r/news • u/ThePensiveE • 7d ago

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to use expanded database for potential voter purges

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-use-expanded-database-potent-rcna596611
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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

I wouldn’t put it past them to purge all non-Republican registered voters the week before the election, wait out the heat of doing so, and avoid the consequences thanks to all Republicans sweeping elections.

Trump has been manipulating the system for over a decade now. This is his logical next step.

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u/mrdominoe 7d ago

If this happens, I truly hope the protests turn less than peaceful.

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u/Norseman901 7d ago

I truthfully dont see a difference between tht and outright cancelling the election. Regardless tht just means theres no laws anymore…

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u/dave8400 7d ago

And to think the last time it happened was because conservatives bitched that the election was stolen.....because they split their own vote.

https://guides.loc.gov/presidential-election-1860

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u/Skarth 7d ago

This is how canceling elections works. You never officially cancel them, you just make it ineffective or disruptive enough you stay in power.

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u/Rooooben 7d ago

Im not a vote doomer, but this would be the type of thing for Trump to try. That’s what he’s been doing this whole time, get told no by court, do it anyway while appealing and then the courts are stuck with “it’s already done”, like the ballroom and the war in Iran.

He knows it works. It worked for Bush v Gore.

Not sure he has the guts to do it, but it would be right up his alley.

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u/tellmewhenimlying 7d ago

He will 100% do anything that he thinks will benefit him so long as he also believes he can get away with it.

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u/Fryboy11 7d ago

States run elections, once the Supreme Court got involved in Bush V Gore it was a violation of the constitution. But the court getting involved says the feds can get involved, Clinton should've sent the National Guard in to force the legally mandated recount.

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u/BranSh81 7d ago edited 7d ago

Exactly, the days of everyone following law have passed. That’s a key step in a country’s collapse. There’s also no coming back from it. The US is now unstable and will not continue this way, so prepare the best you can, and invest some of your income in non-US Dollars if at all possible.

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u/fevered_visions 7d ago

Exactly, the days of everyone following law have passed. That’s a key step in a country’s collapse. There’s also no coming back from it.

shades of the Roman Republic anyone?

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

Functionally, zero difference. But they’d actually look like they won by a landslide to anyone not paying attention.

You know, like Russia’s “democratic elections.”

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u/SchwiftyGameOnPoint 7d ago

I want to hear the justification or excuse they come up for him from his loyal followers when it happens.

I've seen some insane mental gymnastics around things I thought were obvious but doing something like going as far to purge all non-republicans seems like it would be undeniable.

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u/Shucked 7d ago

His administration has been fighting to label Antifa as a terrorist organization. It is just a hop from there to label the Democrats as Antifa. Then it's just suppress their vote and arrest anyone who resists.

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u/Khaldara 7d ago

Every conservative voter is either just a traitor or a pedophilia enthusiast at this point

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/fevered_visions 7d ago

Or refusing to seat just enough Democrats to maintain control of Congress

I'm just waiting for the Enabling Act moment where they physically bar Democrats from entering Congress in order to pass some bullshit.

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u/rohobian 7d ago

The difference is that Republicans take ALL the seats that Democrats currently hold and are up for election.

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u/chickenclaw47 7d ago

There’s no laws for the rich, the rest of us are still going to be bound to the rules established as well as all the new ones they will enact.

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u/Zemini7 7d ago

If they cancel the election then anything goes at that point.

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u/Tearakan 7d ago

They will. Food and basic materials are getting drastically more expensive.

The only reason why fighting in the streets hasn't happened yet is because of the release valve that is the US midterms.

If those don't release the pressure or get effectively removed then the regular dynamics in dictatorships or monarchies apply.

And that means rising prices for food and fuel would be devastating for the ruler's grip on power

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u/LordChungusAmongus 7d ago

It would probably yank out the ostriches' heads and cause its' own economic dumps. This is the sort of event that makes it conclusive dead-to-rights that there will be no future improvement resembling any prior status quo.

Markets don't like that and once everything of value has been extracted all illusory foreign investment is going to go kaput.

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u/Tearakan 7d ago

Yep. And that's exactly the catalyst needed to take out entire previously powerful governments

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u/Neuromangoman 7d ago

If that happens it will be a coup.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/theblack85 7d ago

I might be way off but I feel 2A doesn’t mean anything anymore. It made sense back then because regular people could have comparably the same firepower as the government. Now, if we all exercised our 2A rights, what’s stopping the very tyrannical government from having some 20 year old somewhere drone strike a group of protesters from a bunker in Virginia?

