Donald Trump contradicted by his big electoral lie

Photo: Mark Schiefelbein Associated Press Donald Trump visited Washington on Thursday for the first time since the storming of the Capitol to meet Republican parliamentarians and business leaders.

Fabien Deglise

Published at 0:00 Analysis

• United States

This text is taken from the American Election Mail.

From Arizona, last week, during a political rally, former President Donald Trump called on his supporters to deliver him next November “a victory so great that it cannot be not be rigged” by his political opponents.

« Too big to rig “. “Too big to tamper with.” The slogan appeared at the start of the year within his campaign team. And its uses have since multiplied in the speeches of the Republican as well as on the signs waved by his supporters during the high political masses of Trumpism.

The formula, as simple as it is simplistic , seeks to place the lies uttered since 2015 by Donald Trump on the legitimacy of the American electoral process in another semantic field. She also attempts to ward off the perverse effects of his erroneous assertions, which, after having contributed to his rise and the mobilization of his electoral base, could also turn against him.

“It is very likely that the allegations of a rigged election will become counterproductive as the vote approaches next November,” said in an interview with Le DevoirJustin Levitt, who served as Joe Biden’s adviser on democracy and voting rights from 2021 to 2022. “Those who listen to him will continue to do so. At this stage, he should not convince a new segment of the electorate with this, but rather discourage several Republican voters from exercising their right to vote in a system that has been presented to them for years as corrupt, according to him.

Rewriting history

However, the thing does not seem to worry the Republican candidate, who, last Sunday, from Nevada, despite the Dantean heat which accompanied this electoral meeting, put more wood into the hearth of his conspiracy theories on the elections, to convince the voters in this moody state to deliver him a victory. And he did it by rewriting the history of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to prevent the certification of the vote cast a few weeks earlier against him and for Joe Biden. “Victims” of a “frame,” according to him.

“Above all, they were victims of what happened. All they were doing was protesting rigged elections. And then the police told them: “come in, come in, come in, come in,” he said. What a deception it was! A horrible, horrible thing. »

Promoted by several tenors of the American conservative right, the transformation of the failed insurrection of Donald Trump's supporters into a trap orchestrated by the Democrats and a deep state fantasized by the Trumpists is becoming a dominant narrative in the Republican camp, even if it cannot be justified in fact.

Even more ironic, most of those arrested and prosecuted after ransacking the Capitol on January 6 even proudly and publicly admitted to having acted at the behest of the ex-president, to help him and keep him in power due to the climate of mistrust that he built in the aftermath of his 2020 defeat.

There are few reasons for him to change course

“Donald Trump has regularly complained about rigged elections since 2015, and has claimed that the elections he won and the elections he lost were rigged, without providing any proof,” says Justin Levitt, who teaches now studying law at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. We've had nine years of consistency on that front, and I think there's very little reason to expect him to change course now. »

Keeping the Big Lie Alive: The strategy is clear, but now comes with the counterbalance of having Trump supporters “flood » despite everything the polls next November, in his favor. Even if this must highlight the inconsistencies of the populist, who, after having fought advance and postal voting in 2020 – an inexhaustible source of fraud, according to him -, is now seeking to make it one of the cornerstones of his return to the White House.

“We have to overwhelm the vote,” he stressed in Arizona, while referring to a plan developed by the Republican National Committee that aims to encourage early voting among right-wing voters. The latter, compared to the Democrats, appear a little more timid about this way of accessing the polls.

This week, the populist even launched with great fanfare on his social network a recruitment campaign for constituency “captains” responsible for convincing 10 of their neighbors to take advantage of this postal vote. And thus guarantee these votes in view of the presidential election in November.

The Republican Party, now under the rule of Donald Trump and his family, even wishes to use advance ballot collectors, who would collect them directly from citizens, a practice denounced in 2020 by the former president and his surroundings. It was then described as a “harvest” supposed, according to them, to fuel fraud, of which they still say they have been victims.

Between conspiracy and inconsistencies, the declarations and The populist's reversals on electoral fraud and its fabricated vectors have largely tainted public opinion. Earlier this year, a report from the Chicago World Affairs Council found that Americans were far more worried about threats from within the country than those from outside. And among them, the weakening of American democracy has become a major fear, shared by 73% of Republican voters and 73% of Democratic voters, probably for different reasons.

With his lies, Donald Trump “seeks to make himself heard by those who listen to him and convince them to resort to violence to change the government structure”, in the perspective of defeat, warns Mr. Levitt. “These claims continue to be very dangerous. And it is important, to preserve the democratic process, to ensure that the public sees them as lies propagated in a completely transparent manner. »