Trump’s Strategy: Skip the Votes, Embrace the Chaos

In this episode of the Keystone Reckoning Podcast, we take a hard look at how the 2024 election could unravel democracy, with Pennsylvania right at the heart of the storm. Trump and his allies have refined their chaotic tactics from 2020, and this time, they’re coming prepared. From voter purges to stalling mail-in ballot counts, Republicans are setting the stage to challenge the results before the votes are even fully counted. Their goal? To throw the process into chaos, scream “fraud,” and let misinformation do the rest.

Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot controversies are a prime target, with Republicans blocking sensible reforms like pre-canvassing to intentionally delay results, fueling their fraud narrative. But they’re not stopping there—similar efforts are unfolding in states like Virginia and Wisconsin, with purges of voter rolls and legal challenges designed to disenfranchise voters. We also dive into how media coverage could further distort the reality on election night, especially when delayed counts shift the narrative. This episode is a call to action for Pennsylvanians: be ready to defend democracy, because November 5th is just the beginning.

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

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Chapters

• 0:31 Trump's Plan to Subvert Election
• 5:12 Republican Tactics to Disrupt Election
• 18:55 Election Tampering and Political Strategy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:31

One of the fundamentally frustrating and maddening traits of Donald Trump is his seeming inability to tell the truth. So when he does tell the truth, you think we would be happy, but in this instance, I think it's more like it's time to be terrified. Welcome to the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. Those of us that are ready for this election to finally be over on election day need to adjust our expectations Because, as I've become increasingly convinced, november 5th is just the beginning of this, not the end by any means, and every single thing that is out there is reinforcing that. What I think at this point is just an absolute fact, and it's so bizarre because the Republicans are basically laying the groundwork for it and talking about it in such a brazen way, kind of like in plain sight, that maybe they think that people are too dumb to see what's going on. And, to be honest, maybe people are too dumb to see what's going on. And, to be honest, maybe people are too dumb to see what's going on. I mean, look at where we're at. It's hard to look at where we're at in this election and then make the argument that we're a nation of intelligent people Kind of a difficult argument to make. So what are we talking about here? This has to do with the plan that is becoming increasingly clear of how Trump is going to try to steal the election, claim victory however you want to call it, regardless of the outcome. All the pieces are there. And what is happening now? As we get down to it, you're starting to see those gears kind of move into motion, the machine starting to churn itself up Because, unlike in 2020, where they weren't quite ready and didn't have all the pieces in place, they clearly have a much more robust option, set of options in place this time.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I think there are multiple paths to try to make this go, and I don't know how many of them we are in a position to be able to address through either just being aware of them or having the legal wherewithal, the structure in the courts or whatever to be able to stop them all. So they're taking a strategy of throwing a bunch of things up against the wall and seeing what sticks. So, for example, one of the biggest stories was the Georgia Board of Canvassers a board of elections coming out and passing these insane rules, saying that they kind of empowered themselves, or any county board of elections had the ability to, in effect, bring the counting of votes to a grinding halt, which would then allow them to miss their certification deadline, which would then throw everything up in the air. And I want to be clear this is the ultimate goal. Ok, all of these roads are leading to one, one path, which is they want to subvert the popular vote. They want to subvert the popular vote, so either Congress, which would just be the House of Representatives, or the state legislatures would be empowered to decide the electors for the Electoral College. That's it.

Speaker 1: 3:49

I'm going to do another episode soon that is truly terrifying, about a video that was out there of someone that's in Trump's orbit, who was in a weird way connected to the shooter the would-be shooter in Arizona that they stopped. It's one of those things where, if I didn't have everything in front of me, I would sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I'm not. All roads lead to not letting the popular vote determine the election, and I don't mean the national popular vote, I mean the statewide popular vote, and that's being done in a variety of ways through voter disenfranchisement, by taking people off the voter rolls, all these different things, and what they're doing is they're planting seeds of doubt and they're giving themselves opportunities and things to point to as a precursor to claiming the election was stolen, that the Democrats were cheating, that it was illegitimate. That's how then they can. In response to that, then they can quote stop the steal Right. They, they're almost at that point. They have been wronged by the government and by the deep state. Therefore, they are now, in their minds, entitled to do whatever they want to try to fight that, to try to reclaim what is being taken from them, taken from real Americans. So it takes a lot of different forms, but you're seeing it.

