Donald Trump’s cries of “voter fraud” date back to 2016, and back then it wasn’t the Democrats he was accusing of breaking the law. When Trump lost the Iowa caucus to fellow Republican Ted Cruz, he immediately cried voter fraud. He said Cruz cheated. He said, “Cruz did not win Iowa. He stole it.”
Pretty familiar words, aren’t they? Keywords like “fraud”, “cheated”, and “stole” have been conveniently recycled in Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud by Democrats in the 2020 election.
You could go back even further. In 2012, Trump endorsed Republican Mitt Romney for President. When Romney lost to Democrat Barack Obama, Trump proclaimed that the only reason President Obama won was because of “voting machines switching Romney votes to Obama.”
Again, the words sound familiar. For his staggering loss in 2020, Trump has claimed that voting machines switched votes for him to winner Joe Biden. Somehow the plot to defeat Trump was masterminded by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, despite the fact that Chavez died in 2013.
Not only was team Trump unable to provide any factual evidence of voting machines switching votes, voting equipment manufactures Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic have filed multi-billion-dollar defamation lawsuits against those who perpetuated Trump’s lies. These include Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, Trump cult member Mike Lindell, as well as far right-wing media outlets Fox News, Newsmax, and One American News (OAN).
Team Trump filed over 60 lawsuits to overturn the results of the 2020 elections yet was unable to provide any evidence and saw them dismissed. In fact, in almost every case Trump’s lawyers like Linda Kerns specifically admitted they couldn’t proceed with allegations of fraud. They had no evidence, and as attorneys they couldn’t claim to in court. They could outside court in press conferences. But not in the court in front of a judge. Giuliani, who did make such baseless accusations in court, has had his law license suspended in District of Columbia and New York.
Back in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton, a seasoned politician, squared off against Republican Trump, a failed businessman turned reality TV show personality. Trump, it’s been well documented, had Russian money and strategists backing his campaign with unprecedented disinformation campaigns.
As the votes started coming in on election night, signs started to suggest a Clinton win. Team Trump began to stoke the rumors of the election being rigged. Trump himself made multiple accusations of voter fraud including “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD.”
When Trump won the electoral college despite losing the popular vote by 3 million, he stopped saying the election was a fraud. Funny how that happens. Instead, he proclaimed himself a genius for having strategized to win the electoral college. But that didn’t last long.
Losing the popular vote so drastically ate at Trump’s bloated ego. So, he did what Trump always does, he lied. Trump proclaimed that he had actually won the popular vote because the only people who voted for Clinton were illegal immigrants voting unlawfully. In other words, “voter fraud.” No evidence. Just baseless lies to feed Trump’s ego.
So, when Trump started to cry “voter fraud” after losing the 2020 election, it came with little surprise.
Trump telegraphed that he was going to cry voter fraud in the 2020 election long before he did it. He trailed for months in every legitimate poll. Even far-right propaganda machine Fox News had Trump trailing badly in the polls. So, Trump started saying he would only accept the results of the election if he won.
As the polls predicted, President Biden won the 2020 election by a huge margin – over 7 million votes. What Trump fails to realize is how widely hated he is. Of the over 80 million people who voted for Biden, a majority weren’t voting for Biden so much as voting against Trump. While there are those who drink the Trump Kool-Aid and buy into his lies and fly flags with his name on them, most of the world see him as a bumbling narcissistic criminal with an extremely low IQ. He is, as the elections have shown, a loser.
In response to Trump’s baseless lies about widespread voter fraud, his own Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency released a statement that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
The statement continued, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
And yet, Republicans in Congress have spit in the face of factual evidence and embraced Trump’s lies. They continue to perpetuate information they know is blatantly false.
Of course, the lack of evidence of any widespread voter fraud doesn’t mean there weren’t isolated cases. What’s interesting is that every case that has been discovered has been Republicans committing voter fraud.
Case in point, in February a Trump supporter in Wisconsin who was complaining of voter fraud in the 2020 election was charged with voter fraud for registering to vote with a PO Box address. In Florida, three residents of The Villages (Joan Halstead, Jay Ketcik and John Rider) are facing charges of casting multiple votes for Trump. There are isolated cases like this of Republicans breaking voting laws across the country.
Now Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, one of the loudest voices perpetuating Trump’s voter fraud lies, is under investigation for voter fraud himself. For his voter registration Meadows lists a rented a single-wide mobile home in Macon County, North Carolina as his primary residence. However not only does Meadows not live in the mobile home, neighbors indicate he has never even visited the property.
So, what’s the truth? The truth is that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by 7 million votes. The truth is there is no evidence of Hugo Chavez or Italian satellites changing votes. The truth is the only evidence of voter fraud is isolated cases committed by Republicans including Mark Meadows.
Yet Trump’s lies about the election and the endorsement of those lies by prominent Republicans in Congress has translated to two-thirds of Republicans have been brainwashed into thinking President Biden’s election is somehow illegitimate. That’s a sad statement about the respective IQs of those who believe the lies because the facts are very clear. The fact is: Trump lost. The fact is: Trump is a loser.
Peace. Love. Trust.
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