions out loud. No, be5 can't nationalize elections. But yes, he just admitted he wants to rig them, in a way that might bother even our slower fellow citizens.