Speaker 1: 5:13

There was something in Pennsylvania where there's a treading on Twitter, an argument about how Governor Shapiro made the comment today that it will take days to count all the ballots, and they're immediately saying oh, that's fraud, you know. They're tagging all the Trump lawyers and saying well, here we go. That's our cause for, for challenging it. What they're not telling you and what I think, quite honestly, most of the people that are screaming fraud, you know, and the non political operatives, what they don't realize is the problem that with getting all the votes counted on Election day is by design from the Republicans, pennsylvania, specifically, what they're talking about is pre-canvassing of votes, so with all the votes coming in by mail and nationally.

Speaker 1: 6:02

We're up to about one third of all votes cast in America being cast by mail. So you mail your ballot in and it sits at the Board of Elections in your county and they you know you get a notification that's been received, but then it just sits there until election day and by law they are not allowed to start to open those ballots until 7 am on election day. So they can't start opening mail-in ballots until the polls open on election day. And pre-canvassing is just that, it's pre. So what they're doing is they're opening up the envelope, the mail envelope, Then they're taking they're still keeping the security envelope, they're verifying that that is the that matches the person it was supposed to go to. They are then are able to make the ballots smooth out so they can actually go through the counting machines. It's all the mechanics of being able to count votes, because that takes people and it takes time, and there was a proposed law that actually passed the House back in May.

Speaker 1: 7:08

It's a very smart piece of legislation, very common sense, that it would allow pre-campusing to start seven days in advance. So in essence, the County Board of Elections could have the ballots ready to go because they'd have seven days to get them ready and then they could run them through the machine to get their tabulation and get a much clearer or timely result. And that bill is sitting in the state Senate, republican controlled. And it has been made very clear, according to a report, that Trump and Trump allies have told those Republicans block that bill, do not pass it. Same thing going on in Wisconsin. Almost the same exact situation Republicans stopping legislation from being passed that would address the very problem they are complaining about, because they don't want the solution. They want the issue Because it gives them the ability. Ability because that explanation I just gave you took like 30 seconds, 45 seconds, it's so much easier to be like. Well, it's going to take them days to count the votes, so therefore it's corrupt, right? They want the easy answer. That's going to get whipped into a frenzy, even though there's a perfectly logical explanation. Not that the Trump supporters would listen to it or believe it. If they did, you can literally show them the statute and they still wouldn't believe it. That's where we're at right now. So you've got that kind of stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 8:24

You have a situation in Virginia, another big potential swing state, where the voter rolls, glenn Youngkin, crazy conservative governor of Virginia. They did a big purge of the voter rolls and it got challenged in court and the court said no, you can't purge, you can't take these people off the voter rolls. And, of course, Trump did an interview with the Chicago Economic Club, which we'll talk about again in a minute, but in it he was asked about something totally unrelated and he started talking about this Virginia decision and it's terrible and it's you know. A lot of people are saying and I just once, I wish a reporter would look at Trump and be like you always use the phrase people, or lots of people are saying could you name three? He couldn't do it. You know, the only people saying this to him are the sycophants around him and the voices in his head.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Anyway, so they're crying foul that all of these people are now illegally, in their words, going to be able to vote in Virginia because you know they wouldn't let them take, you know, illegitimate voters off the voter rolls. However and you'll see a theme developing here by law in Virginia, any adjustment or purging, or whatever you want to call it, to the voter rolls has to be more than 90 days before an election, presumably. So those people who had been purged from the voter rolls, many of whom and the reporting is voluminous on this are taken off incorrectly. That way, they know about it far enough in advance, or at least if they go to check the registration or apply for a mail-in ballot wait, I'm not registered to vote. Okay, let me re-register. It gives them time to correct the state.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Uh, making a mistake, or maybe doing it on purpose, who knows? That would disenfranchise them, because it's not hard to envision who they're taking off the voter rolls right. So that was their big thing. But, the governor of Virginia, you'd have to figure either by by really by malfeasance or malpractice, one or the other. Either they didn't know what the law was and they tried to do it anyway, or they knew and they wanted the issue right, and that's kind of, if you think about it, that's almost scarier. Instead of getting those voters off the rolls, they were like, no, maybe we want the issue, because it gives us again more reason to cry foul and because if you're crying foul in one state, that's one thing, but what have we already talked about? Georgia, pennsylvania, wisconsin, virginia? You think that's a coincidence? That's just off the top of my head. There are more out there, and I'm sure there are more to come, but the recurring theme here is they are doing things, forcing issues that require the law to be enforced, and then using the outcome that they have in fact engineered as a precursor or excuse to claim that they're being wrong somehow.

