In a rare public address, former president said US is experiencing ‘dark days’ and urged Americans to vote

Joe Biden has warned that his presidential successor, Donald Trump, will attempt to “steal” the midterm elections, in a rare public address.

Speaking in South Carolina, where he was being honored for his lifetime achievement in politics, Biden also asserted that the US is experiencing “dark days”, in a speech made hours before the Trump administration launched attacks on Iran.

Reprising a line from the 2020 campaign that saw him defeat Trump and end Trump’s first presidency, Biden told the crowd at the Columbia Museum of Art on Friday that the “battle for the soul of this nation is one that’s never really over”. He simultaneously criticized Trump’s plan to introduce potentially prohibitive voting requirements ahead of the midterms.

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  • underisk@lemmy.ml
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    4 hours ago

    There have already been extremely obvious attempts to steal US elections. The guy in charge right now tried to lead one. Some were even successful. People weren’t rioting in the street or overthrowing the government when Bush got handed the election by the supreme court, and that’s a much more recent precedent that refers to a successful steal, rather than a failed one.

    Did anyone who tried to rig this one election 80 years ago face consequences? Were any measures taken by those in power to prevent another attempt?

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      2000 Presidential Election:

      Popular vote: 50,456,002 (Bush) / 50,999,897 (Gore)

      Bush won because the margin was so narrow. He lost the popular vote but eked out an electoral college win because of Florida.

      Per Wikipedia:

      Bush carried Florida by only 537 votes out of 5.96 million cast in the state (a margin of 0.009%).

      Nader took 97,488. If less than one percent of Nader voters had gone for Gore, Gore would have won the state, and who knows what timeline we’d be living in now.

      Elections can be stolen when the margin is that narrow. When the margin is wide, it’s impossible to steal.