Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? DON’T LET THEM VOTE. (GO VOTE!!!)

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? DON’T LET THEM VOTE.


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WITH DONALD Trump’s polling numbers in a tailspin, he has doubled down in calling on Republican vigilantes to take matters into their own hands to thwart what many of them are primed to regard, without proof, as a rigged election. The Republican nominee’s rhetoric, inciting white rural and suburban voters who fear the voting clout of black urban Democrats, is a recipe for voter intimidation and even violence on Election Day. It also lays the groundwork for his followers to believe, if he loses,that his defeat was a historic swindle.

Starting in August, and accelerating this month, Mr. Trump has stood before rallies attended overwhelmingly by his white backers and urged them to go to “certain areas” on Election Day. “Go and vote and then go check out areas because a lot of bad things happen,” he said in Pennsylvania, where lax state laws allow poll watchers to challenge voters as they arrive at precincts. “You know what I’m talking about,” he added. On Monday, he told his followers that they must watch “other communities.” “I hear these horror shows, and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from us,” he said. “And everybody knows what I’m talking about.”

Yes, everyone knows what Mr. Trump is “talking about.” Mr. Trump’s odious gambit is a punch to the gut of American democracy that all but ensures charges of Election Day fraud, no matter how flimsy the evidence. It’s also in keeping with long-standing voter-suppression schemes in state legislatures, where white Republican lawmakers have used the concocted threat of voter fraud as an excuse to enact voter ID laws whose main purpose is to disqualify and discourage minority voters, who disproportionately lack the required documents.

This Republican project is racially intentional, as a recent federal court ruling in North Carolina said explicitly. It dovetails with other, similarly racist tactics in other states, such as the disenfranchisement of felons long after they have completed their sentences — a rule that has left 1 in 5 black adults ineligible to vote in Virginia.

Elsewhere, GOP vote suppression is even more transparently hostile to mass and minority turnout. In Florida, Republican Gov. Rick Scott last week refused to extend the deadline for voter registration even as Hurricane Matthew menaced his state, disrupting a surge in 11th-hour registrations. Mr. Scott, chair of a pro-Trump super PAC, said Floridians had had plenty of time already to register. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker disagreed, ordering the deadline extended on his authority Monday and expressing contempt for what he called the governor’s “wholly irrational” decision. He added: “This case is about the right of aspiring eligible voters to register and to have their votes counted. Nothing could be more fundamental to our democracy.”

That’s exactly right. And it should pose a basic question for Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), as they contemplate a post-Trump future. Will the GOP embrace the novel idea of attracting more voters to its side, or will it continue trying to win elections by discouraging people from exercising their right to vote?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.bc814623d898
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

Trump's 'Voter Suppression Operation' Targets Black Voters


Courting the Black vote in public
While privately seeking to depress turnout


:
© REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to North Carolina Faith
and Community leaders at a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., October 26 2016.


It would be unfair to call Donald Trump’s interaction with black voters a love-hate relationship, since there’s little evidence of African American enthusiasm for Trump. But the Republican campaign has pursued a Janus-like strategy on black voters—ostensibly courting them in public while privately seeking to depress turnout.

Example, North Carolina:

This tension is on display in the last 24 hours. On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, advertised as an “urban renewal agenda for America’s inner cities.” Trump told the audience, “It is my highest and greatest hope that the Republican Party can be the home in the future and forevermore for African Americans and the African American vote because I will produce, and I will get others to produce, and we know for a fact it doesn’t work with the Democrats and it certainly doesn’t work with Hillary.”

