Donald Trump continues to spew a litany of lies without every showing proof for his fake news and evil accusations
On the long playlist of Donald Trump’s self-pitying complaints, one tune has blared louder than any other: Elections are rigged — against Republicans generally and him specifically.
The Most Laughable of Trump’s Many Lies
Echo opinion by Frank Bruni published in The New York Times
In 2016, he sang that song in advance of the actual voting, to discredit the Hillary Clinton victory that most polls and pundits predicted. In 2018, he sang it with an extra note of fear, no doubt realizing that Democrats’ takeover of the House meant trouble — which soon came in the form of two impeachments.
Go back to 2016, when it looked as if Hillary Clinton would defeat him. Trump keened that nothing about the election had been fair and nothing about its results could be trusted. Then something miraculous happened. He won. And what do you know? That outcome could be trusted.
Well, not exactly: Clinton’s advantage of nearly three million ballots in the popular vote was bogus, fraudulent, the rotten fruit of illegal voting and Democratic chicanery. But a party crooked and potent enough to tilt that tally that far in her favor somehow failed to master the more important math of the Electoral College, in which Trump’s victory was of course legitimate and righteous.
Got it. Makes exquisite sense.
Trump didn’t merely spout gibberish; he convened a panel to validate it. Anyone remember the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, better known as the “voter fraud commission”❓ Kris Kobach, then the Kansas secretary of state, took the wheel and proceeded to steer the effort absolutely nowhere. It never found the proof of fraud that it promised, and it sputtered to a stop less than a year after it theatrically revved its engine.
Evidence (or the lack thereof) is no match for Trump’s and his supporters’ persecution complexes. The astonishing sum of 💲787.5 million that Fox (Fake❗) News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems in 2023, to settle a defamation lawsuit was tantamount to an admission that the networks’ anchors and executives knew or suspected the bogusness of the stolen-election conspiracy theories, such as the corruption of Dominion’s machines, that (Fake❗) Fox promoted after Joe Biden’s 2020, victory. But did that quiet Trump’s protestations that he’d beaten Biden❓ Nope. Nor did his supporters seem any less receptive to being told that they’d been wronged.
They know what they know: The establishment is out to get them. And they never bother to explain how that establishment is at once so insidious and so inept. They never address the now-you-rig-it, now-you-don’t inconstancy of Democrats, who apparently steal certain elections but nap through others.
I’d have to ask Donald Trump: How and why did Democrats and the Deep State let that happen❓ And, if voter rolls are a mess, voting sites are poorly monitored and mail-in voting (which you use) is thievery’s handmaiden, isn’t your victory in 2024, every bit as suspicious as Biden’s in 2020❓ Or, will you tell me it’s not, because you and your fellow Republicans are so much more ethical than Democrats❓
Readers, feel free to take a pause to control your laughter.
Laughable is what all of this would be if it weren’t such an ugly reflection of the state of American politics. Trump’s persistence in attacking the voting process and all his related hooey, such as calling January 6 a “day of love,” suggest the extent to which truth now matters less than the ardor, creativity and endless repetition of lies🤥🤥🤥. Say something consistently enough, with a thick enough air of conviction, and it will sound true to those inclined to receive it that way.
That’s partly because more and more Americans choose to believe whatever the leaders of their tribe tell them and whatever justifies their prejudices or bolsters their sense of victimization or entitlement. Such convenient credulity is especially pronounced in the MAGA movement, where any drubbing Republicans take in these midterms will almost certainly be dismissed as a hoax.
That leaves us in a dangerous place. ⚠ Partisanship with blinders this thick threatens the health of a society, which depends on a measure of grace in losing and on voters as invested in democratic processes as in getting exactly what they want. Trump’s chorus of “rigged” and “fraud” pulls them in the opposite direction.
In 2016, he sang that song in advance of the actual voting, to discredit the Hillary Clinton victory that most polls and pundits predicted. In 2018, he sang it with an extra note of fear, no doubt realizing that Democrats’ takeover of the House meant trouble — which soon came in the form of two impeachments.
In 2020, he sang it operatically, a Pavarotti of paranoia, and it served as the menacing soundtrack for the unconscionable violence of Jan. 6, 2021.
He has never given it a rest, and with the midterms almost upon us, it has been roaring from speakers here, there and everywhere. Although the Supreme Court stymied him, Donald Trump sought to limit mail-in voting, claiming that it wasn’t a vehicle for broader participation in elections but a scheme by which Democrats stole them.
