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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
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Author: wzambon ✶❂🐝 BRONZE
SHREWD   😊 😞
Number: of 84346 
Subject: Things to Watch For
Date: 07/16/26 4:43 PM
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Ben-Ghiat’s warning is not merely that Trump lies about elections. It is that strongmen use alleged threats to make extraordinary power sound like ordinary protection. First comes the crisis. Then comes the claim that normal institutions cannot handle it. Finally, the leader arrives to announce that only he can save the country from the emergency he has spent months inflating.

Listen carefully for the rhetorical leap from “voting machines may contain vulnerabilities” to “therefore Donald Trump requires expanded power.”

Those statements are not logically connected. Your house may have a weak lock, but that does not prove Bolivia stole your toaster six years ago.

There is an 85 percent chance theoretical vulnerabilities will be presented as evidence that votes were actually changed. This is like proving banks can be robbed, then demanding reimbursement for a robbery nobody can establish occurred.

There is also a strong probability Trump will connect 2020 to the coming midterm elections. He is not revisiting the past because he has developed a late interest in archival research. November is approaching, congressional control is at stake, and Trump’s election strategy has always included a backup plan called “the election was fraudulent.”

Watch for attacks on state election officials. The Constitution gives states a central role in administering elections, but Trump has always regarded constitutional limits as charming historical decorations, like powdered wigs or the Emoluments Clause.

There is a 75 percent chance Democrats will be portrayed as both completely incompetent and capable of coordinating the most sophisticated conspiracy in human history. In Trump’s telling, Democrats cannot manage a budget, a border, or a bicycle lane, yet they can secretly organize governors, judges, election workers, software engineers, foreign governments, and thousands of local officials without producing evidence stronger than a blurry screenshot posted by someone named PatriotEagle1776.

There is a 65 percent chance communists will be blamed. In modern MAGA vocabulary, “communist” can mean anyone from Karl Marx to a librarian who refuses to remove a book about Rosa Parks.

There is a near certainty that Trump will cast himself as the principal victim. Not voters. Not election workers who received threats. Not public servants pressured to “find” votes.

Donald Trump.

This is a man who returned to the presidency, controls the executive branch, dominates the Republican Party, and commands nightly attention from the national press, yet still requires periodic television specials explaining how cruelly America has treated him.

The central issue tonight will not be how loudly Trump makes the accusation. In his political universe, volume is evidence, repetition is confirmation, and capitalization is practically forensic science.

The real question is what remedy he proposes.

If Trump calls for transparent audits, bipartisan oversight, stronger cybersecurity, independent investigations, and cooperation with state officials, that would be recognizable governance, although delivered by a man who treats restraint like a food allergy.

But if he calls for emergency powers, federal control of voting systems, investigations of political opponents, restrictions aimed at likely Democratic voters, or advance suspicion of any election Republicans might lose, then Ben-Ghiat’s warning will no longer sound like academic speculation.

It will sound like the program being announced from the stage.

Tonight, Americans should watch carefully to see whether Trump is protecting elections, or merely teaching the country that no election is legitimate unless Donald Trump approves the winner.

open.substack.com - Tonight trump will discover americas
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This community has written 84,309 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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