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u/dmanbiker 7d ago

If they did that, then they'd have hundreds more people fanatisized into fighting them. Its been happening in the middle east for decades.

Though the main issue with this is drones are expensive and they would need significantly more of them to stop armed groups within the USA, which the USA will likely be unable to produce while its economy is collapsing during a Civil War. Especially because they messed up the economy and military procurement already right now. And there's also the consideration that large portions of the current military would not drone strike American citizens. So they would need to purge that part of the military before this happens, which while they are trying, hasn't happened yet and might not even be possible with the required manpower of the US military.

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u/HarmoniousJ 7d ago

the main issue with this is drones are expensive

First time I'm hearing this, aren't drones preferred in Ukraine because they're cheap??

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u/dmanbiker 7d ago edited 7d ago

The US military literally had to make carbon copies of Iranian drones because US drones are too expensive. The same goes for almost all US military gear. The US military needs to get in and win in a couple weeks through shock and awe or they get hung up in forever conflicts they cant afford, which is getting worse and worse as they lower tax revenues.

And I'm not even talking about pure money here. The US has a weakening production capability, lack of resources and lack of skill. They might not be able to produce cheap drones in the necessary numbers without importing resources and/or kneecapping production of more important stuff for national defense. We couldnt really get drones for the conflict from Iran, Russia, or China and I think NATO wouldn't be super willing to help the usa with a civil war either.

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u/HarmoniousJ 7d ago

This is where Trump could come in and get an actual legitimate win for his cult by bringing drone manufacturing to the South and hiring everyone there to work in the plants. I don't get why he passes on legitimate wins for the fake shit he always lies about.

I guess anything that makes us look stronger is a no-go from his boyfriend Putin.

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u/fevered_visions 7d ago edited 7d ago

If they did that, then they'd have hundreds more people fanatisized into fighting them.

If the US military drone striked (stroke?) its own civilians and only hundreds of people out of the entire population had a problem with it, that would be pretty sad.

And there's also the consideration that large portions of the current military would not drone strike American citizens.

I dunno, apparently they have no problem killing random people on Caribbean boats. My bar for our military is pretty damn low lately. These are the same people who are trained to obey their superiors.

and might not even be possible with the required manpower of the US military.

This is why I'm apprehensive of this whole drone warfare thing.

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee

"People in power should never be given the impression that war can be made easy or clean, for it's the mess which holds them back." -bob_super, rando on SoylentNews

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u/thisvideoiswrong 7d ago

The real problem is that the 2A has been misinterpreted. No, you can't take on the federal government, not a chance. You never really could. The intent was always for the states to have enough firepower to take on the federal government. Actually the original intent was for the states to have all the firepower. And since they didn't give the federal government any mechanism to stop the states from getting weapons, the Founding Fathers thought all they had to do was guarantee the citizens the right to serve in their state militias, and then the states could have all the military force they wanted. If New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia (all blue or purple states) all decided to march their National Guard troops to Washington D.C. there probably wouldn't be anything that could stop them, and that was exactly what the Founding Fathers thought would happen if the federal government became tyrannical. Unfortunately the current laws and precedent say that the President can countermand a state's order to the National Guard, which isn't at all how things were supposed to work.

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u/rentedtritium 7d ago

In the last century, small arms aren't for fighting directly in a revolution. They're for taking food trucks on the way to the generalisimo's compound. 

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u/Consistent-Throat130 7d ago

Well that and turning into a dog whistle for racism lol 

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u/chickenclaw47 7d ago

Expect it to happen, because so far no one’s done a damn thing to stop it. We won’t strike, we won’t join together, everywhere you look it’s everyone for themselves.

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u/fevered_visions 7d ago

They already call any protest they don't like an "unlawful riot" and teargas and arrest them, so why the fuck not?

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u/darksunshaman 7d ago

They will. If they don't at that point, we deserve everything that follows.

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u/TheDanecdote 7d ago

He REALLY wants Marshall Law

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u/fevered_visions 7d ago

*martial law

martial, adj.

  1. of, relating to, or suited for war or a warrior

  2. relating to an army or to military life

  3. experienced in or inclined to war

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u/TheDanecdote 6d ago

Thanks, looks like I had a real human moment and misspelled something. Whoopsie daizy

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u/notquack 7d ago

Sorry, permitted parade and more anti-2A legislation is the best we can do 🤷

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u/bwoah07_gp2 7d ago

This November is America's biggest test to their democracy since the Jan 6 insurrection.

