Not convinced that the handover of the presidency will be peaceful
President Joe Biden is not convinced that the handover of the presidency after this fall’s election will be peaceful, he told NBC News Wednesday night.
After a statement that Donald Trump made last spring, where the former president said that there will be an economic bloodbath if the Republicans lose the election, Biden has stuck to just bloodbaths, and then does not talk about the economic situation in the United States. And maybe he’s right.
The last time Trump lost, as you know, the Capitol in Washington DC was stormed, after Trump claimed election fraud.
The Republicans have already begun to question the upcoming election results. During the June 27 debate between Biden and Trump, the former president replied that he only accepts the election results if he can state with certainty that everything went right.
“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely.”, he said then.
The difference between this and the last election
Whether this election will result in another riot is of course difficult to predict in advance, but historically political violence in the United States has been imminent. Jacob Ware, who researches extreme right-wing movements in the United States, at the Council on Foreign Relations, believes that there is a big difference between this election and the previous one.
– After the storming of the Capitol, the largest FBI investigation ever conducted began. They captured the leaders of the major right-wing extremist groups, which before this election makes it difficult to know who to keep an eye on, he says.
“Political violence has always been present”
On the other hand, you can almost in real time follow political opinions and calls to violence via social platforms, something that Jacob Ware believes will play a big role.
– Political violence has always occurred, but something that is relatively new is that right-wing extremists on social media have people to look out for, which you can see was a major contributing factor to, for example, the riots in Southport in Great Britain, he says.
– Statements such as “bloodbath” or the like can dilute an already established and relatively accepted practice of violence in the United States. What I think will be decisive is what political moves are made up to and after the election, continues Jacob Ware.