READ: Left-wing Radicals Post Online Guide to ‘Disrupting’ the Country if Election is Close
An organization of radical left-wing activists has posted an online guide to “disruption” that outlines a plan to shut down the country and force President Donald Trump from power in the event that the 2020 election is too close to call.
The guide, “Stopping the Coup,” available as a Google doc, is being circulated by a group called ShutDownDC. It casts its plan for disruption as a response to an imagined “coup” by the president in the case of a close election.
In an email promoting the guide, ShutDownDC declares: “Preventing Donald Trump from stealing the election and remaining in office is likely to take mass, sustained disruptive movements all over the country.” The guide is a manual to that “disruption.”
Parts of the guide are committed to ensuring a “fair election.” Parts of it, however, read like a manual for staging a coup rather than a guide to preventing one:
In the context of a coup or highly contested election we need to be clear that our actions must directly affect the structures and pillars of power. Our largest asset in this regard utilizes the ideas of non-compliance through massive, broad based direct action. Where we can, we need to be in the streets, on the highways, or at the sites of power and power holders. In our jobs and lives we must refuse to allow those taking control the legitimacy of the power they seek through strikes, slowdowns, and boycotts, and public refusal to accept an illegitimate ruling party.
Another section urges activists to stop American life from continuing if the election does not go their way (original emphasis):
In order to really win we will need to force some pillars of power (business, military, media, or other major institutions) to decide to side with the people, or at least get out of the way. If everyday life goes on, a despot will not leave power, and so there will be no incentive for real systems change. You want to think about what it might take to stop business-as-usual.
The guide also says that activists plan on “physically protecting the vote count from counter-protestors, federal agents, or white supremacist militias.”
The guide indicates that activists intend to “demand that no winner be announced until every vote is counted,” and that they will launch “mass coordinated action” to that end.
The signal for action will be if President Donald Trump is declared the winner on Election Night:
Trump may try to declare himself the victor before the votes are counted, or Fox News might call the race. Those who can should be prepared to take action against those who are feeding into the stolen election narrative, including social media companies that are letting falsehoods or incitements to violence spread.
The guide imagines a number of bizarre nightmare scenarios — such as Attorney General William Barr trying “to seize all mail-in ballots and invalidate them” — and uses them to motivate readers and justify plans for “direct action.”
One section says that in the case of a contested election, “we must take action” (original emphasis):
In the end, the actual electorate might be split, half truly believing that Trump was elected legally, and half knowing that he was not.
It is in this muddied context of legal and political wrangling that we must take action. We cannot wait to see how the chips fall. That will only ensure more power for the violent white supremacist machine that is the Trump administration and its supporters.
We want to be clear here, though: we are not a group of Biden supporters. This is not about ensuring that the Democrats win, but actually preparing for the possibility that white supremacist violence will continue.
The guide also suggests that activists will continue their “disruption” regardless of who wins the election: “We’re absolutely not saying the election is useless, but rather the reactivity of the right and the white supremecist [sic] will be present no matter who wins.”
The guide also links to a variety of other documents, such as one devoted to preparing for the threat of violence, and another that lists allied organizations. All of the documents seem to benefit from professional-level skills in writing, layout, and design.
The document appears to be the product of a group called the Disruption Project, whose website describes itself as “dedicated to supporting uprisings, resistance and mass direct action.”
It suggests a revolution in the United States — “nonviolently”:
Our belief is that when mass numbers of people stand up and take action against the unjust systems of racial capitalism, the heteropatriarchy, white supremacy and settler colonialism, we have the ability to force ruptures and dismantle these systems. In other countries we have seen uprisings nonviolently topple dictatorships and illegitimate governments.
ShutDownDC’s website indicates that it expects Trump to be “forced from office,” adding: “We are not seeking a ‘return to normalcy,’ because we know that returning to ‘normal’ means returning to a system that was built on oppression. Rather, we see this as the time to rise up against the current crisis and move forward to dismantle the interlocking systems of oppression that have plagued this land for centuries.”
The website is somewhat evasive on the topic of violent tactics. It says: “We do not want to reproduce the same violences we are committed to dismantling; thus, we are committed to anti-oppressive principles, transformative justice, and sustainable organizing.”
However, it also says that it will not make “value judgments about the tactical approaches other people and organizations may choose to embrace.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The Trump campaign was forced yesterday change the location of a rally scheduled for today with President Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, initially set for Hudson Valley Guns in New Hudson, Michigan, after it became known that one of the 13 men arrested last Thursday for plotting to kidnap and murder Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was a former employee of the store.
The store owners blamed Whitmer for the cancellation of the event, scheduled for today, writing in a Facebook post: “The Governor would have had a field day against the Trump campaign. They would accuse the administration of sending his son to a facility where terrorists work and train.”
There is no doubt that the Trump campaign selected the obscure gun store for a major campaign event to signal encouragement for the plot against Whitmer. It is possible that the venue was selected precisely because one of the plotters had been employed there. The Trump campaign planned to still hold an event nearby, in an area within a few miles of where two of the plotters were arrested. The store owner refused to tell the media which of the 13 plotters was a former employee and claimed the Trump campaign told him they were changing the venue because it was not large enough.