Speaker 1: 11:24

This is not that hard to see. This is not hard to see at all, and I bring that up because in the rolling stone piece they come right out and say which I'm, you know, those of us that have been watching this have seen for a while now and it's kind of a a repeat of 2020, but it's going to be much more dramatic, you know, or theatrical on their part, and it's going to be well orchestrated. And you've already again, you've seen it Trump basically screaming that the election has been stolen from him before anybody started counting ballots. That's not an accident. He's setting the stage so that way, he can now declare and this is what it says, according to four conservative attorneys I'm reading from Rolling Stone now, four conservative attorneys and other sources who have spoken to the former president Trump intends to declare as soon as on election night that the race is being rigged or stolen from him by pointing to slow vote counts of mail-in ballots in crucial battleground states as his evidence for supposed democratic shenanigans afoot. Huh, sound familiar, you know? I think you only have to go back about three minutes to get where we were at with this. That's the plan. Straight away. Three minutes to get where we were at with this. That's the plan, straight away. That's the plan, and it's it's not hard to see what they're going to try to do and it's as Trump in these private conversations, has stressed. That quote you got to call them out very early in the process, like that night, otherwise they can get away with it and cover their tracks.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Now the day are Democrats, but also elected. You know elected election officials who I think we can all agree for the most part, held their ground and did their jobs four years ago, democrat or Republican, and it's all to bring about this idea of chaos. Right, they want chaos and that's. Chaos is the thing that will allow them to mobilize their supporters, who are spoiling for a fight, and they're going to try to wear down Democrats through a war of attrition. We saw it in 2000 with Bush v Gore, karl Rove going down to Florida sending people in on buses to put pressure. This is going to be that times a million. Now, think about it. The guy that engineered that isn't supporting Trump, right? That's how far we've gone from that. So this is what we need to be ready for.

Speaker 1: 14:27

This is all leading up to not a call to action. It's leading to a call to war. Their words, not ours. For example, we've been getting Republican mailers for some reason, and I'm holding one right now. I got today and on the front of it is literally three words Fight, fight, fight is literally three words fight, fight, fight. And in the background is a picture of Trump's arm raised during the shooting in Butler. Think about that for a minute. That's the message to voters fight, fight, fight. Got a message from the Democratic Party today. It says your vote matters in this election. See the disparity here. We are not playing the same game in this election. See the disparity here. We are not playing the same game.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Now, the other piece of this has to do with the polls, and it matters because, for a lot of reasons, I'm not believing these polls. This year especially, I've done polling. I know how to read polling. It's first of all. Anybody that's talking about a national poll can just get out of my face. Because we don't have a national election. They're pointless, they're worthless. Statewide polls matters because we don't have one presidential election. We have 50 presidential elections. That's the way this country is built, right, wrong or indifferent, that's the way it's built.

Speaker 1: 15:42

So, ok, you're going to give me statewide polling, that's fine. But all of these polls are, like you know, within a percentage or a half a percent or whatever. They're pointless, they're all within the margin of error. I've gotten numerous calls for polls. I always take them. You know you get a couple me and a couple of people like me give a different answer. There's your percentage point because it's all weighted. Even if they do it right, it's a weighted response If you're within the margin.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Now I'm much more inclined to believe that Bob Casey is beating living daylights out of David McCormick, because the disparity there takes you outside the margin of error. And, generally speaking, if a poll is done right and it's modeled right and all the things, it can be a viable barometer of support. I mean, I've had elections where I was the candidate. I saw internal polling and it played out almost to the exact percentage. I think that's a lot more difficult in a national race or when you're dealing with such a large group of people and I also think that in this election we've talked about this before people are not inclined to say who they're voting for because they're afraid to say it, either because they don't want to get in an argument, or they're just kind of afraid to say out loud because, like again the mailer I got today fight, fight, fight. So we're dealing with and that's again, that's intimidation. They're doing that on purpose. That's a feature, not a bug, so they don't want to necessarily tell a pollster who they're supporting.

Speaker 1: 17:02

So for all those reasons, I'm inclined to not want to buy into polls, the other reason being that in this now we're going to get into the more nefarious part of it, because there are legitimate pollsters out there and that's a staple of American politics. I get it, that's fine, and they can't be informative, but the thing that blows me away is the fact that what we're seeing now. So someone decided at some point that one poll could be better than the other. It might not be accurate. So they started to do this average of polling, this aggregate, right. So the RealClearPolitics does it. It's like this rolling they take all the polls and they combine them together and the idea being that you get a more accurate result because you've put more polls together and they should be stronger statistically. Not a bad theory. However, what it allows for is to and Republicans have done a good job of this they flooded the field with far right-leaning polls. Rasmussen poll is kind of the gold standard. I guess the red standard of you know a Rasmussen poll is just. You don't have to laugh at it coming out of the gate, because it's always going to favor the Republicans. It's always skewed to the Republicans. There are other polling firms out there. They are flooding the field with garbage polling in an effort to bring that percentage down.

