AMERICA VOTESU. S. President Donald Trump appears ready to declare victory before such a result is clear
Gun shops busy with fear ‘something bad could be coming’ in aftermath
WASHINGTON D.C. — George Washington’s “last great experiment” faces an existential litmus test beginning Tuesday as the bristling polarities of an energized, outraged and wellarmed body politic finish weighing in on who should be the next American president.
Theirs may not be the final word.
Be it because of President Donald Trump, COVID-19 or Black Lives Matter, Americans seem all in, for once, on the 2020 vote: more than 92 million ballots have already been cast, two-thirds of the total turnout from four years ago.
Thanks to the pandemic, mail-in voting has shattered records. But it takes time to count those votes, and Trump — who sows baseless fears of electoral fraud at every turn — has repeatedly signalled he’ll take his battle with Joe Biden from the campaign trail to the courtroom.
The Texas Supreme Court on Sunday rejected a two-pronged GOP effort to get 127,000 drivethru votes thrown out in largely Democratic Harris County, a challenge that has also been filed in federal court.
Republicans also tried unsuccessfully last week to convince the Supreme Court to fasttrack a decision on Philadelphia’s three-day extension for counting absentee ballots.
It all points to a president with no plans to concede defeat Tuesday, regardless of outcome.
Indeed, Axios reported Sunday that Trump wants to declare victory on election night, even before such a result is clear.
Against this backdrop, meanwhile, Americans have been engaged in another time-honoured tradition of U.S. democracy; buying guns.
Demand for virtually everything in stock has been off the charts since the onset of the pandemic in March, said Dan Aldridge, the owner of Maxon Shooter’s Supplies and Indoor Range in Des Plaines, Ill.
That includes handguns, long guns and ammunition as well as Maxon’s three-a-day firearms training classes.
“In the past, buying surges were driven by fears of anti-gun legislative changes — ‘They’re going to ban this, they’re going to ban that, I better load up.’ It’s different this time,” Aldridge said. “It’s people that are truly concerned about personal safety.”
The first nine months of the year saw 28.8 million background checks — a necessary step to obtain a handgun in 22 states and D.C. — initiated in the U.S., FBI data show, a record total that has already surpassed 2019’s full-year tally of 28.4 million.
The Trace, a U.S. media website dedicated to analyzing gun issues, estimates 1.92 million guns were purchased in September, the sixth- highest month on record and a 67 per cent increase over the same period last year.
That could mean a polarized, angry and heat-packing electorate suddenly being confronted with an inconclusive or even disputed election outcome after months of COVID-induced cabin fever — a period that’s already been marked by dramatic displays of civil unrest over the country’s deep-seated racial divide.
“I think you have a fear among a good percentage of Americans that something bad could be coming,” said Ryan Williams, a criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois Springfield.
“And they don’t know what that is. They don’t know what that looks like.”
Walmart pulled guns and ammunition from store shelves Thursday, citing a risk of “isolated civil unrest.” But the U.S. retail giant reversed itself Friday on the grounds recent incidents “have remained geographically isolated.”
The candidates, meanwhile, were in barnstorming mode over the weekend.
Trump hosted nine rallies over the two days, four of them alone in Pennsylvania, the bluecollar battleground that’s worth 20 electoral votes and is widely expected to play a pivotal role in determining the final outcome.
So too will Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Iowa and North Carolina, the five states Trump visited Sunday.
On Monday, the president was to return to Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with a stop in Wisconsin before one final event in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, has been setting a more modest pace — partly to keep safety concerns to a minimum, but also to take advantage of a tactic that has been a cornerstone of the Democratic campaign: let Trump be Trump.
The former vice-president visited Michigan on Saturday with his old boss, Barack Obama, before moving on to Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday.