Is Trump about to ramp up efforts to undermine our elections?

News and commentary designed to make you the smartest person in the room--or the Zoom

By J.C. Bruce

Tropic Press

Donald Trump has never gotten over losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and he’s never stopped lying and bellyaching about it.

More lies may be on the way.

He plans a Thursday evening national address in which, surrounded by obedient federal employees who owe their careers to him, he says he will unveil “big news” about voting machines and election integrity, among a potpourri of topics.

The word potpourri, by the way, translates from the French literally as “rotten pot.”

This has the feel of more than the usual midnight rantings of an octogenarian who lacks the courage and good grace to accept the fact that one out of three times he ran for president he lost.

It seems more like the ramp-up of a concerted campaign to undermine our elections, all to lay the groundwork for, perhaps, a federal takeover of some sort, if Trump can get away with it.

In point of fact, there is broad, bipartisan agreement that the United States already has the most secure and fair elections in the world. Trump’s spurious claims of widespread voter fraud were rejected by dozens of judges, many appointed by Trump himself. Indeed, the nation’s cybersecurity watchdog joined other federal, state, and local officials in declaring the vote “the most secure in American history,” according to U.S. News & World Report.

But before you can be the hero putting out a fire, first you have to become an arsonist, if you follow Trump’s playbook.

There simply HAS to have been election fraud in 2020, in Trump’s warped view of reality. What else could possibly explain that the American public chose his opponent over him by 7 million votes, a total of 81.3 million, the most any candidate for president has ever received?

It couldn’t possibly have been they wanted a change, could it?

Which is why he urged a mob to “fight like hell” and how he ended up impeached a second time.

Regarding the integrity of voting machines and any alleged “declassified” information Trump may claim his minions have unearthed, we’ve been here before.

You may recall the $787 million that Fox News had to pay Dominion Voting Systems about the lies the network broadcast on Trump’s behalf about election fraud. It cost Tucker Carlson his job. MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, another Trump mouthpiece, was also sued for defamation. That case was settled earlier this month.

To date, there has been zero credible evidence of meaningful voter fraud or vulnerabilities to our election systems. So, we’ll see what all this newly released top-secret material is about, and if it has any credibility whatsoever.

Even if so, the timing is obviously suspicious.

Trump’s national security team has been burning the midnight oil trying to find something—anything—to satisfy the boss and his obsessive need to prove once and for all he’s not a loser. That includes poring over all the previous claims of foreign election interference, which have up until now been debunked.

It also follows the White House firing of the remaining members of the federal Elections Assistance Commission, which Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia warned, “raises profound concerns about political interference in the institutions that support our elections.”

All while the White House has been trying to increase federal oversight of elections, which, constitutionally, is the responsibility of the individual states. They’ve gone so far, according to some reports, as to circulate a draft declaration of a “national elections emergency,” for which the executive branch has no authority.

So much for states’ rights.

All this, too, while Trump has been expressing his exasperation with Congress for not passing his bogus SAVE American Act, which, theoretically, is designed to stop noncitizens from voting—a nonexistent problem. What it really is, of course, is a not-so-subtle effort to allow the federal government to stick its nose where it doesn’t belong, and wedge its way into influencing election outcomes, in large part by making it harder to vote. Trump hates mail-in voting. It makes it far too easy to vote.

Axios has reported that the strategy is to launch a continuing drumbeat of doubt about elections, as this speech appears designed to do, to undermine the legitimacy of midterm results that are, as of now, leaning in Democrats’ favor.

In Trump’s own words:

“It’s really big news. It’s really, really big news, and our country has to shape up. What we’re going to talk about Thursday, it doesn’t get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country. We’ll be discussing other things too, but it’s going to be a very big announcement.”

But will there be any truth to it? And where will it lead?

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Also in the news…

Todd Blanche faces the Senate Judiciary Committee today, which is considering his nomination to take “acting” from his title and become the next attorney general of the United States. Questions about his handling of The Epstein Files, his coddling of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, and his bogus slush fund lawsuit that was shot down last week will be among the questions he’s facing.

As expected, the House overwhelmingly approved permanent Daylight Saving Time yesterday in a 308-117 vote. Next stop, the Senate, where its fate is unclear, although it enjoys Trump’s support. The House vote, by the way, mirrored the results of a poll I published Sunday. Readers of this newsletter approved the Daylight Saving Time proposal by a margin of 63% to 37%.

Trump has paid the writer E. Jean Carroll $5.6 million he owed her for sexually abusing her in a Manhattan department store and then defaming her, according to federal court records. The payment came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the president’s latest attempt to appeal the verdict. He still owes her another $80-plus million from a second lawsuit.

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Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk, as you can see from today’s newsletter.

To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement.

Currently, Tropic Press is reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

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