Grandpa Trump went on Fox and Friends yesterday morning to make a very strange appeal: He told Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade and the rest of the Brain Dead Heads, “My instruction is, we don’t need the votes. We have so many votes…” before breaking into a Breakfast Braggadocio about his support in Florida. “I drove to another location yesterday, and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it, every single house, there’s not a house that we passed that doesn’t…”
Once again, I think you've nailed it. Trump is saying it right there, out in the open. I hope campaign officials are reading your column. I hope Marc Elias is, too. Thank you for raising this now. We have to be ever vigilant, starting NOW.
Jul 27·edited Jul 28Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Agreed. I have been saying all along that the plan from day one has been for the Supreme Court to support Trump's claims of irregularities, and they are laying out the lies that will pave the way for them to hand it to him. Which is why I think we need to focus as much on the courts as the election and force Dick Durbin to do something. He is saying he backs Harris but he can work with Trump. What the hell is that hedge betting attitude? He is not getting a penny from me, and frankly, after months of writing him to take on the Supreme Court and go down on the right side of history, he sent me a stupid letter saying, yada yada yada, I'm doing so much of nothing! He has said he does not support mandatory retirement age, but I did not see him backing Biden when the vultures were going after his age. I don't know what is up with Durbin, but he is letting AOC do all the heavy lifting here. We have to go after Alito and Thomas because that whole house of cards falls apart without them. Personally I would add Roberts to the list, but most people don't. Today Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat was saying in her weekly talk to paying subscribers, that we have to use hope to drive the campaign forward, so we have to make sure that the thought that they will steal our votes, or declare them invalid should not keep us from turning out in big numbers, because that is what authoritarians try to convince you to do.
We absolutely have to turn out HUGE numbers. And all those people will feel a sense of ownership over their votes and the election and will fight for their voice to be heard.
But even before that, we have to be watchful and READY for them! They have never been shy about being underhanded and sneaky—-they’ve been at THAT for literally decades.
Linda,I agree with you on every point. I was a civil rights activist in high school. My inspiration was Black Americans facing the terror of the Klan, and all the other nightmare groups to intimidate them into not voting. Those memories are my inspiration today, in the face of terrible intimidation. Remember when Maggots were showing up in Arizona with guns???? OMG.
My son, a paid canvaser for Democratic candidates and a paid poll worker for several elections, was harassed by an aggressive Republican poll watcher during several elections. He was threatened with arrest and taunted for hours whenever he was working in his official capacity. Eventually he became angry when the Republican poll watcher was permitted to continue her targeted intimidation and decided not to risk a confrontation.
I worked for years as an official election inspector and never faced such onerous intimidation. It is unthinkable that a young poll worker could be so discouraged by persistent baiting at the poll site. He feared for his safety, a young, eager Democrat who was hopeful about having a future in public service. He withdrew from politics and became “a childless cat-person!”
How knows, one day he may find himself in the middle of a real crisis, and be called upon to defend our democracy.
He is absolutely planning on stealing this election, and I believe he thinks the christofascists on the supremely criminal court will support him. We need to be prepared for the worse in November - January. We need to be prepared to take to the streets like we are French!
We need to be able to take to the streets like the French and Russian Revolutions. However, I do not think it should wait that long. All of us should be writing our Democratic Senators, as well as President Biden, to have the Senate impeach these rogue justices, and for the Justice Department to investigate their actions. However, Dick Durbin is sitting on the code of ethics like it is glued to his butt. Join me in writing him. If you need an address to use because you are not in Illinois in his district, you can use this one of a local grocery store, 1528 East 55th Street, Chicago, IL 60615. Dick Durbin is trying to avoid being on Trump's hitlist, and we need to be telling him to stop being Joe Manchin Lite!
