Trump’s talk of voter fraud was a stumbling block. It’s time to stop biting

It pains me to say that most of us are missing out when it comes to President Trump’s talk of rigging the election. Which is exactly what he wants.

Within minutes of it airing Thursday night, the Internet and pundits were debating whether voting machines were secure and whether the federal government had the right, or duty, to oversee the vote (it didn’t). Long articles were written criticizing voter identification efforts, as well as other articles criticizing those criticisms.

This, my friends, is exactly what the speech was intended to achieve – myopic confrontation.

To be clear, it’s myopic arguing about the past, as the dark future looms ever closer — like, Nov. 3.

The question we should be asking now is not whether there is massive fraud in US elections – even the conservative Heritage Foundation has documented only 71 cases of such fraud in California over 25 years.

The question is will we allow Trump to sow enough doubt in the minds of ordinary Americans that what follows seems inevitable and necessary?

Trump lied and said he was portraying “an electoral system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can protect it.”

“This cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.

Those are scary words, which we should take seriously.

“This is the saddest thing I can say about the president of the United States, but I think it’s pretty clear,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan think tank. “This is about a specific set of political goals, and using this misinformation to achieve those political goals.”

Trump knows that the midterms pose a threat to his power and he, and those around him, have been working for years to create a strategy to close our election results if it doesn’t fall his way. Whether the overall result favors the Democrats or the Republicans in the midterms, the wins and losses will be close, giving him an opportunity to attack the Democrats.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump learned from unexpected teacher Mike Pence the hard lesson that systems only work when people are in the position to use them. As vice president, Pence, you may recall, refused to stop the election certification process that legally allowed, by right, Joe Biden to take office.

Since then, Trump has purged the opposition from top positions, replacing them with sycophants, anti-electionists and conspirators – more than one of whom is associated with the racist theory of the Great Replacement that Democrats secretly help black and brown people to cross the border illegally in order to change these people illegally to vote for Democrats in America, thus replacing white Americans.

So the apparatchiks are in place, Soviet style. There will be no Penceian savior within at this time.

More than one election expert I’ve spoken to in recent months fears that because there’s no one left to oppose, we could see a post-election chaos like this: Republicans lose one or both houses of Congress. Trump calls fraud. The Justice Department or outside lawyers, or both, sued to overturn the results. Congress, which is still Republican, orders the newly elected Democrats to sit until the court cases are resolved.

A constitutional crisis is imminent. Democrats say they were elected. Republicans won’t let them work. No one is clear who is in Congress and who is not. Basically, the body is frozen and its fitness is undermined. In that space, Trump is furthering his already enormous power.

As bad as that sounds, that inner structure is there and this situation is more difficult or impossible than we hoped.

“What we are talking about is information that is inaccurate and that could be used as a reason to disrupt the tenure of elected officials,” said Romero. “Especially Congress.”

Now, with internal matters squared away, Trump’s focus is reducing external opposition. That’s what you and I are, and that’s what this talk was about. To sow doubt, to throw the seeds of chaos into the ground to see what grows. Letting us know it’s coming, so that we as Americans have time to argue, argue, and lose our trust in elections so that when we vote, we expect the worst to happen.

“Unfortunately, there are some members of the public who will believe what they’re told and when they hear the results of the election, there’s no question,” said Chad Dunn, legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “This type of communication misleads the American people and damages our democracy.”

Dunn told me he was “as worried as I’ve been in my life” about the next election.

Trump’s far right is wasting no time in this effort. After Trump’s speech, the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to California and three other states saying that California has more than 190,000 non-citizens registered to vote, and they want the state to “affirm their intentions to work with DHS to ensure free, fair, and honest elections.”

This is a misleading, erroneous figure and does not include the obvious fact that there is no evidence that unregistered people actually voted in any California election in any tangible numbers.

But it creates that confusion and doubt. California will not voluntarily share its voter rolls with the federal government because elections are — according to the Constitution — a state matter. And there is no evidence that the federal government has a better way of testing citizenship than California. So it becomes one more point of contention.

But what Dunn, Romero and other honest election experts want the American people to know is that our elections are free and fair and all is not lost. Far from it.

The answer to propaganda and lies is to always be aware, always above it. Spread the truth and refute the lies.

Dunn said the American people should demand that any voter fraud be brought to justice – where appropriate, and where we can find the authenticity of the evidence.

“If you are concerned about this, if you are inclined to believe the president, look for evidence, look for a decision in a court where evidence is heard,” he said. “And reserve judgment until you see that.”

Romero has his own advice – never underestimate the power of the vote.

“Show up and get involved,” she said. “No matter what [you’re] I will vote – Democrat, Republican, otherwise – just so you can show up and participate. “

Because in the end, we only lose democracy if we willingly let it go.