Yet on Thursday, BusinessWeek published a big cover story, based on exclusive access to the campaign, that revealed that Trump’s team has decided that winning over black voters is a lost cause:

Instead of expanding the electorate, [campaign chairman Steve] Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans.
The reporters, Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg, offer some more detail on what that looks like:

On Oct. 24, Trump’s team began placing spots on select African American radio stations. In San Antonio, a young staffer showed off a South Park-style animation he’d created of Clinton delivering the “super predator” line (using audio from her original 1996 sound bite), as cartoon text popped up around her: “Hillary Thinks African Americans are Super Predators.” The animation will be delivered to certain African American voters through Facebook “dark posts”—nonpublic posts whose viewership the campaign controls so that, as [campaign digital guru Brad] Parscale puts it, “only the people we want to see it, see it.” The aim is to depress Clinton’s vote total. “We know because we’ve modeled this,” says the official. “It will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out.”
This wasn’t entirely unknown—Monica Langley reported two weeks ago that Trump was aiming for depressed turnout. What’s incredible is that Trump’s advisers [actually] called it “voter suppression.” When you’re talking about “suppressing” black votes, it’s a good sign you’re not competing for them, and this is messaging malpractice, since it makes the work seem nefarious. That’s all the more true because Republicans around the country have spent the last decade instituting laws that make it more challenging to vote—measures that they say are necessary to present election fraud, but critics say actually amount to voter suppression.

In fact, trying to depress turnout is not that unusual. There’s lots of evidence that negative advertising is designed to depress turnout among certain, targeted groups. Certainly, the Clinton campaign has used negative ads—they’ve fired off a broadside of spots using Trump’s own words. If these ads convince Trump supporters to vote for Clinton, that’s great for her, but if they convince voters who might otherwise vote for the Republican that he’s just too toxic or mean or extreme, that’s just fine for her, too. It’s still one less vote for Trump. Obama tried a similar tactic in assailing Mitt Romney four years ago, as Ross Douthat points out.

Related Story Why Black Voters Are Rejecting Trump

This is, at least, the theory. Whether it works is a different question. The answer is probably no. A 2007 meta-analysis concluded that there is not “any reliable evidence that negative campaigning depresses voter turnout, though it does slightly lower feelings of political efficacy, trust in government, and possibly overall public mood.” (In a charming proof that your mother was right that you shouldn’t say anything unless you have something nice to say, another study found that while negative advertising was mostly useless, positive advertising was effective in running up margins where support was already strong.)

Even if Trump’s advisers are acting on a questionable theory, that theory does help explain some of Trump’s strange approach to African Americans. It confirms the suspicion of many observers, myself included, that Trump is more going through the motions of courting black voters more than actually trying to woo them. Many of his events aimed at African Americans have actually been in heavily white jurisdictions, in front of heavily white crowds.

His appearance in Charlotte Wednesday was no different. Although the city has become a symbol of racial tension since the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by police in September, the audience at Trump’s invitation-only event was mostly white, The Charlotte Observer noted. His speech was full of many of the same hamfisted overtures that have been met with everything from eyerolls to outrage by actual black Americans, from the implication that most blacks are living in squalid, violent “inner cities” to his deployment of false or misleading statistics to butress that vision of squalor. He has also used outdated and distancing language to discuss African Americans and other minorities.

The result of this halfhearted—or rather, insincere—outreach has been that Trump’s polling among African Americans is bad. He once boasted he could win 25 percent of the black vote, far outpacing the recent Republican high-water mark (Gerald Ford’s 17 percent in 1976). But with the election near, Fox News finds him trailing Clinton by 77 points. CBS found Trump at just 4 percent, with Clinton at 85 percent. That puts her a good bit behind Barack Obama’s 2012 pace of 93 percent, but Trump is also still behind Mitt Romney’s 6 percent, according to exit polls. (In one farcical turn, a major tracking poll turned out to be wildly distorted by a single 19-year-old black Trump voter, whose standing was heavily weighted.)


The Trump theory, as laid out in the
BusinessWeek article, holds that this doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t need black votes! (His advisors admit in the piece that their polling finds them trailing, and they say their path to victory is real but narrow.) Of course, his aides might be wrong. In addition to the political-science literature casting doubts on turnout depression, Clinton has spent months trying to mobilize African Americans, especially in places like North Carolina or Ohio, where black turnout is likely the difference between a Democratic victory or a Republican win. If black voters vote in droves in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, it might block Trump’s path to the White House altogether, and Trump’s decision to not even contest the bloc would look like a mistake.