Speaker 1: 18:21

So here's the narrative on election night, trump and everybody else stands up and says we were neck and neck in the polls, we were winning some of the polls. Stands up and says we were neck and neck in the polls, we were winning some of the polls we were winning on election night Because, if you remember, mail-in ballots come in in big chunks later, because they have to be counted, because you can't start counting them until seven in the morning. So what tends to happen is you get election night voting or election day voting comes in first and then there's a big dump of mail-in ballots Again. It's how the system's supposed to work. If it didn't happen that way, something would be wrong.

Speaker 1: 18:55

But to someone that wants to believe there's something nefarious at foot, that there's skullduggery taking place, trump is winning by big percentages and because a lot of times people will see a percentage of the you know of the votes on TV or whatever, but they don't realize how much of the electorate is in right. To anybody that knows this stuff, it's like well, what counties were it right? Like I don't care what the percentage is, nothing else mattered because they were going to do what they were going to do. So you've got this scenario. Where you're, you know Trump is going to say oh, you were watching all night, especially because, remember, the majority of Election Day voters are the Republicans. The majority of vote by mail folks are Democrats, right. So here we go, you've got.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Trump is up big on when the polls close, because people again think that, oh, the minute the polls close, the election's over. Trump's up big when the polls close, he's winning, he's winning, he's winning. And all of a sudden, boom, he's losing because Philadelphia came in Right, or it's neck and neck, but there are more votes that are going to come in after the polls close, even though those were legally cast ballots in a lot of mean. Usually those were actually ballots that were cast before polling places open, but they couldn't be counted until late because the Republicans won't change the law. So you've got the numbers to someone that doesn't know any better. Support this narrative. It allowed the polling being so close, allows Trump to come out and say we were winning in the polls. We were right there. It was so close. We were neck and neck the entire way through, and now Kamala Harris is up by three points and votes came in late.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Yada, yada, yada stormed the state capitol and that's one of the other things we're going to talk about later is this you know that's what they're talking about. Just to be clear, this is setting up for not necessarily a January 6th. It's setting up a bunch of January 6th in state capitals, in battleground states all over the country. That's where this will end up. You know state legislators are, you know they're very interested in staying in office. They're not interested in necessarily stepping up and doing what's right politically, especially when it's their own party.

Speaker 1: 21:08

And again, some of the things I've heard not heard secondhand. I've watched the speeches where they're basically like we're going to attack the Republicans and make sure they do right by us. We need to get them on board and then we'll turn to the Democrats. He's well thought out. This is a plan. This isn't. This isn't going to anything that happens here. There's a phrase that says anything that happened in politics is never by accident. This is the epitome of that. None of this is an accident, none of it. So when it all starts to happen, don't let anybody say the signs weren't there because that's what they're going to do.

Speaker 1: 21:41

Because I truly believe, given anecdotal things I've heard on the ground, things I've seen, online conversations I've personally had I think that in these tight battleground states and I'll just use PA as an example I think Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania, not as a landslide, but I think she wins it comfortably. I think she wins it to a point where it would be very difficult to legitimately challenge the result. I don't think she'll win it by enough that they're not going to be able to. They're not going to do it, but I think that in any other year, in any other election, it would be. They would call it for, they would call Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris, and that would be it and, by the way, this cannot be overlooked when the the one of the big questions is and I think this has to do with criticism of the mainstream media about how they've kind of given Trump a million passes, and that's a discussion for another day but when will they call these States If we go later into the night and there is clear evidence that Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania, but nobody wants to call it?

Speaker 1: 22:48

Like nobody outside, like MSNBC, right? Steve Kornacki is a man on an island calling it in his khakis, but everybody else is like afraid. That will only reinforce the uncertainty and open up the door to claims that this was illegitimate. You know, one of the most defining things if you remember back to election 2020, was when Fox called Arizona. When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden, that was a body blow to Donald Trump because it told ironically and how weird is this? That like? We need Fox News to be at least a semblance of a news organization, because they may be the only ones.

