Our nation has always prided itself on an orderly and regular transition of presidential power.
Nothing showcases that orderly transition more than the president and the president-elect together riding in a limo up to Capitol Hill for the inauguration ceremony.
This limo ride is especially noteworthy if the president-elect has just defeated the president. You have to go all the way back to 1992, after President Bill Clinton defeated President George H.W Bush for the last time such an awkward ride occurred.
However, if President Obama is defeated, will his January limo ride with Mitt Romney be as smooth?
Maybe not, because as the presidential election winds down, there are two disturbing issues swirling around the blogosphere that have become nearly impossible to ignore.
Recently, Drudge Report has linked to articles predicting riots and urban unrest based on social media, if President Obama loses the election.
Even worse, are increasing threats of an assassination attempts against Governor Romney if President Obama is defeated.
“The Secret Service is aware of this and will conduct appropriate follow up if necessary,” Brian Leary, a spokesman for the United States Secret Service, says in an email, from a piece by the Weekly Standard that was linked on Drudge.
With both these news items going viral, there are several questions that come to mind.
First, should President Obama address these issues?
My answer is “yes.”
For, if on the day before the election, the polls show a genuine tie, President Obama has an obligation to the American people to make a prime-time television address asking all Americans to stay calm.
Certainly an address of this nature would be historic, awkward — but necessary — if news reports of potential unrest or worse continue to abound.
In his speech, President Obama should mention that in our nation’s history there is no tradition of citizens erupting in violence if the election outcome is not to their liking. Furthermore, our non-violent tradition must continue, or our reputation as the world’s most stable and leading democracy would be challenged.
Second, should Mitt Romney address this issue on the day before the election?
Yes, I believe Romney should ask for national calm if Obama does not.
Third, should Obama and Romney together make a nationally televised statement addressing this issue?
In my opinion, a joint statement would send the strongest signal to the electorate that violence would not be tolerated, no matter who wins the White House.
A joint statement would be especially prudent if, for example, before Election Day it was reported that some governors have activated the National Guard as a preventive measure.
Given the polarized state of the American electorate, mixed with the extreme passion and high tension that is now prevalent, anything is possible on the evening of or day after the election.
Just because election unrest or violence is politically incorrect to discuss, this would not preclude it from happening.
He won’t. Leftists will do anything they can to undermine the Romney administration, and no better way to do it than to keep planting seeds for a race war.
The day Mitt Romney is declared the winner of the election, is the day the left bgins it’s program to delegitimatize Mitt Romney and subvert the new administration. Manufactured scandals, claims of voter fraud, etc it’s all coming.
It’s what they do…it’s in their nature…Mitt should reach-out his hand in bi-partisianship, but when the left slaps it away, Mitt should govern exeactly the way Obama did.
Don’t worry; the five million (or more if necessary) Chicago votes will; assure The Anointed Wons victory.
I know it’s an ad hominem attack, but Alex Jones (infowar.com – the article you link to) is hardly credible. He’s full of conspiracy theories that don’t hold water and Obama or Romney would only give them credibility if they addressed them.
As for death threats – that’s just more of the coarsening of our public discourse. It’s happened before, only now Twitter and social media allows morons with poor impulse control to make fools of themselves to a larger audience*. They think they are anonymous or only talking to friends, but forget (or don’t know) how the Internet works. If anything, these fools should be fined for the Secret Service investigation time they take up. I think someone in the MSM should do a story that, yes, you can get a visit from the Secret Service when you spout off on Twitter. Maybe that will remind people.
*Gabe’s Internet F**kwad Theory: Average person + anonymity + audience = Total F**kwad. From “Penny Arcade” the web comic.
I fear the irony of your criticism is lost on you.
Most of what Drudge links are MSM reports. Hardly credible these days, right? Well there’s this thing called editorial news selection that allows a person to have the most popular, rock solid news reporting site on the planet by linking to what everyone know is a biased and often blatantly lying MSM. You filter the junk out. That same mind can read Infowars and filter out the good reporting from an unfounded conspiracy. It’s actually pretty easy for a professional to do, so relax and leave it to them. If Drudge is linking it, he’s done the hard part already. Same with the PJM link choice. You can safely read it and weep for your country.
