Another January 6th

[Joseph]

John Reimann at Oakland Socialist has warned that

"Donald Trump is organizing a legal version of January 6, 2020. If he succeeds, all other democratic rights will be sharply curtailed. "

See his article "Trump organizing legal version of January 6th, 2020"
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/08/01 ... 6th-2020/

The Democratic Party recognizes that the Trump administration may usurp the elections, but their preparations are restricted to top officials. It is notable that in all the election leaflets which I received in such bulk for the August 4 primaries, none mentioned the danger of the November elections being stolen and called for action about it.

See "Democrats Prepare for Possible Election Clashes With Federal Government: Top officials overseeing state elections and law enforcement are stepping up plans to prepare for what they worry could be interference in the midterms."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/us/p ... rence.html

Reimann posted his article on "marxmail", where it was pooh-poohed by experienced, over-wise leftist Marv Gandall who wrote:

"Trump may try to contest the election, of course, but if anything the odds are less in his favour than on his previous attempt in 2020.

"For Trump to realize his authoritarian ambitions presupposes that the ruling class no longer considers that the two-party system serves its interests - especially in its ability to coopt or crush threats to its property from below; that it is happy with the effect on the economy of Trump’s tariff, immigration, Iran war and other foreign and domestic policies; that it is unconcerned about the increasing polarization and discontent about a political system increasing seen as run by billionaires made manifest by Trump’s transparently corrupt behaviour and cronyism; and that the courts and a majority of Americans. including within the MAGA coalition, will passively accept a fundamental assault on their sacred icon, the US Constitution."

I replied on marxmail to Marv Gandall as follows:

"Complacency to the hilt! Reimann is so, so right at what so much of the influential section of the radical left thinks of the current political situation!

"It is unlikely, of course, that the ruling classes will simply shrug as climate disaster burns up more and more of their countries, but that's what they are doing. It is unlikely, of course, that they will simply shrug as their own state apparatus is shredded and the past political arrangements they built over decades collapses and the far right spreads, but that's what they are doing.

"All these things are unlikely. Or are they? Perhaps the real situation is that it's unlikely that any radical leftists left would believe that these are times when nothing essential is going to change, that abrupt catastrophes are unlikely and the old system will simply limp on, but then again so much of it does.

"It is the elections, and whether Trump can contest them, that are among the key moments that will show what the real balance of power is in the ruling class and the real feeling is among the masses. It is empty phrasemongering and complacency to instead resort to the tired old formulas, similar to those we have heard so many times as the old system
collapses in one area after another."

[pete]

There are indications that Trump is likely to act against the elections. The most salient is the January 6, 2020 uprising against the formal electoral vote count in Congress. Another outrageous event was Trump's FBI raid against the local election board in Atlanta, Georgia, seizing all their records. That was completely illegal, but Trump gets away with it while the legal issues are argued out in court for years and years. Then there is Trump's illegal reorganization of ICE into a gang of fascist thugs. Reimann is correct to argue that mass mobilizations will be needed to counter Trump's actions, that reliance solely on the courts and the rule of law won't cut it.

[pete]

https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/a ... -democracy

This is an article from the Brennan Center's website giving examples of how bourgeois reaction organizes against the right to initiative, the right of citizens to carry out a campaign of their own to get new laws passed. This isn't a discussion of Trumpist unusual, illegal acts of voter suppression; but it does give some context, some background on "normal" behavior of rightist elements. The latest example of this is from Michigan, where they are trying to stop a citizens' initiative about money in politics being put on the ballot in November.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA29txjx?

[pete]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-

Common Dreams (a liberal journal) interview with Ty Cobb, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, who predicts that Todd Blanche as Attorney General will be a door mat for Trump and will enforce his orders, if given, to disrupt the coming election. He doesn't predict that the order will be given, and he doesn't envision any way of opposing federal forces if they get the order. He says simply, in that case, "We're screwed."

