If armed violence erupts in 2024, the fate of the nation might well be decided by a simple fact: a big subset of the Republican Party has been systemically arming itself for this very reason.
has also explicitly linked gun rights to fending off federal menace, stating that guns"serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny.
If Trump wins, but by a small margin that Democrats can attribute to Republican laws and tactics aimed at suppressing Democratic votes, massive protests around the country are inevitable. Democrats won't have to stretch their imaginations to make that claim: In 2021, 43 states proposed more than 250 laws limiting voting access. Georgia slashed the number of ballot boxes, a practice almost always aimed at communities with high percentages of minority residents.
Whatever the circumstances that might bring on large-scale protests from Democrats in 2024, their presence in the streets could bring out armed Republican counter-protesters bent on protecting Trump's nominal win and, in their minds, defending democracy against left-wing mobs."It's a fair concern that If Trump called on them to come out and suppress the mobs, they might respond," says Lindsay Cohn, associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
Joe Biden would likely still be president at the initiation of election-related violence, so if the National Guard were unable to quiet things down in one or more states—or if a governor refused to call in the Guard—it would fall squarely on Biden's shoulders to make that call. He wouldn't need any state government cooperation to do it.
As for the possibility that the Guard or military rank and file might refuse to follow orders to take up arms against armed Trump supporters, the Naval War College's Cohn deems it unlikely."There isn't a ton of evidence that the rank and file are solidly behind Trump," she says."But whatever their beliefs, they're highly professional. No more than a tiny percentage would refuse.
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