In a campaign rally last night in Sanford, Florida, the first since he tested positive for the coronavirus, Donald Trump delivered a fascist rant before his unmasked supporters, denouncing “radical globalists” who “ravaged our cities.” Trump said he was “standing up for the American worker and the American family” and opposing the “socialist left, the Marxist left.” He issued a threat to arrest his political opponents, repeating, “We will take care of it all after the election.”
Referencing his own bout with the coronavirus, Trump said he was now “immune” from the virus and said he would “walk into the audience and kiss everyone, all the guys and all the beautiful women.”
The venue change in Michigan comes as further details are emerging of the 13 plotters’ connections to far-right networks operating in close coordination with the Trump administration and powerful figures within the Republican Party.
Two of the arrestees were photographed speaking alongside Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has been promoted by Fox News and is a member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a fascist network of police founded by former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, which claims county sheriffs have extra-constitutional powers.
Leaf, who responded to the plot by defending the plotters as merely wanting to carry out a “citizens’ arrest,” was named “Sheriff of the Year” by the CSPOA in 2016. Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix), was pardoned by Trump in 2017 after being convicted of contempt of court.
Questions remain as to the role of Leaf and the CSPOA in the plot against Whitmer. Another Trump acolyte who has been honored by CSPOA as “Sheriff of the Year” was David Clarke, then-sheriff of Milwaukee County, in 2013. Clarke was a major African American surrogate for Trump’s 2016 campaign and a speaker at that year’s Republican National Convention.
More recently, after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified about the danger posed by fascist militias in September, Clarke reposted an article on his website that called for Wray to be fired for minimizing the threat of left-wing protesters. “And it is the FBI’s duty to address this terrorist threat and quell it,” the article reads. “This is the United States of America. Are we seriously going to just sit on our hands while terrorists run wild on our streets?! This is what Americans are asking as FBI Director Christopher Wray appears to be asleep on the job as terrorists yet again strike in a major U.S. city.”
The CSPOA claims membership by 400 sheriffs across the country, and argues that sheriffs have dictatorial powers. Rolling Stone’s Bridgette Dunlap wrote in 2017 that “the CSPOA shares management and board membership with the Oath Keepers, a much larger subset of the anti-government extremist movement.”
The CSPOA’s “operational director,” Sam Bushman, is the host of the far-right radio program “Liberty Roundtable.” Bushman has very close connections to the Trump administration. In the months before the 2016 election, Bushman hosted the following Trump supporters on his show: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, former CIA Director James Woolsey, Roger Stone and David Clarke.
Bushman’s program also syndicates the “Political Cesspool” program hosted by neo-Nazi Holocaust denier James Edwards. Edwards’ show is featured on Stormfront, an openly Nazi website that celebrates the Holocaust and calls for reopening concentration camps to exterminate socialists, immigrants and Jewish people.
Roger Stone, former Trump adviser whom Trump pardoned in July, has been actively establishing close ties to the Proud Boys and the fascist QAnon conspiracy, which claims Donald Trump is fighting a child sex trafficking ring exposed by a supposed state agent named “Q.”
Stone has hired the Proud Boys as a personal security force. On October 6, Stone appeared on a QAnon YouTube channel. On September 10, Stone appeared on the fascist “Alex Jones Show” and urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, impose martial law and carry out mass arrests of left-wing figures.
There are other leading Trump figures whose connections to far-right groups must be further explored.
According to a September whistleblower report filed by Brian Murphy, leading immigration official Ken Cuccinelli ordered employees at the Department of Homeland Security to downplay the role of white supremacist groups and their connection to the Trump administration, instead, ordering officials to present anti-police violence protesters as violent extremists. Cuccinelli has spoken before the Center for Immigration Studies, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
Many questions remain about the role of fascist groups within federal agencies, especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Recent press reports confirm that the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy was intended to terrorize immigrant families and that it was spearheaded by officials in the Department of Justice.
The Democratic Party is downplaying the dangers of Trump’s ties to the extreme right and refusing to seriously investigate Trump’s potential ties to the Michigan plotters. Opposition to dictatorship cannot be left to the Democratic faction of the ruling class. It requires the independent mobilization of the international working class independent from the parties of the ruling elite.
THIS FAMILY HAS NEVER EARNED AN HONEST DOLLAR IN THEIR PATHETIC LIVES!
Trump Is Surrounded by Criminals
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-donald-trump-final-days.html
“The legal ring surrounding him is collectively producing a historic indictment of his endemic corruption and criminality.” JONATHAN CHAIT
Eric Trump claims family 'lost a fortune' in pushback of pay-for-play report
ADAM KELSEY
"We've lost a fortune. My father lost a fortune running for president. He doesn't care," Eric Trump, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization, said on ABC's "This Week." "He wanted to do what was right. The last thing I can tell you Donald Trump needs in the world is this job."
