Conservatives continue working to destroy states' rights, saying we should 'nationalize' elections

[Wilson23]

Have you noticed I keep mentioning new forms of organization? Why do you suppose that is?

No idea, because I see no signs of anybody organizing those forms.

 

[Wilson23]

https://www.salon.com/2026/02/05/el...sons-as-trump-calls-for-nationalizing-voting/
Election officials draw on sobering 2020 lessons as Trump calls for nationalizing voting
Officials who faced threats in 2020 prepare for pressure from TrumpElection officials draw on sobering 2020 lessons as Trump calls for nationalizing voting
Officials who faced threats in 2020 prepare for pressure from Trump
his article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

When President Donald Trump pressured state and local officials to intervene in his behalf in the 2020 election, it wasn’t a matter of abstract constitutional theory for the people running elections. It was armed protests outside offices, threats against their families, subpoenas for voter data, and months of uncertainty about whether doing their jobs would land them in legal jeopardy.

Now, Trump says he wants Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” language that evokes the pressure campaigns he and allies mounted during that contentious 2020 period.

Trump’s 2020 effort ultimately stalled when even some Republicans refused to take steps they believed were unlawful. And his call to nationalize voting this week prompted pushback from some GOP members of Congress and other Republican figures.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Trump’s proposal raised constitutional concerns, and he warned that nationalizing elections could make them more susceptible to cybersecurity attacks. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was more blunt, saying he has long opposed federal control of elections. “I’ll oppose this now as well,” he wrote on X.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s comments referred to his support for federal legislation commonly called the SAVE Act.

Election officials say the lesson of 2020 was not that the system is invulnerable, but that it can be strained in ways that cause lasting damage long before courts step in. While it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest demands — and possible future actions— would lead to the same level of disruption, legal experts say some of the backstops that ultimately stopped him last time are now weaker, leaving election officials to absorb even more pressure.

 

[Wilson23]

It all falls on my ears as a confession of the total and final irrelevance of the Democratic Party as a force for social good.

But nothing to the LEFT of the Democrats can even HAPPEN.

 

[Wilson23]

Now Bannon says ICE will surround the polls.
Go to 2:30:

 

[briancamdudetenger2018]

what does nationlize elections mean in non political terms and meaning

 

[subdudeme13]

what does nationlize elections mean in non political terms and meaning

Republicans want to take power and destroy democracy. It isn't a question anymore.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Of course you are not bright enough to understand that this is the United STATES of America, not the MASS MOB of Amerika. But if you're a typical shit-for-brains Democrat, it's a brilliant idea. Then all they'd have to do to STEAL EVERY ELECTION is to stuff ballot boxes in New York, California and Illinois and the rest of the country can eat shit for all they care. Sounds like it's time you got a leak check on that helium tank mounted between your ears, Sweetie...

I actually agree with this. The electoral college is a good way to prevent one-party states like Texas from submitting fake popular vote returns.

A better way to fix Presidential elections is give each state the same number of votes in the EC as House Representatives. Tacking on an extra two votes for their Senators gives little rural states unfair power.

 

[secret_passion_49]

Welcome to yet another of my threads, Deplorable alt!

You seem upset, as usual.

Deplorable alt? Coming from you I consider such an endearing appellation to be a compliment, even if your choice of nomenclature requires one crucial tweak.

'PROUD TRUMP DEPLORABLE' gets you closer to proper alignment.

Oh... One thing more... So that you may not suffer an attack of vocabulary confusion and vomit up your fresh bowl of Alpo Liver, the word 'appellation' does NOT refer to the Eastern U.S. mountain range with a trail of the same name.

 

[Wilson23]

what does nationlize elections mean in non political terms and meaning

Elections are political. "Nationalizing" them would mean the federal government runs them. At present, elections are run at the COUNTY level.

 

[MajorRewrite]

Deplorable alt? Coming from you I consider such an endearing appellation to be a compliment, even if your choice of nomenclature requires one crucial tweak.

'PROUD TRUMP DEPLORABLE' gets you closer to proper alignment.

Oh... One thing more... So that you may not suffer an attack of vocabulary confusion and vomit up your fresh bowl of Alpo Liver, the word 'appellation' does NOT refer to the Eastern U.S. mountain range with a trail of the same name.

Rebel, we’re still waiting for some really bad free-verse poetry from your new “girly” alt.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

as if the socialist organizations DID NOT EXIST.

Your “as if the socialist organizations DID NOT EXIST” thesis tells me more about your perspective than you guess, Wilson. This has sufficient import to merit a response of its own. So I've taken more time to prepare this as the larger party of my reply to your antecedent post.

