Tag Archives: Donald Trump

2020 elections, Choose Democracy, Count Every Vote, Coup, Fair elections, Peaceful transition, Protect the Results, US Postal Service, White supremacists

Benicia group calls for vigilance over possible U.S. coup

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2020

CHOOSE DEMOCRACY—NO MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR

These are tense times. COVID-19 affects us all, with concerns for health, jobs, and schools. We are anxious as wildfire season expands, threatening lives and homes, making air unbreathable. Long-standing injustices call for redress. And as we approach election day there is more going on than the expectable wrangling among opposing candidates. There is a growing apprehension that not all votes will be counted or that the results of the November 3rd national elections might not be honored.

In this time of uncertainty and discord it is essential that the fundamental basis of our democracy be supported. All Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—must be prepared to protect and defend the valid results of the Presidential election whether their preferred candidate wins or loses.

Karen Schlumpp, Benicia

Benicia resident Karen Schlumpp took part in a “Choose Democracy” webinar that looked at the signs of a potential coup—an illegal seizure of power—right here in the United States

“Democracy is fragile,” she notes, “and we have reason to worry. We’ve heard the election process discredited; we’ve seen the US Postal Service systematically undermined at a time when more and more voters rely on mail-in ballots; white supremacists militias have been encouraged to ‘watch the polls;’ and the President has repeatedly dodged the question of whether he would accept the results of an election if he loses.”

A Choose Democracy group has formed in Benicia to draw together people committed to the principles that in the national election

    • Every vote must be counted even if it takes days or weeks to get an accurate count from critical states, and
    • The losing candidate must concede, and Congress, the Electoral College, and state officials must honor the accurate, final vote count.

For more information, and to sign the “Choose Democracy” pledge, go to ChooseDemocracyBenicia.org.

2020 elections, Democracy under attack, Donald Trump

What if Trump won’t leave? Call it what it is, and be ready…

To stop a coup — take the Choose Democracy pledge, and be prepared for action!

Benicians Mary Susan Gast, Kathy Kerridge and Pat Toth-Smith have done great work recently alerting us to Daniel Hunter’s article* on the very real possibility that there may be an illegal power grab after the election on November 3.  Please scroll down to read the short piece by Choose Democracy, and click to sign the Choose Democracy pledge.  Here in Benicia, let’s prepare for the (unlikely, we hope) prospect of a coup.

We have reason to worry that this fall we may see an undemocratic power grab—a coup. [Check “coup-o-meter” for current events indicating a coup is more or less likely.]

We also know that the people can defend democracy.  Non-violent mass protests have stopped coups in other places and we have to be ready to do the same here.

Elections work because the public agrees to honor the results.  Similarly, coups work only if the public honors them.  When the public refuses to accept the coup as legitimate, coups fall apart.  Refusal looks like millions of people using nonviolent tools to delegitimize the coup by demonstrating, resisting orders, and shutting down the country until democracy prevails.

TAKE ACTION HERE

Go to Choose Democracy to sign this pledge:

  • We will vote.
  • We will refuse to accept election results until all the votes are counted.
  • We will nonviolently take to the streets if a coups is attempted
  • If we need to, we will shut down this country to protect the integrity of the democratic process

Consider attending a training workshop led by George Lakey (Oct 16, 21, 22, or 27) and making LOCAL preparations for the possibility of a coup.  Training sign-up at https://choosedemocracy.us/trainings/#.X4nDP2hKiUk.

*Read the article by Daniel Hunter, “10 Things You Need to Know to Stop A Coup” at  https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/09/10-things-you-need-to-know-to-stop-a-coup/

*Daniel Hunter is the Global Trainings Manager at 350.org and a curriculum designer with Sunrise Movement. He has trained extensively from ethnic minorities in Burma, pastors in Sierra Leone, and independence activists in northeast India. He has written multiple books, including the “Climate Resistance Handbook” and “Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow.”
2020 elections, 2020 Presidential campaigns, Donald Trump, President Joe Biden

Biden’s campaign assures voters the U.S. ‘is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House’

Yahoo News The Week, by Peter Weber, September 23, 2020

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden assumed reporters wanted to ask him about the lack of charges in the Breonna Taylor killing when he landed in Wilmington on Wednesday night after a trip to North Carolina. They were more curious about his reaction to President Trump’s point-blank refusal to commit to leaving office if the voters reject him in November. “What country are we in?” Biden asked, explaining that he was “being facetious” — and then explaining it again because it’s hard to communicate facetiousness with a face mask on. “Look, he says the most irrational things. I don’t know what to say about it. But it doesn’t surprise me.”

Biden’s campaign had already put out a more pointed statement: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

A lot of people were very disturbed by Trump’s prediction that “there won’t be a transfer [or power], frankly,” if you “get rid of the ballots” — and “it’s a sharply atypical response for a president, certainly,” Philip Bump writes at The Washington Post, trying to parse what Trump meant to say. But “given his rhetoric in 2016, this was not an atypical response for Trump.” But even if you translate Trump in the most generous light, he said, “it’s disconcerting because it reinforces that Trump’s interest in appearing to be victorious remains a primary concern,” certainly more than the legitimacy of America’s constitutional system of government.