Read the Kentucky election story below and try to argue that it doesn’t all go down just like this:
It is nearing midnight on November 3rd, 2020. Trump has lost by lots in the popular vote and by a little in the electoral college. He does not concede. Having been complaining about Democratic cheating for months leading up to the election, he allows stories like the one below to bubble thought the internet. The press covers “both sides” of the controversy. Chris Coons reserves judgement in the interest of bipartisanship.
Within a day or two people of every political flavor are edgy. One night, a shot rings out. Trump declares a national emergency. Under the National Emergencies Act Trump has virtually unlimited discretionary power if supported by the Senate and Supreme Court.
He declares the election invalid. The constitutionality of that use of emergency powers is endorsed by a 5 to 4 majority in the Supreme Court.
“A few hours after polls closed in Kentucky last Tuesday, a Twitter user writing under the handle @Overlordkraken1 posted a message to his 19 followers saying he had ‘just shredded a box of Republican mail-in ballots,’” the New York Times reports.
“For those eager to cry fraud as a reliably red state leaned blue, the fact that @Overlordkraken1 did not appear to be in Kentucky — Louisville was misspelled in the location tag on his tweet, for one thing — was not going to get in the way of a useful narrative. Nor was Twitter’s decision to suspend his account.”
“Within hours of @Overlordkraken1’s tweet, as it became apparent that Mr. Bevin was trailing in the vote tally, hyperpartisan conservatives and trolls were pushing out a screenshot of the message, boosted by what appeared to be a network of bots, and providing early grist for allegations of electoral theft in Kentucky. High-profile right-wing figures were soon tweeting out their own conspiracy theories about the election being stolen — messages that were in turn pushed by even more trolls and bots — and the Bevin campaign began talking about ‘irregularities’ in the vote without offering any specifics or evidence.”
– Via Bluedelaware
