Former GOP strategist says we must predict that Donald Trump’s supporters will fail badly and try to ‘burn down’ counting centers in black communities

Stuart Stevens, once a top Republican Party strategist, told MSNBC’s Cris Jansing on Tuesday that Americans should not be surprised if Donald Trump’s supporters resort to violence to secure victory.

Their likely targets: Black voters, said Stevens, a top adviser to Mitt Romney through the Utah senator’s 2012 presidential campaign.

“You know, they can no longer stop black people from voting the way they did in the 1960s with the same success, although in the face of these electoral challenges they are going to try and I think what is really to be concerned about here is the mindset that that if you really don’t think the Trump campaign can win, it’s either the popular vote or the Electoral College,” Stevens said. author of confessional 2020 “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.”

Trump’s strategy of appealing solely to his base “doesn’t make sense,” said a veteran Republican strategist.

“He’s not trying to add voters,” Stevens continued. “And if they can come in and violently disrupt vote counting centers, how will states be able to certify the election? You burned down the center of a county in Arizona. How does the governor certify this election? So what kind of world are we in?”

It’s a bleak prospect, but one that cannot be dismissed given Trump’s actions following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. Special Counsel Jack Smith accused former President of Evidence Production as a part of a conspiracy to involve fraudulent voters in the certification process.

Trump faces multiple charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election results, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of the election.

President Biden is amongst those concerned about the potential for a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses.

“He means what he says, we don’t take him seriously, he means it – all this stuff about if we lose there will be carnage, there will have to be a stolen election,” Biden said in the speech recent interview from CBS News.

Stevens said Trump’s concerns about alleged voter fraud are rooted solely in race.

“It was like that from the beginning,” he said. “Where are all the suspicious voices? Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. What do they have in common? High percentage of African-American voters. Those who voted to not certify this election were essentially trying to disenfranchise millions of Black voters. It’s that simple.”

Confronted with X skeptics calling him “unsustainable”, Stevens reminded them of: 2020 incident in Maricopa County, Arizona, where armed Trump supporters forced the county elections office to close. Underneath his tweet, one user wrote: “This is very close to my house and it’s really disturbing.”

In Michigan, Republicans nearly rioted outside the TCF Center in Detroit, where 2020 election employees counted greater than 170,000 absentee ballots in America’s largest majority-Black city.

Influenced by Trump’s claims that he won the election, Trump supporters stormed the ability.

“When officials declared the room overcrowded and stopped admitting Republican and Democratic poll watchers, Trump supporters felt their fears were confirmed: They began arguing with police and election officials, banging on windows and chanting “stop counting.” NBC reported.

Earlier this 12 months, Trump he said he would agree election results provided that “everything is fair.” He also repeated claims from 2020 that Democrats couldn’t win unless they committed voter fraud. Many of his supporters remain convinced that Trump won in 2020 and will likely be less willing to accept defeat again.

“Does anyone think they won’t try again if Trump loses?” asked Stevens.