Trump’s authoritarian midterm tactics

After President Trump’s July 16 address exaggerating U.S. election vulnerabilities to foreign operators, Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) was sharply critical. Warner called it “a whole series of falsehoods, accusations, I believe aimed at trying to undermine America’s confidence in our system.”

With November’s midterm elections fast approaching, Trump is driven by desperation, fearing that Republicans could lose control of the House and possibly the Senate. Therefore, anticipating misleading statements in his Oval Office speech, ABC, NBC, and CNN refused to cover it live. They are now facing authoritarian-like threats in the form of “future broadcast license proceedings.”

Along with a desire to quash dissent, Trump’s disinformation campaign mirrors a strongman’s playbook. Citing unverified data on noncitizens voting, the president made a sweeping, unsubstantiated claim, saying, “These disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible.” (Note that even in New Jersey, where 6,600 non-citizens were recently found to have registered to vote, only 400 of them actually cast ballots.)

Trump’s bombastic stance is undercut by his own two presidential election victories and one loss. Consider that in 2016, Donald Trump lost the national popular vote while carrying the Electoral College. Although it is an unpopular way to win, it proved that our system abides by the Constitution. Moreover, because elections are decentralized and state-run, our voting system is less vulnerable to widespread tampering.

Then, in 2020, for legitimate political reasons, Trump lost re-election. Despite his refusal to concede, which helped spark the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,........

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