Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024, in New York City. | Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP
Most of the outside world’s focus during the 2024 US election will be on Donald Trump’s victory, but many Americans are concerned about the opposite outcome – including some of his most vocal opponents.
The former Republican president, who is hotly contested by Democrat Kamala Harris in the race for the White House, has never acknowledged the legitimacy of electoral defeats – from the 2016 Iowa primary to the 2020 presidential contest.
His refusal has greatly polarized the country of late, and his continued efforts to sow distrust in US democracy have fueled fears of violent incidents seen in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
“If he loses this year, I have no doubt that he will claim fraud, leave no stone unturned to reverse the results, and refuse to attend Ms. Harris’s inauguration,” said Donald Nieman, a political analyst at Binghamton University in the state of New York. York. .
“He’s not just a loser, he’s a guy who won’t admit he’s a loser.”
Former President Trump’s rap sheet shows that it’s not beyond him to try to rig the election.
He has 34 felony convictions for a scandal involving cover-up payments to silence a porn star who was feared to be damaging his 2016 campaign with a good story about sex.
And he has been indicted twice and indicted a second time on charges of stealing or cheating in the 2020 election, which he still hasn’t pleaded guilty to.
Rejected by the American people four years ago, Mr. Trump and his allies flooded the zone with false claims of irregularities and fraud.
A deadly riot
Mr. Trump’s critics worry about a repeat of the violence that resulted from the lie — deadly riots by angry mobs that Mr. Trump invited to Washington, pumped up by claims of voter fraud and sent to the Capitol.
Especially since he’s here again.
“If they lose, I don’t say anything, it could be because they cheated. That’s the only way we’re going to lose — because they’re lying,” the 78-year-old told a rally in Michigan last month.
Mr. Trump has exploded baseless concerns about the legitimacy of vote counts, foreign votes, the reliability of mail-in ballots and many others.
The former president and his allies set the stage for the 2021 riots through legal means – more than 60 lawsuits in general complain about the way state and local authorities changed voting rules to take into account the raging pandemic.
But he lost in every substantive case, with the judge ruling that objections to the organization of elections must be filed before the first election.
Republicans hit the ground running this time, filing more than 100 lawsuits before early voting began over every aspect of the election, from how Americans register and vote to who gets to vote.
Many suitors are seeking to limit access to the polls and most will not be settled on Election Day, but experts say this is a disbelief in the vote counting that Mr. Trump and other conspiracy theorists have been insisting on for years.
‘Sporadic violence’
“Legal skirmishes can drag on for weeks, and depending on the intensity, can lead to protests or sporadic violence in certain areas,” said political analyst Adrienne Uthe, founder of Utah-based PR firm Kronus Communications.
Almost two-thirds of Americans expect post-election violence, a Scripps News/Ipsos poll on Thursday found, and most support using the military to quell unrest after polls open on November 5.
More than a quarter believe civil war could break out, according to a new YouGov poll, with 12 per cent saying they knew someone who might take up arms if they thought Mr Trump had been lied to.
The intelligence community expressed concern about the potential for bloodshed in a report on election threats from foreign actors that was declassified, redacted and released last week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Violence, violence, or physical threats that are foreign-instigated or escalated … can challenge the ability of state and local officials to carry out elements of the Electoral College certification and process,” he said.
Security measures have been stepped up in Washington in anticipation of potential unrest, although analysts were contacted AFP see a repeat of the 2021 uprising in the capital as impossible, with hundreds of prosecutors acting as a strong deterrent.
But he warned of the potential for violence in war-torn countries during and after elections.
“The biggest fear is violence in Madison, Wisconsin; Lansing, Michigan; or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania by supporters of Mr. Trump armed designed to prevent voters from casting their votes,” said Mr. Nieman.
Published – 28 October 2024 11:28 IST
