As Trump Tries to Steal Another Election, Here Is a Helpful Reminder About 2020

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Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: Donald Trump is going to try to steal the midterms. This isn’t hyperbole or fearmongering, it’s a statement of fact. We know this because he keeps telling and showing us. 

The mid-decade gerrymandering campaign was an attempt to subvert the will of the people by allowing politicians to choose their voters instead of the other way around. Yes, we know that the Supreme Court legalized it, but a state-sponsored campaign to disenfranchise Americans, especially people of color, is still an attempt to nullify their votes. 

Then there were the administration’s efforts to illegally get the United States Postal Service (USPS), i.e., the federal government, involved in deciding who gets to vote by mail.

Let’s also not forget the ongoing campaign to intimidate election workers if they refuse to go along with the administration’s voter suppression efforts. 

Next, the Supreme Court recently gave the green light for states to use a shoddy and error-prone database to verify the citizenship status of voters in what will certainly lead to eligible Americans, especially those that were recently naturalized, being kept from voting. 

Congressional Republicans got in on the action by trying to ram through the SAVE America Act, which is another massive voter disenfranchisement tool. 

And just yesterday, Trump admitted that he directed a hyperpoliticized Department of Justice to file a lawsuit seeking to preemptively prevent Alaska from certifying its upcoming Senate election unless the GOP incumbent wins. 

There are many more examples, big and small, of how the administration and Congress tried to put their thumbs on the scales of democracy, like countless Hatch Act violations and endless efforts to push the Big Lie.

Which brings us to the most obvious piece of evidence proving that Trump will attempt to subvert the will of American voters in 10 days: He has done it before. 

Instead of accepting his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 like a man, he instead chose to attempt to steal that election, culminating in a violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, and did incalculable damage to democracy in the process. 

In many ways, it is the most insidious crime in US history. 

Obviously, all of that is deeply troubling. 

However, you will also note that most of these attempts have not been successful. Yes, gerrymandering will net the GOP some seats in the House, but likely not as many as it seemed when Republicans redrew their maps. 

The USPS scheme failed, as did the wholesale application of the citizenship verification tool. The SAVE America Act didn’t pass, which may even convince some MAGA voters to stay home this election because they blame “RINOs” for this.

As for that Alaska lawsuit, it should get laughed out of court. Then again, with this Supreme Court, you never know, which is disconcerting.

Finally, the steal was stopped in 2020… by dozens of courts, election administrators, and brave Capitol police officers putting their lives on the line for democracy. That should have been the end of it. However, the same Republicans, who were seen ducking for cover on January 6, couldn’t find an ounce of the courage those protecting them that day had shown and  spinelessly failed to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. 

That allowed him to turn a decisive loss by more than 7 million votes into his personal dolchstoßlegende, aka the Big Lie. 

And, since it plays such a major role in MAGA lore and forms the basis for most of the GOP’s recent attempts to take a wrecking ball to US democracy, it’s worth revisiting that Big Lie on the eve of an election that could result in some accountability for the lawlessness and corruption Trump, his family, and his administration have displayed for the past two years. 

Here, in a nutshell, is what the president wants Americans to believe: In 2020, while he was president, elected officials — both Democrats and Republicans — in states across the country worked together to steal the election from right under his nose. 

What is more, the thousands of people who would necessarily have been involved in this effort managed to pull off this heist without leaving a trace, and only a handful of the millions of individuals who fraudulently cast votes have been caught.

Then, after getting away with the crime of the century, the same conspirators didn’t bother to rig the 2024 election even though a Democrat was in the White House at the time and it would have only taken 229,767 votes to deny Trump the presidency once again. 

Apparently, those thousands of election administrators and millions of fraudulent voters who all risked long prison terms in 2020 were busy that day.

Obviously, none of this makes any sense if you apply even a tiny bit of common sense. 

Unfortunately, common sense is in extremely short supply among Trump voters and, because MAGA is a cult, his gullible supporters gobbled up a lie that puts to shame “I did my homework but then my dog took it and was beamed onto a spaceship that proceeded to fly straight into the sun.”

So, yes, through their previous words and deeds, we know that this president, his personal attorney (general) Todd Blanche, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, many Republicans in red states, at least two Supreme Court justices, Elon Musk, and Vladimir Putin will try to steal and rig this election. 

However, most of them have proven to not be super good at it, which gives us hope that the will of the American people will not be totally thwarted and that, if such a heist is attempted, Trump and his fellow thieves will leave a trail of evidence that cannot be hidden.