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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump campaign says it will deploy 'soldiers' to polling places
The Trump campaign says it plans to change tactics from 2020 when Joe Biden beat the then-incumbent president by more than 7 million votes, and this time go on "offense" by having "soldiers" and "poll watchers" at polling places.
Despite the Trump campaign's relentless claims of voter fraud, more than 60 court rulings found those claims to be unsupported by facts: there was no significant voter fraud. Last year The Brookings Institution cited an extensive report from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which found, for example, voter "fraud in Texas amounted to 0.000096% of all ballots cast."
Vowing to "to play offense this time around," Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday, appearing on "The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show," said they are "investing a lot of money into voter integrity efforts to ensure that every American knows their ballot will be cast and counted and matter."
"We're not going to play defense, like we unfortunately did in 2020. We're going to have soldiers, poll watchers on the ground who are making sure that there are no irregularities and fraud like we saw in the last election."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-campaign-says-it-will-deploy-soldiers-to-polling-places/
Link to tweet
NoMoreRepugs
(9,493 posts)Think. Again.
(8,576 posts)...by trump even mentioning it, as he now has, there are now rightwing groups forming to carry out his wishes.
The rightwingers ARE going to try EVERYTHING.
bluestarone
(17,091 posts)Wouldn't surprise me if they put up RAZOR WIRE all around!!
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,828 posts)What "soldiers"?
The US Military or National Guard troops? Guns are NOT allowed at Polling places during voting hours or at ballot counting.
LakeArenal
(28,863 posts)He wont be able to sucker punch police this time.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,690 posts)There was a consent decree against the Republican party dating back to, IIRC, the 80's, when they were hiring off duty armed cops to serve as "poll watchers" in predominantly black precincts. They were prohibited from this practice until 2020, when the consent decree expired.
Different states have different rules regarding guns at polling places. Some states, like AZ, are taking proactive measures to ensure the safety of polling places and poll workers. Other states, not so much.
PatSeg
(47,678 posts)He's not the President. Sounds more like mercenaries I suppose, but that definitely would be illegal.
The man just opens his mouth and random crap flows out.
Think. Again.
(8,576 posts)...the rightwingers are planning to use.
They will be trying every dirty trick they can think of to re-install trump into the Whitehouse.
We should be as prepared as we can be for absolutely anything, and we can't be surprised by how low they WILL go.
eShirl
(18,505 posts)lame54
(35,335 posts)ismnotwasm
(42,021 posts)Assholes
calguy
(5,344 posts)Please... Gimme a break. This is just more mindless banter from a campaign that spends its money on trump's lawyers, not a national effort to watch people vote, if it's even legal to do that.
lpbk2713
(42,770 posts)in the world.
He makes the Banana Republican Party proud.
Takket
(21,652 posts)What are irregularities?
Heres what they are thinking even if they wont say it out loud:
Any person that doesnt LOOK like a MAGAt them.
Fact: state laws determine who can be at a polling place and what they are allowed to do. The drumpf campaign doesnt get to just put whoever they want wherever they want.
jalan48
(13,905 posts)Intimidate and scare voters away from the polls on election day in key battleground areas.
Bayard
(22,184 posts)Would this be the same people he deployed on Jan. 6? Biden is still president, and I think these people will be arrested right quick. So will, "poll watchers," if they try to interfere with people voting.
Emile
(23,043 posts)in their little brains?
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)or prevent it by force. Evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction, for it always makes men uncomfortable, if nothing worse. There is no defense against folly. Neither protests nor force are of any avail against it, and it is never amenable to reason. If facts contradict personal prejudices, there is no need to believe them, and if they are undeniable, they can simply be pushed aside as exceptions. Thus the fool, as compared with the scoundrel, is invariably self-complacent. And he can easily become dangerous, for it does not take much to make him aggressive. Hence folly requires much more cautious handling than evil. We shall never again try to reason with the fool, for it is both useless and dangerous.
"To deal adequately with folly it is essential to recognize it for what it is. This much is certain, it is a moral rather than an intellectual defect. There are men of great intellect who are fools, and men of low intellect who are anything but fools, a discovery we make to our surprise as a result of particular circumstances. The impression we derive is that folly is acquired rather than congenital; it is acquired in certain circumstances where men make fools of themselves or allow others to make fools of them. We observe further that folly is less common in the unsociable or the solitary than in individuals or groups who are inclined or condemned to sociability. From this it would appear that folly is a sociological problem rather than one of psychology. It is a special form of the operation of historical circumstances upon men, a psychological by-product of definite external factors. On closer inspection it would seem that any violent revolution, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind. Indeed, it would seem to be almost a law of psychology and sociology. The power of one needs the folly of the other. It is not that certain aptitudes of men, intellectual aptitudes for instance, become stunted or destroyed. Rather, the upsurge of power is so terrific that it deprives men of an independent judgement, and they give up tryingmore or less unconsciously to assess the new state of affairs for themselves. The fool can often be stubborn, but this must not mislead us into thinking he is independent. One feels somehow, especially in conversation with him, that it is impossible to talk to the man himself, to talk to him personally. Instead, one is confronted with a series of slogans watchwords, and the like, which have acquired power over him. He is under a curse, he is blinded, his very humanity is being prostituted and exploited. Once he has surrendered his will and become a mere tool, there are no lengths of evil to which the fool will not go, yet all the time he is unable to see that it is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation of humanity, which can do irreparable damage to the human character.
But it is just at this point that we realize that the fool cannot be saved by education. What he needs is redemption. There is nothing else for it. Until then it is no earthly good trying to convince him by rational argument. In this state of affairs we can well understand why it is no use trying to find out what the people really think, and why this question is also so superfluous for the man who thinks and acts responsibly. As the Bible says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, the only cure for folly is spiritual redemption, for that alone can enable a man to live as a responsible person in the sight of God. But there is a grain of consolation in these reflections on human folly. There is no reason for us to think that the majority of men are fools under all circumstances. What matters in the long run is whether our rulers hope to gain more from the folly of men, or from their independence of judgement and their shrewdness of mind."
Of Folly by Dietrich Bonhoeffer