Trump is already laying the groundwork for contesting an election loss
“It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” That is, according to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s recent evidentiary filing in his case against Donald Trump for the January 6th insurrection, what Trump said at a crucial moment in 2020. That was his plan then—and all signs indicate that it is his plan now.
There’s nothing normal about Trump’s campaign this year. Even the standard features—the rallies, fundraising, and ads—are dominated by appalling lies, conspiracy theories, and grotesque exploitation of fear and xenophobia. Case in point: On Monday, Trump quintupled down on his earlier hateful messaging that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”—language straight from Mein Kampf—by telling conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt that immigrants bring the “bad genes” of murderers.
Running alongside Trump’s out-in-the-open campaign is the political Plan B that he and his allies are quite clearly pursuing. It’s a strategy that we can piece together from reliable reporting and Trump’s own ever-escalating unhinged threats and rants. It involves setting the stage right now for trying to overturn the vote if he loses so he can grab power anyway.
In other words, there’s an obvious reason Trump has repeatedly refused to say he would accept the election results if he loses: Just as in 2020, he’s ready to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.
There’s a method to his madness. Trump and his allies are (1) softening the public’s belief in the legitimacy of election results ahead of time by hammering the message that the election will be rigged; (2) abusing the courts with pre-election lawsuits as a launching pad for the claim that he was the real winner; and (3) inciting anger among his followers—including perhaps armed militants eager to turn to violence—should he suffer election defeat.
The good news is that there’s an antidote. As John Pitney, a political scientist and Never Trump conservative, recently wrote:
Trump will almost certainly refuse to accept defeat. But if he loses big in the popular vote, as well as losing the electoral vote, it will be harder for him to claim that he is the people’s choice. The larger the margin, the weaker his claim.
Simply put, every vote matters, even outside the swing states. [Continue reading…]