Prepare now for Trump and the Trumpers taking it to the streets, retired General warns
Retired Lieutenant-General Ben Hodes said the Biden Adminstration needed to be ready to deal with violence, if Trump loses.
One of the more concerning discussions that took place in the hallways and corridors at the recent Delphi Economic Forum, in Greece, was the prospect of a Trump loss and the political chaos, and violence, that might ensue.
Among those raising concerns was retired Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges who I interviewed on the sidelines of the conference.
He told me the Biden Administration should prepare now for the prospect of ‘Trump and the Trumpers taking it to the streets’ in a replay of the January 6 riots if Donald Trump again loses to Joe Biden.
Five people were killed when a MAGA-inspired mob rampaged the US Capitol on January 6 in 2021, trying to prevent the transfer of power to US President Joe Biden.
Trump is facing federal charges relating to his alleged efforts to try and overturn the 2020 election result. He is also charged in the state of Georgia with violating anti-racketeering laws by scheming to illegally overturn his election loss.
Hodges said the potential for a real violent conflict was real.
‘A few months ago I would never have dreamed it - but I’ve changed over the last few months – this is a real possibility,’ Hodges told Latika Takes.
‘I can’t believe that I have to say this, it’s embarrassing and it worries me.’
If re-elected, Trump has threatened to ‘shatter’ what he calls the ‘deep state’ by reinstating Schedule F, a legal order that allows him to fire federal bureaucrats. He has also warned of a ‘bloodbath for the country’ if he loses. Trump has claimed to use the term ‘bloodbath’ in relation to what he says will be the effect of a second Biden preosdency on the border and car industry.
‘The radical left Democrats rigged the 2020 election and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024,’ Trump told an adoring crowd in Pennsylvania this week.
Hodges said Trump’s threats about what he’d do a second time around had to be taken seriously.
‘They have a real plan, he didn’t have a plan last time, they have a plan this time,’ Hodges said.
Asked if Trump’s threats amounted to fascism, Hodges agreed.
‘That’s it, 100 per cent, fascism, that’s exactly what it is and that’s what I expect he will bring,’ he said.
‘Fascism is enabled by the threat and use of violence.’
Hodges said he did not believe the violence would resemble 1861 which led to the American Civil War.
But he said it was incumbent upon the Biden Administration to show it was serious about protecting US democracy.
‘I think the Biden Administration and all the states today, if they mean what they say to support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, then they absolutely should be taking precautions, taking steps now, to make sure that when Biden wins – if Biden wins – the Trump and the Trumpers don’t take it to the streets,’ he said.
Hodges believed Trump hated democracy because it ultimately kept power in check.
‘He’s the enemy of a United States where he’s held accountable for numerous violations of the law,’ Hodges said.
‘He’s an enemy of having to live within the checks and balances construct.’
Extracting his personal copy of the US Constitution from his briefcase, he said many MAGA Republicans did not truly believe what it said.
Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, speaking separately at the conference, said the prospect of new Trump-inspired violence was his ‘biggest worry.’
‘If you asked me what I’m most worried about, it is a narrow Trump loss and an unwillingness to accept that result, with a willingness to use violence to try and reverse it,’ Daalder said.
‘Whether the government is prepared to deal with it or not I think is the fundamental question.
‘Part of the problem is that in our polarised environment, any preparation by the government will be seen as politicisation rather than actual preparation—and the fear of that may make them reluctant to prepare.’
One former senior State Department official whom I have agreed not to name, was at the State Department in DC on the day of the riot.
They watched the scenes unfold on live television.
‘If we were sitting in our embassies in any country, we would have been filing flash dispatches, saying there is a coup, the word would have been in the cable I would have sent,’ the official said.
They added that 2024 could be worse because unlike on January 6, there were no social-distancing measures in place that were keeping more people apart than they otherwise would have been.
Part II of my interview with Rtd Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges will be published on the weekend.
Great to see your articles in my in-tray. Not to diminish the arguments for preparation for violence, a counterpoint is that DJT is going to get absolutely smashed in the forthcoming presidential election and aside from a few local skirmishes there won't be any broad scale uprising. To wit, the poor MAGA attendances at his court hearings. A renaissance in the Great American Experiment awaits.