Meanwhile, the BusinessWeek story made Republicans who aren’t affiliated with Trump practically apoplectic. That’s because even if Trump doesn’t think he needs black voters, future Republican candidates will. Trump has made clear that he owes no particular allegiance to the Republican Party and has little interest in its fortunes without him, which allows him to be blithe about writing off the demographic. Other analysts, including Republicans, have been warning for years that the GOP cannot survive as a rump party of whites (and, increasingly, white men). But voter relationships have to be built over time; a bloc written off or alienated can take a generation or more to win back. By not just passing on the chance to reach out to African Americans but actually bragging about their efforts to keep them from the polls, the Trump campaign isn’t just wasting an opportunity for outreach to blacks, but may in fact be setting back Republican efforts for years to come.


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...ar-AAjtNRR?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp#image=1



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MCP

International
International Member

Living in a sea of red: Muslims in Lehigh Valley fear four more years of Trump

In eastern Pennsylvania, a spike in support for the president is laying bare deep-rooted social divides
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In the Lehigh Valley, one of the few districts of eastern Pennsylvania that escaped a sea of Republican red in 2016, a continuation of a Donald Trump presidency is not just conceivable, it's entirely plausible.

Though Allentown, a one-time manufacturing hub near the New Jersey border, has remained Democratic for the past 20 years, many of the surrounding counties, including Bucks, Schuylkill and Carbon, have become Republican strongholds.

And according to the town's Muslim residents, there is little to suggest that this election will be any different.

"This is a volatile time, there is an air of hatred and violence and quite frankly I am worried about a culture of hostility spreading across the valley," Hasshan Batts, the 45-year-old executive director of non-profit Promise Neighbourhoods, told Middle East Eye.

"President Donald Trump has woken something in people and made it acceptable for hatred to reign; more important to me is to see people stand up and stick up for humanity and compassion."

Like many Muslims in the Lehigh Valley, a county considered pivotal in the race to the White House, Batts, speaking in his personal capacity, said he was hopeful that Trump would lose the election, but added that the fear felt by those in the area extends beyond the man as president.

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"This is about the people who have elected him. Trump is one man. Even if he goes, what about everyone who supported him?" Batts asked rhetorically.

Since becoming president, Trump has instituted different iterations of a travel ban on a series of Muslim-majority countries, has presided over some of the worst abuse of migrants and refugees on the US-Mexico border, has vilified Representative Ilhan Omar, among others, and has emboldened and refused to condemn white supremacy.

"What has always struck me about him is his continuous misogyny and hateful remarks about women. I can't accept that," said Sarah Baig, a 18-year-old student from Allentown.

On the foreign policy front, Trump has fraternised with authoritarians including Brazil's President Jair Bolsanaro and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and almost erased the Palestinians in a set of new deals in the Middle East.

In 2020, his poor handling and mixed messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic has left more than 220,000 Americans dead, a majority of whom were people of colour.

His time in office has also ushered in a 16-year-high in hate crimes across the US and left the country bruised and immensely polarised.

According to the 2018 census, there are 369,000 people in the Lehigh Valley, with more than 82 percent of its residents being white. In Allentown, a series of racist incidents have loomed large for people of colour and Muslims who live there.

"I can say that it has become more hostile and scarier than before. It is not shocking because as a Black Muslim woman, the microaggressions have always been there," said Amaris R, a 20-year-old student from Allentown now studying in New Jersey.

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Large swathes of rural Pennsylvania display Trump signage

As a swing state, Pennsylvania is considered critically important in the race to the White House.

In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by just 0.7 percentage points or 44,292 votes. A series of strategists and analysts predict that the winner of the state this time will have an 80 percent chance of winning the presidency.

Others say that this part of Pennsylvania is so important that whoever wins the Lehigh Valley's neighbouring Northampton county usually wins the election.

Philadelphia, Allegheny., as well as the Lehigh Valley, were among the counties that went to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and it is possible that it will remain marginally Democrat this time around too, yet Muslims, who number about 5,000 in the community, aren't taking any chances.

"There is a lot of mistrust towards Muslims, towards Black people, towards Latinx folks. And when we say we are in pain, when we say we are facing prejudice and discrimination, white people don't believe it because they just don't experience it," Batts says.

