Is the world going to eyewitness a revolution in the United States that would be similar to Maidan riots in Ukraine? What is going to happen to the USA as a result of the presidential election? Is the army going to take part in the riots if they spark? Which side are law-enforcers going to take? Pravda.Ru asked these and other questions to Vladimir Vasiliev, Chief Researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada.
"Do you think that the American Maidan can be possible at all? Can it happen at the time when they recount the votes or after the decision of the US Supreme Court?"
The US Supreme Court is the last instance, the last arbitration. The Florida Supreme Court has already upheld the claim from the Republicans. America is structured federatively, like a nesting doll, a matryoshka. First there must be local courts: appeals, federal courts, then the Supreme Court of the state comes in. When something very serious needs to be brought down, the US Supreme Court steps in.
American spring turns into Maidan autumn
This is where the process starts. In today's America, there are approximately 300 large rightist and leftist groups, which allegedly do not subordinate to anyone. In fact, they do subordinate to someone. In general, it goes about from 15 to 20 thousand well-armed people, who regularly appear on television and on the Internet. One can see not only men, but also women armed with machine guns, semi-automatic weapons, and knives from the era of Chingachgook, the Great Serpent.
Such an armed group of people has recently detained a local mayor in one of the states for implementing another lockdown. There were plans to kidnap State Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Those armed people firmly believe that every vote must be counted, and ballot box stuffing should be excluded.
Therefore, they can come to a polling station and take control of it by organizing their own observation commission. The Republicans have allocated 50,000 observers who will monitor the voting at key polling stations.
However, if the recounting takes place over several days or weeks, a question arises about the place of storage for those ballots. The fate of the ballots remains unclear. The same problem was raised in Russia, when the principle of multi-day voting was discussed.
There are also facts of intimidation of voters throughout the United States. People are already being bullied by email. Voters can be intimidated near polling stations, because they still have to come to register to vote.
Voters can be intimidated simply because voters' lists are exposed. This may not be a new American practice, but the principle is this: do not go to vote, otherwise your house will burn. This is not a joke - many shops and homeowners have already lost their property. All this may play an important role at polling stations and seriously affect the voting process, and, accordingly, cause riots.
"How can law-enforcers respond?"
The police may decide to stay away, should riots spark. If the crisis strikes, it may develop differently, depending on "red" and "blue" states.
All this can give rise to chaos. Trump already said that America may have to deal with something it has never seen before. It is believed that Trump may pull military into election unrest.
Trump did not pedal this topic afterwards, but it did cause a reaction. He may not have scored any points with that statement, but he insinuated that the armed forces would be involved in accordance with the law of 1807, should riots start.
The armed forces of the United States of America are colonial in nature - it is prohibited to use them inside the United States, there is the National Guard for the purpose, but army units can be involved still.
Defense Department officials were inundated with letters from Democratic senators a half month ago about how the military will act in case of possible riots. It appears, however, that the army has split.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that the military would act in accordance with the law. What did he mean by that? Is he going to obey the orders coming from the supreme commander or not? Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that he would never, under any circumstances, interfere in the elections.