He has never given it a rest, and with the midterms almost upon us, it has been roaring from speakers here, there and everywhere. Although the Supreme Court stymied him, Donald Trump sought to limit mail-in voting, claiming that it wasn’t a vehicle for broader participation in elections but a scheme by which Democrats stole them.
Trump's evil administration sued states for their voter rolls. His sycophantic F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, suggested a potential need for federal agents at polling sites to ensure “election security.”
What nonsense. And our saturation familiarity with it often numbs us to the revealing perversity of it. As much as anything else that Trump says or does, his insistence on corrupted elections reflects his dedication to fiction; his discipline and stamina in the service of a self-promoting lie; the willful gullibility of many of his supporters; and the inability of logic or evidence to pierce the armor of his and their delusions.
What nonsense. And our saturation familiarity with it often numbs us to the revealing perversity of it. As much as anything else that Trump says or does, his insistence on corrupted elections reflects his dedication to fiction; his discipline and stamina in the service of a self-promoting lie; the willful gullibility of many of his supporters; and the inability of logic or evidence to pierce the armor of his and their delusions.
Go back to 2016, when it looked as if Hillary Clinton would defeat him. Trump keened that nothing about the election had been fair and nothing about its results could be trusted. Then something miraculous happened. He won. And what do you know? That outcome could be trusted.
Well, not exactly: Clinton’s advantage of nearly three million ballots in the popular vote was bogus, fraudulent, the rotten fruit of illegal voting and Democratic chicanery. But a party crooked and potent enough to tilt that tally that far in her favor somehow failed to master the more important math of the Electoral College, in which Trump’s victory was of course legitimate and righteous.
Got it. Makes exquisite sense.
Trump didn’t merely spout gibberish; he convened a panel to validate it. Anyone remember the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, better known as the “voter fraud commission”❓ Kris Kobach, then the Kansas secretary of state, took the wheel and proceeded to steer the effort absolutely nowhere. It never found the proof of fraud that it promised, and it sputtered to a stop less than a year after it theatrically revved its engine.
Evidence (or the lack thereof) is no match for Trump’s and his supporters’ persecution complexes. The astonishing sum of 💲787.5 million that Fox (Fake❗) News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems in 2023, to settle a defamation lawsuit was tantamount to an admission that the networks’ anchors and executives knew or suspected the bogusness of the stolen-election conspiracy theories, such as the corruption of Dominion’s machines, that (Fake❗) Fox promoted after Joe Biden’s 2020, victory. But did that quiet Trump’s protestations that he’d beaten Biden❓ Nope. Nor did his supporters seem any less receptive to being told that they’d been wronged.
They know what they know: The establishment is out to get them. And they never bother to explain how that establishment is at once so insidious and so inept. They never address the now-you-rig-it, now-you-don’t inconstancy of Democrats, who apparently steal certain elections but nap through others.
Instead, the Republicans retained or won majorities in both chambers of Congress in 2016, one chamber in 2018, one in 2022, and both in 2024, when of course Trump also prevailed, beating Vice President Kamala Harris in the popular vote and the Electoral College.
I’d have to ask Donald Trump: How and why did Democrats and the Deep State let that happen❓ And, if voter rolls are a mess, voting sites are poorly monitored and mail-in voting (which you use) is thievery’s handmaiden, isn’t your victory in 2024, every bit as suspicious as Biden’s in 2020❓ Or, will you tell me it’s not, because you and your fellow Republicans are so much more ethical than Democrats❓
Readers, feel free to take a pause to control your laughter.
Laughable is what all of this would be if it weren’t such an ugly reflection of the state of American politics. Trump’s persistence in attacking the voting process and all his related hooey, such as calling January 6 a “day of love,” suggest the extent to which truth now matters less than the ardor, creativity and endless repetition of lies🤥🤥🤥. Say something consistently enough, with a thick enough air of conviction, and it will sound true to those inclined to receive it that way.
That’s partly because more and more Americans choose to believe whatever the leaders of their tribe tell them and whatever justifies their prejudices or bolsters their sense of victimization or entitlement. Such convenient credulity is especially pronounced in the MAGA movement, where any drubbing Republicans take in these midterms will almost certainly be dismissed as a hoax.
That leaves us in a dangerous place. ⚠ Partisanship with blinders this thick threatens the health of a society, which depends on a measure of grace in losing and on voters as invested in democratic processes as in getting exactly what they want. Trump’s chorus of “rigged” and “fraud” pulls them in the opposite direction.
And the volume of that wretched music will only increase between now and the first Tuesday in November. #VoteBlue❕
Labels: elections, Frank Bruni, Hillary Clinton
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 9:50 AM
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