Trump Says He’s Just Going To Make Some Shit Up To Justify Nationalizing The Election Process
from the to-be-fair,-a-coup-is-ALSO-a-way-to-secure-power dept
Trump couldn’t accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election. So he stood idly by (if you believe his narrative) or urged on (if you believe your own eyes and ears) his supporters to raid the Capitol building to seize the election from the electorate. If that meant killing his own vice president, so be it.
Eventually, Trump left office, replaced by Joe Biden for a whole four years of relative sanity. Then Trump returned to office and immediately pardoned nearly every one of his supporters who had been criminally charged with federal crimes for participating in the January 20th insurrection attempt.
Since then, he and his GOP enablers have been doing everything they can to rig the next election, despite claiming to have been victims of similar election-rigging in 2020. Aggressive gerrymandering has now been superseded by seizures of voting records, attempted prosecutions of Trump’s political enemies, threats to send ICE out to engage in election suppression, and more.
The GOP has a very slim majority at the moment. GOP legislators opting to retire are now derailing pro-MAGA legislation. Democratic opposition is finally showing some signs of life. And California has responded with pro-Dem gerrymandering of its own, limiting the effectiveness of GOP members running for congressional seats.
Now that it’s starting to look like a fair fight out there in the electorate with the mid-term elections approaching, the administration is making a push to seize election power from the states in order to give Trump the congressional majority he needs to keep being as awful as he’s been since his return to office.
President Trump doubled down on his extraordinary call for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, even as the White House tried to walk it back and members of his own party criticized the idea.
Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that he believed the federal government should “get involved” in elections that are riddled with “corruption,” reiterating his position that the federal government should usurp state laws by exerting control over local elections.
If states “can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over,” he said in the Oval Office, accusing several Democratic-run cities of corruption. “Look at some of the places — that horrible corruption on elections — and the federal government should not allow that,” he added. “The federal government should get involved.”
A nationalized election process is just a welcome wagon for autocracy. That’s why it’s never happened before, thanks to the foresight of the founding fathers who definitely weren’t interested in going back to being the subjects of a king, even if the king pretended a captive process was actually a democratic election.
And that’s why it’s being bandied about by this administration — one that clearly doesn’t care what happens to America as long it continues to remain in power. That’s also why Trump isn’t necessarily angling for a full takeover of midterm elections. He just wants to interfere in places where his lackeys have a real chance of losing elections.
During a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, on Monday, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
No sentence should ever begin with “during a podcast interview with Dan Bongino” and end with an actual sitting president stating he should be allowed to “take over” the midterm elections in a select number of areas where his supporters aren’t likely to win.
None of this matters to Trump, however. Blessed with a lack of foresight or hindsight, Trump ventured out into the relative safety of his favorite conflict of interest — Truth Social — to ensure Americans that he hasn’t ruled anything out when it comes to actually stealing an election. (h/t Derek Guy and his preservation efforts)
If you can’t see/read the embed, consider yourself blessed. Consider yourself cursed (and feel free to do as much cursing as you feel is necessary) if you choose to read on. Here’s the entirety of Trump’s “it’s coup time baby!” Truth Social post:
The Democrats refuse to vote for Voter I.D., or Citizenship. The reason is very simple — They want to continue to cheat in Elections. This was not what our Founders desired. I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not! Also, the People of our Country are insisting on Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
These are not the words of a well person. These are certainly not the words of anyone you’d want to have the driver’s keys to a nation, much less the access code to an apartment pool.
Someone who thinks the answer to his hostile takeover of the American election process can be justified by “Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted” is the same sort of person who thinks they’re only days away from perfecting a perpetual motion machine or discovering the secret to eternal life.
But while that part of the post may be comically delusional, it’s the next sentence that’s far more worrying. This is the president claiming he will mandate his version of “Voter I.D.” at the polls, whether it’s legal or not.
And it definitely won’t be legal. Almost every effort the administration has made to disenfranchise voters, alter long-standing election rules, and eliminate voters not likely to side with Trump and the GOP has resulted in lawsuits. Very little of this litigation is settled. And what little of it has been settled has resulted in a loss for Trump.
