Trump’s Latest Election Lies: How Worried Should You Be?

Los Angeles County election workers processing ballots on June 2. Weston Hancock/Sipa/AP

Here we go again.

Donald Trump and his Republican rat pack are once more baselessly claiming an election has been rigged. This time, they’re insisting that the recent California primary—especially the contest for Los Angeles mayor—was fraudulent. The evidence? They have none. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Trump is yet again falsely asserting that the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day—a legal and routine action under California state law—is tantamount to fraud.

The main Republican candidate in the LA race, washed-up reality star Spencer Pratt, was in the lead for second place—which would have allowed him to move on to the runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat—until the (slow) counting of mail-in votes landed him in third behind City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, another Democrat, and removed him from the race. This was not an unusual development. It’s widely known that Democrats tend to vote by mail more than Republicans. Thus, post–Election Day tallying will add more D votes than R votes, and a GOP candidate is likely to lose ground. There’s even a name for this pattern: the “red mirage.” Yet as Trump has done before, he insisted that unnamed nefarious forces conspired against his party, and other Republicans grumbled along with their cult leader.

One who did not, though, was Steve Hilton, a Republican and Fox News commentator, who was running for governor. He placed second in his contest and told CNN he saw no signs of fraud in the vote count. Why did the evil Democrats rig the election against Pratt but not Hilton? Obviously to cover up their diabolical scheming, right?

It’s no surprise Trump again is pulling this crap. Moreover, he has tied his groundless complaint about the California election to his never-to-die Big Lie about the 2020 election, insisting that “it’s been proven” that race was rigged (fact-check: baloney!) and that his administration will “release the full files” to show how “crooked” it was. And after appointing Bill Pulte acting director of national intelligence last week, Trump said this political hatchet man who has absolutely no intelligence experience will be investigating “rigged elections”—suggesting that Pulte, whose time in the post is limited, will pursue assorted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. We can expect Pulte to release unsubstantiated intelligence or misrepresent intelligence documents in an attempt to hornswoggle the public.

While Trump continues to fixate on 2020, a big question for many people is whether they ought to worry about him threatening the upcoming congressional elections. Are his outlandish assertions about the California election a prelude to an assault on the November contests? Will he try to screw with the voting? Will he attempt to mess with the vote tallying? Will he use ICE agents or other federal troops to intimidate voters? Will he declare results he doesn’t fancy fraudulent and strive to provoke a crisis? (Sound familiar?)

Trump has already trained his millions of diehard followers to accept his groundless accusations of voter fraud. He doesn’t need to supply any proof to whip up his base and the MAGA media. His supporters and his press lackeys are primed to run with any bogus charge he might concoct and embrace and advance any attempt to delegitimize the elections. As Andrew Egger recently wrote in the Bulwark, “So thoroughly poisoned are the minds of Trump’s base voters by now that they no longer need to see even pretend evidence to believe his claims that this or that election are rigged. For the election to turn out more Democrat-friendly than they expected is all they need.” Trump’s horde will buy whatever guff he peddles about the midterms. So, yes, buckle up. His bellyaching about California feels like a test run.

But depending on what Trump tries to pull off, it may not be so easy for him to derail the midterms. US elections are a patchwork of local elections conducted by 50 states and more than 10,000 local jurisdictions. It’s not easy for a malfeasant in Washington, DC, to skew all of them. Of the 18 House races now deemed toss-ups, 13 of them are in states run by Democratic governors (Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin). It might be tough for Trump to intervene in those areas.

He has already tried to tilt the election in the GOP favor, with racist gerrymandering, as well as so-far unsuccessful efforts to create a federal database of registered voters and to bar the US Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to anyone not on this list (a likely illegal action). And, no doubt, in the wee hours, when he’s not shitposting, he’s conjuring up scenarios under which he could declare an emergency and take extreme steps to limit or impede voting. But my hunch is that it won’t be easy for him to launch an all-out assault on the midterms. And Trump has demonstrated he’s inept when it comes to prosecuting a difficult war.

What’s most absurd and dispiriting is that we have to contemplate this. Trump tried to destroy American democracy after the 2020 election. And he came close to overturning the election results. What if Veep Mike Pence had gone along with his plans? Or various GOP-controlled state legislatures? Or what if the January 6 riot went further?

Any political system with a survival instinct would have done all it could after such an attack to neutralize and expel the threat. But a vast majority of House Republicans refused to impeach Trump, and most Senate Republicans refused to convict him. And while much of the corporate elite initially recoiled at Trump and the GOP following J6, most of it scurried back when it became clear Trump still had a hold on the party—and then eagerly licked his boots once he regained power.

