What Happens If Trump Loses?

Ken AshfordElection 2016, Rightwing Extremism/ViolenceLeave a Comment

Prepare for a meltdown from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump if he loses the election.

He has repeatedly told supporters that he fears the election could be rigged, an indication that even if Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins, Trump might not accept it.

“First of all, it was rigged,” Trump said of the Democratic primary during a recent rally in Columbus, Ohio. “And I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest.”

In Pennsylvania, Trump also made the same argument on the campaign trail.  Trump is well behind Hillary Clinton in polls. No Republican has won the state in a presidential election since 1988.  But he made that statement anyway.

And let’s not forget what Trump said at a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina — he said that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, she will “abolish the Second Amendment” and “if she gets to pick her judges,” there’s “nothing you can do”, adding, cryptically, “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is…. I don’t know.”

That all went away when the polls tightened, but now that Hillary has returned to her earlier lead, expect to hear more of this “rigged” language. Maybe not from Trump, but certainly his supporters in the media.  Bill O’Reilly is scheduled to do an expose on about voter fraud tonight.  Other conservative pundits prop this up in fact-free articles with misleading “scare” headlines.

The on-again off-again conspiracy of a rigged election is confusing to Trump supporters who live in their own fact-free bubble.  They insist that Trump is going to win AND that the election is rigged, which…. uh… well, watch:

Aside from Trump, you have scarier voices in the not-so-hidden underbelly of the GOP.  People like Matt Bevin, who was elected governor of Kentucky last year after expressing “absolute” support for marriage-refusing county clerk Kim Davis.  Last month, he said this:

Somebody asked me yesterday, I did an interview and they said, “Do you think it’s possible, if Hillary Clinton were to win the election, do you think it’s possible that we’ll be able to survive? That we would ever be able to recover as a nation? And while there are people who have stood on this stage and said we would not, I would beg to differ. But I will tell you this: I do think it would be possible, but at what price? At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots. Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something, that we through our apathy and our indifference have given away.

That’s Timothy McVeigh shit, right there.  That’s calling for “patriots” to spill blood (or have their own blood spilled).  And the triggering event?  HRC’s election.

I hope I am wrong.  I hope leveler heads prevail.  But Trump could easily incite violence if he loses.  And who can honestly say that he would never do that?

P.S.  Unrelated, I guess….. A humiliation.