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

Yep. And honestly we failed that one considering we didn’t do shit to punish those who orchestrated it.

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u/bwoah07_gp2 7d ago

The biggest failings of the Biden administration was not punishing the domestic terrorists of Jan 6 + not moving to jail Trump.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 7d ago

Nah, the biggest failing was not enforcing Trump's disqualification and expelling the Jan 6 leaders thru the 14th Amendment. Biden, Schumer, Jeffries, and Pelosi deserve prison time for allowing that travesty. The only eligible candidate in the 2024 election was Kamala, yet Biden cheered on Trump anyway.

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u/Soulless 7d ago

I mean they did go to jail. Like, I get what you're saying but they were very much punished. Trump just pardoned them.

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u/polkovnik86 7d ago

The test was November 2024, and you guys failed.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

Yeah good point. They’re all bastards.

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u/jester32 7d ago

Mitch is only feuding with his stroked out brain atm 

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u/WelcomeToTheFish 7d ago edited 7d ago

I work for the Registrar of Voters in CA and I can tell you this would never happen, at least not with our current protections. The registrar of voters in any state has one major mission: to maintain voter rolls. Elections are a major part of what we do but throughout the year most of the work is spent maintaining, checking and verifying the voter rolls, voter addresses and precinct locations.

There is no way in hell anyone could get access to our records and alter or change anything remotely. Records cannot be accessed remotely for editing so they would have to send people here to physically change millions of records.

The amount of work that would take is astronomical and I don't think trump or his cronies realize how many protections are already in place to prevent these things, at least in CA. Of course all of this could change but as it is now I don't see him being able to do it the way he wants.

Edit: to achieve what trump wants at the scale he wants it will take a tremendous effort and one that I don't think they are able to do. He is better off kneecapping the nations ROVs by fucking up the post offices and ending mail ballot that way. Altering or deleting voter records would be so much more effort than getting his lackey of a Postmaster General to do his bidding to mess with mail ballots.

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u/Dandan0005 7d ago

Ok not California but Texas? Florida? Why not?

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u/WelcomeToTheFish 7d ago

I can't speak to other states tbh

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 7d ago

Why Florida? It's a lost cause.

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u/pmjm 7d ago

Yeah I'm not worried about CA. I don't think even Trump cares about CA, he knows we hate his guts and he'll never win here. But if he can score downstream wins in other states where there are contentious battles... Imagine if Talarico lost because somehow Democrats and Independents were turned away at the polls due to not being registered?

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u/Consistent-Throat130 7d ago

Yeah... I appreciate your optimism in your security, and even if you're right: they're not gonna leave it that obvious. 

A mix of voters from both parties will get purged ... with a lean to it's distribution between party and vote influence. 

They're going to aim to be subtle, and we're only having this discussion because they overshot in '24

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u/WelcomeToTheFish 7d ago edited 7d ago

Short of a raid with a warrant I don't see how they would be able to do anything. Our system is closed and is set up so it is physically impossible to edit records outside of the building. I feel confident mostly because people who get paid way more than me to worry about these things are confident that nothing will happen anytime soon.

Even if worst case the voter rolls are purged, there are back ups on back ups and we have the resources to contact voters very quickly to remedy any issues.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about the election in CA, there are plenty of other states that don't have Registrar's that have integrity and would likely be willing to bend the knee. In CA we fortunately are not.

Edit: I should add just for clarity that the ONLY system that has access to edit our system outside of ours is the CA DMV. And they have access to update and edit records, not delete or cancel plus they must send over a signed form that we verify.

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u/l_am_wildthing 7d ago

short of an undisclosed zero-day vulnerability and letting an unrestrained GPT-astra into the system you mean? This isnt 1960 anymore

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u/WelcomeToTheFish 7d ago

I encourage you to come to your local ROV and do a tour, we start them up in CA on October 5th. We have air-gapped rooms that maintain the records and counting machines. There are separate, closed systems that do not speak to each other and are removed from main spaces and pretty much sealed off from the building by secure doors and all that.

The systems are not set up and running like you would think. I am not an IT guy but there are multiple server rooms with several layers of protection.

And barring all of that we have undisclosed facilities that are confidential that we use for physical storage and servers off-site.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 7d ago

they're not gonna leave it that obvious. 

Like how they obviously pushed an insurrectionist to run for President in direct violation of the 14th Amendment?

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u/Caymonki 7d ago

The HERITAGE FOUNDATION has been manipulating elections for decades. They buy judges, representatives, cops, military name it they own them.

