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sábado, 31 de outubro de 2020

As piores eleições do mundo - J. R. Guzzo (Oeste)

 Guzzo recomenda o voto distrital puro - o que pode ser um começo de solução, ao menos parcial, para as mazelas do sistema político-partidário de representação — e reconhece que temos um bando da salafrários em todos os níveis da política brasileira, mas não tem nada a dizer sobre o maior de todos os salafrários. Por que?

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

As piores eleições do mundo

A cura para a desgraça que são as eleições brasileiras é um conjunto de meia dúzia de providências simples como a tabuada. J. R. Guzzo, na Oeste:

Num dos melhores momentos de sua viagem (viagem mesmo, em todos os sentidos) ao País das Maravilhas, Alice pergunta à Tartaruga Falsa quantas horas de aula por dia ela tinha tido ao longo do seu processo educacional. Dez horas no primeiro dia, responde a Tartaruga. Nove no dia seguinte. Oito no outro dia — e assim por diante, até o zero. Em suma: era um sistema por meio do qual todos aprendiam cada vez menos quanto mais o tempo passava. Nada mais natural no mundo incompreensível e, ao mesmo tempo, perfeitamente lógico no qual Alice havia entrado — mas só lá. Ou melhor: lá e no Brasil. Eis aí, na verdade, o retrato pronto e acabado do eleitorado brasileiro de hoje.

Já são 32 anos seguidos, desde que a Constituição Cidadã de 1988 desabou sobre a sociedade brasileira, que a população é obrigada de dois em dois anos, com a regularidade das fases da Lua, a votar nas eleições destinadas a escolher de vereador a presidente da República. Deveria ter sido tempo mais do que suficiente para os eleitores aprenderem a votar direito — expulsando da política a multidão de candidatos-bandidos que frequenta as campanhas, senadores que escondem dinheiro na cueca e mais do mesmo. Era o que estava previsto na melhor teoria. Quanto mais votassem, mais as pessoas aprenderiam a votar bem; começariam, então, a dar seus votos a candidatos mais comprometidos com o interesse público, e não a essa manada de vigaristas que anda por aí. Com o tempo, e de um modo geral, iriam sobrar apenas os bons elementos. Mas, obviamente, o aprendizado que os nossos doutores em ciência política imaginaram para o Brasil deu errado. Não é uma estimativa. É o que demonstram os fatos.

Quanto mais tempo passa — 32 anos, agora — menos se aprende. Em vez de melhorarem, os candidatos pioram a cada eleição. Em vez de escolher políticos menos ruins, o eleitorado manda para o governo os que são mais absurdos. Basta ver os que estão aí, em todos os níveis — alguém acredita, sinceramente, que a maioria desses governadores, deputados, senadores etc. etc. seja gente boa? Ou, ao contrário, que sejam uma das piores coleções de delinquentes já reunidas na vida pública brasileira? A prova mais chocante do colapso geral do sistema é a lista atual de candidatos para os 5.500 cargos de prefeito e quase 60.000 vereadores que têm de ser preenchidos nas eleições municipais deste mês de novembro. É um trem fantasma.

O que temos mais uma vez, nesse curioso processo de aprendizado ao contrário, é a costumeira aglomeração de casos perdidos. Qual “agência de checagem de fatos”, destas que estão terrivelmente em moda hoje em dia entre os veículos de comunicação, daria o seu selo de qualidade aos candidatos que concorrem, por exemplo, à prefeitura de São Paulo? É uma das maiores cidades do mundo; seu prefeito e vereadores teriam de ser as pessoas mais qualificadas do país para existir alguma chance, apenas isso, de lidar de maneira razoável com os problemas monumentais do município e as opções que há diante deles. Mas o que acontece é o exato contrário. Os candidatos impostos pelos partidos para a eleição de 2020 são os piores que temos desde o padre Anchieta, 466 anos atrás. Não conseguiriam governar um clube de pingue-pongue; querem mandar nos 12 milhões de moradores de São Paulo.

Você sabe muito bem quem são eles. São políticos fracassados, que já tiveram todas as chances para errar e não perderam nenhuma. É gente que já governou e não fez nada que prestasse. São os perdedores de sempre, que disputam a eleição unicamente porque têm à disposição o dinheiro do “fundo eleitoral” que arrancam dos impostos pagos pelo público em geral. São os aventureiros de sempre — que, vendo o baixíssimo nível dos seus concorrentes, acham que vale a pena entrar nessa loteria. São as nulidades sem cura, os marginais mais ambiciosos e, em certos casos, os representantes do crime organizado — esses mesmos que o ministro Marco Aurélio manda soltar e o ministro Fachin protege; já proibiu os voos de helicóptero da polícia sobre as favelas, e agora quer proibir a revista dos visitantes que recebem quando estão na cadeia.

Votar direito como, se os candidatos são esses aí, abençoados pela Justiça Eleitoral depois de passarem, rindo, pelos seus filtros? O Brasil, aliás, deveria ter os melhores políticos do mundo — é a única democracia no planeta Terra que tem uma “Justiça Eleitoral”, com um tribunal supremo, 27 “tribunais regionais” (cada um com o próprio palácio), altos funcionários e um custo, para o cidadão, de R$ 9,2 bilhões por ano, ou R$ 25 milhões por dia. (A “Justiça Eleitoral”, como se sabe, é capaz de gastar mais em anos em que não há eleições.) Em resumo: é um fenômeno. Só que os governantes que saem dessa paçoca pioram, em vez de melhorar; está na cara que o papel didático da burocracia eleitoral está sendo um completo fracasso.

