FOREARMED: Biden team is PREPPED for Trump’s 2024 election legal challenges
President Joe Biden anticipates a close November election, and his team has built a legal “superstructure” to protect a narrow win, anticipating a Donald Trump “scorched earth” attempt to steal the victory.
Biden’s inner circle has drawn up “war game” plans for differing scenarios in an effort to anticipate Trump’s post-election arguments and actions and is building the needed legal infrastructure to block any such effort to claim an unwarranted win.
This is obviously both a good idea and needed preparation. Trump has called the 2024 “The Final Battle” — which is somewhat baffling given that we’re supposed to have an election again in 2028.
He has promised to be his supporters’ “retribution,” another word for revenge. And, of course, Trump relishes the idea of putting his opponents in prison in the same way they went after him, even if Biden steps down after a close election.
We are not even close to the conventions and yet Biden’s team seems nearly ready as of this week, as Rolling Stone reports:
“According to … sources… with knowledge of the operation, draft pleadings and legal motions, for all kinds of possible Trump-related emergencies, are already written and at the ready. In critical swing states…”
“Team Biden is regularly in contact with an array of outside counsels and local law firms that have beenretained to actively monitor what is happening on the ground, including with regards to the activism of election-denying Trump allies.”
Draft pleadings and observations of Trump allies already!
This is as needed as it is good news — and thankfully, Biden has the war chest to pay for it. Trump’s people have been planning out their post-election actions for years, and some believe that 2020 was a dry run for what they see as a violent response to another close loss.
To go along with the Biden campaign investment, the Democratic National Committee told Rolling Stone that it has saved“tens of millions of dollars in a robust voter protection program to safeguard the rights of voters to make their voices heard against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and the GOP.”
The America First Policy Institute already has plans to fundamentally change the government in ways that they’re not advertising, at least not much. The same DNC spokesperson stated, “Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and the RNC have invested in an army of conspiratorial, election-denying legal staff to undermine our elections and make it harder for Americans’ ballots to be counted.”
That would seem to justify the motivation to prepare early.
Preparing legal briefs with the law set out is nothing more than prudent. The more intriguing aspect is the decision to closely watch Trump supporters in swing states.
As far as election preparation goes, the Trump team has a weakness in that they’re quite open about their plans, even to the point of being braggadocious about them. It would seem to be exceedingly easy to simply read the news coming out of swing states or infiltrate campaigns (They all do it, including Democrats, to learn about the opposition’s plans for each state.)
The reason for this is one of our democracy’s greatest weaknesses: the Electoral College.
Election after election, the results seem to come down to a few states considered up for grabs. Candidates will spend a great deal of time in Tuscon — but little in Los Angeles, New York, or Houston — campaigning for needed votes even in an area in which they’re guaranteed to lose a majority.
If the electoral college system were abolished, Republicans could pick up moderate votes in Los Angeles, while Democrats could garner moderate votes in Dallas and Houston. Meanwhile, rural votes would count as much as big city votes — just not “more” than big city votes.
Would it be easier or harder to sway an election in such a situation?
It would seem harder. Candidates would have to spread resources across the country and votes couldn’t be concentrated in five to six states, leaving litigation to five or six states.
It would likely pull the GOP back to the moderate areas where the muddy middle lives. Democrats would also have to moderate some stances, too.
One cannot justify the fact that a vote in New York is nearly meaningless while a vote in the Phoenix suburbs is incredibly invaluable.
But that’s not our system (at least not without a Constitutional Amendment) and thus both sides, at least as early as March or April, are preparing for a close election, even though both Clinton and Biden easily won the popular vote.
Indeed, since 1992, the GOP has won a total of one popular vote victory — 2004’s Bush win over Kerry. The Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in every other election. Republicans need the Electoral College and already run the country as a minority.
Given that Republicans have been able to occupy the White House at all occasionally even given that reality, it sure seems prudent to be prepared.
The Boy Scouts would be proud.
This report is based on original reporting by Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley of Rolling Stone.
Jason Miciak is an Editor at Large for Occupy Democrats
For clarifications, comments, & typos, email: editor@occupydemocrats.com.
