Trump’s Speech Showed His Weakness
This might be a good thing as Trump backs down from his desired authoritarian takeover.
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PBS pointed out that it is extremely hard to steal an election in the United States. Here in America, the election system is primarily local and non-partisan. This makes it very hard for any party to “steal” an election or for anyone else to influence an election. Vote counting is transparent with many eyes from all parties and the press to watch over the process.
Security cameras, audits and tamper-proof seals provide layers of security as well as the press looking very closely at the election process. It would be crossing a line to try to influence voting using ICE or the military to intimidate voters or watch for “illegal” voters (presumably anyone of color or worse, not wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat).
It is notable that EVERY reputable study has found that fraud is vanishingly rare. For example, Idaho found only 15 of 1.1 million ballots to be questionable in their audit. This is a common theme in all the studies conducted recently. Voter fraud is just not a thing in America, no matter what the insecure orange ego says.
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While Trump has gutted or politicized most federal election authorities, their powers were never that strong in the first place. His recent firing of the two Democratic members of the election commission was a weak effort at best to minimize oversight of elections (he also forced the resignation of the only Republican member of the commission, probably because he was not loyal enough).
Trump’s speech showed a tempering of his desire to exert authoritarian power over elections. It would have taken a truly brazen defiance of the Constitution to take more aggressive action such as ordering federal agencies to seize and audit each state’s voter rolls. Trump could have asserted the 2020 election was stolen and ordered one of his cronies like Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, to manufacture fake “proof” for his claims. Instead he relied on stretching actual intelligence to make misleading claims.
Why you might ask. He might not trust his own party to back more aggressive actions that blatantly defy the constitution. Perhaps he recognizes that the US military, the intelligence agencies, and federal law enforcement agencies are too professionalized to do the kind of lawbreaking this would require. Perhaps he sees that he has a weak grip on Congress, where his prior election lies are coming up in Senate hearings to confirm a new intelligence director and attorney general. He might fear the federal courts, which overwhelmingly rejected his efforts to overturn the 2020 election some 60 times. Perhaps he is afraid of going too far knowing he has pushed legislators, courts and the American people about as far as he can get away with.
Whatever the specific reasons are, his actions are showing he is either unwilling or unable to simply assert naked, violent authoritarian control over the US political system…so far anyway. He has backed down before when ICE went too far in Minneapolis, and he was humiliated in his tiff with Jimmy Kimmel when Kimmel showed far more aplomb and wit in their exchanges. As long as he fears the courts, his own party and the American people (not to mention Kimmel and Steve Colbert), the odds he’ll be able to compromise the midterm elections remains low.
You can bet Trump will still seek new ways to undermine Democrats like he did with the redistricting effort. But he seems to at least be concerned that the American people are tiring of his man-child insecurities. He is spinning a potential mid-term loss as the very fraud he claims to be warning happened before (except notably when he won). He is even blaming Congressional Republicans for not being able to pass his grossly ill-advised, vaunted SAVE act. He knows he is unpopular with a low approval rate of under 40% and many Republicans are not as loyal as he would prefer.
Even in the worst scenario it is unlikely the president will try to forcibly and unlawfully assert control over the election. Such a brazen, obviously authoritarian move would expose him to all kinds of legal challenges and no doubt set off protests that would make the No King’s protests look like backyard gatherings. There is still hope the American election system will work as intended and voters will get to show their choices without facing intimidation or suppression by the president’s lackeys.
Of course, it may well be the upcoming changes to suppress SNAP, Medicaid and welfare in 2027 as voted on in 2025 that will turn many poor red-neck MAGA voters against him. He thought he would have voting well under control by now as noted when he infamously said on July 24, 2024 before the 2024 election that “You won’t have to vote anymore.” (The actual quote is “Get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”)
For now, it appears his desire to establish an authoritarian regime suppressing Democrats and the constitution have been thwarted by the system, American voters and a few of his own party who are squirming at the monster they’ve unleashed. You Americans, yes you, the Americans reading this, need to be sure to vote in November and in 2028 to be sure we preserve our nation as it was intended by the founding fathers who pointed at “We the people” as the ultimate deciders of who rules this country. Get people off their phones and off their couches and get them out to vote! Our future as a free country depends on it.