Your deterministic perspective offers essentially a nihilistic assertion. It reduces politics to an indifferent background variable. It denies that organized political forces can alter the course of history. From my Marxist, dialectical-materialist standpoint, this claim is false in theory and it is contradicted by history.

In the Marxist, materialist conception of history, social life and political forms alike are rooted in developing productive forces and class relations. That doesn’t make human organization irrelevant. But dialectical methodology insists that social processes are shaped by objective conditions and conscious human activity in interaction. That interaction of objective tendencies creates possibilities. Conscious organization determines which tendencies become realized. Now to confuse these is to condemn you to one of two ends:

Either you will fall into vulgar determinism, where history unfolds automatically whatever we do, or you lapse into subjective voluntarism, where human will alone reshapes structures.

As you no doubt know, Trotsky and Lenin insist that the correct approach is dialectical, meaning that objective conditions open possibilities for certain outcomes, while organized social forces [such as political parties, trade unions, rank-and-file movements, etc.] act to convert those possibilities into reality. That’s why the Socialist Equality Party has consistently insisted on the need to base politics on a scientific historical understanding in continuity with the Fourth International. You may pursue this at your leisure.

But I mentioned historical contradiction. We have instances where organized political forces decisively altered outcomes that otherwise would have followed different paths.

The Bolshevik Party didn’t create the objective crisis of Tsarism and war. But it DID furnish organized leadership that allowed the proletariat and soldiers to seize power in 1917. Lenin’s critique of Economism [’What is to Be Done] explains why organization and leadership matter in transforming mass discontent into political victory. And that is exactly what your faction, the petty bourgeoisie [uppercase ‘D’] Democratic Party consistently refuses to do as I’ve been saying all along.

And there’s more.

In Europe and the US alike, mass union organization [such as the CIO of the 1930s] and socialist parties shaped labor law, state welfare institutions, and balanced class forces. Without organized working-class parties and unions, many historic reforms would either not have been won,, or would have been much weaker.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements also show how organization transforms international objective conditions into national independence or revolution. Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution underscores the international and organizational dimensions of these transformations.

So there are repeated examples that contradict your premise. and these are not marginal effects. Organized political forces alter the probabilities and directions of major historical outcomes. Hence, the SEP [and my] ongoing calls for building RFCs that will be tomorrow what the foregoing have been in the past.

I also mentioned dialectics. Let’s look at your proffered perspective that way.

[My] Thesis: Objective material conditions determine broad tendencies [true].

[Your] Antithesis: So, organized socialist bodies make no difference to future outcomes [false leap].

[Dialectical correction] Synthesis: The totality of social motion is shaped by the unity of opposing elements involviing both objective conditions and human agency. Organizations are the principal form by which class consciousness and collective will are mediated and expressed. They are not epiphenomena; they are active moments that produce history.

Otherwise put, capitalism’s integral contradictions create crisis-prone tendencies; whether said crises produce reform, reaction, or revolution depends in decisive measure on the conscious organization and political leadership of social forces. Hence, join and build the RFC movement!

Saying that socialist organizations are irrelevant effectively adopts a reformist or defeatist posture that accepts the reproduction of capitalist rule. The Marxist task is the opposite: we build the party and rank-and-file organs capable of converting objective crisis into working-class emancipation!

We do that NOT by abstract will, but by disciplined, theoretically-informed activity. Lenin stressed that revolutionary organization must be professional and politically independent to guide the proletarian struggle You really should review his ‘What is to Be Done.’ At any rate, the SEP and the Fourth International tradition place the historical experience and program of the movement at the center of political work.

But you don’t accept that. Which leads me to wonder:

If socialist organizations make no difference, on what causal basis do you account for historical changes that obviously correlated with organization [union wins, suffrage expansions, anti-fascist resistance and the like]? Why not examine such cases as I indicated rather than serving up an a priori generalization which insists that socialist organization has no import. Because it has no import.

The claim that socialist organizations are irrelevant collapses the dialectical unity of objective conditions and human agency. Organizations do not “magically” determine history, but neither are they irrelevant appendages. They are necessary and often decisive moments in the transformation of capitalist crises into emancipatory outcomes.

Between the October Revolution, US labor in the 1930s, etc., the case studies are there. And arguing otherwise abandons scientific Marxism for a tacit form of political resignation — precisely the position that serves the interests of the ruling class. And you possess the native intelligence to know that, Wilson.

 

[Wilson23]

We have instances where organized political forces decisively altered outcomes that otherwise would have followed different paths.

In the past. But there does not appear to be any future potential. Marxist ideas no longer have any appeal to the working class, they are too thoroughly discredited. They'll fight against fascism, but they won't fight FOR communism.