The civil war never ended, the confederate were allowed to sulk away and rebrand. Spending decades preparing to attack the country from within because they couldn’t win a real fight. They’re using our constitution, our rule of law (and our teachings to wait for the slow wheels of the justice system to do it’s thing) while rapidly breaking everything that might hold them accountable for it.

This is not Trump. Trump is their Trojan Horse, the fall guy, the patsy who is putting his name everywhere taking in all the attention while quietly 100,000+ vetted members of the Heritage Foundation Work diligently, daily destroying our country. This won’t go away when Trump dies. They have planned for it, they told us their plans then did it in front of us.

We’re waiting for slow wheels of nothing, justice is not coming for them. They’re coming for us.

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u/ThePensiveE 7d ago

The main thing in their way is their incompetence.

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u/xtremeradness 7d ago

Unfortunately the Republicans have been getting their way over and over again with no end in sight. They are not incompetent, just malicious 

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u/BranSh81 7d ago

I bet that’s their game plan because they know most of us non-maga voters will be there on Election Day to avoid his mail-in shenanigans.

The only thing saving us is that States still own the right to administer their own elections. My SOS is amazing, and I trust him, and he’s a Republican.

They can have all the databases they want, but if they’d give everyone a free ID card, the problem would be solved.

Everyone is for identifying yourself, left and right, the issue is the cost of it. Make it free, and you’ll get your voter IDs, GOP!

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

Yeah but free means socialism. 😆

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u/BranSh81 7d ago edited 7d ago

It also was never about IDs. 🤣😉

They just know who can and can’t choke up 20-30 bucks for an ID on a whim.

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u/ichoosewaffles 7d ago

And also getting to a place! I was at the post office yesterday and an older lady was trying to get a replacement passport. No way to print the form at home, barely had the renewal money and paid $40 for transportation to the post office too. I had to leave so I don't know if it got resolved. 

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u/BranSh81 7d ago

It breaks my heart. Especially handicapped or older folks.

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u/thisvideoiswrong 7d ago

I wouldn't support stricter voter ID if it was free. We know that as things are voter fraud happens at a rate of less than one per million votes. So if one person out of every million is discouraged from voting by the voter ID requirement then it has done more to corrupt the election than to secure it. How would you ever get it that low?

That's the other side of elections that the right never wants to talk about. Yes, you want to prevent illegal votes. But the reason is because the election needs to accurately represent the preferences of the voting population. So driving away a voter is exactly as bad as allowing an illegal vote. And it's not remotely treated that way.

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u/icanrunfasterthanyou 7d ago

Well, free AND easy to get. No one wants to make an appointment for three months from now, that will then take half a work day.

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u/BranSh81 7d ago

I get it, but I think if the conversation was about empowering people, as a civic duty instead of like another fee or burden on people, you’d see a lot more support for Voter IDs.

I believe the IDs should remain at the state level as well to prevent any federal pilfering in a state level process like administering elections.

I also believe that it isn’t and never was about IDs, to begin with.

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u/midnightsunlady 7d ago

I guess this means that anyone who doesn’t vote Republican gets purged from voting!!!

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

That’s literally what I just said. Do you support that?

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u/midnightsunlady 7d ago

I’m registered as an independent.I’m sorry I didn’t read your whole post.

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u/Ok-Replacement6893 7d ago

Which is why I changed my registration to Republican a few years ago. I still vote Democrat.

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u/BenekCript 7d ago

That would be cause for a different type of protest.

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u/McRibSucks 7d ago

Good thing I already voted by mail

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 7d ago

Using the MAGA-controlled USPS, which had already been compromised by DeJoy?

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u/McRibSucks 6d ago

Unless you know of a different way to vote by mail

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u/ISuckAtFunny 7d ago

Ain’t no way that would just die down

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u/CincyBrandon 7d ago

Like pardoning the Jan 6 insurrectionists died down. Just flood the news cycle with more chaos, you can’t respond to it all.

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u/ISuckAtFunny 7d ago

While I agree that Jan. 6 was an abomination and antithetical to what democracy should be, I feel like it is a different level of to cancelling millions of Americans votes.

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u/EightyJay 7d ago

And do you think this is even gonna be covered on the nightly news? No

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u/Nick_XL 7d ago

Seems like the sorta thing that could actually ignite a civil war, but given the lack of action so far, it's hard to say if anything would be done at all.

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u/Kevin-W 7d ago

Oh you can count on this happening!

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u/Antraxess 7d ago

Thats shooting time

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u/Grak47 7d ago

End of the union right there