Trump Attacks Democracy Every Time He Lies About Voter Fraud
The longer we allow him to continue, the more our freedoms are put at risk
It’s been more than a year since Trump’s pathetic loss in the 2020 election, but he hasn’t gone away.
Incumbent presidents have every advantage to win reelection. They have the tremendous visibility of the office that provides them with more free press than any challenger could ever purchase. But Trump’s always enjoyed the benefit of privilege, and, as he’s done with his whole life, he managed to screw it up.
Faced with a failed presidency that resulted in a life-defining loss, Trump did what he’s always done. He lied.
Narcissists always lie. It’s their foundational personality trait. They create an idealized image of themselves in their own delusional imagination and steadfastly deny anything in reality that contradicts that perception.
In the early stages, their lies are obviously pathetic. That was the case with Trump with his spray on tan and his plastic hair and his wife who clearly can’t stand to be in his presence. Immediately after his loss, Trump waddled up to a podium and started whining about non-existent fraud, and the networks shut him off!
Remember that?
They cut away from his speech!
They knew then that what Trump was saying was a baseless assault on democracy. It was wrong. It was offensive. It was unworthy of media time! Hooray! For a moment it seemed our long national nightmare had ended.
But since then, what’s happened? For some reason, the media decided to go back to that moment and allow Trump to finish speaking. Trump hasn’t changed of course. Narcissists don’t change. He’s still telling his big lie because his personal mythology is based on this lie. All Trump knows how to do is take a bad idea and double down on it until the whole world capitulates.
The unthinkable is happening. Trump’s blatant lie about voter fraud, this ridiculous, baseless fantasy he created to protect his own ego, is starting to be seen as a legitimate gripe. To make matters worse, not a single media source is willing to cover the other side. The simple fact is that every time Trump is allowed to talk about his fantasy of voter fraud, he takes another step towards erasing YOUR vote.
That’s what this is about. Trump doesn’t want you to vote. He wants to take ballots and stuff them into a shredder. He wants ballots to be “lost” like a autocratic dictator might order in a fascist regime. Trump is attacking the concept of democracy right out in the open, and he’s gaining momentum.
It’s not “negative politics” to tell the truth
Over the last half decade, the Republican party has made a steep and unapologetic descent into fascism. This should terrify everyone.
Republicans will unabashedly denounce anti-fascist organizations at dinner parties without the slightest hint of embarrassment. If you’re against anti-fascist groups, you’re pro-fascist. There’s no other way to put it.
“So, you’re pro-fascism then?”
Go ahead and ask this question the next time somebody starts bleating at the dinner table.
For some reason, nobody asks these questions. It’s like the political left finds this discussion too unseemly. President Biden is leading the charge to put this misguided approach into practice.
It has long been a point of tension within the president’s orbit as to how negative to go. A number of senior advisers in the West Wing, including chief of staff Ron Klain, have at times urged Biden to embrace more partisan political combat and call out Republicans when needed, according to three aides not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.
But Biden has largely shied away from leveling broadsides at Republicans on Capitol Hill, though he’s been less sparing with his predecessor and GOP governors who’ve stood in the way of federal aid to combat the pandemic. Long-time Biden observers and confidants aren’t sure that the attack dog role suits him, or that he will commit to it — Laura Barrón-López, Christopher Cadelago, and Jonathan Lemire
This is the way they’re talking about the state of our country? Democracy is under attack and they’re worried about hurting the Republicans’ feelings?
They’re worried about looking bad for calling out the Republicans on their behavior? The thing is, this isn’t a disagreement on policy! What’s going on is that the Republicans are organizing mass attacks on our duly elected officials and conspiring to commit treason in private!
Stopping them isn’t a matter of “going on the attack,” it’s a matter of self preservation! Somebody needs to stand up and defend our VOTES! The Republicans are trying to DESTROY them! That’s a CRIME!
Stop letting them get away with CRIMES!
The origins of the big lie
I get that human beings need to pick their battles. We’re faced with injustices every single day. You can’t spend all morning arguing with a guy at the super market because he sprinted to cut ahead of you in the one cashier line that was open. Some of these hits you just absorb and live to fight another day.
When Trump lost, our first impression was that the loss would be the end of him. Sure, we figured he’d sputter and scream for a while, but it seemed clear that he’d been revealed as a pathetic loser. Soon, everyone would recognize that he was a pathetic loser.
Right?
Right???
But when you have inherited billions of dollars and everything in your life has been handed to you and the authorities refuse to prosecute you even when you blatantly indulge in criminal behavior out in the open for everyone to see…the same rules don’t apply about the world recognizing how pathetic you are.
What Trump is doing is right out of the Nazi playbook.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State — Joseph Goebbels: On the “Big Lie”
Why isn’t the state defending us from the big lie?
The government has an obligation to protect its population. I want the government to protect my vote. Everyone should be furious about the idea that Trump is essentially being allowed to stuff his grubby little hands into ballot boxes across our nation, take out our votes, read our personal information (for later retribution), and then jam them into a paper shredder.
I want my vote protected!
I want my privacy protected!
The media allows all these pro-Trump political goons to go on television and spread lies about voter fraud. Why aren’t they asking any follow up questions?
“If you make a false accusation of voter fraud, aren’t you the one engaging in voter fraud?”
“If you persist in telling lies about voter fraud without evidence, aren’t you actively working to undermine democracy?”
“What should be the consequence for individuals who actively work to undermine democracy? That’s treason. Do you disagree?”
All these Trump supporting losers in Congress and on Fox news and throughout the media that use their platform to help propagate Trump’s strategy of undermining our democracy need to be exposed as the traitors that they are.
There was no fraud! You’re lying!
They’re engaging in treason! They’re doing it right before our eyes. They’re unopposed. Nobody’s even criticizing them!
This is NOT the way it’s supposed to work. You don’t get to scream “foul” every time a vote doesn’t go your way. You don’t get to start undermining everybody’s right to vote. Why is our nation submitting to this? Why doesn’t anyone else recognize the danger?
Drown them out
We can no longer afford to allow evil people to take up their pickaxes and chisel away at the foundations of our democracy. They aren’t allowed to destroy our votes. They’re not hiding it. They have to be stopped.
They keep trying to call for audits or call for investigations, but they have zero evidence. What about the cost in time? What about the cost in money? What about questioning whether they’re just stalling so they can fabricate evidence because they’re a bunch of lousy, lying, traitors?
Those of us on the other side of this conflict can’t be hesitant to push back. Bullies don’t eventually decide to stop hitting you on their own. They’re sociopaths! You have to stand up to them or you’re going to be beaten into a pulp. Decency won’t prevail with these people.
The difference between us and them is not that we are reluctant to make serious accusations, the difference is that we only make serious accusations when we have EVIDENCE! There is no evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election. There is a HUGE STEAMING PILE of evidence of TREASON on the part of the GOP.
They attacked the Capitol! It was on television! They tried to hang the vice-president!
This isn’t one of those things that you can ignore in the hope that it will go away. Look at what has happened in the last year. Look at how much more emboldened Trump and his cronies have become. This coup is ongoing. It’s going to get worse unless decent people stand up, enforce the law, protect our votes, and make it stop!