É uma penitência, realmente, ouvir várias vezes por dia no rádio e na televisão o ministro Barroso, que no momento é quem preside esse TSE, usar o dinheiro dos seus impostos para pôr no ar, mais uma vez, as eternas campanhas destinadas a ensinar como você deve votar. Como descrito acima, o resultado de tudo isso, em termos de qualidade dos políticos eleitos, é igual a três vezes zero. Mas é claro que as aulas de moral, de cívica e de responsabilidade social que o ministro gosta tanto de socar em cima do público vão continuar. Como justificar de outro jeito aqueles R$ 25 milhões que eles conseguem gastar por dia? Além disso, o TSE etc. etc. faz o ministro (Barroso hoje, um colega amanhã) representar diante do público mais um papel de homem “importante”. No mundinho deles, é algo que não tem preço.

A única cura realmente eficaz, e provavelmente definitiva, para a desgraça que são as eleições brasileiras, é um conjunto de meia dúzia de providências simples como a tabuada — e que não têm nada a ver com a “Justiça Eleitoral”, ou com a palhaçada geral dos discursos em defesa das “instituições”. A maioria dos brasileiros capaz de entender que dois mais dois são quatro, e não vinte e dois, sabe muito bem quais são elas. O pacote básico inclui, logo de saída, o fim do voto obrigatório. Junto com a eliminação dessa trapaça — vendida como “dever cívico”, mas criada unicamente para garantir a compra dos votos dos semianalfabetos e dos que não ligam a mínima para política —, teria de vir o voto distrital. Podem se gastar horas na discussão dos detalhes, mas no fundo isso significa o seguinte: o Brasil é dividido em 513 distritos, o número atual de cadeiras na Câmara dos Deputados; cada distrito terá exatamente o mesmo número de eleitores, e os candidatos só podem concorrer em um dos distritos.

O voto distrital simplesmente implode o sistema eleitoral em vigor e elimina quase todos os seus vícios. Acaba a farra dos Estados que não têm eleitores, mas têm pencas de deputados eleitos com meia dúzia de votos. Acabam os candidatos que têm 2 milhões de votos no Estado inteiro e elegem junto com eles picaretas nos quais quase ninguém votou. Acabam as despesas bilionárias das campanhas, pois os candidatos só podem ter votos num único distrito; não vão precisar de jatinho, comerciais de televisão etc. etc. Acaba a irresponsabilidade do candidato perante o eleitor: ao concorrer num distrito determinado, ele terá de assumir compromissos concretos para ser eleito — e o cumprimento das promessas que fez será cobrado na eleição seguinte.

Talvez mais do que tudo, o voto do brasileiro que tem título eleitoral em São Paulo ou em Minas Gerais passa a valer a mesma coisa que o voto do brasileiro que vive no Amapá ou em Roraima. São Paulo, por exemplo, tem hoje 70 deputados federais para uma população superior aos 45 milhões de habitantes — um representante para cada 650.000 moradores; o Amapá, com 750.000 habitantes, tem 8 deputados — um para cada quase 94.000. O voto do eleitor com título eleitoral de São Paulo vale sete vezes menos que o do eleitor do Amapá. Como pode funcionar um negócio desses? Para completar o novo sistema, a eliminação de quatro aberrações: o foro privilegiado, a propaganda eleitoral obrigatória no rádio e na televisão, o “suplente” de senadores e deputados e os “fundos” partidário e eleitoral — tramoias que só servem para encher a vida pública com gente safada.

O efeito desse conjunto de mudanças seria instantâneo — daria resultados logo na primeira eleição. Resolve o problema de governadores, prefeitos e senadores — ou do presidente da República? Não, não resolve. Mas resolve a Câmara dos Deputados, as Assembleias Legislativas e as Câmaras de Vereadores — e isso aí já é um mundo. De mais a mais, não existe Executivo ruim com Legislativo bom — e nem Judiciário, quando se pensa um pouco. É por isso mesmo que os mais intransigentes defensores orais da democracia, das “instituições”, do “Estado de direito” etc. etc. etc. preferem pegar uma covid tripla a mexer no sistema eleitoral brasileiro. É com ele que ganham a vida. Não querem largar o osso.

4 de novembro de 2020: o dia em que Trump conseguiu destruir a democracia americana - Ron Suskind (NYT)

 Este artigo, que não é de simples “opinião”, de Ron Suskind no NYTimes deste dia das Bruxas é a coisa efetivamente mais assustadora que pode ocorrer com os Estados Unidos:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-election-officials.html

The Day After Election Day

Current and former Trump administration officials are worried about what might happen on Nov. 4.



By Ron Suskind

Mr. Suskind is an investigative journalist who has written about the presidency and national affairs for more than three decades.

 

The New York Times, October 30, 2020


There will of course be an Election Day — and it could be one of tumult, banners colliding, incidents at the polls and attempted hacks galore. More likely than not, it will end without a winner named or at least generally accepted.

America will probably awaken on Nov. 4 into uncertainty. Whatever else happens, there is no doubt that President Trump is ready for it.

I’ve spent the last month interviewing some two dozen officials and aides, several of whom are still serving in the Trump administration. The central sources in this story are or were senior officials, mainly in jobs that require Senate confirmation. They have had regular access to the president and to briefings at the highest level. As a rule, they asked for anonymity because they were taking a significant professional and, in some cases, personal risk in speaking out in a way that Mr. Trump will see as disloyal, an offense for which he has promised to make offenders pay.

