Donald Trump, the big liar and his little loser liars

This year I got a little excited about voting.

First, I went to the wrong neighborhood school, where a pollster looked closely at my name, then explained that I was enrolled at Bethesda Elementary School down the street. When I arrived, a team of volunteers — my neighbors, from enthusiastic 20-somethings to grizzled retirees — patiently showed me how to mark the grade. When my cell phone suddenly rang, I was practically strangled: “Turn it off!”

That was the best of America: these people, this process, done with integrity and solemnity. What a privilege to be able to vote like this.

And how absurd that it was these very people and this very process that Donald Trump has spent the last two years discrediting and undermining, managing to drag most of his party with him in his gigantic and fraudulent claim that the elections of 2020 would have been stolen .

But wait, where was Trump last week?

Have you heard the claims from him or his lackeys that these midterms have been stolen from their handpicked candidates?

Other than a few unsubstantiated Trump claims here and there, including that failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (a Trump impersonator) was duped, there wasn’t much else.

Instead, Trump has devoted most of his energy to denigrating some of his candidates anointed and blame his wife and others for getting him to support the strange collection of sycophants who became “Trump Team” in this election and lost nearly every major race.

The fact that Trump is not suing on behalf of all of them today to prove voter fraud says it all.

It’s basically Trump saying to all of them, “Sorry, this stolen election lie is just about me. There’s only room for one martyr in this party. You can’t use my lie in your state’s election. I just argued people”. unprincipled and ambitious – like you and JD Vance and Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano and Adam Laxalt – to amplify my lie and show I’m no loser. I can never be seen as a loser. If they’re losers, it’s their fault.”

defeat and silence

This also explains why most campaign deniers who lost, like Oz, simply admitted and did not claim fraud.

Why not make a fuss, Mehmet? So, JD, why don’t you just claim that your fellow Republicans lost because their election was “rigged” like you did with Trump? and Douglas? What you said Sunday when you admitted losing the race for governor in Pennsylvania: “Hard to accept how the results are. There’s no other right way to concede, and that’s what I do.”

What? Why is it the right path today, but not for Trump two years ago?

Because none of you believed Trump’s lie to begin with, then you never dared to use it in your own election!

They just rented Trump’s lie believing it was their golden ticket, their easy shortcut, to victory. They thought they could echo Trump’s lie, get elected with the votes of his supporters, and then leave him.

Now what most of you failed to get elected through election denialThey want us to forget how shamefully they tried to exploit that lie for power, while they got away with it.

No, no, a thousand times no.

We must never, ever forget the damage that Donald Trump and his cynical impersonators, cultists, and media amplifiers have done to the reputation of our democracy, the respect for its institutions, and the unity of our society by perpetrating this big lie.

in itself it was an embarrassing parody. But to do so in the midst of an enormously stressful pandemic, when we needed to trust each other, care for each other, and work with our government to stop Covid more than ever, was criminal.

I don’t think we fully understand the damage this has done to our social fabric and to our political system. It tore families apart at Thanksgiving dinners. It destroyed long-standing friendships. It divided neighborhoods, municipalities, state assemblies, student parent associations, meeting rooms, and newsrooms. And it has distracted our entire country from the nation-building work at home, making it nearly impossible to do something big and difficult together.

Not only did it tarnish our nation’s reputation as a democracy, but it also motivated a mob on January 6 to storm our nation’s Capitol, with the express goal of voiding the election. Five Capitol Hill or Metropolitan Police officers were killed in connection with that attack.

Many of the protesters later clarified that they were motivated by that big lie. The extremist who attacked Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was involved in electoral plotting at his home.

Also gave power to autocrats, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, and to fake democrats, like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, to boast that his own people will never have to worry about the “chaos” that democracy and voting bring.

Big Liar Trump and all the little liars who ran his scam for fun and profit – especially Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and pretty much the entire Fox crew – They have done incalculable damage to our country. What a shame each of you.

And does Trump now have the courage, the rancid shamelessness, to stand in the midst of this bonfire of lies, hate and broken relationships that he himself has ignited and declare that he is running for president again?

And now Murdoch’s team, having condoned this fraud for two years, has the courage to say, “Well, maybe we should switch to Ron DeSantis,” without explaining what they allowed. I’m not sorry. History will not be kind to you.

As David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, told CNN.com about the abandonment of Trump by some Republican politicians now that he has become an underdog: the “exodus from his camp, led by Rupert Murdoch and from his right-wing media empire, it was something worth seeing. For them, infractions of democracy and decency may be tolerated, but defeat may not.”

Optimism

That’s why, for the first time in a long time, I feel hope again for the American political system. Ever since Trump stepped down that escalator in 2015, the GOP establishment has tried to have it all: garner the votes of Trump’s grassroots and look away from his shameful behavior, including his denigration of our electoral system. Trump could never stoop too low for them because they were dependent on their base’s votes.

Well, the majority of Americans have just set a plan. Or as the Times’ Nick Corasaniti reported: “Every election denier who has tried to become the top election official in a critical battleground state has lost at the polls this year, as voters have adamantly rejected the extreme supporters they promised.” to limit voting”. electoral process”.

I’m sure most Trump cultists are still embracing his lie, because outright abandoning it in front of family, friends or colleagues is just too embarrassing. But the Republican party establishment will have to choose: keep losing to Trump or kick him off the island for DeSantis. Welcome to “Survivor: Florida”.

The best part is, this showdown was not spoken by the leaders of the Republican party — they are cowards — but by the most prominent and quietly brave people in this election.

It was spoken by ordinary Americans: principled Republicans and Democrats and independents, young and old, who voted against the big lie and its authors in local polling places, like mine, and our principled neighbors and fellow citizens who counted the Vote carefully, fairly and honestly, as they always have, even in 2020.

The New York Times, special

B. C