Likely to raise new worries
In Rush Toward Dictatorship news, Trump is pushing the Steal All the Elections effort as hard as he can.
Trump called in a new interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters.
During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
The Times points out that this would be unconstitutional.
Mr. Trump’s remarkable call for a political party to seize the mechanisms of voting follows a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections, as he and his allies continue to make false claims about his 2020 defeat.
Last week, F.B.I. agents seized ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election from an election center in Fulton County, Ga., where his allies have for years pursued false claims of election fraud. The New York Times reported on Monday that Mr. Trump had spoken on the phone to the F.B.I. agents involved in the Fulton County raid, praising and thanking them.
The Justice Department, which has been newly politicized under Mr. Trump, is demanding that numerous states, including Minnesota, turn over their full voter rolls as the Trump administration tries to build a national voter file.
This is all very bad.
In March, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that tried to make significant changes to the electoral process, including requiring documentary proof of citizenship and demanding that all mail ballots be received by the time polls close on Election Day. But that effort has largely been rebuffed by courts.
On social media, Mr. Trump has pushed for even more drastic changes. In August, he wrote that he wanted to end the use of mail-in ballots and potentially the use of voting machines.
Still bad.
That won’t bother Trump. The Constitution is just toilet paper to him. Where it’s concerned, he’s like Humpty Dumpty – it means what he says it means.
Ha! Of course it won’t bother Trump, but it’s useful for us to know what’s what. There’s also the need for constant low-level sarcasm: Trump should of course know what’s constitutional and what isn’t, and pointing out what he doesn’t know or doesn’t give a shit about is always worth doing, however obvious it may be.
“ The Times points out that this would be unconstitutional.”
When you write about the Times or the Post or something, I wish you would say which one (like the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post). I could click and look, but it would cost me a free (un-paywalled) view.
Do what you like of course, it’s your blog, I’m just suggesting.
But you don’t need to click, you can just hover. That’s why I don’t: I assume people will just look at the url if they want to know which Times. I go back and forth on it every time – should I say NYTimes or does it get tedious etc etc.
Hover=place the arrow on the link and the url should appear at the bottom of the page. Let me know if that doesn’t work.
Google AI adds: “To “hover” over a link means to move your mouse cursor over it (without clicking) on a computer or press and hold on a mobile device to see the hidden URL destination”
Yep I can see the link to nytimes without clicking it.
This handy trick of course also applies to online content in general.