Like most People, together with White Home reporters apparently, I’ve tuned out Donald Trump’s incessant Massive Lie that he gained the 2020 presidential election — “by rather a lot.” Which means his nonsense about rigged voting and Democrats’ dishonest goes principally unchallenged, and he continues to undermine religion in U.S. elections. In spite of everything, it’s not like anybody can shut him up.
Nonetheless, it’s time to give up tuning out. Whether or not a reporter on the beat or a citizen in dialog wherever, listen and push again in opposition to Trump’s un-American blather. As a result of in latest days the power-drunk president has in numerous methods telegraphed that his Massive Lie isn’t nearly a previous election however a pretext for what he may do to disrupt the following one, the 2026 midterm elections for Congress.
Different 2020 election liars are paying a giant worth, actually. Simply this week, right-wing Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Programs, on prime of $40 million in March to Smartmatic, to settle defamation lawsuits based mostly on Newsmax’s false reporting (echoing Trump) that the businesses rigged voting machines for Joe Biden. Newsmax’s penalty is after all dwarfed by the $787 million that Fox Information paid to Dominion in 2023; in a pending trial, Smartmatic seeks $2.7 billion from Fox.
All of the whereas, the president of the US continues to spout the identical slop, all however resistant to authorized motion, as he units the stage for 2026.
On Friday, after Trump’s bro-fest summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin concerning the struggle in Ukraine, Trump fortunately recounted to Fox’s Sean Hannity in Alaska that the 2 presidents digressed to debate the 2020 U.S. election and — what are you aware? — Putin, the KGB-trained grasp manipulator and well-known arbiter of sincere elections (not) supposedly assured Trump that, sure, he really gained large however the election was rigged in opposition to him.
As an apart right here, recall that Hannity and different Fox community stars privately trashed Trump’s 2020 election lie, in accordance with filings within the Dominion lawsuit, and that Hannity testified underneath oath: “I didn’t imagine it for one second.” But in Anchorage, Hannity nodded alongside as Trump instructed him that Putin mentioned Trump gained in 2020 “by a lot,“ however “your election was rigged as a result of you could have mail-in voting. … It’s unattainable to have mail-in voting and have sincere elections.”
Assuming Putin mentioned what Trump claims, the Russian was taking part in to Trump’s longstanding, groundless gripes not solely in opposition to the 2020 election however in opposition to voting by mail, which Democratic voters use far more than Republicans do. And Trump, ever the Kremlin’s helpful fool, took his cue: Very first thing on Monday morning, he declared in an extended, error-filled and much-capitalized social media diatribe that he’d “lead a motion” to ban mail ballots and voting machines.
Trump repeated Putin’s falsehood that the US is “the one Nation within the World that makes use of Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up due to the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.” However in reality, dozens of nations use mail ballots and, as with different types of voting, analysis, together with the courts, has discovered that fraud is vanishingly uncommon.
The president’s stance on mail ballots is like his place on a ceasefire in Ukraine: He was for it earlier than he was in opposition to it (and he was for each issues earlier than getting ensnared in Putin’s net on Friday). In 2024, bending to Republican officers’ pleadings that he drop his opposition to mail ballots, Trump urged supporters to vote by mail — as he usually, and hypocritically, does — and even recorded a video promotion.
Now that Trump is again to opposing mail ballots, in Monday morning’s social media rant he but once more contradicted the plain phrases of the Structure to say powers he doesn’t have, that he can order states to do away with mail ballots and voting machines. “Keep in mind, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Authorities in counting and tabulating the votes,” he wrote. “They need to do what the Federal Authorities, as represented by the President of the US, tells them.”
Right here’s the Structure on that: “The Instances, Locations and Method of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in every State by the Legislature thereof.”
It’s simply extra proof that each instances Trump took the oath of workplace to uphold the Structure and “see that the legal guidelines are faithfully executed,” he lied then, too.
The president has since repeated that he, with Republican allies, will “do every little thing potential” to finish mail ballots. And he’s saying the quiet half out loud: With out mail-in voting, he instructed reporters within the Oval Workplace on Monday, “you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s larger than something having to do with redistricting.”
There you could have it. Trump’s “motion” in opposition to mail ballots, alongside along with his push for purple states to redraw congressional district strains to elect extra Republicans, is all a part of how he’s attempting rig elections in 2026, in what is anticipated to be a nasty yr for his celebration given his unpopularity. And it’s all predicated on the Massive Lie about nonexistent Democratic election dishonest.
There are different warning indicators: Trump’s navy takeover of the District of Columbia. (Day by day brings one other announcement of a Republican governor sending Nationwide Guard troops.) His occupation of Los Angeles. Repeated threats to ship troops to different large, blue cities. All on specious grounds and over the objections of elected native and state leaders.
It’s wholly possible, then, that on trumped-up claims (pun completely meant) about potential election fraud, Trump would militarize Democratic vote-heavy cities in time for subsequent yr’s elections. At a minimal, that will certainly intimidate some would-be voters. At worst, effectively, I don’t even need to speculate concerning the worst.
When Trump entered presidential politics a decade in the past, it took some time for journalists to get snug making use of the L-word: Liar. However he earned it. Now he’s all however inviting us to broaden the nomenclature to incorporate autocrat, dictator and even the F-bomb, fascist.
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