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Residents say they are seeing Trump increasingly endorsed by more affluent white American families

War of the placards

Across large swathes of rural eastern Pennsylvania, Trump signs are displayed on store fronts, hanging as flags from light poles, and affixed as placards on lawns outside homes, farms and warehouses.

For many people of colour in Allentown, including Muslims, the spike in open support has raised the spectre of a second Trump presidency.

"At the very least, more people seem more comfortable expressing support for him than they did four years ago," Batts said.

"Trump has brought out many of the hidden thoughts of people through his hate speech, which encourages political violence. At the end of the day, Donald Trump is the accelerant and the reason we can see such aggressive and violent political ideals," said Nadira Kaleem, a 20-year-old student from Allentown.

Though many Muslims aren't particularly excited by the prospect of a Biden presidency, most are expected to vote for him, in a bid to get Trump out of office.

Community organisers in the Lehigh Valley lament the Democratic Party's outreach to Muslim communities and even the larger Democratic electorate, pointing to the fact that ahead of this election, Biden did not choose to visit the district, instead making stops in Bucks and Luzerne counties over the weekend.

Since Barack Obama's re-election in 2012, Democratic support in the Lehigh Valley has declined, though polls do show Trump trailing Biden.

One Muslim restaurant owner, who asked not to be identified, said he felt as if he had no choice but to vote for Biden.

"I do have reservations about Biden; we are in a two-party system and so everyone has reservations about who they are voting for," said Amaris R.

As a former manufacturing area of Pennsylvania, the working classes of Lehigh Valley have in recent years fallen on hard times.

In 2019, the poverty rate in the district was 13 percent, almost three percentage points higher than the rest of the country.

Whereas Trump has been typically linked to lower-educated, white working-class Americans, in the Lehigh Valley many have begun to notice the number of signs supporting the president popping up outside bigger houses in more affluent suburbs as well.

"These are physicians, nurses, professionals who are supporting Trump, despite knowing what he has done with Covid-19, for example, and despite knowing everything that has happened over the past four years," said Mirza Baig, Sarah's father and president of the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley.

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Mirza Baig says a spike in Trump signs in suburbs around Allentown is a sign that more affluent white people are on board with Trump

Baig recalls that in September he noticed one of his neighbours put up a Trump sign outside his home. He responded with a Biden sign. The next day Trump signs popped up across the neighbourhood. "Every one of them. It was surprising. These are all well-educated people," Baig said.

"Something has changed. When September 11 happened, we saw nothing like this. But now, we wonder if they were holding themselves back then, because clearly they want to show how they really feel, and how they see us, too.

"Inherently, they feel that the immigrants have taken over. It is bringing out the white supremacist values in them. The people around us have been taxed more under Trump, so it can't be the economy. They support him for some other reason," he added.

Baig says that part of the reason Trump signs dominate the landscape is because of the reluctance of persons of colour and Muslims to demonstrate support for Biden.

"Some are actually in shock that they are surrounded by rednecks," he added.

First time voters

According to the US Elections Project, more than 73 million Americans have already voted early in person or submitted their mail-in ballots, meaning that almost 53 percent of registered voters had cast their ballot ahead of 3 November. Almost two million have done so in Pennsylvania.

For first-time voters, like Sarah Baig, Nadira Kaleem or Amaris R, all 20 years old, the prospect of casting their first vote to stall the march of white supremacy still felt a "little surreal".

"I think I would be very disappointed in our country if Trump had to win. It would be messed up. I think we would lose a lot of hope as young people if the country actually put this guy back in office," said Sarah Baig, who studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Still, many of her peers, mostly white, are supporting Trump.

Amaris R said: "It is just scary to see people my age adopt some of these far-right ideals, despite having had the same education.

"I don't believe Trump cares about the plight or the success of Black people or Muslims, or those at the intersection of the two."

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Nadira Kaleem says she knows many young people who have decided not to vote because of their distrust of the candidates and the electoral system (MEE/Azad Essa)

Over the weekend, a cavalcade of vehicles - cars, pick-up trucks, motorcycles - draped in Trump paraphernalia and American flags paraded down the highways of eastern Pennsylvania.

On Monday, Trump delivered remarks to a packed crowd in Allentown. Before the event, hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the venue before dawn amid frigid conditions to ensure that they got good spots to watch Trump speak.