The GOP’s efforts to codify Trump’s baseless voter fraud conspiracy theories haven’t had much more success. What has managed to move forward is largely redundant, but with the added bonus of allowing Trump’s DOJ to prosecute election officials if the administration believes (hallucinates) local officials didn’t do enough (whatever that means) to dissuade non-citizens from voting.
But this is exactly the sort of thing Trump loves, even if he possibly knows there’s no factual basis for the accusations and insinuations he’s making. If his GOP counterparts lose elections during the midterm, he’ll be the first to start mouthing off about immigrants and “illegal” votes. If his boys win, he’ll take credit for the “fair” election. And the conspiracy theories will return to the slow boil until they’re needed in 2028.
Filed Under: bullshit, donald trump, election interference, gop, losers, trump administration, voter intimidation
Comments on “Trump Says He’s Just Going To Make Some Shit Up To Justify Nationalizing The Election Process”
Supreme Court: Trump is allowed to do that because “reasons.”
'The only valid election is one in which republicans win' -MAGAt motto
Look it’s simple:
Premise 1: Trump is the most beloved person in the history of not just the USA but humanity as a whole.
Premise 2: Due to premise 1 no-one would ever vote against him or his party come election day.
Conclusion: Any votes that aren’t for a republican candidate can only be the result of corruption and fraud and therefore can and should be struck from the voting results, leaving only the legal and valid votes that coincidentally are all for the republican candidates.
Re:
The scary part is that there are millions of Americans that believe that line of “logic”.
I actually want him to be president much less than I want him to have access to an apartment pool, personally.
At least one of the guys who organized and did the capitol attack. The head of the proud boys, only got a commutation so he’s not allowed to go to Washington DC without permission from the court per the judge presiding over his commutation. But it was mostly correct.
So the guy in charge of the party in favour of smaller government wants to have government meddle in elections.
Up is down, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
As an aside, I thoroughly enjoy that NYT addresses him as “Mr.” rather than “President Trump” or “The President”.
Re:
It is always Smaller Government!
(for the parts that might stop me)
and at the same time
Bigger Government!
(For making other people do what I say)
I’ve been on this earth 40 years, and for those entire 40 years, Republicans have worked hard to keep Democratic American citizens from voting.
“Just show an ID” they say. Being a citizen with an ID isn’t enough to keep you from getting dragged off to an ICE concentration camp. They just decide your ID is “fake.” And that’s assuming they don’t shut down ID services in your neighborhood to keep you from even getting it.
Their game is old, tired, and fully documented.
If he’s as popular as he says he is (he isn’t), then why would he feel the need to bother with any of this? It’s almost like he knows that he’s royally screwing up this country in every way possible (in order to line his pockets with gold) and every voter out there knows it (and he knows that they know it). And it’s not just Democrats, but Republicans, too.
When he finds he can’t, armed ICE patrols will start pulling people out of lines in swing districts based on how woke they deem them to look.
Re: 'Attempted voting while not white, that's a felony for sure...'
Balderdash, the openly armed and known-to-be-violent thugs hanging out around the voting places will be there to protect voters, who could possibly think that they might pay extra attention to anyone that doesn’t walk in wearing a MAGAt dunce cap?
Re:
They won’t just do that, they will murder voters. Not many: they won’t have to. Just enough to send the message. Because this is what Nazis do.
Re:
The problem for them is that, the way special elections have been going, the swing districts in ’26 are going to be districts that were deep red in ’24.
Granted, special elections aren’t necessarily predictive of general elections, but we’ve seen districts swinging toward Democrats by 30 points. If the average shift in November is even 3 points, then Democrats take the House easily in a fair election; if it’s 6 points then I think they win even in an unfair one. If it’s double digits — and that’s within the realm of possibility — then I don’t think ICE plus military invasions in targeted cities will be enough to stop it.
Re: Re:
The House is a necessary step but the only numbers that truly matter are the Senate.