Speaker 1: 23:26

If they were able to call this election for Kamala Harris assuming she wins, if they called it for her that might be the one thing that would make enough Republicans stop and be like OK, that, because that's the news I listen to or watch and that's who I trust. And if they're telling me Donald Trump lost, I guess he lost, maybe not all of them, certainly not all of them, but maybe enough of them. That would kind of come, you know, the mob would be thinner, but that's definitely more than ever. And that tells you where we're at. The fact that who's going to be afraid to actually say what happened. And it goes to also, and and it goes to also, if you've seen every interview with every republican official. They are asked will, if every state certifies the results, will you accept the results of the election? And like no federally elected, no federally elected republican will say yes, like what the hell? But that's where we're at.

Speaker 1: 24:19

So this is all being very carefully orchestrated, kind of in plain sight. You know they're getting ready to put on a big anti-democracy play and they're doing the rehearsals and they're building the sets right in front of us. My worry and this should be your worry, it should be all of our worries what is the firewall here? Right? How are we going to deal with this? Because we and you know I've been talking to some election protection people and you know we've got a plan. We've got a plan. I don't know what that is. You know some of it is a pretty good idea, some I don't, and I get that maybe it's not the greatest idea to be out there telling them how you're going to.

Speaker 1: 25:07

You know what, objectively, she has won the election. If that is the case, you need to use their playbook and you cannot concede. We cannot concede one millimeter for one millisecond, because the second you do that, they, you know weakness is a. You know they will smell that weakness and they will try to roll all over the country. This is definitely. This is not a time for conciliation. This will not be a time for let's talk it out. This will not be a time for you know, both sides have a valid point. If the numbers are on our side, that's it, and you accept nothing less, because you know otherwise, why even have elections anymore? If it could just be a contest of who could be the loudest, well, if elections were a contest of who could be the loudest, I could be running for president right now. If you asked anybody in my house, everybody that knows me. But that's for another day.

Speaker 1: 25:58

So this is coming, and not only is the election day and the election night stuff going to be an issue. It's everything that comes after it and the threats that are being made to set it up, and we'll get into those soon. Um, you know, with trump threatening to use the military, and you know I'd explain, because we were having a conversation in the kitchen today. I'd explain to my nine-year-old about the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. That's where we're at right now. So, yeah, we're all doom-scrolling, right and we're all terrified. And the difference to me is and I'll end on this note this is why it's different.

Speaker 1: 26:37

When people start talking about kind of extreme scenarios and, you know, worrying about the system falling down or falling apart, or pointing out the stress points in the system, it's usually the people that are politically astute, experienced, understand the law, understand our political system. They're the ones that talk the other people down. Right, they're the ones are like okay, I get that theoretically, but this is what, the way it really works, and this is what will happen and it's okay, it's gonna be okay. This year it's the inverse. This year, it's the people that are politically astute and aware and are, you know, either, through whatever means they, they are paying close attention to this for whatever reason, be it their job, be it their hobby, be it that they want to be an informed citizen, they're the ones who are sounding the alarms. That's an entirely different thing, because when the people that know better are the ones saying it is time to wake up and be have your head on a swivel here, people, because this is totally different than anything we've seen in our lifetimes. And the people that are just out there that aren't politically aware, that would just as soon not deal with this, and God bless them. I don't know how anybody at this point could turn away from this, but okay, that's again a discussion for another day. But when they're the ones saying, oh, you're crazy, you know what you're talking about and they're coming from a place of a lack of knowledge to people with a higher degree of knowledge, that's terrifying, because not only does that mean people are sounding the alarm, but it means that people aren't hearing it. You see where I'm going with this. All of that to say, as I said at the beginning, as much as we want this all to be over, be ready, because November 5th is not the end of this election, in many ways it is the beginning.

Speaker 1: 28:30

Thank you for listening to Keystone Reckoning Podcast. I have a really cool I think it's going to be a two-parter because I'm going to chop it up a guest interview that'll be coming out next. You're not going to want to miss it. If you like what we're talking about and you want to support it, especially now because we want to get money out in the field to campaigns and the causes keystonereckoningcom, you can make a contribution to the pack right there. Also, visit our sponsor, truebluegearcom. That's truebluegearcom. We've got, you know, we just put out the Trump is a jag off shirts for anybody from Western PA. But you know, t-shirts, mugs, hats, all that good stuff, because we have to wear our values. We can't just talk about them, we have to put them out there, so might as well look good while we're doing it. So again, thank you for listening. We'll be back soon. Stay strong, stay informed and let's stay together.