 

Several of them are in current posts in intelligence, law enforcement or national security and are focused on the concurrent activities of violent, far-right and white supremacy groups that have been encouraged by the president’s words and actions. They are worried that the president could use the power of the government — the one they all serve or served within — to keep himself in office or to create favorable terms for negotiating his exit from the White House. Like many other experts inside and outside the government, they are also concerned about foreign adversaries using the internet to sow chaos, exacerbate divisions and undermine our democratic process.


One senior government official, who spent years working in proximity to Mr. Trump, said: “He has done nothing else that’s a constant, except for acting in his own interest.”


Many of those adversaries, they report, are already finding success in simply amplifying and directing the president’s words and tweets. And they’re thoroughly delighted, a former top intelligence official told me, “at how profoundly divided we’ve become. Donald Trump capitalized on that — he didn’t invent it — but someday soon we’re going to have figure out how to bring our country together, because right now we’re on a dangerous path, so very dangerous, and so vulnerable to bad actors.”

None of these officials know what will happen in the future any better than the rest of us do. It is their job to fret over worst-case scenarios, and they’re damn good at it. I can’t know all their motives for wanting to speak to me, but one thing many of them share is a desire to make clear that the alarm bells heard across the country are ringing loudly inside the administration too, where there are public servants looking to avert conflict, at all costs.

It is possible, of course, that this will be an Election Day much like all other Election Days. Even if it takes weeks or months before the result is known and fully certified, it could be a peaceful process, where all votes are reasonably counted, allowing those precious electors to be distributed based on a fair fight. The anxiety we’re feeling now could turn out to be a lot of fretting followed by nothing much, a political version of Y2K.

Or not.

Many of the officials I spoke to came back to one idea: You don’t know Donald Trump like we do. Even though they can’t predict exactly what will happen, their concerns range from the president welcoming, then leveraging, foreign interference in the election, to encouraging havoc that grows into conflagrations that would merit his calling upon U.S. forces. Because he is now surrounded by loyalists, they say, there is no one to try to tell an impulsive man what he should or shouldn’t do.

“That guy you saw in the debate,” a second former senior intelligence official told me, after the first debate, when the president offered one of the most astonishing performances of any leader in modern American history — bullying, ridiculing, manic, boasting, fabricating, relentlessly interrupting and talking over his opponent. “That’s really him. Not the myth that’s been created. That’s Trump.”

Still another senior government official, who spent years working in proximity to Mr. Trump, put it like this: “He has done nothing else that’s a constant, except for acting in his own interest.” And that’s how “he’s going to be thinking, every step of the way, come Nov. 3.”

 

One of the first things senior staff members learned about Mr. Trump was that he was all but un-briefable. He couldn’t seem to take in complex information about policy choices and consequences in the ways presidents usually do in Oval Office meetings.

What they saw instead was the guy from the first debate. He’d switch subjects, go on crazy tangents, abuse and humiliate people, cut them off midsentence. Officials I interviewed described this scenario again and again.

In the middle of a briefing, Mr. Trump would turn away and grab the phone. Sometimes the call would go to Fox television hosts like Sean Hannity or Lou Dobbs; sometimes the officials wouldn’t even know who was on the other end. But whoever it was would instantly become the key voice in the debate.


In one meeting about the border wall, Mr. Trump called a person “who built a flagpole at one of his golf courses,” said an official in attendance that day. Mr. Trump explained that because this person “got in a big fight about the size of the flagpole” and because it was “really big,” “the president thought, of course, they would understand how to build a wall.”

“Obviously,” this official said, “it is not the same.”

“We used to joke that it was like a phone-a-friend thing, a lifeline thing” from “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” this person said. Soon, senior officials — frustrated that they couldn’t seem to get a word in during briefings — adopted their own version of this technique. They’d ask an array of people — some Trump friends, some members of Congress, assorted notables — to call Mr. Trump and talk to him about key issues. The callers just couldn’t let on that a senior official had put them up to it. Two of these senior officials compared the technique to the manipulations of “The Truman Show,” in which the main character, played by Jim Carrey, does not know that his entire life is being orchestrated by a TV producer.


In March 2018, Mr. Trump took a trip to Charlotte, N.C., for the funeral of the Rev. Billy Graham.


History may note that the most important thing that happened that day had little to do with the religious leader and his large life, save a single thread of his legacy. That would be his grandson, Edward Graham, an Army Ranger “right out of central casting,” as Mr. Trump liked to say, who’d served eight tours in Afghanistan and Iraq over 16 years. In full uniform he met Mr. Trump to escort him, and the two talked about the country’s grueling conflicts overseas.

For Mr. Trump, the meeting was a face-to-face lifeline call. When he returned to Washington, he couldn’t stop talking about troop withdrawals, starting with Afghanistan. During his campaign, he had frequently mentioned his desire to bring home troops from these “endless wars.” As president, his generals — led by the polished, scholarly, even-keeled Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — explained the importance of U.S. troops in stabilizing whole regions of the world, and the value of that stability. Suddenly, after talking to Edward Graham, Mr. Trump didn’t want to hear it.

“In a normal, sane environment,” said a senior Pentagon official, “were it Obama or Bush, or whatever, they’d meet Billy Graham’s grandson and they’d be like ‘Oh that’s interesting,’ and take it to heart, but then they’d go and they’d at least try to validate it with the policymakers, or their military experts. But no, with him, it’s like improv. So, he gets this stray electron and he goes, ‘OK, this is the ground truth.’ ”


Mr. Graham, now working in his family’s ministry, said, “Any conversations that I have had with the president are private.” And, “additionally, when I had those conversations with the president, I was in the Army and I was speaking with our commander in chief.”

