From our correspondent in the United States,
conspiratorial candidates. Armed pseudo survey observers. Nancy Pelosis husband attacked. After being shaken during the 2020 presidential election and then during the attack on the Capitol, American democracy will be tested again this Tuesday during the Midterms.
All signals are red, with an increased risk of political violence, according to a Department of Homeland Security and FBI alert issued a week before the midterm elections.
Every second Republican candidate questioned Biden’s choice
Donald Trump, who could announce his 2024 candidacy by mid-November, last Thursday repeated the same lie he has been recycling for two years: “I was a candidate twice, and I won twice. This so-called scam, which even his former Attorney General Bill Barr called “bullshit,” sent MAGA (Make America Great Again) voters into an uproar in the primary. So much so that half (291 out of 568) of Republican nominees for Congress or for the posts of governor and secretary of state are “voter money,” according to a Washington Post count.
These candidates therefore refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory or at least cast doubt on the results. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano pledged that if he were elected governor, he would have no hesitation in “rectifying” the results of the next presidential election. And in Arizona, Mark Finchem, a member of the Oath Keepers militia who flirts with Qanon, posted a list of “traitors” on Pinterest calling for stocks of ammunition. He is hot on the heels of the Democratic nominee with a chance to become Secretary of State and play a central role in confirming the next presidential election.
Republican nominee for Arizona Secretary of State Mark Finchem. —Jim Rassol/AP/SIPA
Armed Observers
Two years ago, hundreds of Donald Trump supporters, some armed, chanted “stop the count” to demand an end to the count in Phoenix, Arizona. In this contentious state, the conspirators, who fantasize about the existence of “mules” filling the ballot boxes with fake ballots, have taken the lead this year. The self-proclaimed “patriot” group Clean Election USA monitored the mailboxes where voters drop their ballots in advance. Authorities released photos of armed or cloaked people denouncing an “attempt at intimidation,” and a judge barred them from approaching within 80 meters, guns in hand.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked by an insane conspirator. Like the Capitol rioters, he asked, “Where’s Nancy?”. The man intended to hold the speaker hostage and “break her kneecaps” so she would confess to the Democratic “lies.”
From rhetoric to violent action
In such a climate, “the risk of violence is real, especially just after the midterms,” warns Carolyn Gallaher, a researcher specializing in extremes at American University in Washington. In her opinion, the tighter the vote, the greater the danger, as “many far-right paramilitary groups are linked to the MAGA ideology”. “Around the world, the normalization of fiery rhetoric by political leaders is often a harbinger of a growing threat of violence,” said Autumn Lewien, a researcher with the Bridging Divide Initiative at the University of Princeton.
The two experts worry about thousands of anonymous poll workers who suffered death threats in 2020, whose addresses were published on the Internet. Responsibility for bringing the temperature down rests with Republican officials, the researchers say. They must “put democracy before their party,” emphasizes Autumn Lewien. However, the researcher prefers to remain optimistic: “Voting in the United States is safe, and the elections are safe”, with protective measures that worked in 2020. It remains to be seen whether that will be the case in two years’ time.