Much of what Trump has been doing the last year and a half is to condition the public, to get them used to having federal forces in their cities and neighborhoods. Army troops patrolling the capital, ICE agents roughing up immigrants, deporting them while shooting down protesters, FBI agents seizing election records -- all of these are precedents for what Trump might do if he suspects his party is losing the election. Not legal precedents, of course, but precedents in the mind of the public. For MAGAots, they're precedents to be accepted and followed.

[pete]

https://tempestmag.org/2026/07/standing ... he-people/?

This is an article from Tempest calling on leftists to get organized and join mass protests against Trumpism. Its main focus is on Trump's anti-immigrant campaign, but it also mentions Trump's possible disruption of elections.

[Joseph]

Pete, I looked briefly at those websites for the six groups of the United Left Platform that the Tempest article gave links for..

They are for mass struggle against the Trumpists, and the Tempest article does include support for struggle against Trumpist attacks on elections. However, these six groups seem to be against ever voting for a Democrat against a Republican. They do not say that this would be necessary for any candidate in the coming election. They do not say that a MAGA victory in the election would be a disaster, or that there would be a difference in what happens depending on who wins.

They may talk of "our capacity to defeat Trump and to build an alternative to deeper crisis and further misery", but this clearly refers to a hoped-for long-range prospect, as no matter what happens in the coming election, the result won't be an alternative to capitalist crisis and misery. (See for example, "Standing up to MAGA's war against the people", The International Marxist Humanist, https://imhojournal.org/articles/standi ... he-people/) So there is complacency about what is at stake in the coming elections.

Also notable is that they do not refer explicitly to a struggle against the labor bureaucrats. They say they want a socialist workers movement but they do not say anything against the long-standing practice of various left groups of conciliating the labor bureaucrats.

[Joseph]

Nero fiddles while Rome burns

A debate on whether it is important to fight against the Trumpist plans to steal or disrupt the November elections has taken place on the Marxmail list. Much of the radical left is complacent about the elections. Some of it thinks it doesn’t really matter who wins the election, nor does bourgeois democracy matter at all. DSA (the Democratic Socialists of America) runs some candidates on the Democratic ticket, but doesn’t do much of anything to fight against a possible Trumpist coup in November.

In the Marxmail debate, John Reimann of Oakland Socialist has repeatedly exposed the complacency that afflicts most of the radical left. Below are two posts by Riemann from the thread "Nero fiddles while Rome burns". In the first he denounces the indifference of most of the radical left to the threat of Trump consolidating authoritarianism. In the second, he replies to those who pretend that there isn’t any indifference in the radical left to the threat of a Trumpist coup in November.

From John Reimann: August 6, 2026:
(https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42803)

The repercussions of Trump overturning the upcoming elections would be massive. It would spell the end of bourgeois democracy in the United States.

I had a conversation with a couple of young DSA members the other day. They were campaigning for a candidate for local office here in Oakland. I pointed out Trump's very real threat to use the power of the presidency to steal the upcoming election and that anybody who is running for office - any office - should be using their campaign to warn about it and do what they can to organize a resistance. It was clear they had no idea what I was talking about. It wasn't that they lacked the information; it was that the very idea was beyond their imagination, totally outside their thought process. After all, the closest thing to anything like that which we've ever seen was when the Confederacy fired on Ft. Sum ter thereby starting the Civil War. But that was a war between two completely different economic systems - slavery and capitalism - in a completely different era in a bygone period of history. But if you listen to what Trump has been saying, if you realize that his entire party is under his control, if you look at what he's actually doing (as outlined in my article on Trump planning a legal version of January 6), it's living in a dream world not to take it seriously.

And yet, those two young DSA members aren't alone. The great majority of socialists - including in DSA - are ignoring this threat. They're not talking about it, not talking about what can be done starting NOW to stop it. Instead they talk about this, that and the other reform that can be made. It's similar with those on this list. I see my post led to long and very learned discussions about what is Bonapartism, the difference between it and fascism, what Marx said, etc. They are hiding behind abstract theory to avoid confronting the actual facts of what is unfolding right before our eyes. I am reminded of the saying "Nero fiddles while Rome burns."

