Here they go once more.
Six months earlier than election day, for the third straight presidential contest, Donald Trump and his Republican lickspittles are sounding alarms about nearly nonexistent voting fraud, laying the groundwork to say that he wuz robbed ought to he lose to President Biden.
Trump has refused in recent interviews to decide to accepting the ends in November; because the sore loser nonetheless doesn’t concede his 2020 defeat, his antidemocratic perfidy about 2024 doesn’t shock. Neither do the echoes from his servile get together, particularly the Republicans vying to be his operating mate. Lately, their dodges of reporters’ questions on whether or not they’d honor the end result are nothing in need of cringeworthy.
And Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson (R-La.), after huddling with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on the subject, is searching for to ram by means of the House a invoice forcing anybody registering to vote to supply documentary proof of citizenship past driver’s licenses or Social Security playing cards, to stop noncitizens from voting — one thing that almost never occurs and is already a federal crime.
Policy isn’t the purpose, nevertheless; politics is. This gambit is a two-fer for firing up Republican voters: It performs to their anti-immigrant fervor and election fraud myths.
“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” Johnson lied at a information convention Wednesday on the Capitol steps. “But it’s not been something that is easily provable. We don’t have that number.”
Because it doesn’t exist, actually not on the size that Johnson, Trump and different Republicans declare. Repeated studies, together with final 12 months in Arizona, present that examples of noncitizens attempting to vote are infinitesimal, and even these few are principally prevented from truly registering or casting ballots.
Here’s how I want to make America nice once more: By getting Republicans to cease mendacity about fraud, cease legislating pointless voting restrictions and restore what had been a bipartisan consensus — that our elections are free and truthful, a mannequin for the world. The 2020 election that Trump nonetheless insists was stolen from him? A council of his personal Homeland Security Department declared it “the most secure in American history.”
Before Trump, nobody needed to ask candidates whether or not they’d settle for the outcomes of an election. Of all Trump’s shattered norms, his refusal to decide to that bedrock precept is maybe essentially the most corrosive to our democratic foundations.
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this month, earlier than another MAGA rally the place he falsely claimed he received Wisconsin in 2020. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.” When a Time journal reporter requested if he anticipated violence after the 2024 election, Trump replied matter-of-factly, “If we don’t win, you know, it depends.”
In different phrases, “If I win, I’ll accept the results.” And, “If I lose, you might get hurt.” As Biden says, most lately on CNN on Wednesday, “You can’t only love your country when you’re winning.”
Even when Trump received in 2016, because of a majority within the electoral school, he cried fraud. Stung that Hillary Clinton received the favored vote by practically 3 million ballots, he concocted the lie that 3 million to five million immigrants within the nation illegally had voted for her. Trump’s alliance with the House speaker in opposition to all-but-nonexistent voting by noncitizens has the additional advantage, for him, of fortifying that falsehood.
Trashing elections — and particularly, declining to pledge help for the outcomes — comes naturally to Trump. But for his toadies, the stance is awkward, to say the least.
The once-respected Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina final week embarrassingly dodged the query of whether or not he’d settle for the end result of the 2024 vote greater than a half-dozen instances on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” When host Kristen Welker continued in searching for a easy sure or no, Scott peevishly objected, “This is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat Party.” (Scott, like many Republican trolls, childishly received’t use the opposition’s rightful title: Democratic Party.)
Among others aching to be Trump’s vice presidential nominee, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum equally sidestepped the query on CNN’s “State of the Union.” And Rep. Elise Stefanik, a House Republican chief from New York, refused to say whether or not she’d vote in Congress to certify 2024 outcomes. “We’ll see if this is a legal and valid election,” she instructed Welker.
In February, Trump favourite Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio lashed out at host George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’ “This Week” for asking in regards to the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol and eventually conceded that if he’d been vice chairman, he wouldn’t have licensed Biden’s election afterward as former Vice President Mike Pence did. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida wouldn’t commit to Axios that, if he’s Trump’s vice chairman, he’d certify the 2028 presidential votes if a Democrat wins.
What a sorry sign to the remainder of the world when outstanding politicians — and, actually, their total get together — received’t acknowledge the confirmed integrity of U.S. elections.
If Democrats are stealing elections, how do these Republicans account for their very own victories? How is it that Democrats allowed Republicans to seize management of the House in 2022?
Well, Republicans now appear to have their reply: It’s as a result of Democrats hadn’t but allowed sufficient undocumented migrants into the nation to vote illegally!
“That is the design, I think, of why they opened the border,” Johnson said on CNBC, mimicking Trump’s rally rhetoric. “To turn them into voters.”
That simply ain’t so, and Johnson is aware of it — I give him that a lot credit score. Noncitizens aren’t voting. U.S. elections aren’t rigged. Voter fraud is vanishingly uncommon. Republicans who inform you otherwise are mendacity.
And everyone knows, intuitively, why.