I was shocked and surprised but not totally when Jan 6 happened, because I had already written the spring before to the NYT that I thought Trump was going to stage a coup. They did not publish that comment either. I was walking with my friend and her dog each morning and worrying that idea to death. Then, when it happened I had been worried it would be a military coup, and since then have been more appreciative of our military than I ever was. I read a lot of stuff about White Supremacist militias so it makes me concerned about those who train in the US military. Prof. Ben-Ghiat did say when asked about a possible civil war, that the right is armed but the left with Biden still as president has the law enforcement on our side. However, we have dealt with how a rogue SCOTUS will be handled. I personally think the military should arrest and imprison them for the justice department.
I don't think the perpetrator(s) who placed explosive devices at the DNC and the RNC near the U.S. Capitol complex on January 6, 2021, threatening our security were ever identified. Imagine the chaos those explosions would have caused as well as grounds for trump declaring martial law. I thought that was his plan from the beginning.
Don’t forget that Bden will still be president and will be prepared for them. FBI Director Wray has testified that domestic terrorism is a major threat and has also explicitly called Jan 6 a domestic terror attack so he will not ignore the threat either even though he is a Republican.
I think you're right. He's paving the way for another election steal accusation. He's getting his people convinced that there are so many millions who support him, who love him unconditionally, that he is chosen by god as his miraculous survival has just proved, to the point where if he is declared the loser after the votes are counted in November it's obviously another stolen election. He's a sick and extremely dangerous man who will stop at nothing to assume power, because his mental illness has completely deranged him to the point where he can't survive without adoration. His handlers know how sick he is, and how his cult will obey him. They are using him to get power for themselves.
Just started reading Joe Conason’s new book “The Long Con”. What is happening isn’t the result of a temporary aberration or one person’s mental illness of a decades-long, organized, well-funded far right movement to take over our government. That is far more dangerous than anything the idiot Trump could ever do on his own.
Thank you for breaking glass. You are one of the very, very few who publicly try to alert Ds to the range of sabotage being orchestrated by Rs. One fear is that people will wake up to another coup that only "looks" different. There's no crying wolf here.
I'm in Florida. Rest assured that as dumbed down as this screwball state's population has become with its long term attack on education, there are VERY FEW Trump signs and bumper stickers on display. Far less than in '16 or '20.
He's become an embarrassment to publicly support which would tie them to the racist ignorance of the Proudies and the inane garbled vomit flowing out of the clown's mouth.
It was fun to be part of a disruptive party, but only the truly fooled would be caught live at a Trump rally at this point.
Over the years signs have been quietly removed from yards. It's obvious where the bumper stickers were scraped off. Trump's become an embarrassment and it's the rare Trumpian that makes it publicly known any more, although it's uncanny how easy they are to spot nonetheless. The disgruntled Fox Frowns and the sour guarded selfish demeanor tend to be dead giveaways.
God, I hope you're right, Ralph. I'm a former lifetime Floridian who left the state in part because of the Maggots that were moving there from all over the country.
This utterly dangerous and dodgy character has such a record of telegraphing his crimes in advance.
When he picked the other sofa guy to be his running mate, my first thought was that he was confident he had the fix in with “his” judges, legislators etc…. so doesn’t think he has to worry about anything as silly as actually winning the election through votes.
This is exactly what we have to protect ourselves against.
Yeah. He has the $SCROTUS$$ in his back pocket.He is worry-free about how they will rule in any case that involves him or his family.We The People need to overwhelm this criminal traitor at the ballot box so that there can be no doubt whatsoever whose side the democracy loving citizens of our great country are on.
I've been wondering about this sort of thing for a while. He's barely campaigning. Says he doesn't need the votes. It's in the bag? But it's hard to know how much is his narcissist braggart self and how much has a nugget of truth. Biden stepping aside has shaken him, however, and Kamala has gotten inside his head.
Yes, it's the aftermath that is worrisome. Nothing is assured for him, however. Kamala makes it easier to win decisively, which is what we need to happen to make the inevitable lawsuits harder to promote in the justice system.
I think you're right. The worst part is you get a circus clown for a villain. Let's hope he does a 'Falling Wallenda' at the ballot box, in a way that he cannot circumvent.
