The following is from another Q thread.
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In 1968 after the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Lyndon Johnson faced the possibility that the election might not be held in a state of domestic tranquility. His greatest fear was that the antiwar movement and the Black Panthers would unite to bury the election in violence. Johnson asked the lawyers of the National Security Council for a menu of options. Remember that Johnson was a schoolteacher before entering politics, not an attorney.
The NSC attorneys reported that state legislatures could choose presidential electors, and no popular vote was required by the Constitution. Election of senators and representatives was another matter. A lot of the procedure of federal elections is hard-coded in legislation and even the Constitution itself.
The option chosen by Johnson was the annulment of the Constitution and a declaration of martial law, something even Lincoln had not dared. Annulment would permit Johnson to remain president until domestic tranquility was restored and the mechanics of a presidential election could go forward in peace.
Johnson knew he was not trusted anymore by the electorate, so he asked the NSC lawyers if getting Chief Justice Earl Warren to cosign the declaration would make a difference. The lawyers responded that Warren's signature would have no legal effect but might be useful for political cover.
This remained secret until after Nixon's resignation when the Post and the Times reported the story under the category of "White House horrors." Fortunately, the antiwar movement and Black Panthers could not join forces and work together.
The chosen option covered what would happen if the military encountered organized resistance. This involved the use of camps for which land had been purchased under the provisions of the McCarran Act of 1950 but for which only one camp had been built, that in a remote section of the Pennsylvania mountains. Its existence was a secret until Robert Mardian, one of Nixon's people, revealed it in congressional testimony in 1971.
I bring this up only because during the Rodney King insurrection in South Central Los Angeles in 1992, when the military arrived on the scene, a 48 hour clock started to tick. Had organized resistance appeared and continued for 48 hours, FEMA camps would have been placed on alert to receive the inhabitants of South Central. Fortunately, once the Army arrived, everybody decided to behave. The thing to remember is that contingency plans have been in place since 1968 to handle multiple insurrections should they occur.
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If the mobs turn to the use of firearms, proceed to take and hold ground, and successfully resist the military in an organized manner, the 1968 option goes to the head of the list.
Very interesting stuff regarding 1968 and the riots of the time. I was too young to really appreciate or understand what was going on in that time frame.
My thought - if Mobs fire on the military, all bets are off. It’s 1861 all over again, and I’m decidedly on the side of Trump, rifle in hand.
If the mobs turn to the use of firearms, proceed to take and hold ground, and successfully resist the military in an organized manner, the 1968 option goes to the head of the list.
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A link on the retired thread has dozens and dozens of tweets with videos with riots on various cities. Said shots were fired at NG in Minneapolis; today, as far as I could tell.
In 1968 after the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Lyndon Johnson faced the possibility that the election might not be held in a state of domestic tranquility.
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Sure would appreciate a link!
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This whole post is fascinating. Thanks.
In George Friedman's new book, The Storm Before the Calm, he argues that the there is about to be a fundamental shift in the American institutions of government, to be completed during the decade of the 2020s.
Friedman is not a progressive ... really almost the opposite. His focus is always on the interplay of unchanging forces, like geography, the fundamental forms of government (including our Constitution), population demographics, and their interplay with a few changing forces of great power like weapons systems and other technology.
Anyway ... I could see a future RAT, more than Trump, pulling the trigger on something really exotic like (explicitly) excluding voters from selection of a President.
This is all just another reason that IF OUR INSTITUTIONS are to be RESHAPED, we do it right now, during Trump's 8 years in office.
Friedman says the President elected in 2024 will the one where the old system really crumbles (Not the end of Constitution, but a repositioning, FOR BETTER OR WORSE).