We don’t know what’s going to happen with the election this year. Nobody does, not for sure. But we do know that Trump and his MAGA minions are fully self-proclaimed fossil fueled fascists.
And we do know, based on past experience, what to expect from Trump and his team on election night and in the immediate aftermath of the election. We’ve been right all along about Trump, fascism, and fossil fuels. And so we’re going to lay out a couple scenarios to make the process of watching and waiting less stressful, surprising, and unpredictable for anti-fascist climate activists.
Today we also want to invite you to join our post election call on November 7 at 8pm Eastern / 5pm pacific. More than 200 progressive organizations have joined together to co-host this call, and we’ll be joined by national leaders, elected officials, and election experts to make meaning of the moment, no matter what happens. BUT we also want to remind you that the election ends November 5, and that the best way to safeguard the electoral process and outcome is to participate. Please vote, if you haven’t already, and help and encourage others to vote if you already have.
If you need help registering to vote or figuring out local voting rules, visit Vote.gov – a non-partisan government website with info for all 50 states. And if you’re not sure who to vote for, check out the voter guide from our friends at Climate Hawks Vote, which has listings for local, state, and federal candidates and which ones are talking about climate change.
There’s a quick video below and then the rest of this post covers what we think will happen next, in roughly chronological order. It’s long, so here’s a table of contents if you want to skip ahead.
Why Fossil Fueled Fascists?
First let’s talk about what will happen before election day — Tuesday, November 5, 2024 — and remind ourselves why we call Trump and his supporters fossil fueled fascists.
This organization was started as part of the mobilization to protest Trump’s 2017 inauguration. From the very beginning, we’ve characterized Trump as a fascist, and a threat to the global climate, and resisted his people and policies on those grounds. During Trump’s first (and we hope only) term in office, a lot of people and groups warned us that it was inaccurate, or overly dramatic, to call Trump fascist. But since the insurrection on Jan 6, 2021, a lot more people and groups have agreed with us, and other anti-fascist groups and scholars, that Trump fits the definition of a fascist.
Today, former Trump advisors and experts all pretty much unanimous in agreeing that yes, he’s a fascist and yes, he’s largely funded by the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuels have spent more than $147 million on the 2024 election, with more than 90% going to Trump and his MAGA minions. This is no surprise to anyone who’s watched the news over the last few months, who have seen headlines like Trump soliciting a billion dollar bribe from the fossil fuel industry, and Trump’s former national Security Advisor calling him “fascist to the core.”
All this year we’ve been advocating to bar Trump and other insurrectionists under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which was set up after the Civil War to prevent insurrectionists from running for federal office. And we’ve been fighting to defund, disrupt, and delay the fossil fuel industry and call out their illegal and immoral profiteering, which they use to help Trump and other insurrectionists.
So, what do we expect Trump and fossil fueled fascists to do over the next few days before the election? Mostly, keep running for election. For Trump to return to power, and bring other fossil fuel fascists along with him, he’s got to at least act as if there’s an election. He can’t take power by force, and the various paramilitary groups that support him, like the Proud Boys etc., aren’t big enough to stage a military coup or even a very big, armed voter intimidation campaign. We should expect to see more isolated incidents of ballot drop boxes and mailboxes being set on fire or attacked, and we’re watchful for more coordinated and escalated attacks on election day. But Trump’s dependence on the election as a tool or a prop to regain power makes it less likely we’ll see widespread violence or threats. And if they did try, it’s worth remembering that polling places and election officials have been expecting that, and are better prepared and protected than they were in 2020.
But one interesting and concerning difference between Trump’s 2020 campaign and his 2024 campaign is that here in the final stretch he’s not trying to act like a normal candidate for President. He’s not spending all his time in swing states, choosing instead to stage a repeat of a 1940s pro nazi rally in Madison Square garden, for example. And he’s not trying to appeal to moderate voters or to down-play his more extreme messages – for example telling women he would regulate their bodies and decisions whether they “like it or not,” or letting an earlier speaker at the Madison square garden rally make a series of racist jokes that drew a firestorm of protest from his own party.
This, combined with several mentions in Trump’s speeches of a “secret plan” with House fossil fueled fascists, has led a number of people to speculate that Trump isn’t focussed on winning the most votes. Instead he’s relying on a similar plan to 2020, when he declared himself the winner, filed a blizzard of lawsuits to delay and disrupt the counting of ballots, and then tried to steal the election on Jan 6, 2021 by preventing the Congressional certification of the election results and installing himself in power instead.
