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pavlov | 3 days ago

The US President in 1944 was someone who wanted to have elections. In 2026 this is not the case anymore. How much of a difference it makes, nobody knows.

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wat10000|3 days ago

Elections won't be canceled. They're too important for the perception of legitimacy. Virtually every country on Earth now has elections. Russia, China, even North Korea has elections.

The modern playbook isn't to abolish elections, it's a combination of blocking opposition candidates, suppressing votes, intimidating voters, and lying about the results. That's what to watch for.

wrs|3 days ago

“Watch for”? That has been actively happening, at an accelerating pace. (Especially if you count “lying about someone else lying about the results”.)

Drupon|3 days ago

It's fairly easy to abuse a state of exception to cancel elections. Ukraine has done it, and it's been, along with banning opposition parties and attempting to imprison critics (Arestovych, etc.), a critical step in their government consolidating power.

zzzeek|3 days ago

turns out lots of people "know" that the president has no say in the affairs of US states running elections

pavlov|3 days ago

What are the states going to do with their local election results when the officials in Washington ignore them due to some manufactured state of emergency?

He already tried to get specific states' election outcomes discarded from the count on Jan 6, 2021.

foobarchu|3 days ago

He doesn't, it's literally enshrined in the constitution. If he decides to violate that, it's him violating the constitution yet again, not proof that he has a say.

It would also probably be the last straw for a lot of people who has been limping along on the belief in free elections.