So now we’re back to where we were in 2020: A narcissistic authoritarian pushing paranoid and proof-free conspiracy theories is threatening the constitutional order. Trump should have been ostracized after January 6—prosecuted and perhaps imprisoned—and regularly characterized in the media as a profound liar and conman who endangers American democracy. Yet he was never held accountable and treated with the appropriate opprobrium.

I’m not sure our pals in the mainstream media now know how to fully convey the threat at hand. A few days ago, the New York Times published a solid piece by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on Trump’s phony claims about the California election. But this is how it was headlined in the hard copy:

Seeds ballot doubts? What the hell does that mean? He’s lying his tuchus off to subvert democracy and retain power. The online version featured a more accurate head: “Trump Previews Fall Strategy With Baseless Claims of California Vote Fraud.”

And look at how the newspaper of record covered Trump’s meltdown when Meet the Press host Kristen Welker challenged Trump on his voting fraud claims. He was unable to cite an iota of evidence and could only respond by angrily calling her “crooked” and “stupid” and storming off. (He did not use the “low IQ” insult he frequently deploys against people of color.)

The paper’s report on the interview, which covered the Iran war and other topics, included one sentence on the blow-up: “Mr. Trump eventually ended the wide-ranging interview after being repeatedly pressed by Ms. Welker about claiming, without evidence, that recent elections in California were rigged.” This description hardly presented how unhinged Trump was at that moment.

Anyone outside of Trump’s cult who watched this bizarre and almost comical exchange could see this guy is a madman who hurls reckless charges to undermine American democracy and imperil the republic. He lies about winning the Iran war. He lies about the economy. And he lies about elections, aiming to discredit voting and to sow distrust and paranoia for his own personal and political gain. That is a fundamental truth about Trump, and much of the media and our nation’s elites have not made that sufficiently clear. Consequently, we might be facing a rerun of 2020, with history repeating itself both as farce and tragedy.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

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Republicans went apeshit when oyster farmer and military vet Graham Platner won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Maine this past week. The guy has a boatload of scandals—which include a Nazi tattoo (which he claimed he didn’t realize was a Nazi tattoo) and allegations he engaged in extramarital sexting and was physically threatening with a former girlfriend—and right-wingers have sought to shame Dems for sticking with Platner. Kellyanne Conway, who was the campaign manager for Trump’s 2016 presidential bid and then a White House adviser, inarticulately exclaimed:

What else do you need? Is there a magic number [of scandals] in this that would make you stop? Would it have to do with Nazis? Or perhaps putting upon with women that are definitely not your wife of two years?...So I’d ask the Democrats, is power really worth that to you?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) berated Democrats: "They don't care if he's a sexual predator. They just want a majority and they want power.”

Trump and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority leader, joined in:

Trump: Can you imagine if the Republicans had him?...

Scalise: We wouldn't let it happen.

Trump: If it meant losing the Senate, you would not let that happen.

Scalise: Correct.

Trump added, "[Graham Platner] is like a pig…He's worse than any human being that's ever run for office."

By now, you know where I am going with this. The GOP accepted Trump, despite the dozens of allegations of sexual assault and harassment credibly leveled against him. And despite the Access Hollywood tape: “I did try to fuck her. She was married…I moved on her like a bitch…And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.”

Regardless of Platner’s transgressions, it takes a record-setting amount of chutzpah for Trump and his Republican handmaids to complain about Democrats backing this guy in the race against GOP Sen. Susan Collins. After all, who’s been held liable and ordered to pay millions of dollars for having committed sexual assault?

Cruz earned a double nomination this week. He also took aim at James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas:

If you were making a list of 1,000 adjectives to describe this guy, “masculine” would not be one of them. I mean, this guy, if a stiff breeze came by it would blow him over like a feather.

Cruz generally does not come to mind when you think of a man’s man. During the 2016 campaign, Trump called Cruz’s wife ugly, and Cruz...endorsed him. How’s that for being macho? And though the judges eschew body-shaming, they note that if Cruz wants to make masculinity and physique an issue, perhaps he ought to hit the gym:

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) elbowed his way into this week’s contest not for what he said but for what he seemed to fake say. Asked by a reporter about Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments about potential Social Security cuts, Wittman apparently pretended to take a phone call to avoid the question—and did a very poor job of acting. 

Asked about the high price of beef these days, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), observed,

Beef is still an incredible value. I get it. We're not used to paying $8 or $9 for a pound of ground beef, but you compare the nutrition in a pound of beef to a $9 bag of chips, and I would tell you beef still packs a powerful punch.

Nine dollars for a bag of chips? That seems a problem, too. But comparing meat to Doritos is a bit apples to oranges, eh? Why not compare it to a $20 cocktail?

