Trump Wants Lynch Mobs at the Polls in November

In another series of jaw-dropping stunts, Donald Trump has taken to deputizing his crowds as "poll monitors." It began in mid-August when Trump said the following to an Altoona, PA crowd:

"The only way we can lose, in my opinion, I really mean this, Pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on... I hope you people can sort of not just vote on the 8th. Go around and look and watch other polling places, and make sure that it's 100 percent fine... We're going to watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study, make sure other people don't come in and vote five times."

He also made the following remarks in Akron, OH on August 22:

"You've got to get every one of your friends. You've got to get every one of your family. You've got to get everybody to go and watch. And go out and vote. And when I say watch, you know what I'm talking about, right? You know what I'm talking about. I think you got to go out and you got to watch."

Even without weaving these statements in with other disastrous declarations by Trump, they have a noxious taint for so many reasons. Polls consistently show that Trump is losing in Ohio, and by even larger margins in Pennsylvania. So as it is, Trump is lying to his fans and anyone else that will listen. It's not novel for him, but Trump's lies are a new level of nefarious as his goal here is not just to mischaracterize his opponent as an election rigger, but to undermine his supporters' faith in our neutral institutions when things don't work out their way. It is a premeditated conspiracy theory that true Trumpeters eat up hook, line, and sinker.

Trump strategically avoided some specificity when talking about which voters needed to be watched, but there is some logical speculation that can be done to ascertain to whom he was referring and to whom his crowds understood he was referring. Hard as they may deny it, the Trump campaign has a strong draw among white people who harbor high levels of racial resentment (racists). It's why Donald Trump retweeted this faked crime data set from a nonexistent organization (Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco) below. Firstly, 100% of whites aren't being murdered as the picture suggests. Secondly, according to the most recent FBI statistics, 81 percent of white people who ARE MURDERED are actually murdered by other white people. The intent of this bogus graphic is to promote ABH or anti-black hysteria and to bolster racist agendas. Trump knows his audience.

Now, let's just parse some of his words in Altoona. "Go down to certain areas and watch and study..." The word that sticks out is "certain." It comes off the same way proper white grandmothers use the word "certain" when they don't want to specifically name the minority group or neighborhood of which they are expressing distaste. What "certain" areas is Trump talking about? If he wants those polls patrolled by his volunteer goons, he's going to have to reveal it some time, that is if he wants things to be above board and all.

As for his Ohio statements, Trump repeated the clause "you know what I'm talking about" as if he was indicating some level of intimate communication he shares with crowds he draws. It is very "wink, wink, nudge, nudge." There is very little ambiguity in the direction to "go and watch," but when you add on "you know what I'm talking about," that makes it totally ambiguous. Clearly he means something more specific than just "go and watch," but he won't say exactly what it is that he means because what he means is something way too antisocial to say in more certain terms. Let's assume he meant something like intimidating black voters. When he said it, some crowd members probably weren't really listening. Some probably heard it and were puzzled. Some probably heard it and were disturbed on some level. Some probably heard it and were all in.

Bear in mind, there are proper procedures for people interested in volunteering as poll monitors. We have gone through most of our election cycles with no memorable instances of conflict between monitors and voters. Hopefully, 2016 will go down the same way, but as so many people have been eager to crow, this is not a normal election year. The Trump influence has been one of net ugliness; his insistence that polls will be rigged, his tweeting of racist propaganda, plus his suggestions that "Second Amendment people" have solutions to stopping a President Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal Supreme Court justices. And then we've seen videos of black protesters being sucker-punched and violently group-shoved at Trump rallies. One of these assaults was followed up by an on camera death threat by one of the aggressors.

Of course, not all Trumpeters fit into one box, but it does not take all of Trump's supporters to make for something ugly to happen on Election Day. We have had armed hate mongers stalking a Phoenix mosque for no other reason other than the fact that the mosque was there. We have had armed White Lives Matter protesters rallying outside of a Houston NAACP office. Actions like these were taken without the initiative of any presidential candidate. What happens when hyper-vigilant, self-entitled, gun-toting white supremacists hear their candidate urge them to watch the polls in black neighborhoods, er... rather, certain areas?