The New York Times is promoting a crazy conspiracy theory that President Trump, should he lose the election to Democrat Joe Biden on November 3, will not accept the result and block Biden’s access to the White House.
A group of “scenario planners,” the Times reported on Sunday, are trying to settle on options if Trump decides to refuse to leave the office and, presumably, declare himself a dictator.
Kooky as the idea sounds, the fake news that Trump will reject a valid election result reprises a similar narrative in 2016, when Trump drove the media crazy by saying he reserved the right to challenge a Clinton victory in court — just as Al Gore challenged George W. Bush’s victory in 2000.
Disrupt the Election
The Times’s crackpot fantasy opens with a fictitious account of Trump preempting a fair election by using his emergency powers in swing states:
In October, President Trump declares a state of emergency in major cities in battleground states, like Milwaukee and Detroit, banning polling places from opening.
A week before the election, Attorney General William P. Barr announces a criminal investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
After Mr. Biden wins a narrow Electoral College victory, Mr. Trump refuses to accept the results, won’t leave the White House and declines to allow the Biden transition team customary access to agencies before the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Far-fetched conspiracy theories? Not to a group of worst-case scenario planners — mostly Democrats, but some anti-Trump Republicans as well — who have been gaming out various doomsday options for the 2020 presidential election. Outraged by Mr. Trump and fearful that he might try to disrupt the campaign before, during and after Election Day, they are engaged in a process that began in the realm of science fiction but has nudged closer to reality as Mr. Trump and his administration abandon longstanding political norms.
Why do these Democrats and hate-Trump Republicans think Trump will refuse to accept the election?
Because he has rightly questioned the integrity of mail-in ballots with virtually no security measures to ensure a fair vote. Thus, “the anxiety has intensified in recent weeks” over a possible Trump dictatorship.
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