Anika Begay
Politics
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August 16, 2024
Unsure and facing defeat, the former president reverts to a familiar script.
Donald Trump is a sinister buffoon, a clown who actively seeks authoritarian power. Ridiculous even when he is at his most malicious, Trump is not always taken as seriously as he should be. His most absurd statements often contain implicit threats that are difficult to grasp because a listener’s first instinct is to mock him for his detachment from reality.
Last Sunday, Trump posted a dishonest post on Truth Social, as usual, claiming that a photo showing Kamala Harris being greeted by a large crowd at the Detroit airport was a fake image generated by artificial intelligence (AI):
Did anyone notice that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was NO ONE on the plane, and she “created” it with AI, and showed a huge “crowd” of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was reported by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake photo of the crowd, but there was NO ONE there, which was later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror finish of the VP’s plane. She is a CHEATER. She had NO ONE waiting for her, and the “crowd” looked like it was 10,000 people! The same thing is happening with her fake “crowds” at her speeches. This is how Democrats win elections, BY CHEATING – And they are even worse at the polls. She should be disqualified because creating a fake image is ELECTORAL INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that is cheating at ANYTHING!
I confess that when I first read that post, my initial impulse was to see it as just a manifestation of Trump’s insecurity, which has naturally increased since Kamala Harris jumped to the polls in the election. While that insecurity is undeniably visible in Trump’s remarks, there is also an alarming and ominous undercurrent. As in 2020, when Trump was also trailing in the polls before losing the election to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Trump is preparing for his supporters to violently contest an election defeat.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed this element of Trump’s strategy. In a statement released Tuesday, Sanders wrote:
Donald Trump may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. When he claims that “no one” showed up to a 10,000-person Harris-Waltz rally in Michigan that was live-streamed and widely covered by the media, that it was all AI, and that Democrats always cheat, there’s method to his madness. Clearly, and dangerously, what Trump is doing is laying the groundwork to reject the election results if he loses. If you can convince your supporters that thousands of people who attended a televised rally don’t exist, it won’t be hard to convince them that the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere are “false” and “fraudulent.”
Trump’s post on Truth Social is part of a broader pattern of him making false statements aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the election.
An NBC News report linked the Truth Social Post to two other examples of Trump claiming an illegitimate system is a scam to deny him the presidency:
Trump has said in recent days that President Joe Biden’s exit from the race, prompted by Democrats’ concerns that he would lose, is unconstitutional. It isn’t. The Constitution is silent on party nomination…
Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday that Judge Juan Merchan, who is scheduled to sentence him next month on felony charges in New York, is using a partial gag order to prevent him from speaking to reporters in the midst of a campaign. The gag order allows him to speak to the media as long as he doesn’t attack the families of court officials.
Current number
Write in Media GzeroReporter Stephen Maher has drawn attention to Trump’s attacks on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (who resisted Trump’s 2020 attempt to overturn the election results in that state) and Trump’s praise for election officials who are willing to do his bidding. This also fits into a pattern of preparing for another attempt to overturn the election results. Maher reports, “Democrats and independent election analysts believe he is preparing to systematically challenge the results if he doesn’t win the Electoral College in November, using a combination of procedural disruptions, legal challenges and, if necessary, January 6th-style violence.”
The renewed relevance of Trump’s election denialism presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the Harris campaign. On the one hand, election results since 2020 have made it clear that the memory of the January 6 insurrection is damaging to Republicans. As political consultant Matthew Bartlett told NBC:
“Fictitious personal complaints don’t work well on the campaign trail. Telling voters who voted against you in 2020 that the election was stolen is not a welcome message. It was political poison in the midterms and could be political suicide for Trump in the general election.”
Harris scored a notable success by rehashing the familiar argument that Trump is a threat to democracy, but presenting it in a comical way, noting that Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance are “weird.”
The lighter tone has served Harris well, allowing her to present herself as a happy warrior who is above Trump’s vulgarity. The “weird” line has also gotten under Trump’s skin. At a press conference Thursday, Trump was asked if he would heed calls to stop his personal attacks on Harris. Trump responded, “I’m mad at her. I have no respect for her. She attacks me. She called me weird.”
The “weird” argument makes Trump look small. The question, though, is whether Trump is once again inciting another insurrection, whether the “weird” label will be enough as the election approaches. To fend off another insurrection, Democrats will have to work to protect many institutions, especially state election officials and the courts. Simply belittling Trump, while an entertaining and politically potent exercise, will not be enough. It will have to be supplanted by a return to the old argument that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.
The current Democratic mood of robust mockery and good humor may be just a temporary summer pleasure. Harris will likely have to sound a more dire alarm in the fall, reminding voters that Trump is not just a clown. He is also a would-be dictator.
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In the upcoming election, the fate of our democracy and basic civil rights are at stake. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are planning to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision at every level of government if he wins.
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