Remember, this kind of talk didn’t start with Trump. Remember the great ACORN scandal?
According to the Republican nominee for president, his opponents were “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history.” In an ad, his campaign warned of “nationwide voter fraud” that could swing the election. His running mate worried, in a fundraising letter, that “leftist groups” were trying to “steal the election.”
The candidate was not Donald Trump. It was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who in the final weeks of the 2008 presidential election embraced the theory that ACORN, a community organizing group previously embraced by Democrats and Republicans, was helping to rig the election for Barack Obama by filing fake voter registration forms.
In modern times, no candidate for president has questioned the election’s integrity more consistently and flagrantly than Trump. According to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, conducted among 1,999 registered voters in the week after the second presidential debate, 73 percent of Republican voters now worry that their votes will not be counted.
That’s not all due to Trump. The idea that Democrats and their allies are rigging elections, either through control of machines in Democratic cities or through mass voter impersonation, is a mainstay of conservative politics — one that has powered legislation that is making it harder for some voters in Republican-controlled states such as Wisconsin to register this year. (ACORN ceased to exist after a conservative video sting recorded some of its staffers entertaining questions on how to get tax credits for prostitution, and a Democratic-controlled Congress ended its federal funding.)
Trump’s role in furthering the doubts has drawn condemnation from the media, and calls for Republicans to stand up to him. “Conservative journalists have to play a role here, and conservative commentators, too,” said CNN’s Brian Stelter in a monologue Monday morning.
But some of the most wild charges thrown at Democrats by Trump surrogates have been made for years. “Dead people generally vote for Democrats rather than Republicans,” former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “You want me to [say] that I think the election in Philadelphia and Chicago is going to be fair? I would have to be a moron to say that.”
“Senate voted 85-11 to eliminate ACORN funding…” Don’t forget, lots of Democrats in that vote. Pathetic Republican Lite. Guess the only time they demonstrate their deep personal courage is when they authorize more money for weapons, war, arms sales to Saudis for their war on Yemen, etc.
I will not vote for a Democratic Senate that will elect Chuck Schumer majority leader.
I will not vote for anyone that will vote to use my tax money to incinerate, obliterate, vitiate people in other countries in the name of “national security.” If war hasn’t been declared, it’s murder plain and simple.
We all want to be ideologically pure in our voting but it’s not possible.
N-N Then for for we pristine Puritans that vote against war criminals please spare us the presumption that we need to vote for your candidates because they are lesser evils.
Agreed. Most Dems don’t want to have to make decisions. That said, a vote for a Rethug, 3rd party, or no vote is a vote for fascism.
Lless – don’t put words into my mouth. Exactly which pure candidate were you planning to vote for?