Donald Trump’s one moment of candor in this election occurred when he said: “Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven’t seen before.” The rest of his stumping breath has been exhaled to incite feverish fury among his supporters by claiming the election is rigged, thereby exposing the real existential threat to the Republic.
Yet we have seen this threat before, particularly in the late 1830’s when pro-slavery mobs similarly incited took to the streets and murdered abolitionists and innocent citizens. The American who values the rule of law and the protection of liberty should take a true measure of Trump’s treacherous bombast and heed Abraham Lincoln’s words spoken in his 1838 Lyceum Speech:
At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction is our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
It is clear to me, a felon convicted of an election rigging offense, that the only menace to the legitimate outcome of the presidential contest is Trump himself. As Trump flails his way through this contest to secure a loss due to his own incompetence as a general election candidate, he also readies his supporters for revolt. Rather than try to run a better campaign and own his mistakes, Trump has chosen to threaten the security of the republic using rhetoric and inciting actions that echo pre-Civil War agitation.
“Trump has manufactured a false fear of immigrant incursion calculated to topple America from the interior.”
“Shall we expect some transatlantic giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never!” said Mr. Lincoln in that same address. Understanding this as every America does, Trump has manufactured a false fear of immigrant incursion calculated to topple America from the interior. Not only is this an arrogant dismissal of the American immigrant tradition from which our country has drawn strength, but it is also a callous messaging tactic solely aimed to polarize the electorate. When coupled with Mr. Trump’s election rigging conspiracy theory, it is clear as a sunny day that Trump is ready and willing to sacrifice faith in the democratic process for his own schemes.
Trump’s encouragement of a mobocracy has caused some of his supporters to intimidate fellow citizens by menacingly displaying side-arms while loitering outside a Democratic campaign office in Virginia. Other Trump supporters have taken up Trump’s call to reject any result other than his victory, such as Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark who stated, “It’s incredible that our institutions of gov, WH, Congress, DoJ and big media are corrupt and all we do is bitch. Pitchfork and torches time.” Trump’s mobocracy has taken hold.
Some Trump supporters are ready to ride to the sound of the guns, with one saying, “I’m ready for a revolution because we can’t have her [Hillary Clinton] in.” Further, Trump has specifically targeted minority election districts in Pennsylvania as where the election will be stolen, saying it is, “so important that you watch other communities because we don’t want this election stolen from us.” Given Pennsylvania’s open carry laws, this presents the likelihood of voter intimidation tactics featuring firearms.
“It is clear as a sunny day that Trump is ready and willing to sacrifice faith in the democratic process for his own schemes.”
America should prepare for the possibility of actual violence perpetrated by deranged Trump voters upon minorities at their polling places. It is disturbing that the Republican National Committee is silent on this matter given it remains under injunction for its 1981 National Ballot Security Task Force when armed volunteers in New Jersey were deployed at urban precincts to suppress minority votes by displaying firearms and intimidating signs reading “It is a crime to falsify a ballot.” A violation of the RNC injunction at Trump’s hand cannot be good for the RNC – yet the silence is deafening.
Trump offers only to tear down our Republic and cheer the mob to defy the rule of law when he is defeated at the polls. As evident by a campaign run by his family, Trump seemingly is offering America a constitutional monarchy where the king is law; where President Trump can imprison his political opponents and other dissenters. It was only a matter of events and a man of certain genius such as Donald Trump, with his thirst for fame, to place the Republic in jeopardy.
It will take every American voter with doubts about Hillary Clinton to prevent those feelings from trumping their distaste and distrust of The Donald. A vote for anybody but Trump is a vote honoring the memory of those American heroes from the revolution to the present who have fought, many dying, abroad and domestically so that the rights of all Americans are not trampled this November by the likes of one ambitious, recklessly ignorant office-seeker intent on republicide.
Before You Go
