Trump whining and in general making an ass of himself at his aug. 8 Mar-a-Lago press conference.

Donald Trump is floundering. He’s staying off the campaign trail, with his first appearance in a week scheduled for Montana, a state he is likely to win by double digits in November. He appeared at the conference of the National Association of Black Journalists and attacked Kamala Harris for supposedly not admitting she was black. He held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in which he whined on about the “unconstitutional” process through which Harris had replaced Biden, defended the January 6 Capitol rioters, boasted about crowd size at his rallies, and in general made an ass of himself. Always one to blame others, there are reports of a campaign staff shake up by Trump, with possibly more to come. That is always a sign of trouble.

If Israel sparks a wider war, this will help Trump

A Harris victory is very, very far from certain. Among other things, an explosion of Israel’s war against the Palestinians – including a possible war against Iran – could strengthen Trump. In a tight race, Harris also faces the problem of siding with Israel in its genocidal practices. If she continues, she may lose the key state of Michigan, where Arab-American voters could abandon her. If she changes her stance, though, she may lose pro-Israel Democratic voters nationally. Also, an economic crisis could strike at any time. That would be a huge gain for Trump.

But still, overall, the Harris campaign is making real progress. The most recent polls show her closing the gap with Trump in key swing states and ahead overall nationally. Trump and the Party he controls seem to be increasingly counting on simply overturning the results, like he tried to do in 2020. He failed then, but he and his party have had 4 years to consolidate those efforts. Trump’s provocations at the conference of the National Association of Black Journalists and his plan to visit Montana have only one logical explanation (other than insanity, which is also possible): That is that he is trying to harden up his die hard supporters in order to ensure support for efforts to overturn the 2024 election.

It may seem incredible that one of the two major parties in the U.S. would try to overturn a presidential election, but then it seemed incredible that Trump would win in 2016 or that he would orchestrate a violent coup attempt which invaded the Capitol in 2021. That’s why we should consider the different routes through which Trump and his party might use, and in fact in some cases are already using, to accomplish this end.

Congressional route
One possible route is through Congress. The final act before inaugurating the new president is that the vice president, who is the chair of the Senate, counts up the electoral votes and declares the winner (assuming that one candidate has secured a majority of electoral votes). That declaration can be challenged if at least one Senator and one Representative do so in writing. It seems pretty certain that in the event of a Harris victory there will be such challenges. For it to succeed, the Republicans will have to gain a majority in both houses and their majority must stick together.

It is impossible to know whether they will succeed in gaining such a majority or if so how large it will be. If the elector result is lopsided for Harris, it seems possible that even a slim Republican majority might not hold together given the outcry that would ensue. If, on the other hand, Republicans only need to throw out, for example, the ten electoral college votes of Minnesota to deprive Harris of an electoral college majority, it seems very possible that they would do that. If neither candidate gets the 270 vote majority, then the House decides the president. That would inevitably mean returning Trump to the White House. 

Chaos will ensue in the event of a coup.

Chaos would ensue.

Refusal to certify route
According to “Democracydocket” the one and only role of election officials and boards is to count up the number of votes for each candidate and report the result. They are not supposed to play any role in determining whether any votes were illegal. If a candidate or a voter thinks that is the case, they can sue in court, but the election  officials and boards are not supposed to play a role. That limitation is being chipped away at by local boards refusing to certify a vote result.

That was the main route they tried in 2020 and it failed. The most notorious attempt was that of the Wayne County election board.That is the county that encompasses the largely black Detroit. The Republicans on the board refused to certify the results. A huge scandal started to develop because the Republicans were in effect returning to the Jim Crow vote denial methods of the South in pre Civil Rights days. In a face-saving deal, the Republicans backed down. In dozens of other cases, Republican officials’ refusal to certify election results led to court cases. In every single case, the officials were ordered to certify the results or face fines or jail. They either complied or were replaced.

Trump and his party have been working on shoring up that strategy for the last four years.

Rolling Stone magazine recently carried an extensive report on this. (Rolling Stone published a more recent article on the same issue here. Readers who don’t subscribe to Rolling Stone can read these articles by posting the URL onto the site archive.fo) They reported that there are 70 election officials in some 10 different states who are election deniers. “Since Trump’s loss in 2020, local officials in eight states have delayed or outright refused to certify election results,” they write. The article explains further: “These local boards can’t entirely undo election results, but they can slow the process of certification that’s required to tally statewide results and, crucially for a presidential election, determine how a state’s electoral votes are to be doled out. If local officials refuse to certify results, ‘state courts will force them to do so,’ says Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA.” 

But it’s not that simple. Marc Elias is possibly the most prominent lawyer challenging election denialism. He says “I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.” Republicans “are counting on not just that they can disrupt the election in big counties, they are counting on the fact that if they don’t certify in several small counties, you cannot certify these statewide results.”

Georgia, which could be a key state in determining the presidential result, recently took an important step towards empowering the election deniers. There, the Republican controlled state election board voted that county election boards will make a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying those results. Given the lying and hysteria of the election deniers, it’s pretty clear what “reasonable” means to them. The key counties are in and around Atlanta, where black voters are concentrated.