If the Senate doesn’t have 65 Democratic votes (need a buffer to get around corrupt sacks of shit like Fetterman, the same cloth as Manchin, Synema and Liebermans of old) to impeach and convict Trump then this long grinding nightmare continues through electoral chaos in 2028.
Re: Re: Re: FantasyLand
There are 47 non-R senators and 22 Rs up for reelection. There is a 0% chance you are getting 60 D senators. Let me repeat, 0% chance.
In a functioning democracy, such as for example Canada, there’s nothing wrong with a national electoral system. Elections Canada works just fine.
The problem is, the U.S. is not a functioning democracy.
Confession
What is that line again about these things? Something along the lines of every accusation is a confession.
Re:
It turns out there was electoral fraud by anti-American foreign influence that happened in Georgia during the 2024 election.
Perpetrated by none other than illegal immigrant Elon Musk.
His “America” PAC sent out unlawful pre-filled absentee ballot applications to Georgia residents.
https://newrepublic.com/post/206857/georgia-voter-fraud-elon-musk
This shitbag is worse than the ILoveYou virus at the end of 90s.
It also infects anything he gets close by and nobody knows how to get rid of it, but no antivirus to eradicate him is known to mankind.
He said it.
“I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject,”
He hasnt done anything to substantiate his comment or his concerns.
I keep saying that IF’ T-rump would Shut his mouth and LET his representatives SPEAK FOR HIM. At least he would have a backdoor excuse.
Preventing people from voting is so much easier that voter fraud
If you want to sway an election, creating a voter from whole cloth or even from a noncitizen or duplicate individual is so so much harder than preventing 1000 of the “wrong” voters from voting.
Further, if you’re caught, a single fraudulent vote (usually it’s a Republican btw) is a felony. Most methods of voter suppression aren’t even directly crimes.
If you’re a public official, you can make long lines at polling places, locate them inconveniently, make parking hard, and make the hours short. (All documented as happening intentionally in courts of law BTW.)
If you’re not a public official, you can cause horrific traffic around polling stations, counter program with exciting events, do all sorts of things that just make it too freaking hard for people, especially marginalized people, to get to a polling station on time during a busy day full of responsibility.
(In California, I’ve never waited more than 5 minutes to vote. I was horrified when I learned that in some states multi-hour waits were common.)
And where in the Constitution does it say that you don’t get to vote if you move too close to an election?
I used to always vote in person, just because I liked the ceremony and community of it; something that my family always did together as our patriotic ritual. But then one year my mother had an accident the day before the election that took her to the ER, and then surgery. She was deeply frustrated that she didn’t get to vote.
Since then I always vote by mail. (Or more accurately, the ballot is mailed to me and I drop it in the elections box directly.) This way I ensure my vote will be heard and counted.
Re: How about
We get about 100 People, Give them Fake ID, and give them Real address’s in a City, Sign them up In Multiple Districts. All with alternate ID and Address in that area.
NOW Unless you COPY Picture ID and Compare it you wont have Much of a chance of catching it. And that is even a maybe.
Use the Drivers license? Wont matter unless you Run it threw the State ID Check that the police Use. Which they dont use.
Either Lenin or Stalin said this
“It matters not who wins the election, it matters who counts the votes.”
Or something to that effect. It’s really refreshing to see Trump and Republicans take a page from the greatest Communist nation in the world, USSR.
Re: It dont count
If you aint got the money.
REAL Problem is its EXPENSIVE to even try to run for office. The Reps and Demo, have Pushed thing to Cost so high, EVEN THEY need rich persons to Pay for it.
It would be Interesting if. Get 10,000 People to Sign petition.
Tehn you join a group that have Pooled ALL ELECTION MONEY, and its given out Equally.
This is when the shooting starts.
So many social contracts have been broken, but this one is going to get people shot.
Re:
Uh, welcome back from wherever you’ve been the last couple of months, I guess.
What Trump needs is a long drop down a short ROPE.
Good article, but...
Hey Tim. Great writeup, as always but uh…
“These are certainly not the words of anyone you’d want to have the driver’s keys to a nation, much less the access code to an apartment pool.”
Is backwards. You lead with the low stakes example and then “much less” into the high stakes example.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.