Will There Be An Election In 2024?

“There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy — the MAGA movement.”

“We should all remember, democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle. They can die when people are silent when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy, when people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated.”

Joe Biden in a recent speech in Arizona.

This is a man who has used the power of the federal government to censor free speech and deny Americans their First Amendment rights. This is a man whose Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently created a panel of experts that includes at least several individuals who directly interfered in at least two Presidential elections, attempted to remove a sitting duly elected President, and covered up a mountain of evidence suggesting that he had been compromised by Chinese intelligence.

This is a man whose political party is already pursuing multiple legal actions against his primary political opponent, Donald Trump with the goal of imprisoning him and preventing him from running for office again.

This is a man whose FBI has now officially created a new category of domestic extremists. Classified information obtained by Newsweek has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created a new ‘MAGA’ category of extremists ahead of the 2024 election. Per the report, “the vast majority of its current “anti-government” investigations are of Trump supporters.”

This is Joe Biden, who has officially declared war on anyone who disagrees with him politically and fully intends to use the power of the U.S. government to guarantee he remains in power.

There is widespread discussion now of the possibility that Biden will trample on the rights of those who dare stand against him. That conversation misses the point.  He is already doing so.

The number of FBI investigations of “domestic violent extremism” and “domestic terrorism” has more than doubled since 2020. Almost all of those investigations are of Trump supporters. Even more ominously increasingly the Bureau is conducting not formal investigations but what it calls “assessments.”

An assessment can be conducted without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion. In effect, it can be conducted for any reason or almost no reason at all. An FBI agent can initiate an assessment of an individual without supervisory approval or any kind of review.  After 30 days that agent must report that he is conducting an assessment to a supervisor but if the supervisor wants the assessment to continue he can authorize it to do so for a completely indeterminant period of time. It can run forever if he wants it to.

There is no meaningful distinction between an assessment and what normal people would call an investigation or even spying. During an FBI assessment agents can recruit informants to monitor targets, question people without identifying themselves as FBI agents, search databases and conduct physical surveillance.

If they choose to call what they are doing an “assessment” FBI agents can spy on you for as long as they want and not even have to provide any reasonable justification for what they are doing.

Nobody knows how many assessments the FBI is conducting. They have refused to divulge that number when asked.

The FBI justifies its use of assessments with a terrifying “pre-crime” rationale. They cannot be required to wait until someone is committing criminal acts to investigate. They must act “proactively” to investigate individuals before they have done anything actually criminal.

“The FBI cannot be content to wait for leads to come in through the actions of others; rather, we must be vigilant in detecting criminal or national security threats to the full extent permitted by law, with an eye towards early intervention and prevention of criminal or national security incidents before they occur. For example, to carry out its central mission of protecting the national security, the FBI must proactively collect information from available sources in order to identify threats and activities and to inform appropriate intelligence analysis.”

Biden’s rhetoric and the FBI’s focus on spying on Biden’s political opponents are entirely consistent with the messaging coming from the Democratic Party as a whole.

Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation are pushing an initiative called Project 2025 to break the power of the Deep State and regain control of the federal bureaucracy. Democrats are not content presenting policy arguments against this idea. They have branded it as an attempt to destroy the republic.

“Project 2025 is extremists’ newest plan to set fire to our democracy,” Kyle Herrig, a senior adviser at the left-leaning government watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. “It would allow far-right groups like Heritage and the Conservative Partnership Institute to implement their dangerous wish lists with no regard for everyday Americans.”

“This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions,” Biden said in the same speech quoted above. “It’s also a threat to the character of our nation that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans, a common cause. None of this is surprising, though. They’ve tried to govern that way before. Thank God they failed. But they haven’t given up.”

“Because MAGA extremists don’t want to make life better for all Americans. They want to inflict pain…it covers up their lack of an agenda, it excites their base and throws gas on their bonfires of distraction and chaos.”

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Understand this. None of this is unintentional. Nothing that is happening is being done ad hoc. This is not simply rhetoric. The political opponents of the regime are being labeled officially by the United States government as enemies of the republic. That is not being done purely to score political points. It is being done very deliberately to lay the foundation for something yet to come.

All of this language is designed to send a single, simple message. MAGA poses an existential threat to the continued existence of the republic. Joe is charged with defending that republic. Therefore, whatever he chooses to do next will be not only legal but morally justified.

Meanwhile, the FBI is busy mapping the contours of the movement that opposes Biden and supports his political opponent. All day, every day they are gathering names, building databases, and compiling lists of “extremists.” They are putting your name on a list and branding you as an enemy of the state.

Will there be an election in 2024? I don’t know anymore.