People blame the Spanish for having elected the Socialists after the Madrid bombings, but one thing few people know is that there was a coordinated campaign of election violence on the part of the left that started almost immediately after the bombings. It was definitely Islamists that did the bombing, but I think there is little doubt that there was support from ETA and the radical left, which were clearly already prepared to take advantage of it. Don’t forget that the national elections were due to be held in just a few days and the conservative party was expected to win by a huge majority.
They rioted in front of PP (the conservative party) headquarters almost immediately, breaking windows and intimidating staff; they were summoned by SMS sent from a radical Socialist party youth group. They then fanned out all over Spain, and surrounded polling places particularly in conservative areas, such as Castilla, shrieking at voters, blowing whistles and pounding on pots and pans. Voters were so intimidated that the vote was essentially surpressed in the conservative areas. Again, all of this was coordinated by SMS (this was pre-Twitter) sent from Socialist youth groups.
BTW, very little of this was reported outside of a few conservative papers and radio stations, and none of it was reported internationally - I only know about it because I go to Spain and read the Spanish press.
And it worked. The Socialists got back into power again.
Exactly the same thing is going to happen here.
I think you underestimate the number of armed POP’s (P*ssed off people)