“Cowboy for Trump” Cuoy Griffin with his leader. He doesn’t need facts. All he needs is his “intuition”.

The approach of the election deniers can be seen in the statement of one such denier, Otero County New Mexico commissioner Cuoy Griffin, founder of the Cowboys for Trump and a participant in the January 6 coup attempt. He explained his refusal to certify the election like this: “My vote… isn’t based on any evidence, it’s not based on any facts, it’s only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition, and that’s all I need.”

Supreme Court and “independent state legislature” theory
One way or another, election denialism is likely to end up in the Supreme Court. In 2020, they threw out all the denialists’ challenges. That does not necessarily mean they will do so again. A tipoff is the legal “independent state legislature” theory (ISLT). Oaklandsocialist has discussed this in our article on the Supreme Court. We explained: “This theory bases itself on the Constitutional clause which says that the “time, places and manner” of holding elections shall be determined in each state by each state’s legislature, except that the Congress may make changes in the elections. Advocates of ISLT interpret the relevant Constitutional clause to mean that state courts have no say in what the legislatures do in, for example, redistricting (gerrymandering). But the theory goes even further. An article in the New Yorker explained that “A still more drastic version of the theory—not one directly at issue in the case, but one that might follow from its logic—could allow a legislature to award its state’s Electoral College votes to any Presidential candidate, even one who lost its popular vote.” In fact, that was the basis of several of the Republican state challenges to the 2020 presidential election outcome. The theory sounds so extreme that one might think it can never move into the mainstream. Again, the New Yorker explains that ISLT was  “a line of legal reasoning that scarcely existed twenty-five years ago but has since traveled from the fringes of legal discourse to the centers of power,” just as has the “original intent” theory.”

The US Supreme Court in effect rejected this theory in its 2023 ruling on Moore v. Harper. But that ruling was a 6-3 majority, with Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch voting in the minority. In other words, they accept the independent state legislature theory. Since then, the other MAGA (in)Justices have moved further down the MAGA road. In particular was their recent ruling that as president, Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for any “official act”. Despite the fact that the MAGA (in)Justices claim to be strict adherents to the Constitution, that ruling has absolutely no basis in that document. Nor does it have any basis in law. It is strictly a pro-Trump ruling. However, a recent article in CNN news shows how the Court operates behind the scenes. It shows that the (in)Justices negotiate and compromise just like elected politicians do. That means that, although they are more insulated, ultimately they are subject to political pressure also.

Voter suppression
There are two means of voter suppression. One of these means is through changing the regulations and laws. Most notorious was the Georgia law which, among other things, prohibits giving out water to people waiting on line to vote. The Brennan Center summarized new laws that make it more difficult to vote by mail. Here’s what they wrote about an Alabama law: “Alabama’s new law  imposes criminal penalties on any person who submits another voter’s mail ballot application. It also makes it a crime to distribute a pre-filled absentee ballot application or to receive or provide payment or a gift for distributing, collecting, or submitting a mail ballot application. Interpreted broadly, the latter provision could impose criminal penalties for providing postage stamps or gas money to a neighbor who distributes absentee ballot applications. It could also be read to prohibit civic engagement groups — which often pay their staff or give their volunteers token gifts such as stickers — from assisting absentee voters.” Laws like these make it more difficult for the poor and those with less access to education to vote. Due to racism, that falls disproportionately on black voters. The Supreme Court paved the way for such laws by their gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

Another means of voter suppression is through intimidation, terrorism and violence. The Republican Party is gearing up to send “poll watchers” to key polling places. They will be deployed at key polling places in largely black and latino areas. Nobody knows to what degree they will operate. Maybe even more ominous is the threat of violent terrorism. The Institute for Strategic Dialog published a study in August of this year on how different racist groups in the U.S. have learned from their legal problems. They have modernized their clandestine organizing to make infiltrating them more difficult. Therefore, we don’t really know exactly what they are planning. It is entirely possible that they are planning terrorist attacks on polling places in Detroit, Atlanta and similar key centers for black voters.

Political conclusions
Recently, Rachel Maddow interviewed progressive Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren. They discussed the whole Republican plan to overturn the coming election results should Harris win. Warren said that the counter to that was to (1) win a huge Democratic majority; and (2) challenge any attempts in court. Although with Trump flailing about as he is, a decisive Democratic majority is not the most likely result, and as far as relying on the courts, given the direction of the MAGA-controlled US Supreme Court, relying on the courts is equally dicey.

In any case, while a Harris/Democratic victory would hold MAGA off for a short while, MAGA is not going to go away. After all, they are not a strictly national phenomenon; similar movements and even governments exist from India to Denmark. These far right authoritarian movements and governments are rising because of the conditions that result from the crisis of capitalism and the absence of an independent working class movement. As for the perspectives for a possible Harris presidency, Oaklandsocialist is researching her background and her connections and we will be writing more on that in the near future. Suffice it to say for the moment that she will not resolve the issues that workers, the poor and the oppressed face in the United States, and that will leave the conditions for the future growth of MAGA… unless an independent working class movement develops.

The best place for it to start right now is a mobilization in the streets, work places, working class schools and communities, and in the unions, to stop the Republicans from stealing the 2024 election.