The MSM itself by the way is actually run by a widely-known and tolerated conspiracy of leftist shills for Obama who routinely cover up their journalistic high crimes instead of exposing each other. Surprisingly though, in retrospect, Alex Jones predicted most of what we see happening today 15 years ago by doing his independent reporting homework. Glenn Beck got most of the credit by mainstreaming it. Drudge seems to be giving Jones professional respect for that track record, despite his faults. While he might fall for some tenuous conspiracy idea or some disinformation, he misses some other true conspiracies — like the Muslim Brotherhood being in bed with leftists, globalists, media and politicians.
None of us can connect all the dots, but when there is an organized campaign to prevent us from doing so, it can be difficult. I can assure you that the goal of some true political kooks to block and even outlaw dangerous conspiracy information on the Internet was not to protect you from Alex Jones links because he’s so wrong, or from PJM because their Fast and Furious or Muslim Brotherhood reporting is wrong.
Is Jones making up those links or are they real?
On one part of this article:
“The Secret Service is aware of this and will conduct appropriate follow up if necessary,” Brian Leary, a spokesman for the United States Secret Service, says in an email,
I no longer have any confidence in the Secret Service. From Columbia to Miami they have shown themselves to be on the very brink of useless. Not to mention the glossed over, barely happened, noting to see here casual way an agent left hiw weapon in the bathroom of Romney’s plane.
Will there be “unrest”. No. There will be riots when Romney wins. Will The Won appeal for calm?. Yes, in the very manner of his Travon appeal. An appeal that is a call to arms for his supporters.
Well said Myra. Maybe just maybe I can see my mom for Thanksgiving, which would be really iffy if it was a recount or a solid Obama loss. Now you all know why I use the handle “urbanleftbehind”. At a Christmas party at my job several years ago, one of my co-workers asked where I lived (this was before my move out and marriage). I stated the intersection and was then asked “Are you an Urban Pioneer”? I said no I;m more like an urban left behind.
I’ll be voting Romney in the relative safety of my collar county suburb. If I have to go “packing” to “grandmother’s house”, I will.
Based on my observations, made over the last half century (before that i was a little kid, so give me a break), if there is violence by the chattel of the left, it will happen in the large urban areas where they seem to congregate. It will originate in what are now self contructed ghettos, by the self same beneficiaries of identity politics.
Because the the pols who run these places, the people not of the left’s favored group will be essentially disarmed, and the others, having ignored the law, will be armed as well as they can be. In the cities, then, the police forces will be the only armed presence to confront the rioters. As we saw in Watts, Detroit, and LA, the police will almost immediately stage a tactical retreat, leaving the rioters unchecked.
For two to seven days, the riot will rage in the area where it originated. It will devolve into looting and robbery within 24 hours. After the mob has wrecked everything they can reach, the State of Feds will deploy National Guard troops to initially contain and then quell the violence.
But what if the State and Federal governments don’t send in the troops, or worse, can’t?
Eventually, once the rioters have exhausted the food and other supplies they need to live in the new ruins they have just made, it will occur to them to leave, to go to where there is more food and water and flat screen TVs for the taking.
Ah. There’s the rub. Outside of the city, there are people who have a different view on the way things should work than the folks who are streaming towards them and who are leaving a trail of smoke and destruction in their wake.
Once the rioters get outside their cradle, they will find a rifle behind every blade of grass. Not well organized, at first, but certainly better than the rioters, with a shorter supply line and much superior communications, the fly over Americans will not react like the urban police forces.
Executive summary: Any violence related to the defeat of Obama will originate in cities, and will be successful only if they remain in the cities. Once the useful tools have done their work, the usual suspects will cash in, and things will return to status quo.
To date, we have not seen a movement of large groups of rioters outside the urban environment. However, the recent movement in flyover country to prepare to meet the zombie outbreak indicates that some folks are thinking that it could happen.
Look, if “both sides” need to speak to the issue, then we’ve abdicated our sovereignity. If the citizens rely on federal parenting to make them play nice, they really do “belong to the government.”
This isn’t rocket science. We have the rule of law in this country. Law enforcement should be prepared to handle riots — if they occur — just as they should be prepared for other emergencies such as natural disasters. This should be self evident. States, cities and municipalities don’t need daddy to advise them.