We’re skeptical that a repeat of the 2020 plan will work, or work as well this time. With a primary reason being that Trump is not the President right now, and so, unlike 2020, can’t use agencies and officials like the US Department of Justice or the FBI to suppress votes or manipulate officials. But we do also expect to see more fossil fueled fascism before the end of November. So let’s talk about how that might go and what we expect to happen.
Election night, the Red Mirage and declarations of victory.
Remember election night 2020? Around 3am, and way before ballots were done being counted, Trump called a press conference and declared himself the winner of the 2020 election. His main argument was that a few hours after the polls closed he appeared to be ahead — an election night phenomenon Robert Reich has taken to calling the “red mirage.”
Trump used that same argument — that he was ahead early in the evening, but fell behind as all the ballots were counted —to fuel his claims of voter fraud and try eventually to try and overthrow the election by force on January 6, 2021.
And this year, he’s almost certainly going to try it again. Here, I’ll let former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explain in more detail:
For those who prefer to read, not watch, here’s the gist: Republican candidates often appear to take an early lead on election night because many Republican-leaning districts are smaller, rural, and their votes are counted more quickly. That’s the red mirage. As all the votes are counted in big, urban districts — and especially as mail ballots and early votes are counted in places like Pennsylvania that don’t allow ‘pre-processing’ of those ballots before election day — that lead gets smaller and smaller, until sometimes Democrats overtake the Republican lead altogether. This is called the “blue shift.”
It’s a totally predictable fact of political science, and the major news networks know it. That’s why they don’t call elections based on who gets to an arbitrary number of votes first. They project winners by looking at the share of votes they’ve received out of the total ballots cast. That’s why, in 2020, it took a few days for the news networks to call states like Pennsylvania for Biden, and why it always takes a few extra days to confirm the winner of individual Congressional races in big states like California.
Trump likes to pretend the red mirage and blue shift are surprising and suspicious — and to this day he’s still lying: Claiming that this totally predictable and predicted trend was the result of some secret plan for ballot “dumps.”
But while Trump is likely to try this old trick again in 2024, it probably wont work this time. For one thing, news outlets are on to the trend and Reich and other progressive advocates are already calling on them to explain the Red Mirage to voters before election night.
For another thing, Trump isn’t the President any more – so if he calls a Press conference and declares himself the winner at 3am (or before) networks are less likely to cover it or let him spout off without fact checks or interjection.
What the red mirage and Trump’s lies probably will do is slow down the process of ballot counting, making people suspicious that something sneaky is happening, and giving fossil fueled fascists time to file lawsuits and organize protests or mob violence at ballot counting centers.
The count, new and improved
That brings us to the period after the election. The most important thing is for all the ballots to be counted, and for that process to proceed without threats of violence or tampering. If the election is close, this will take at least a few days – as it did in 2020. Lawsuits over which ballots to count, and whether to let voters correct things like forgetting to sign their ballot, or having their signature not match the one on file —could take weeks.
The key date here is the “Safe Harbor” deadline – December 8, 2024. That’s the deadline by which states must resolve disputes over which ballots to count, report final vote totals, and assign their electoral college electors accordingly. Most states that means if one candidate gets a majority of the states approved ballots, they get all that state’s electoral college votes. But Nebraska and Maine assign electoral college votes based on Congressional district – so you could have a mix of electoral college votes based on the ballots cast and counted. Any state that does NOT certify their count and assign their electors by December 8 risks forfeiting their Electoral College votes. That could lead to someone winning the Presidential election with less than 270 electoral college votes, and to other kinds of chicanery.
If Harris wins in a landslide, there’s less likely to be big protests or mobs at ballot counting locations. But even if it’s close and fossil fueled fascists show up to try and intimidate vote counters or tamper with ballots while they’re being counted (as we saw in 2020) officials have strengthened security and added additional safeguards to the process. One of the biggest legal reforms was the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022. The ECRA creates a new threshold for members to object to a states of electors (87 members of the House and 20 Senators must agree to object), identifies the role of the vice president as “solely ministerial” and clarifies that Congress must defer to the Electoral College slates sent by the states. All of which means a straightforward repeat of Trump’s “Green Bay Sweep” strategy from 2020 is unlikely.
