October 11, 2016
If you’re anything like me, you’re totally sick of hearing Donald Trump whine about those conniving liberals plotting to illegally stop him from winning the presidency. This, because he’s perpetuating a myth with the sole intention of riling up his already hostile fan-boy network.
It’s difficult to guess how many times he’s done so during the campaign, when every day brings a previously unimaginable narrative shift. When his media emissary Sean Hannity took that tenuous case to his Fox News audience, Republican-cum-independent election inspector Ryan Godfrey curb-stomped the paranoid theories on social media.
That lesson went unlearned, apparently, as facts trail fallacies in the race for the White House.
In the wake of a poll that has him trailing by 12 points in Pennsylvania, Trump again did what he does best: Deflect personal responsibility to blame others for his obvious-to-everybody-else shortcomings.
Let’s break down this latest quote which comes from a Monday night event in Wilkes-Barre. It starts off passively enough.
"Honestly, folks, you know I went to school in Philadelphia and I love Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia and I hope we're going to do great in Philadelphia."
Hey Donald, we’re happy you love Philadelphia. You do realize it’s a very different place today than it was in 1968, though, right? And you’re aware that, more likely than not, you will not do as great in 2016 as you would have in the city’s billy-club-in-the-cummerbund era, though, right?
"I went to school there. I love the school."
Yes, we know. You just said that. But apparently you weren’t everything you cracked yourself up to be at Wharton.
"I loved everything but I just hear such reports about Philadelphia. And we have to make sure we're protected. We have to make sure the people of Philadelphia are protected – that the vote counts are 100 percent."
Yes. That’s what we strive to do here, in a city that doesn’t need to tilt the playing field to rack up Democratic votes.
You haven't made many election worker friends in Philly, @realDonaldTrump, but we'll make sure every last vote for you is counted honestly.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) October 11, 2016
We monitored polls for @Committeeof70 the last time fraud was claimed. Saw 1 illegal sign stating ID was req and 1 minor issue. No stealing. https://t.co/7NJovG305O
— Ari Friedman (@AriBFriedman) October 11, 2016
The candidate continued:
"Everybody wants that, but I hear these horror shows. I hear these horror shows and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from us."
By "horror shows," you mean disproven or outright fictional allegations, right?
Like how the local Republican party “debunks revived 2012 election conspiracy theory."
Or how state officials admitted “there is no voter fraud problem” in Pennsylvania.
"And everybody knows what I'm talking about."
Yes, yes we do.
In saying “other communities,” you mean “communities that aren’t as white as my base’s homeland.”
And in wink-nodding that “everybody knows what I’m talking about,” you’re admitting that your feeble-minded backup dancers are hard-wired to think minorities lie, cheat and steal to keep the welfare gravy train rolling.
What you’re talking about is stoking racial animosity amongst your rage-wired supporters against the biggest city in what’s considered something of a battleground state.
What you’re doing is setting the stage for, at best, voter intimidation by your lil Election Observer minions and, at worst, Election Day violence. (If they have the balls to show up in Philly’s African-American neighborhoods on Nov. 8, that is.)
It's galling that, four weeks out from Election Day, a major-party candidate focuses less on finding a path to victory than setting the stage for an "I didn't really lose" concession speech that does nothing of the sort.
This tenor of this campaign, in which truth gets relegated to steerage on the fabrication express, has already damaged the nation's fabric.
By arming supporters with the delusion that "others" are hard at work to cheat them out of what's not-rightfully theirs, Trump has cannonballed into a tank of bilge liquid.
He doesn't care about the future of the country. Nope. He cares about counterpunching affronts that exist only in his scrambled, sniffling mind. He doesn't care as much about what kind of president he'd be, but only that he'd be able to say he won.
The blame for any scuffles at Philadelphia polling places will rest squarely at his bone-spur supporting feet.
What Donald Trump's doing is dangerous. To let it go unchallenged is to be complicit in the erosion of the rule of election law. The only people being cheated here are Americans who expected their presidential candidates to live in a world of reality, not separatist fear-mongering for personal gain.
