With the popularity pendulum swinging back on President Donald Trump, he is ratcheting up his resolute pursuit of sowing public mistrust in our elections, past and future.
Chasing the dubious premise that voting in America is fraught with fraud, except when he wins, the president is displaying the traits of a bull in a China shop to prove his conspiracy instincts.
Insistent, without evidence, that he won the 2020 general election he lost, the pliant FBI recently seized five-year-old ballots and other election materials from Fulton County, Georgia, with a search warrant affidavit alleging probable criminal conduct.
This astonishing fishing mission involved Georgia’s most populous county (much of Atlanta) that helped reject Trump in the state he infamously pressured Republican election officials to find him enough votes to declare victory.
Post-election recounts by machine and then by hand counting confirmed Trump lost Georgia to Joe Biden by 11,000 verified votes. That fateful loss fueled Trump’s attack on the nation’s election system with unproven claims of corruption and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by his supporters.
The FBI’s grab of ballots, voter rolls and voting machine tapes blindsided county and state election officials who certified the 2020 results. They lacked specifics of the affidavit accusations, where the 700 boxes of election records ended up or how the investigative process would unfold.
The FBI swoop naturally raises suspicion and mistrust. A week before the Fulton County foray, the president prejudged the outcome when he told world leaders at Davos, Switzerland, he lost a “rigged” 2020 election and that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
A contentious legal battle is sure to ensue. Fulton County has filed a federal court motion demanding return of the election documents. Democrats consider it more Trump retribution and distraction leading up to the crucial House and Senate midterm elections in November.
It is more than that. Trump wants to extend his legacy far into the future with voter suppression of liberals, especially leftist Democrats. He has stated publicly they are the enemy and he hates his enemies.
His game plan is obvious. Change voting rights laws under the guise of reform by executive order. Key elements include documented proof of citizenship (birth certificate, passport, naturalization papers) to register to vote, strict limits on mail-in ballots, curtail voting machines and demand states submit their voter lists, which contain sensitive private information, to the Department of Justice for review.
Those changes and others are under court challenge based on arguments the Constitution constrains the president’s power to set election rules. That responsibility rests with Congress and the states unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise.
But legal roadblocks haven’t stopped Trump. On Monday, Feb. 2, he unveiled a purely partisan idea that Republicans “take over” federal elections in liberal voting locations he considers rampant with fraud.
“We should take over the voting in at least many, 15 places,” he said. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
The statements were made on a podcast hosted by his former deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino. Trump didn’t back off later when GOP leaders in Congress expressed concern about stripping away states’ rights.
If the courts or the voters don’t rise up against Trump’s ideological contortions of voting rights, there’s reason to believe he will achieve his undisguised goal of remaking the federal government in his authoritarian image over the long haul.
And the 250-year-old Declaration of Independence’s “consent of the governed” will surely wither.