Kaleem described the scenes playing out in the town as "extremely disheartening".

"It would be naive to think that white supremacy did not exist prior to our current presidency, but it is still unbelievably shocking to see how this rise of Trump has promoted such a violent and cult-like following that can result in mass uprising, even civil war.

"It makes me think about how many friends, employers, teachers, and others I have interacted with from the area always had these beliefs but never shared them," Kaleem added.

"I do not think that feeling will ever subside for me."
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? DON’T LET THEM VOTE.



‘WELL BEYOND SAFE LIMITS’

Dozens of pickup trucks, many with Trump flags, surrounded a Biden campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin.



Kelly Weill
Reporter

Updated Oct. 31, 2020 1:11PM ET / Published Oct. 31, 2020 11:52AM ET


Screen_Shot_2020-10-31_at_11.49.59_AM_zndskb

Twitter

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent.
Texas has emerged as a battleground state in Tuesday’s presidential election, with polls showing the typically Republican stronghold now only marginally favoring President Donald Trump. The Biden campaign scheduled a Friday event in the state, in a bid to drum up last-minute support.
But when the Biden campaign bus drove to Austin, it was greeted by a blockade of pro-Trump demonstrators, leading to what one Texas House representative described as an escalation “well beyond safe limits.”

The cancelation comes amid national anxiety about voter intimidation, a tactic the Trump campaign has implicitly endorsed.
Historian Dr. Eric Cervini was driving to help with the Biden campaign stop when he filmed a line of pickup trucks along the highway, many of them flying Trump flags. The drivers were “waiting to ambush the Biden/Harris campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin,” Cervini tweeted.
“These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road,” he alleged. “They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”

bidenbus_sptgnb



Biden campaign
A Biden campaign staffer told The Daily Beast that Trump supporters surrounded the bus on the highway and slowed down in front of it, attempting to stop it or run it off the road. The official sent a picture taken on the bus, showing Trump trucks surrounding the front of the vehicle. Staffers on the bus called police, who helped the bus reach its destination.

Video from the highway shows trucks surrounding the bus, at one point colliding with an SUV.

Footage from a CBS affiliate in Austin shows Trump supporters with signs and bullhorns surrounding the bus when it parked, with one person screaming that Biden was a communist.

Rep. Sheryl Cole, a Democrat representing nearby Pflugerville in Texas’s House, announced that a Biden event in her city had been canceled due to the harassment.

“This is a 1st for me - but we just cancelled a joint event in Pflugerville w/ @JoeBiden campaign, @AustinYoungDems, & more, due to security reasons,” she tweeted. “Unfortunately, Pro-Trump Protestors have escalated well beyond safe limits. Sorry to all who looked forward to this fun event.”

The Biden campaign’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, said holding the event would have placed Biden staffers and supporters at risk.

“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas today instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Thowfeek told The Daily Beat.
“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events today: We’ll see you on November 3rd.”
The Trump campaign—and often Trump himself—has encouraged in-person conflict around the polls. Trump used the first presidential debate to urge supporters to act as “poll watchers,” a call that sparked concerns of voter intimidation. His son, Donald Trump Jr., made an explicit call-out regarding the Biden campaign’s Texas outreach efforts.
In a video ahead of a Friday event by Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, Trump Jr. encouraged his father’s supporters to show up at Harris’s event.

“Hey Laredo, Don Jr. here,” he said. “I heard you had an awesome turnout for the Trump Train. It’d be great if you guys would all get together, head down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train welcome. Get out there, have some fun, enjoy it. Don’t forget to vote and bring all of your friends. Let’s show them how strong Texas still is as Trump country. Get out there, guys.”

Some Trump supporters appeared to heed the call. At least one Facebook event with more than 700 responses, viewed by The Daily Beast, encouraged Trump fans to attend a Harris event in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday and “give Kamala Harris a big Texas welcome..... TRUMP STYLE!” The event was listed as canceled ahead of time, although its organizers acknowledged that some people might still try to attend, “and that's your right.”