The comments come a day after a New York Times story reported that President Trump "transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family's hotels and resorts -- and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration." The article, citing the president's tax records, reports that of the hundreds of individuals and entities seeking favor, "60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency."
"Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government," the news story continued.
ABC News has not viewed the president's taxes and cannot confirm the Times' reporting.
On "This Week," Eric Trump echoed his father's rhetoric calling the story "fake news." He also implied without evidence that the report -- one of several in the past two weeks concerning the president's finances -- was timed to hurt his reelection campaign.
NEW: "My father has lost a fortune," Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when pressed on a NYT report that Pres. Trump turned "his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway's new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign." https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5 pic.twitter.com/MtZLiszs2K
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020
Pressed by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl about the president's debt, which the Times reported as more than $400 million, Eric Trump characterized it as commonplace for someone with his level of wealth in the real estate industry. He also misleadingly claimed that all of the president's lenders are publicly known.
"It's in his financial disclosures," Eric Trump said, referring to the annual reports the president is required to issue under federal ethics regulations that do not list all of his creditors. President Trump has not voluntarily released his tax returns, as other past commanders-in-chief and candidates for the office have done. "You know exactly who the money's owed to … my father is worth billions of dollars, and on a proportion of his net worth, my father has very, very low leverage."
"If you own buildings, if you own real estate, you carry some debt. That's what developers do, that's what business owners do, they carry some debt," he continued. "We have a phenomenal company, but there's nothing new about that, and by the way, it's the same debt that he got elected on."
.@jonkarl: "Don't the American people have a right to know who (the president) is indebted to?"
"That's what developers do, that's what business owners do, they carry some debt, "Eric Trump says but President Trump still won't release his tax returns. https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5 pic.twitter.com/x3u8GcDpKy
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020
In the interview, Eric Trump also responded to the president's refusal to participate in a virtual debate this coming week, as planned by the Commission on Presidential Debates following the president's COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization. The debate was canceled as a result and it is not immediately clear what format the next, and potentially final, scheduled debate will take in two weeks.
"My father wants to stand on stage with his opponent. That's how debates have been handled in America for the last 200 years, you've stood there and you've debated somebody," Eric Trump said, despite the fact that John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated on-camera from opposite coasts, appearing on television in a split-screen in 1960.
"My father doesn't want to do it over a glorified conference call," he continued.
Karl noted that several members of the Trump family, including Eric and his siblings, defied protocol by watching the first debate maskless. Second lady Karen Pence also appeared at this past week's vice presidential debate without a mask.
"Given the concerns now, will you commit that the Trump team will abide by those safety precautions that the commission put in place at the next debate?" Karl asked.
"I'm happy to wear a mask," Eric Trump said, going on to accuse Democratic nominee Joe Biden of backing out the debate -- another mischaracterization. It was the commission that announced the plan to hold the second event virtually, and the president who chose not to participate. The Trump campaign said the president would also be willing to attend two more debates if they were each postponed a week to allow for an in-person format, but the Biden campaign rejected the idea.
"My father wants to stand on the stage with his opponent," and "doesn't want to do it over a glorified conference call," Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when asked if the Trump campaign will decline to participate in Oct. 22 presidential debate if it's virtual. https://t.co/R7EgB0oaON pic.twitter.com/s7Vl6T9MY6
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020
On Saturday, the president's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, issued a memo stating that the president "is no longer a transmission risk to others" and "the assortment of advanced diagnostic tests obtained reveal there is no longer evidence of actively replicating virus." It remains unclear whether Trump has tested negative.
The memo came hours after the president delivered an address resembling a campaign speech from the White House South Lawn. The administration called the event a "peaceful protest for law and order," which Eric Trump echoed on "This Week." The president heads to Florida Monday to restart official in-person campaign events with a rally in Sanford.
Eric Trump also noted on Sunday morning that attendees at Saturday's outdoor White House event were temperature-checked and wore masks -- the latter measure, Karl noted, a less common sight at Trump campaign rallies prior to the president's diagnosis.
As the president prepares to return to the campaign trail, Karl challenged Eric Trump about his father's rhetoric following the vice presidential debate in reference to Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
"Vice President Pence, when he debated Kamala Harris, said it was a privilege to be on the stage with her, recognized her history-making pick as Biden's running mate. And then the next day your father said that she was a monster," Karl said, referencing comments the president made on Fox Business Thursday. "Why? How is Kamala Harris a monster? Why did he say that?"
"Well, you know, there are a lot of stances that she takes are just -- they're mind-boggling to me," Eric Trump responded.
"But political differences are one thing. A monster? You're calling the Democratic vice presidential nominee a monster. Your father did," Karl pressed.
"You know, you're also dealing with a person who is willing to lie every single day," Eric Trump claimed, going on to misrepresent Biden and Harris' position on law enforcement funding.
Eric Trump claims family 'lost a fortune' in pushback of pay-for-play report originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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