Another Right Gone

One possible future

You've probably heard by now that Donald, in his infinite wisdom is telling people that they're not going to need to vote in four years if they vote for him in 2020. Last week at an event hosted by Turning Point action, an offshoot of Turning Point USA, a political organization, co-founded by incel and fascist Charlie Kirk, that targets young men, here's what Donald said:

“Christians, 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, I love you, Christians. I'm [not?] Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote in four years. You don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed. So good. You're not going to have to vote.”

Very grammatical of you, Donald. I'm going to miss those dulcet tones of yours. It sounded like he said, “I'm not Christian again.” I don't care if he's Christian or not, but usually he claims to be which means he's lying; he's pandering to a special interest group for which he has nothing but contempt. I find that appalling.

But what's much more appalling is the fact that he's essentially saying, “If you put me back in. I'm going to fix everything so you'll have your way forever. You're not going to have to worry about that pesky thing called voting every four years.”

Those of us who understand what's really going on here, take the threat seriously. You would think a sitting senator would as well, but when Tom Cotton (R-AR) was asked about Donald's comment, he laughed it off.

Then, after playing the clip of Donald’s remarks, Robert Costa asked Senator Lindsey Graham,

“Democrats say the former president is trying to take the reins of the entire Democratic system here with these comments. You're laughing. What do you believe he's trying to say? What's the truth?”

Senator Graham, who continues to think his constituents will believe anything replied. “He is trying to tell the Christian community, and anybody else who's listening, the nightmare that we're experiencing will soon be over. ‘Give me four more years and I'm going to right this ship called America and pass it on to the next generation.’ We will have democracy, God willing, for a very long time in this country. But what President Trump is trying to tell people, ‘I did it once. I can do it again. These problems can't be solved.’”

With the hard-hitting follow-ups we’ve come to expect from the corporate media, Costa wrapped the interview up this way: “Senator Graham, we always appreciate your time.” Costa may as well have said, “Senator Graham, thank you so much for lying to my face. Please come back again sometime, and I won't ask you any follow-up questions then either.”

Did anybody hear Donald say anything about passing a torch to the next generation? No, Graham was lying. This is what other Republicans and the media often do as well. Graham was cleaning up after Donald. He was pretending that Donald said one thing when he really said another.

In an article published over the weekend, The Washington Post did its best attempt to bothsides the issue:

“Democrats and others interpreted the comments as signaling how a second Trump presidency would be run, a reminder that he previously said he would not be a dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One.”

“The Trump campaign, however, says the comments, were about how [Donald] would unite the country. Asked to clarify what Trump meant, Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement on Saturday that the former president “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”

Where is any of that in Donald's very brief, very straightforward comment? And that’s the problem: Donald says something vile, scary, and threatening. Instead of reporting on that, or explaining how dangerous his rhetoric is, his remarks get normalized. We hear about what the Democrats have to say about it and what Donald's campaign has to say about it as if we didn't hear what we just actually heard.

Further in The Washington Post:

“Erica De Bruin, a professor of government at Hamilton College said, ‘[Donald] frequently makes these kinds of deliberately ambiguous statements that can be interpreted in multiple ways.” But she added that ‘to understand what another Trump presidency would involve, I think it is more useful to look at his past behavior than to attempt to parse what might be the “true meaning” of any individual set of remarks he makes.’ She pointed out that the last time he was in office, ‘he attempted to subvert the outcome of an election and remain in power longer than the American public voted to keep him there.’

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University, also said that while he didn’t think [Donald’s] recent comment was “indicative of an organized plot to end elections in the United States,” it did represent yet another sign that “the guy has got authoritarian reflexes.”

I am very sorry to say this, but I didn't hear anything ambiguous about what Donald said, and that's the problem. Ambiguity is projected onto his quite straightforward remarks. In effect they are sanitized and normalized.

I agree with Professor DeBruin that it’s important to place his remarks in the context of what he's actually done in the past that will perhaps help convince skeptics that Donald wasn’t joking or paving the way for the next generation of Republican. First, he started the big lie by claiming the 2020 election was rigged against him, he didn't actually lose, and Joe Biden stole it from him. Second, he incited an insurrection against his own government. I don't think his canceling elections in the future, if he gets back into the White House, is a bridge too far for him. I can easily imagine that that’s exactly what he has planned. I don't think it's too much to say that that's actually what he meant.