Secessionists just got a big boost indirectly from Donald Trump

Donald Trump is starting to talk about the election being stolen from him.

This is a link to Jamelle Boule's article,"A Trump Victory a Scary Thought. A Disputed Loss Might Be Scarier."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/08/trump_s_rigged_comments_are_corrosive_and_dangerous.html

Let me first say that I disagree with Boule on one thing. A Trump victory would be an unmitigated disaster. However, there are some real concerns about what Trump is saying about himself being defeated in an election, but no, Trump's election would be worse.

That being said, Boule raises some serious concerns.

Trump is starting to talk about the election being rigged against him. That is the election might be stolen from him. This is really dangerous. When Trump is defeated, which I think will be very likely, it is one thing if people think that he lost by a fair election and another if it was stolen. If people think the election was stolen the anger would be considerable.

As it was, if Trump lost I think there would be a great increase of support for secession, but it would be on the idea of separation to have a local majority different from the rest of the nation which has rejected Trump. However, I think the drive for secession would be intensified with the idea that the election was stolen. Then secessionists would claim that only in a separate polity there would be fair elections. Anger would be an emotional force driving secession.

Also, even among those who don't want to secede there might be radical actions. As Boule states:

This was in line with comments from Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Trump. In a recent interview with Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, Stone said that Trump should start talking “constantly” about the chance of voter fraud and a rigged election. “He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud.’ ” Stone continued in this vein. “ ‘If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’ ”

From here, Stone’s language gets ominous. “If you can’t have an honest election, nothing else counts,” he said. “The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it,” Stone said, promising a “bloodbath” of “civil disobedience.”

If there is civil disorder we can expect that neo-Confederates very likely would act in a situation where government authority has broken down.

When Obama won the 2012 election there were slightly over 1,000,000 signatures on the secession petitions at the White House. I printed them out and added the signatures up. Some poll numbers in some Southern states then showed a very surprisingly high percentage of Republicans supporting secession. 

Roger Stone's comments are mentally preparing Trump supporters to engage in civil disobedience when Trump loses, which it appears he likely will. Though we won't know for sure until after the election results are in.

Things have gotten scary and I think that after November we will see the whole nation becoming a Maheur Refuge with lunatics waving guns.