Johnson came close, but the winner this week is Fox host Brian Kilmeade. Talking about the horrific violence in Northern Ireland, in which hooded, right-wing racist marauders, protesting immigration, forced immigrant families out of their homes and burnt down these residences, he huffed,

In Belfast they're standing up because their leaders have let them down. In their own streets, they're trying to take their country back. They want to label them as racists or xenophobic. All they want to be is Irish. They want Ireland back… I see a lot of the same fights here."

Kilmeade was not just excusing racist violence, he was embracing it. And Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin gets an assist for nodding along and seeming to agree with Kilmeade’s racist rant.

Apologies to any Spurs fans in Our Land land.

Readers seemed to appreciate the reminder in a recent issue that the Trump gang’s claim of government “weaponization” against Trump and right-wingers is absolute nonsense.

Jim Giardina wrote:

Many thanks for rebutting President Trump’s claims of discrimination and ill-treatment at the hands of a malicious government that is out to get him. Unfortunately, I wonder how many of those who don’t already hold this president and the Republican Party in contempt are actually aware those abuses even exist? Or more pointedly, would even care if they did? I know for a fact that the Trumpanistas I deal with don’t.

That is the big issue, Jim. You can lead a voter to a scandal, but you can't make him or her care. A lot of people in Trump's base have decided that either the accounts of Trump wrongdoing and sleaze are false (the Deep State!) or have resolved not to give a damn because they adore him for other reasons. The good news is that they are a shrinking minority. Moreover, we can hope that at the margins, a small number of Trump supporters might be influenced if they read about his crypto grift or other transgressions, especially if they are being harmed by the economic conditions he’s causing.

Gary Miller emailed:

What you describe so beautifully is obvious and it's a mystery why it is not obvious to our elected Republican members of Congress.

Republicans in Congress still tend to believe their political career depends on not seeing—or acknowledging—Trump’s brazen misconduct. Which reminds me of my favorite Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Responding to the recent interview with Barbara McQuade about her book, The Fix: Saving America From the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government, Hope Skilling noted:

Barbara McQuade’s book sounds good. But will the voters who need to read it do so? The Democrats should be all over these ideas!

The point of the book is not to persuade Trump supporters. It's to get Dems and others thinking about what to do to prevent another Trump from perverting our government. If the Ds get a chance to construct new guardrails, it will be a big job.

Susan Welsford shared this:

I feel strongly that one of the very few ways America can get back to being America is to meticulously track all the illegal actions of everyone in the Trump administration and associated with Trump and pursue immediate arrests and prosecutions to the fullest extent of the law the second Trump is out of office. Children are not taught responsibility by letting poor decisions of the past go unaccounted for. And we must create new laws to ensure these atrocities do not happen again.

People can point to the merits of the country simply moving forward. That might be nice, but it's also the lazy way out. As a country, we allowed Trump to come into power. We have to ensure this atmosphere never returns. That's on us as a country, and it's our heavy cross to bear unless we want to return to this nightmare.

Lynn Biddle expressed a similar sentiment:

I hope that the thieves in the current administration will be brought to justice. But I look at our past and see the Iran-Contra dealing, the pretext for invading Iraq, the War in Viet Nam, and I wonder just how clearly our Congress will be able to address today’s evils. 

Once the Trump years are over, accountability will be needed. And, no doubt, should the Democrats gain control of Congress this year or the White House in 2028, there will be debates about how much to focus on Trump’s wrongdoing—impeach the guy?—as opposed to advancing ideas about making life better for most Americans. (McQuade explained how both can be done at the same time.) But there’s one big problem: Trump will likely issue wide-ranging pardons for many of his aides, cronies, and relatives. Prosecuting them on federal charges once this administration is over may be impossible.

Martha Ture wrote in to share a passage from Timothy Snyder, the democracy scholar:

Trump’s proposal to increase the military budget by nearly 50%: it’s a bribe to officers and soldiers so that they will side with him when he tries to overthrow the Constitution and stay in power indefinitely.

This is where all the evidence points. If there is any consensus about Trump, it is that he is “transactional.” There is zero evidence that he has a notion of US interests. There is abundant evidence that he understands politics as a matter of people being paid off. And that is the framework in which to understand his proposed military budget. He is paying people off. No other explanation fits the data.

Snyder’s scenario is clearly a theoretical possibility. But I'm not sure the $1.5 trillion is a bribe to officers as much as it is a big payoff to military contractors. It certainly could be both. Also, I’m not willing to bet the mortgage that the military will back Trump, should he attempt an auto-coup when he is 82. But I would be surprised if Trump hadn’t thought about how to do this.

“Is this really necessary?”
“Moxie, it was pouring out there. You’re soaking wet.”
“Just promise me you won’t put this in your newsletter.”
“Hey, who wants a treat? I’ve got beef lungs!”