Several weeks later, at a speech in Ohio, Mr. Trump said, “we’re knocking the hell out of ISIS” in Syria and the U.S. troops there would be coming home “very soon.”

Once they heard this, shock started to run through Mr. Mattis and his old friend, John Kelly, who’d commanded Marine forces but was then the chief of staff to the presidentBoth men understood that the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria were, soldier for soldier, probably the most valuable fighting force on the planet. They not only fought alongside the Kurds in routing ISIS, which was battered yet still a threat. These few troops helped hold the region intact, supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces, also filled with Kurds, which in turn checked the expansion of Syria’s murderous leader, Bashar al-Assad, and also kept Russia, Mr. Assad’s patron, in check. The Kurds had suffered tremendously in these conflicts, much more than the Americans had.


Word spread, and soon much of Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department and Mr. Kelly were doing various versions of “The Truman Show,” trying to get people on the phone that Mr. Trump trusted.

This went on for much of the year — as various voices, both inside and outside of government, worked to try to excise this idea of pulling troops out of Syria from the man.

On Dec. 19, 2018, top brass at the Pentagon received notification via Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed, along with more than 80 million of his followers: The United States would be pulling troops out of Syria. It wasn’t clear what, precisely, Mr. Trump was thinking, beyond the tweet: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency.”


ISIS was shrunken, but not yet fully defeated. And the move meant a radical reduction in American influence in Syria, an increase in the power of Russia and Iran to determine events there and quite possibly a land grab by the Turkish government, sworn enemy of the Kurds. Senior leadership of the U.S. government went into a panic. Capitol Hill, too. John Bolton, who was still the national security adviser then, and Virginia Boney, then the legislative affairs director of the National Security Council, hit the phones, calling more than a dozen senators from both parties. Mr. Bolton started each call, saying, in an apologetic tone, “This is the mind of the president, he wants to bring home our troops,” and then switched to frank talk about what might be done. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was beside himself. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, who served during the Iraq War, was dumbstruck. So was Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Is there any way we can reverse this?” he pleaded. 


“What can we do?”

That’s what Mr. Mattis wondered. He’d worked nearly two years developing techniques to try to manage Mr. Trump, from colorful PowerPoint slides to several kinds of flattery. This was his moment. The next day, he suited up, put on his cherished, navy blue NATO tie, with the four-pointed symbol of the alliance from which Mr. Trump had threatened to withdraw, and entered the Oval Office. He tried every technique — his entire arsenal, every tack, every argument. The president was unmoved. Mr. Mattis paused, and then pulled from his breast pocket an envelope with his resignation letter.

Down the hall, the very next day, Mr. Kelly was almost done cleaning out his office. He, too, had had enough. He and Mr. Trump had been at each other every day for months. Later, he told The Washington Examiner, “I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that.” But, in fact, that’s exactly what Mr. Trump wanted. Seventeen months as chief of staff, stopping Mr. Trump from umpteen crazy moves, from calling in the Marines to shoot migrants crossing the Rio Grande — “It’s illegal, sir, and the kids, they’re good kids, they just won’t do it” — to invading Venezuela. The list was long. Were they just trial balloons? Sure, some were. And, if someone wasn’t there to challenge Mr. Trump, might they have risen to action? Surely.

“I think the biggest shock he had — ’cause his assumption was the generals, ‘my generals,’ as he used to say and it used to make us cringe — was this issue of, I think, he just assumed that generals would be completely loyal to the kaiser,” a former senior official told me. “And when we weren’t, that was a huge shock to him, because he thought if anyone was going to be loyal, it would be the generals. And the first people he realized were not loyal to him were the generals.”

This shock, and his first two-plus years of struggle with seasoned, expert advisers, led to an insight for Mr. Trump. It all came back to loyalty. He needed to get rid of any advisers or senior officials who vowed loyalty to the Constitution over personal loyalty to him. Which is pretty much what he proceeded to do.

In February 2019, William Barr arrived as attorney general, having auditioned for the job with a 19-page memo arguing in various and creative ways that the president’s powers should be exercised nearly without limits and his actions stand virtually beyond review. He stood ready to brilliantly manage the receipt of the Mueller Report in March. Mr. Barr’s moves constituted what amounted to a clean kill, decapitating the sprawling nearly two-year investigation led by his old friend with a single blow.


That summer, two more heavyweight senior officials, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and his deputy, Sue Gordon, a beloved 32-year veteran of the C.I.A., both resigned. To replace Mr. Coats, Trump selected Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas, a small-town mayor-turned-congressman with no meaningful experience in intelligence — who quickly withdrew from consideration after news reports questioned his qualifications; he lacked support among key Republican senators as well. Mr. Trump then picked a communications official in the administration of George W. Bush and ambassador to Germany under Mr. Trump, Richard Grenell. Mr. Grenell’s stint was temporary and in May Mr. Trump brought back his first choice, Mr. Ratcliffe, who is now director of national intelligence for Mr. Trump’s homestretch and postelection period.

In other words, by the summer of 2020, Mr. Trump was well along in completing the transition to a loyalty-tested senior team. When I asked the White House to respond to this idea, I heard back from Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary.

