With just a month to go before President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in, Trump has stepped up his efforts to remain president, while also trying to convince millions of Americans that electoral fraud is to blame for his presidential loss.
Nevertheless, even mention of martial law may fuel the flames of many supporters who hold to the belief that the election results were fraudulent. That could incite violence to make the idea a reality.
“In the conspiratorial conservative base to support Trump, there are calls to use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law,” said Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary of Homeland Security under President Trump and adviser on Defending Democracy Together. , on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
“When they hear that the president is really considering this, there are violent extremist groups who see this as a dog whistle, an excuse to go out and create … violence,” she said.
It’s a concept she calls “acceleration,” in which violent extremist groups, especially white supremacists, try to overthrow the United States government. These groups believe this will take place through a civil war and are trying to “accelerate the chaos, accelerate the rise of the civil war.”
“So when they hear that the president is open to this idea of martial law, we can see that certain groups are mobilizing to commit acts that, in their view, justify the use of the Insurrection Act,” said Neumann .