Trump supporters have previously been accused of intimidation this election. In Beverly Hills, California this week, an Australian television personality filmed participants at a pro-Trump rally shouting at her and threatening her in her car. A man brandishing a Trump flag at her appeared to photograph her and take down her license plate number.

“We’ve got you now,” the man shouted. “You’re going to vote for Trump whether you like it or not, you’ve got no choice.”
When Biden spoke at a Minnesota event on Friday, the same day as his campaign was ambushed in Austin, Trump supporters in a caravan of vehicles reportedly surrounded the venue honking their horns and chanting.

During early voting in the swing state of Virginia late last month, a caravan of Trump supporters drove to the Democratic-leaning Fairfax County and surrounded people in an early voting line, shouting at them on loudspeakers.

“We had a couple poll observers there that had to actually escort voters in because we saw people that would get to the edge of the parking lot, and see this giant group of Trumpers yelling and screaming,” the executive director of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee told The Daily Beast at the time.





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djpolo

Rising Star
Platinum Member
‘WELL BEYOND SAFE LIMITS’

Dozens of pickup trucks, many with Trump flags, surrounded a Biden campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin.



Kelly Weill
Reporter

Updated Oct. 31, 2020 1:11PM ET / Published Oct. 31, 2020 11:52AM ET


Screen_Shot_2020-10-31_at_11.49.59_AM_zndskb

Twitter

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent.
Texas has emerged as a battleground state in Tuesday’s presidential election, with polls showing the typically Republican stronghold now only marginally favoring President Donald Trump. The Biden campaign scheduled a Friday event in the state, in a bid to drum up last-minute support.
But when the Biden campaign bus drove to Austin, it was greeted by a blockade of pro-Trump demonstrators, leading to what one Texas House representative described as an escalation “well beyond safe limits.”

The cancelation comes amid national anxiety about voter intimidation, a tactic the Trump campaign has implicitly endorsed.
Historian Dr. Eric Cervini was driving to help with the Biden campaign stop when he filmed a line of pickup trucks along the highway, many of them flying Trump flags. The drivers were “waiting to ambush the Biden/Harris campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin,” Cervini tweeted.
“These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road,” he alleged. “They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”

bidenbus_sptgnb



Biden campaign
A Biden campaign staffer told The Daily Beast that Trump supporters surrounded the bus on the highway and slowed down in front of it, attempting to stop it or run it off the road. The official sent a picture taken on the bus, showing Trump trucks surrounding the front of the vehicle. Staffers on the bus called police, who helped the bus reach its destination.

Video from the highway shows trucks surrounding the bus, at one point colliding with an SUV.

Footage from a CBS affiliate in Austin shows Trump supporters with signs and bullhorns surrounding the bus when it parked, with one person screaming that Biden was a communist.

Rep. Sheryl Cole, a Democrat representing nearby Pflugerville in Texas’s House, announced that a Biden event in her city had been canceled due to the harassment.

“This is a 1st for me - but we just cancelled a joint event in Pflugerville w/ @JoeBiden campaign, @AustinYoungDems, & more, due to security reasons,” she tweeted. “Unfortunately, Pro-Trump Protestors have escalated well beyond safe limits. Sorry to all who looked forward to this fun event.”

The Biden campaign’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, said holding the event would have placed Biden staffers and supporters at risk.

“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas today instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Thowfeek told The Daily Beat.
“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events today: We’ll see you on November 3rd.”
The Trump campaign—and often Trump himself—has encouraged in-person conflict around the polls. Trump used the first presidential debate to urge supporters to act as “poll watchers,” a call that sparked concerns of voter intimidation. His son, Donald Trump Jr., made an explicit call-out regarding the Biden campaign’s Texas outreach efforts.
In a video ahead of a Friday event by Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, Trump Jr. encouraged his father’s supporters to show up at Harris’s event.

“Hey Laredo, Don Jr. here,” he said. “I heard you had an awesome turnout for the Trump Train. It’d be great if you guys would all get together, head down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train welcome. Get out there, have some fun, enjoy it. Don’t forget to vote and bring all of your friends. Let’s show them how strong Texas still is as Trump country. Get out there, guys.”