“President Trump serves the American people by keeping his promises and taking action where the typical politician would provide hollow words,” she said. “The president wants capable public servants in his administration who will enact his America First agenda and are faithful to the Constitution — these principles are not mutually exclusive. President Trump is delivering on his promise to make Washington accountable again to the citizens it’s meant to serve and will always fight for what is best for the American people.”

The reason having loyalists at both the Department of Justice and D.N.I. is so very important for the president is that it allows him, potentially, to coordinate two key agencies of the government — secret intelligence and prosecution — toward his own political ends. This is exactly what he was criticized for doing in the summer and fall of 2020, with Mr. Barr being accused of announcing politically motivated action and investigations — including to support the fiction of widespread voter fraud — and Mr. Ratcliffe, with collecting and releasing information that is targeted at Mr. Trump’s opponents.

The third leg of what would be an ideal triad for this sort of activity is the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, who drew Mr. Trump’s ire in September, when, in congressional hearings, he echoed the consensus of the intelligence community that the Russians intervened in the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf, that they were doing it again in this election cycle, that “racially motivated violent extremism” — coming mostly from right-wing white supremacists — was a persistent threat, and that widespread voter fraud was a nonissue.

The F.B.I. has been under siege since this past summer, according to a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The White House is using friendly members of Congress to try to get at certain information under the guise of quote-unquote, oversight, but really to get politically helpful information before the election,” the official said. “They want some sort of confirmation that we’ve opened an investigation,” for example, into Hunter Biden, “which, again, the F.B.I. doesn’t confirm or deny whether it’s opened investigations.”

This official said that Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, “sends letters constantly now, berating, asking for the sun, moon, stars, the entire Russia investigation, and then either going on the morning talk shows or calling the attorney general whenever he doesn’t get precisely what he wants.” The urgency, two F.B.I. officials said, ratcheted up after Mr. Trump was told three weeks ago that he wouldn’t get the “deliverables” he wanted before the election of incriminating evidence about those who investigated and prosecuted his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Senator Johnson, specifically disputed the idea that Mr. Johnson had made requests to receive material quickly for TV appearances.

Furthermore, he said, “Senator Johnson has been frustrated by the failure of the F.B.I. and many other federal agencies to timely produce documents since taking over as chairman of the Senate’s chief oversight body in 2015. In that time, the F.B.I. habitually rebuffed oversight requests, which prompted Senator Johnson to issue F.B.I. a subpoena in August 2020. Senator Johnson has been putting pressure on the F.B.I. — and other federal agencies — because that’s the only way to get the records the committee is entitled to receive.”

Rumors swirled a week before the election that Mr. Trump was preparing to fire Mr. Wray, as well as, perhaps, the director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel — who had also drawn Mr. Trump’s ire, according to both former and current senior intelligence officials. The speculation is that they could both be fired immediately after the election, when Mr. Trump will want to show the cost paid for insufficient loyalty and to demonstrate that he remains in charge.

The senior official at the F.B.I., however, said that “firing the director won’t accomplish the goal.” There are “37,000 other people he would have to fire. It won’t work.”

That doesn’t mean that the president won’t try. Nov. 4 will be a day, said one of the former senior intelligence officials, “when he’ll want to match word with deed.” Key officials in several parts of the government told me how they thought the progression from the 3rd to the 4th might go down.

They are loath to give up too many precise details, but it’s not hard to speculate from what we already know. Disruption would most likely begin on Election Day morning somewhere on the East Coast, where polls open first. Miami and Philadelphia (already convulsed this week after another police shooting), in big swing states, would be likely locations. It could be anything, maybe violent, maybe not, started by anyone, or something planned and executed by any number of organizations, almost all of them on the right fringe, many adoring of Mr. Trump. The options are vast and test the imagination. Activists could stage protests at a few of the more crowded polling places and draw those in long lines into conflict.


A group could just directly attack a polling place, injuring poll workers of both parties, and creating a powerful visual — an American polling place in flames, like the ballot box in Massachusetts that was burned earlier this week — that would immediately circle the globe. Some enthusiasts may simply enter the area around a polling location to root out voter fraud — as the president has directed his supporters to do — taking advantage of a 2018 court ruling that allows the Republican National Committee to pursue “ballot security” operations without court approval.

Would that mean that Mr. Trump caused any such planned activities or improvisations? No, not directly. He’s in an ongoing conversation — one to many, in a twisted e pluribus unum — with a vast population, which is in turn in conversations — many to many — among themselves. People are receiving messages, interpreting them and deciding to act, or not. If, say, the Proud Boys attack a polling location, is it because they were spurred on by Mr. Trump’s “stand back and stand by” instructions? Is Mr. Trump telling his most fervent supporters specifically what to do? No. But security officials are terrified by the dynamics of this volatile conversation. It can move in so many directions and very quickly become dangerous, as we have already seen several times this year.

The local police are already on-guard in those cities and others around the country for all sorts of possible incidents at polling places, including the possibility of gunfire. If something goes wrong, the media will pick this up in early morning reports and it will spread quickly, increasing tension at polling places across the country, where the setup is ripe for conflict.

Conservative media could then say the election was being stolen, summoning others to activate, maybe violently. This is the place where cybersecurity experts are on the lookout for foreign actors to amplify polling location incidents many times over, with bots and algorithms and stories written overseas that slip into the U.S. digital diet. News of even a few incidents could summon a violent segment of Mr. Trump’s supporters into action, giving foreign actors even more to amplify and distribute, spreading what is, after all, news of mayhem to the wider concentric circles of Mr. Trump’s loyalists. Groups from the left may engage as well, most likely as a counterpoint to those on the right. Those groups are less structured, more like an “ideology or movement,” as Mr. Wray described them in his September testimony. But, as a senior official told me, the numbers on the left are vast.