What we think is more likely is that, especially if the election is close, Trump uses the period between Nov 6 and Dec 8 to try and sow chaos and confusion. Lawsuits are likely, and it won’t matter to fossil fueled fascists if they’re reasonable or based on precedent – all that matters is objecting to more ballots being counted, and trying to get things appealed to federal courts, and eventually the Supreme Court. In 2000, the George W Bush campaign successfully appealed the Florida election results to the US Supreme Court, which in a partisan vote declared Bush the winner. Subsequent analysis has shown that, while we’ll never know for sure, Al Gore could have won, if a full recount had been conducted and every vote counted. That’s the kind of outcome Trump and team are probably betting on — in a close election one or two states being delayed or unable to finish their counts by the Safe Harbor deadline could send the decision on who won the election to the Supreme Court for the second time. And given that this Supreme Court has already put its thumb on the scale of American Democracy more than once to benefit Trump, that is not encouraging.
The other possible, though less likely, option would be for Trump to try and prevent some states from certifying their electoral college electors at all. That’s because the constitution says “The person having the greatest number of [electoral] votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed.” Reducing one candidate’s number of approved electors below a majority would allow the House would to decide the election result in January of 2025. And even if Democrats were to win a majority of seats in the House, the vote is tallied by state, not district – so since Republicans hold a majority in 26 states, they could, conceivably, throw the election to Trump, just like the Supreme Court could, simply by choosing to ignore a lot of votes (even a majority of votes) cast in other states. Or, if Trump were to succeed in disqualifying multiple states worth of electors, he can tip the whole election because the 12th amendment refers to a “majority of … electors appointed.” To quote a hypothetical situation in a piece by Constitutional scholars Neil Buchanan, Michael Dorf and Laurence Tribe:
if “[Trump] could prevent Harris’s electors from being appointed not only in Pennsylvania but in Arizona and Wisconsin as well, Trump would win 251 to 247.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/election-house-trump-steal/
So, where does that leave us? Well, not to return you to the top of this post but the first thing is – until election day it’s still best to focus on voting, and participation in the election. Go vote. Tell your friends and family to vote. Make a plan to vote with friends and family – when you’ll vote, how you’ll do it (drop a ballot in a drop box or go in person early or on election day). And talk to people and candidates up and down your ballot about the issues that matter to you, including climate change and fossil fuels. Again, the climate hawks vote ballot guide has tools to help you vote and find your polling place, as well as information on candidates and their stances on climate change.
Shortly after the polls close, we’ll convene a call with other democracy and voting rights groups to update you on the status of vote counting and remind you about key dates like the Safe Harbor deadline and the Electoral College election. Until then, here’s a handy chart of the key dates you can bookmark or print out and cary around with you:
Key dates
| NOV 5 | Election Day: In a close election, we are unlikely to know which candidate won on election night. And Trump is likely to use the time to declare himself the winner and challenge ballot counting. See “Red Mirage” above. |
| NOV 5-12 | The Count This is the window where we should expect a flurry of legal challenges in swing states and potentially protests or mob violence at ballot counting sites. If things are close, unclear, or Trump is trying (as we expect) to sow chaos, we will call on everyone to mobilize behind demands to count every vote. |
| DEC 8 | The “Safe Harbor” Deadline: States must resolve disputes over which ballots to count and report final vote totals or risk their Electoral College votes not being counted. |
| DEC 17 | Deadline for Governors to Report Election Results to Congress: In each state, the governor must send a “certificate of ascertainment” to Congress reporting which candidate won the state and which slate of electors has been appointed to the Electoral College. The Electoral College Meets: In each state, the winning candidate’s slate of pledged electors meet, cast their votes, and send a record of their votes to Congress. |
| JAN 3, 2025 | Start of the 119th Congress: All newly elected or reelected senators and representatives are sworn in – these new members of Congress, not the ones in office on Nov 5 2024, will certify the election results. |
| JAN 6, 2025 | Congress Counts Electoral College Votes: Congress convenes in a joint session with the Vice President (Harris) presiding. They certify the count of Electoral College votes and choose the next president. Note that in a contested election, the House awards 1 vote per state delegation, not one vote per member. Since Republicans control more state delegations, this opens the possibility of the House voting to install Donald Trump, even if he did not get the most votes. |
| JAN 20 | Inauguration Day: The newly-elected President is sworn in. If Congress hasn’t chosen a new president, the newly-elected Vice President is sworn in as the acting president. If Congress hasn’t chosen a new Vice President, the Speaker of the House is sworn in as the acting president. |
No sera posible, un buen comportamiento, Totalmente Democrata si las condiciones Politicas,, que Trump, lleva consigo mismo seran Radicalmente Fascistas, esto se a de combatir, para lograr un buen Pais Libre
The New American Nazi/Fascist Cult under convicted rapist, convicted felon, twice impeached pathological lying psychopath and a treasonous tyrant is the greatest danger to democracy since Adolph Hitler whom Trump gets his playbook. He and his followers are a threat to every man, woman and child in the world.