No, it’s not South Park satire
The flag-hugging patriarch of the Party of Trump showed once again last week where his real political allegiance lies. President Donald Trump, the convicted American felon, rolled out a literal red carpet in Anchorage last week and all but bear-hugged Russian President Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal.
Knowing Trump is still convinced he never lost the 2020 presidential election, Putin advised his American asset that it was because mail-in voting is not secure.
“He said: ‘Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. … It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,’” Trump recounted to Fox News. Putin said (and Trump believed him) that “no country” has mail-in voting.
This, of course, is bullshit (PolitiFact):
Data compiled by a Sweden-based organization that advocates for democracy globally found in an October 2024 report found that 34 countries or territories allow mail-in voting, which it refers to as “postal voting.”
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that of the 34 countries or territories, 12 allow all voters to vote by mail and in 22 permit only some voters to vote this way.
But the nonsense is not Putin’s point. Russia holds pro forma democratic elections Putin always wins. Naturally, Trump rises to that idea like fish to bait.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump declared that he wants mail-in balloting banned as well as “‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” Moreover, Trump claims the authority (he does not have) to dictate how states run their elections:
Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.
Never mind that the Constitution delegates that authority to the states. His Lordship hath spoken (The Guardian):
In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”
Trump openly pursues a suite of election changes to ensure American elections are just as “honest” as Russia’s. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday ticked through three vectors by which Trump means to ensure it is “structurally impossible for Democrats to control Congress again.” It takes a criminal mind, something both Trump and Putin share.
In addition to “banning” mail-in balloting, Trump is pressuring Republican-controlled states to redraw district maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections to secure additional Republican seats even where they lose a majority of the vote.
Third, Trump demands a new mid-decade census using “the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.” He alleges that the one performed in 2020 was invalid because it counted persons in the country illegally. Never mind that the 14th Amendment requires apportionment be based on “counting the whole number of persons in each State” and assigns that responsibility to Congress, not to the Executive branch.
Unless he gets a new census, Trump means to preemptively discredit election results by alleging that the districts are themselves improperly drawn, Maddow suggests. He may even try to preempt the 2026 elections themselves on that basis.
Journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff appeared with Maddow. He posted Monday to Bluesky:
This is step one in how we lose free and fair elections. It’s not that Trump will “cancel” the midterms.
It’s just everyone has to vote in person, and urban downtowns will be filled with ICE checkpoints and intimidating National Guard troops to “double check” that only citizens vote.
Graff told Maddow that the suite of “subtle and not-so-subtle” Republican efforts aim “to change who gets to vote, how they vote, and subtly shape the electorate” to ensure illegitimate, Republican minority rule.
#MAGA fascism is no longer creeping
In Texas meanwhile, Republicans locked state Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth inside the House chambers after she refused to permit a state police minder to follow her everywhere to ensure they can secure her presence for a quorum. Texas Democrats returned Monday from a two-week “exile” meant to deny Republicans a quorum for passage of the more-heavily gerrymandered redistricting map Trump demanded.
Texas Republicans are holding Collier as a political prisoner. #MAGA fascism is no longer creeping. They’re burning the rulebooks. The water is boiling, little froggies. They’re disappearing people off the streets.
I’m naturally a behind-the-scenes activist (and still am). But events lately cannot go unanswered. It is not enough to consume the news and respond on social media. Or even, as one often hears, to call your senators’ offices daily. Those calls get logged but no one else sees them. Resistance must be public to become contagious enough to build a movement. And not just angry but joyful. Get loud. Create “I’ll have what she’s having” moments. “The attention economy favors the bold.“
They’re taking your vote, fergawdsakes! Don’t take my word for it.
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