Violence and conflict throughout that day at the polls would surely affect turnout, allowing Mr. Trump to claim that the in-person vote had been corrupted, if that suits his purposes. There’s no do-over for Election Day.


Under the 12th Amendment, which Mr. Trump has alluded to on several occasions, the inability to determine a clear winner in the presidential election brings the final decision to the House of Representatives. The current composition of the House, in which Republicans control more state delegations even though Democrats are in the majority, favors Trump. But the state count could flip to the Democrats with this election.

There are many scenarios that might unfold from here, nearly all of them entailing weeks or even months of conflict, and giving an advantage to the person who already runs the U.S. government.

There will likely be some reckoning of the in-person vote drawn from vote tallies and exit polls. If Joe Biden is way ahead in these projections, and they are accepted as sound, Mr. Trump may find himself having to claim fraud or suppression that amounts to too large a share of votes to seem reasonable. Inside the Biden campaign they are calling this “too big to rig.”

Races tend to tighten at the end, but the question is not so much the difference between the candidates’ vote totals, or projections of them, as it is what Mr. Trump can get his supporters to believe. Mr. Trump might fairly state, at this point, that he can get a significant slice of his base to believe anything.

But he could use all the help that he can summon to invalidate the in-person vote.

Senior intelligence officials are worried that a foreign power could finally manage a breach of the American voting architecture — or leave enough of a digital trail to be perceived to have breached it. There were enormous efforts to do so, largely but not exclusively by the Russians, in 2016, when election systems in every state were targeted. There is also concern that malware attacks could cripple state governments and their electronic voter registration data, something that could make swaths of voters unable to vote. A senior official told me that provisional ballots can then be passed out and “we keep all the receipts,” meaning that these votes would have a paper ballot trail that can be laboriously counted and rechecked. But a breach or an appearance of a breach, in any state’s machinery, would, in a chaotic flow of events, be a well-timed gift to Mr. Trump.

The lie easily outruns truth — and the best “disinformation,” goes a longtime C.I.A. rule, “is actually truthful.” It all blends together. “Then the president then substantiates it, gives it credence, gives it authority from the highest office,” says the senior government official. “Then his acolytes mass-blast it out. Then it becomes the narrative, and fact, and no rational, reasonable explanation to the contrary will move” his supporters “an inch.”

No matter how the votes split, there’s an expectation among officials that Mr. Trump will claim some kind of victory on Nov. 4, even if it’s a victory he claims was hijacked by fraud — just as he falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton’s three million-vote lead in the popular vote was the result of millions of votes from unauthorized immigrants. This could come in conjunction with statements, supported by carefully chosen “facts,” that the election was indeed “rigged,” as he’s long been warning.

If the streets then fill with outraged people, he can easily summon, or prompt, or encourage troublemakers among his loyalists to turn a peaceful crowd into a sea of mayhem. They might improvise on their own in sparking violence, presuming it pleases their leader.

If the crowds are sufficiently large and volatile, he can claim to be justified in responding with federal powers to bring order. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, have both said they are opposed to deploying armed forces on American soil.

A senior Pentagon official, though, laid out a back-door plan that he was worried about. It won’t start, he thinks, with a sweeping move to federalize the National Guard, which is within the President’s Article 2 powers; it’d be more of a state by state process. The head of the National Guard of some state “starts feeling uncomfortable with something and then calls up the Pentagon.”

The F.B.I., meanwhile, is bracing for huge challenges. “We are all-hands-on-deck for the foreseeable future,” the F.B.I. official I mentioned earlier told me. “We’ve been talking to our state and local counterparts and gearing up for the expectation that it’s going to be a significant law-enforcement challenge for probably weeks or months,” this official said. “It feels pretty terrifying.”

In the final few weeks of the campaign, and during Mr. Trump’s illness, he’s done two things that seem contradictory: seeking votes from anyone who might still be swayed and consolidating and activating his army of most ardent followers. They are loyal to him as a person, several officials pointed out, not as president. That army Trump can direct in the difficult days ahead and take with him, wherever he goes. He may activate it. He may bargain with it, depending on how the electoral chips fall. It’s his insurance policy.

The senior government official who discussed Mr. Trump’s amplifying of messages spoke with great clarity about these codes of loyalty. The official was raised in, and regularly visits, what is now a Trump stronghold.


“They’re the reason he took off the damned mask when he got to the White House” from Walter Reed, the official said. “Those people eat that up, where any reasonable, rational person would be horrified. You are still actively shedding a deadly virus. You are lucky enough to have the best and brightest doctors, trial drugs, whatever. You get flown back to the White House, and you do a photo-op with a military salute to no one. You ask it to be refilmed, and you take off your mask, which, in my mind, has become a signal to his core base of supporters that are willing to put themselves at risk and danger to show loyalty to him.”

But across the government, another official — a senior intelligence official in a different department — argues that citizens may yet manage to rise to the challenge of this difficult election, in a time of division.

“The last line of defense in elections is the American voter,” he told me. “This is the most vulnerable phase,” now and the days immediately after Election Day, “where we’re so eager to have an outcome, that actors both foreign and domestic are going to exploit that interest, that thirst, that need for resolution to the drama.”

I asked him what he would say to American voters. “Look,” he said, softly, “just understand that you’re being manipulated. That’s politics, that’s foreign influence, they’re trying to manipulate you and drive you to a certain outcome.”

