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Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

newsweek.com

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Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#21
post #17

This wouldn't be on-topic for HN even if it wasn't running in "Newsweek" --- even if a sitting senator had said it, mere proposals are explicitly off-topic --- but I always feel like it's useful to call out the fact that "Newsweek" is a grift publication. The Newsweek your parents read went out of business a decade and a half ago, and was purchased by a cult and run as an SEO farm. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=a…

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Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#22
post #9

Americans have been in a hot civil war since January 2021 and just refuse to realize it.

Arguably the original civil war never ended. The most important battle lost by the Union forces: Reconstruction.

The boys told me to stop bringing this up. But yes, correct take.

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#23

Voter intimidation is against the law.

The President is absolutely immune to the law for any "official actions", and the Supreme Court case which established this was specifically about whether ensuring voting integrity, no matter how farcically pre-textual, is an "official action": they determined it is. The law won't help us here.

Americans needs to decide whether the issues is that the constitution is just badly written or whether the supreme court is trying to intentionally destroy democracy to help their right wing friends. Or whether both are true.

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#24
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President is absolutely immune to the law for any "official actions", and the Supreme Court case which established this was specifically about whether ensuring voting integrity, no matter how farcically pre-textual, is an "official action": they determined it is. The law won't help us here.

Americans needs to decide whether the issues is that the constitution is just badly written or whether the supreme court is trying to intentionally destroy democracy to help their right wing friends. Or whether both are true.

Liberia had a nearly identical constitution for much of its existence. You know, the place from where General Butt Naked warlord engaged in cannabilism of the populace and each president for awhile was replaced with the last via having their ear cut off or tortured and then hanged while the next guys people drink a budweiser in front of the camera for the world to see.

It's a road map to where we end up with a similar document but a different culture.

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#25

A lot of people have been concerned that ICE is turning into a personal army for Trump. This year they will expand ICE to over 40,000 agents allegedly. This is enough to overwhelm police departments in every jurisdiction. There is a real possibility that these agents will continue detainment of people, even if they are US citizens, as they are trying to vote. Perhaps they will use their facial recognition app, Mobile…

On Election Day, they will deploy ICE to traditionally Democratic voting precincts. This is how they will "solve" electoral fraud.

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#26
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not deflection. They're just doing multiple evil things at the same time.

"Flood the zone"

What's happening on the media landscape is an enormous problem, highly manipulated and coordinated on the right-wing side. Flooding the zone is happening, among other things that weaken trust in journalism, weaken/defund/discourage investigative reporting, burying the lede information etc.

However, using the goon squad to illegally intimidate and disenfranchise voters is a problem large enough that calling it a would-be distraction from the Epstein files is doing everyone a disservice.

We have to pay attention to more than one thing. Saying is just a distraction from , means that you're too distracted by and need to step back and look around at all the other horrors.

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#27

Voter intimidation is against the law.

Voters should exercise their second amendment constitutionally protected right when they arrive to vote.

(As of early 2026, 29 states allow permitless (constitutional) concealed carry of firearms in most public spaces, while 21 states still generally require a permit. Major permitless carry states include Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and Arizona. While 47 states allow some form of open carry, California, Illinois, and New York prohibit it)

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#29
This is a predictable play. This had a highish likelihood of happening the moment they announced the massive, rapid funding and personnel expansion. Now that "abolish ICE" (ICE being their critically-important newly-empowered end-run around Posse Comitatus) is trending, they basically have to play every card they've got, or risk seeing their project set back by at least a few years, just as it's gaining steam. It'll take longer to capture enough of the courts and military that they don't need ICE and its bullshit "but immigration enforcement must have special otherwise-unconstitutional powers" smoke-screen of a justification any more.

I also expect:

1) Lawsuits, subpoenas, and indictments against and of elections offices and key officials in Democratic areas of vulnerable Republican districts, timed to mess with their ability to even function. If it suppresses the vote that's a "nice to have" but mostly this is to sow uncertainty about the elections both by generating ginned-up headlines (it doesn't matter if the investigations actually find anything or go anywhere) and by delaying vote counting and causing chaos (e.g. very long lines) on Election Day, which opens up greater space for the GOP to act after the elections.

2) Challenges of the outcomes by the administration and their proxies, and outright calls for Republicans to pull certification tricks akin to the fake-elector crime they attempted in '20. This would be supported by #1, and by ICE-created chaos and vote suppression.

Incidentally, the ICE intervention can take many forms, the most extreme of which (and most effective to the admin) is triggering violence (a lot of people are going to react poorly to being asked "papers, please" by a small squad of armed & armored federal thugs on the way to vote) that actually shuts down polling places in key locations. This both heavily suppresses the vote in areas they've targeted, and serves their "chaos! Democrats are trying to cheat by letting illegals vote! See how much they freak out when we don't let them?" narrative. The lighter version is some cautious shows-of-force and unrealized threats ahead of time, aimed at gentler levels of vote suppression (if you're a citizen but have an accent and aren't white, you might think twice about your odds of getting to the polls without getting locked up for a day or two and losing perhaps five figures you may not have attaining your release, and just stay home, even if ICE ends up not showing or just doing some show-of-force drive-bys that end up all over social media)

I'd love to know what, if anything, state governments are planning to prevent any of this. I've personally not been able to think of a single effective thing they can do about it as far as actually keeping it from happening or recovering quickly from the material harm it does (winning much later in the court of public opinion, for whatever that's worth, is another matter, as is eventually winning in court) but maybe there's something.

(I rate all the above fairly likely, in some form; my outside-but-not-impossible-odds guess is they'll seize some ballot drop boxes or enroute mail-in ballots with nebulous claims of wrongdoing that don't go anywhere but do fuck up specific districts' voting processes, with, as usual, no relief from the courts because by the time anything can be done about it it's a fait accompli and nobody's gonna trust those ballots after the feds have had them, anyway)

Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections

#30

Voter intimidation is against the law.

Voters should exercise their second amendment constitutionally protected right when they arrive to vote. (As of early 2026, 29 states allow permitless (constitutional) concealed carry of firearms in most public spaces, while 21 states still generally require a permit. Major permitless carry states include Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and Arizona. While 47 states allow some form of open carry, California, I…

Is there any state where it isn't illegal to carry at polling locations? I live in probably the most pro 2A state in the USA and it's illegal even here.
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