Some Trump supporters appeared to heed the call. At least one Facebook event with more than 700 responses, viewed by The Daily Beast, encouraged Trump fans to attend a Harris event in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday and “give Kamala Harris a big Texas welcome..... TRUMP STYLE!” The event was listed as canceled ahead of time, although its organizers acknowledged that some people might still try to attend, “and that's your right.”

Trump supporters have previously been accused of intimidation this election. In Beverly Hills, California this week, an Australian television personality filmed participants at a pro-Trump rally shouting at her and threatening her in her car. A man brandishing a Trump flag at her appeared to photograph her and take down her license plate number.

“We’ve got you now,” the man shouted. “You’re going to vote for Trump whether you like it or not, you’ve got no choice.”
When Biden spoke at a Minnesota event on Friday, the same day as his campaign was ambushed in Austin, Trump supporters in a caravan of vehicles reportedly surrounded the venue honking their horns and chanting.

During early voting in the swing state of Virginia late last month, a caravan of Trump supporters drove to the Democratic-leaning Fairfax County and surrounded people in an early voting line, shouting at them on loudspeakers.

“We had a couple poll observers there that had to actually escort voters in because we saw people that would get to the edge of the parking lot, and see this giant group of Trumpers yelling and screaming,” the executive director of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee told The Daily Beast at the time.





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djpolo

Rising Star
Platinum Member
Voted last week mail in ballot. If you have a disability you can do mail in here in Texas. LOL Let's be clear that they had the wrong address on the site with the form. I knew the shit wasn't right so after some research I found the correct address. On that site it said if you mail it to the other address your shit wont be counted. The Governor in Texas is an idiot. Trying his best to suppress our votes.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? DON’T LET THEM VOTE.


Hearing Set tomorrow, Monday morning, in Houston Federal Court.

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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Georgia ‘militia’ threat cancels Biden rally plans
Updated 9:20 PM; Today 9:20 PM



Floyd County Democrats abruptly canceled plans Sunday to rally for Joe Biden in downtown Rome ahead of President Donald Trump’s event, after an organizer said there were safety concerns over a “large militia presence” drawn to the Republican’s visit.

Ruth Demeter, the local party’s chairwoman, said in a statement on its website that the event was canceled “out of an abundance of concern for the health and safety of our citizens.”

“We have been informed that a large militia presence is expected in Rome today due to Trump’s visit,” she said, hours before Trump’s arrival. “Additionally, we are not able to secure police presence for our event because of the airport rally.”


Instead, the Democratic Party of Georgia moved the event to Zoom where local Democrats talked about what they considered the dangers of another Trump term in office, especially in light of the still-raging coronavirus pandemic.

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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? DON’T LET THEM VOTE.


North Carolina police pepper spray protesters at get-out-the-vote march
  • ‘We are fed up with this kind of treatment in Alamance county’
  • Police claim protesters blocked roadway without authorization


Police officers spray protesters shortly after a moment of silence during a get-out-the-vote march in Graham, North Carolina, on Saturday.

Police officers spray protesters shortly after a moment of silence
during a get-out-the-vote march in Graham, North Carolina, on
Saturday. Photograph: Anthony Crider/Reuters


Associated Press in Graham, North Carolina
Sun 1 Nov 2020 09.49 EST

North Carolina police pepper-sprayed and arrested attendees at a get-out-the vote rally because participants blocked the roadway without permission, authorities said on Saturday.

The “I Am Change” march to the polls was organized by the Reverend Greg Drumwright and began as a walk from a local church to the courthouse. Drumwright said the group was permitted to stand in the square outside the Alamance county courthouse and was escorted through the streets by the police. He also said that the group had “no intention” of having the rally in the street.

“We are fed up with this kind of treatment in Alamance county and in Graham city,” Drumwright said in a Facebook live video following the altercation. “Both of those law entities … colluded to suppress peaceful organizers, who were here not only to vote today, but to call an end to system oppression and racial disparages.”


Lindsay Ayling, a graduate student and anti-racism activist who participated in the rally, said police used teargas indiscriminately and without reason on the crowd, including on children.

“The police were looking for excuses to use pepper spray and arrest members of the crowd,” she said.
 
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