“Americans are, I think, hopefully, made of sterner stuff.”

 

 

36 Short Stories You Can Read for Free Right Now - Jennifer Martin and BookBub Editors

 https://www.bookbub.com/blog/free-short-stories-online?position=5&source=multicontent&target=title

36 Short Stories You Can Read for Free Right Now

Those of us who love short stories know the magic behind a well-told tale. There are times when you just need a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Well, we’ve got some great news: A lot of incredible short stories are actually available online, and you can read them for free right now! It’s the perfect way to spend a work break, the moments while dinner is in the oven, or your last few minutes before bedtime. Without further ado, here’s our list of great short stories you can read for free right now. The list features a blend of works from contemporary authors, as well as short stories from your favorite classic authors. Read on for our complete list of free short stories!

Contemporary Free Short Stories

These stories are by contemporary authors. If you’ve never read these authors before, their free short stories will give you a taste of their style before you commit to one of their longer works. There’s something for everyone, with genres ranging from science fiction to historical fiction to horror.

The Hunter’s Wife” by Anthony Doerr

Gorgeous descriptions of nature fill this story of a hunter and his younger, psychic wife during a Montana winter. After reading it, you’ll be amazed by Doerr’s talent, which was also behind his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See.

Premium Harmony” by Stephen King

King fans won’t want to miss this 2009 short story which appeared in The New Yorker. A bickering couple stop at a convenience store and find their lives taking an unexpected dark turn. If you read closely, you’ll also catch references to the horror writer’s other works here.

Broads” by Roxane Gay

You’ll get a kick out of this saucy story by Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist. Jimmy has a thing for loud, bold women. But it’s not until he meets a diner waitress that he finally seems to get what he wants.

And of Clay Are We Created” by Isabel Allende

We’re transfixed by this story based on a real-life natural disaster. A volcano erupted in Colombia in 1985 and caused mudslides that tragically killed 23,000 people. Weaving culture with a gripping personal drama, Allende’s story centers on the rescue of Azucena, a girl trapped in the mud.

The Embassy of Cambodia” by Zadie Smith

First appearing in a 2013 edition of The New Yorker, this story — both beginning and ending at the entrance to the embassy of Cambodia — details the life of domestic servant, Fatou. Though simple in nature, bestselling author Zadie Smith’s meticulous prose emphasizes how the smallest things in life can raise the largest questions.

Girls, at Play” by Celeste Ng

This story by the author of the New York Times bestselling novels Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere may shock you at first. It focuses on three 13-year-old girls who play a very adult game at school. But when a new girl arrives, they are able to recapture some of the innocence they’ve lost.

Ghosts and Empties” by Lauren Groff

This poignant story follows a mother on her evening walk as she contemplates the history of her neighborhood, the personal lives of the people within, and her own raging emotions. Though short, it’s a powerful read for those overcome by feelings in their own lives.

The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu

A finalist for both the Nebula and Hugo awards, this short story is more than it seems. While on the surface it’s a tale of the battle between bees and wasps, underneath it carries deeper political themes and questions that you will want to discuss with your book buddies.

The City Born Great” by N.K. Jemisin

Hugo Award–winning author N.K. Jemisin proves why she’s an acclaimed science fiction writer in this short story that sees New York City in an entirely new light. Once a city has aged, it will be born anew, but the future of this cosmopolitan playground is left to a wispy hero who must learn how to identity with his home in order to save it. 

The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link

We’re betting you’ll find this Kelly Link story as delightful as we do. Genevieve’s grandmother Zofia claims her handbag houses a group of fairies. One day, Genevieve discovers if it’s true. This acclaimed story won three major awards — the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo.

Sweetness” by Toni Morrison

Originally published in The New Yorker, this short story by renowned author Toni Morrison tells the pulsating tale of a mother torn. When the protagonist, Sweetness, a white woman, gives birth to a Black baby, she must grapple with her views on race and motherhood.  

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu

What if it rained every time someone lied? That’s the world where Matt exists in this fanciful, thought-provoking John Chu tale. When Matt needs to come out to his traditional Chinese parents, not to mention discuss marriage with his partner, he’ll have to weather the challenges — in more ways than one.

The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson

In a post-Civil War America, a family is forced to reckon with how slavery continues to define their existence, even in a “free” world. Wilson’s striking prose paints a haunted picture of prolonged servitude under supposed liberation, and how it continues even generations after emancipation. 

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell

Those of us who adore Karen Russell’s magical realism know that this stoxry is a must-read. A group of werewolves’ daughters come to a halfway house run by nuns, where they are encouraged to become civilized. But the girls struggle not to fall back on their old wolfish habits.

Younger Women” by Karen Joy Fowler

We’ve got a serious crush on this story from the author of The Jane Austen Book Club. Jude’s suspicious when her 15-year-old daughter, Chloe, starts dating a mysterious boy. She becomes even more so when he comes to dinner, because Eli is far from normal…

Queenie” by Alice Munro

This short by Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro is a slow burn, but powerful. After her sister Queenie elopes with an older widower, Chrissy reflects on her own choices and what could have been.

The Fruit of my Woman” by Han Kang

Stuck in a fruitless marriage, Kang’s protagonist imagines herself as a plant, growing away from her monotonous world into a life of beauty and fulfillment. Kang’s prose is effortless, and while his landscape is surreal, the feelings he invokes resonate deeply in reality.

Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor

This short story by Nigerian author Nnedi Okorafor was nominated for the prestigious WSFA Small Press Award. The journey takes readers to a future Nigeria where Big Oil companies have taken control of AI’s, which resemble spiders, but are known as ‘zombies’. When the protagonist encounters one of these devilish machines, she has only her guitar and her will to protect her. 

Any Way the Wind Blows” by Seanan McGuire

This charming short story from a New York Times bestselling author follows the travels of Isabelle Langford, an airship captain in the Cartography Corps who’s tasked with exploring parallel worlds. What those different “layers of reality” contain is a mystery; they could be home to everything from carnivorous pigeons to Greek gods — or even a version of New York’s iconic Flatiron Building.

With the Beatles” by Haruki Murakami

It’s not the first time the Beatles have played a role in Murakami’s writing, and he returns to the band in his latest short story, narrated by a man reflecting on falling in love as a high schooler. You can also hear from Murakami on “With the Beatles,” which touches on themes of memory, youth, and aging, here.

Go, Team” by Samantha Hunt

This dynamic short story from Hunt, whose debut novel, The Seas, won the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 prize, follows a group of mothers as they discuss a woman who mysteriously disappeared during their children’s soccer game. The dialogue-driven story has a fast-paced feel that’ll immediately pull you in.

Classic Free Short Stories

If you haven’t read these classic short stories, you’re missing out. Cozy up and take 15 minutes to read one of these free short stories today.

The Nine Stories collection by J.D. Salinger

If you loved The Catcher in the Rye, you won’t want to skip this collection of Salinger stories published in 1953. Of particular note are “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esme — with Love and Squalor,” two of the more well-known tales, both featuring children and illustrating the haunting effects of war.

The Dead” by James Joyce

We’re so curious about the shocking twist in this story by acclaimed Irish author James Joyce. At a lush Dublin New Year’s Eve party, Gabriel’s wife tells him a secret that will have a lasting impact — on him and the reader.

The Lady with the Little Dog” by Anton Chekhov

Published at the turn of century, this Chekhov story follows a married man who has a brief but passionate affair with a younger woman whom he meets while she’s walking her dog. It’s rumored to be a favorite of fellow classic author Vladimir Nabokov.

To Build a Fire” by Jack London

Readers who are drawn to Jack London’s stories of survival in the wild shouldn’t skip this short. Set in the frozen Yukon Territory, it follows a man who unwisely decides to hike with only a dog for company and is forced to put his survival skills to the test. You’d better read this one with a hot cup of tea or coffee nearby.

The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs

If you haven’t already read it, “The Monkey’s Paw” will unsettle you — and make you think very differently about wishes! When the White family is shown a mummified monkey’s paw with the magical ability to grant wishes, Mr. White can’t resist making a simple wish. But the price he pays is ghastly…

The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe

Horror fans — especially those who’ve read Poe’s other work — will find this revenge story delightfully macabre. After his friend Fortunato wrongs him, Montresor lures him during the carnival season to the catacombs, where he introduces the man to a truly sinister fate.

God Bless America” by John O. Killens

Despite the fact that African-Americans had fought and died in every American war, it was not until 1948 that the Armed Forces were desegregated. However, the executive order did little to rectify the treatment of people of color in America’s military. John Oliver Killens, cofounder of the Harlem Writers Guild, examines the paradox of risking your life for a country that barely cares for yours as he sends his main character, Joe, off to war.

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain

A quirky Twain tale that is not to be missed! Jim Smiley loves to bet. But when he finds a frog, trains it to jump, and wagers that this prized frog is the best jumper in the county, he learns a painful lesson.

Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville

This story is one of the last published by the Moby-Dick author. One day, at his Wall Street copyist job, Bartleby refuses an assignment from his boss, saying, “I would prefer not to.” What happens will have you glued to the pages.

In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka

Though strange and disturbing, you’ll still be thinking about Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” after you’ve finished. A visitor to a penal colony witnesses an odd method of execution: a machine which engraves the crime on the prisoner before he dies. But does the punishment fit the crime?

Symbols and Signs” by Vladimir Nabokov

Appearing in a 1948 issue of The New Yorker, this story centers on an older couple who visit their mentally ill son who has just attempted suicide. Returning home, the father decides to remove the son from the hospital. Interwoven in the story — which lends itself to multiple interpretations — is the family’s history as Russian Jews.

The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

If you adore Bradbury as much as we do, you’ll love reading this science fiction story about technology gone awry. A family of four lives in a home equipped with advanced technology, including a simulation room for the children to experience their wildest fantasies. But when their parents become disturbed by the house’s control over their children, they must fight back.

Liars Don’t Qualify” by Junius Edwards

Published just before the height of the Civil Rights Movement, “Liars Don’t Qualify” exposes the difficulties African-Americans faced when trying to vote, even though the 15th amendment explicitly states that every citizen — no matter their race — has the right. When Army veteran Will Harris attempts to register in his Southern hometown, he is obstructed by two men who claim to know better. 

A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

The beloved Southern writer takes on serial killers, righteousness, and religion in this short story, first published in 1953. And in the years since, it’s sparked plenty of discussion thanks to a dramatic ending that’s open to interpretation. In other words, we hope you love a good debate.

A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Faulkner’s famous short story, the first of his to be published in a major magazine, is Southern Gothic at its finest. It opens with the death of 74-year-old Emily Grierson, the secluded spinster who has become something of a “hereditary obligation upon the town.” Throughout the tale’s five sections, Faulkner explores Miss Emily’s isolation and eccentricity — including her mysterious decision to purchase arsenic.