Well, if anyone thinks the lickspittle, lap dog media will do anything at all in favor of Romney, think again. Could someone be planning/promoting a coup d’etat via rioting and generalized civil unrest. Possible. If you think the idea hasn’t crossed the Administration’s tiny mind, just look-up Executive Order 13603 and look at the powers it grants the Secretary of Homeland Security in the event of a “national emergency.”
In the Rodney King riots, when the racist idiot Daryl Gates pulled LAPD out of the way, the citizens of Korea Town organized on their own after a day or so. If there is any repeat, citizens all over the city, and I guess anywhere in the country, will organize almost immediately.
I presume the violence would be racially organized, and that that is the fear. If it were actually a widespread leftist/anarchist disturbance – and the police stayed out – well, I would almost welcome it. Either way, it would be a massively stupid idea for the instigators, which doesn’t make it impossible of course, but I don’t take it seriously.
Given that, it would be massively stupid for the candidates to address it before the election, only make it much more likely to actually occur.
OTOH, it never hurts for responders to have some contingency plans in place, that is their job after all.
I too would “almost welcome” a major series of anarchist outbursts, as I think it will drive home the fact that the country has dodged a bullet from a gun it fired itself. Anything that demonizes the left is a good thing.
No history of a violent organized reaction to a presidential election? Surely you jest? What was the American Civil War a response to? As I recall, the South left the union and proceeded to forcibly evict the Feds from Fort Sumter. Apparently the South thought Lincoln was going to take away their slave candy.
Yes, what you say is true BUT…I am speaking about the potential for street violence the day after the election based on threats of such violence and it is only threatened by certain groups if the president is defeated. The Civil War had its roots at the founding of our nation when the Founding Fathers kicked the issue of slavery down the road in order to birth a nation. The Civil War was a slow build involving several major issues chief among them states rights, then the bubble burst.
I say split the difference: the warning should be a purchased TV announcement featuring Artur Davis, Vernon Parker, Allen West and Mia Love. Hell, offer it PBS, which may be desparate for any goodwill it can engender in the upcoming administration. It would put decidely non-Urkelish black folk (talking to you, Sowell) in a position of semi-authority and also show that the path to participating in a now-approaching-the only game in town Republican party is not infeasible.
There will be no riots. There will be a couple people who will rant and rave and wave signs (Occupy anyone?) but in the end their efforts won’t amount to a hill of beans.
Lefties are a very squishy group. Since the MSM is now pointing out that maybe, possibly, oh my goodness, Romney might win, you can see the lefties going through the 5 stages of grief. The last one is acceptance. All you have to do is read the MSM articles right now. They are aware what is coming.
The lefty leaders know that after an Obama defeat, they will be losing some of their power, mainly money to steal at the city/neighborhood level. So they will be scurrying after crumbs. The absolute last thing they need is to have an LA style riot. That would just about seal the deal on taxpayers finally saying: “Go ahead and burn down your own city, we won’t pay to rebuild it.”
After the Katrina looting in 2004, how many people were disgusted at how a natural disaster turned into free-for-all. The people in Florida in 2005 after 4 hurricanes sure didn’t react that way.
Could you imagine some politician trying to put forth a “rebuild burned down Obama-town 2013″ bill asking for millions of taxpayer dollars for some city that got torched by Obama rioters? It would get as many votes in Congress as Obama’s budget plans received (exactly zero.)
And Obama ride in the limo? Of course he will. After his defeat, he will spend decades enriching himself as some sort of elder statesman, giving speeches about how magnificent he was, but he was surrounded by Republican obstruction at every turn. He’ll jet around the world, with Chicago as an adoring home base. I’ll bet they build an Obama memorial for him right next to Lincoln’s.
The man was BORN to be a big shot ex-something. This November 6, we can make that happen.
I absolutely welcome the Left doing as they dang well please in case of a Romney victory, and I absolutely welcome Obama doing nothing to stop it.
I wouldn’t put a lot of credibility in this story. Besides, isn’t it just as likely if Romney loses that Republicans may riot in the streets?
Both Romney and Obama must address this issue! In a reply to Alex, the Republican Party itself would NOT RIOT,neither would the Tea Party, but; I can see the Democrats rally fringe groups in the name of the Republican Party to cause unrest and to make Obama look like a hero in stopping them!!