From John Reimann: August 8, 2026:
(https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42837)

First of all, in reply to John Edmundson: In the first place he denies that those socialists who opposed voting for the Democrats did so because they didn't see any important difference between them and the Republicans - what other reason did any of them give? In fact, what other reason can any of them give? John also writes that he has not observed that those socialists who opposed voting for the Democrats in 2024 "are indifferent to electoral fraud": Where, including on this list, have any of them shown anything but indifference? I mentioned the numerous socialist groups and journals who have entirely ignored the issue. If they don't write about it, what does that indicate other than indifference?

In reply to Anthony Teso: Of course he is right that "the unions" - meaning the union leadership I assume - won't call a strike to stop a Trump theft of the elections. Is he therefore saying we shouldn't campaign within the unions for them to do so? What is his point since it's not so long ago that he wrote that the whole point of raising an issue is not necessarily to win a vote but to get a discussion going. I agree with him and have followed that approach for many decades, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

Overall, I really don't understand what he is saying about "one layer too high" etc. regarding DSA. The point is very simple: We should be issuing a warning and trying to get a discussion and debate going around this danger. That's the very start. In fact, it's why I've been writing articles on my blog and posting to this email list, among other places. Of course, it's necessary to do more than talk. Action is what is required, but we have to start somewhere, especially if hardly anybody is even talking about the danger. My blog does not exactly have the following of Hasan Piker, so my actual influence is limited to say the least. If I were still in a union, I'd be raising the issue in my union. I am trying to raise the issue in DSA, but it's extremely difficult because of the extremely bureaucratic/undemocratic way in which East Bay DSA meetings are held. Plus the fact that the great majority of attendees are happy with that format. So, I'm working up to it in the best way I know how.

Here's a suggestion for Anthony Teso: He is a member of the Tempest collective, or at least he's an "author" for them. Tempest is one of those groups that has ignored the issue up until now. Why doesn't Anthony Teso write an article on the issue for Tempest and also campaign for Tempest to organize a broad left front in order to take up the danger and develop a strategy for how to fight it? I'd be happy to be involved in that. So, how about it, Anthony? Why don't you do that?

To see the entire thread of this discussion on Marxmail, go to the Marxmail archive at https://groups.io/g/marxmail/search?p=r ... %20fiddles.

[pete]

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said Monday the DOJ plans to deploy about 1,000 election monitors nationwide for the November midterms, part of what she called ongoing “election security work” the Civil Rights Division began right after she was sworn in last April. DOJ hasn’t released the list of jurisdictions yet, but Dhillon said they’re targeting places with language or disability-access concerns and places DOJ suspects have voter fraud, adding that prosecutions of illegal voters are “in the pipeline.” It’s unclear who’ll actually staff the 1,000-person force since the Civil Rights Division itself is far smaller, meaning DOJ would likely need to pull personnel from U.S. attorneys’ offices. Dhillon also said DOJ is prepared to take its voter-roll data fight to the Supreme Court, echoing Attorney General Todd Blanche’s comments a day earlier, despite the department having now lost all 23 district court cases and a Sixth Circuit en banc rehearing on its push to force states to hand over unredacted voter data including Social Security and driver’s license numbers. She claimed states that have cooperated show “hundreds of thousands” of dead people and “tens of thousands” of noncitizens on the rolls, and accused unnamed election officials of knowingly leaving noncitizens registered, but she didn’t name the states, officials, or provide supporting evidence for any of it.

The above is a news report posted on Aaron Parnass' Substack newsfeed. It shows that discussion about possible disruption to the elections should transition from "what would leftists do if Trump tried to interfere?" to "what are leftists doing now that Trump is interfering now?" I've seen Facebook videos of DOJ election monitors at work during the recent primary election in Minnesota. Placing federal monitors around polling places is obviously an attempt to intimidate voters, since in the past voting has taken place successfully without such monitors. There's no reason for them to be there aside from intimidation.

[pete]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=r ... QbvHmZkHpl

This is the URL reference for that quotation from Aaron Parnas' Substack posting.

[Frank]

Pete, upon opening the link I find that I can't read the article unless I first create an AI-powered Gemini account, and I don't want to do that. Could you copy and paste it whenever you have time?