It may require calling in the military. I hope the Dems have the cajones to do it.
We need to be prepared 100%! Hopefully, he will receive a good sentence on September 18! He is being treated like he is above the law and he is not! F__CK SCOTUS!
It's all so weird. I don't know why he isn't in jail yet. It's like there's 2 sets of rules. One, for people who are inclined to obey the law and the other for the wealthy.
It could be that a chill has fallen on the judiciary already, for their own sense of safety, but also, because nobody in that position wants to be the one who triggers major civil unrest.
It's astonishing, and now so easy to see how the Nazis managed to pull it off.
I hope somebody in the Harris campaign is paying attention to this because sure as hell they'll be trying to "improve" and "expand" on what they tried to pull in 2020.
Doesn’t the new congress begin on Jan 1? If the dems get a commanding majority then sending the vote to the house would favor the democratic candidate, wouldn’t it?
Looks like the new Congressional Term would start on Jan 3rd so yes let's hope for a blue wave so that Mike "Rubber Spine" Johnson isn't the Speaker for certification
This has been very smelly for a while. Do Dem campaign officials have a clue? Anyone talking to the Dem Sec of State folks? The Heritage Foundation has already, a while ago, said the 2024 election is fraudulent. Is this their projection? They are the ones doing the fraud. Heritage has been loud about this.
But it will be difficult to argue when Vice President Harris wins by 12,000,000 votes. I said it. Twelve million.It will be the biggest win in the history of presidential elections.
Bingo. Trump, who tends to telegraph his intentions, has had four years to pull together the operation he needs to thumb-scale E2024. We are looking at just two realistic possibilities for post-Nov. 5: 1) Trump wins outright; 2) Trump loses and launches Stop the Steal on Steroids, a blitz for which I suspect neither election officials nor Democrats (pace Marc Elias) will be prepared.
Lucian, keep sounding the alarm. You’re absolutely right that it already smells very bad. *Rump and the MAGA Rethugs are making no bones about their intent to challenge the election as fraudulent, once again, and again without any real evidence to back it up. This time they are planning in depth, and the chaos I foresee after November will make what happened in 2020-21 look like a tea party. I am concerned that Harris as the winning candidate is eligible to also preside over the Jan. 6 certification as the sitting Vice-President, and the President-elect. That, it seems to me, is an opening for *Rump, etal., to run to SCOTUS on some basis claiming a conflict of interest. I yield to the lawyers here to weigh in on this possibility, which might be the mechanism for our corrupt SCOTUS to throw the election into the House, and therefore to *Rump. I suppose Harris could voluntarily decline to preside, but then who would? I think, one way or another, MAGA is going to provoke a constitutional crisis, which could override both the popular and electoral college vote. There are others here far cleverer than I who can imagine other scenarios and schemes to frustrate the will of the voters. I think it’s worth airing them all - not to paint the devil on the wall - but to be ready for what the unscrupulous fascist anti-democracy crowd is more than likely to pull. I would hope the Democrats are prepared in depth for what I think looms before us. It would be foolish to believe otherwise.
We also need to get the public informed as to the GOP plans to steal this election. If Americans are keyed up to EXPECT shenanigans, it may be harder to pull off. Forwarding Mr Truscott's post through your contacts would be a start.
You'd only get to COI questions & issues if the VP's role entailed putting together something far beyond just counting the Electoral College results and verifying who won. Even then you would have to show palpable conflicts generated by what the Vice-President was charged with doing, so it would remain a difficult lift.
The GOP's trickeration has to lock in before we reach that point - January 6 - in the normal process. They have to have full-on disruption cloaked in legalities before that date.
Yes, I agree with gildedtwig and probably others. We need to protect the electors and watch out again for January 6!
I just came home from seeing a new play at Lincoln Center called N/A about Nancy Pelosi and AOC! It's very powerful and if you live in NYC or nearby, I urge you to see it. It's in previews and I saw it through TDF for only $37! It was fabulous and very strong!
Once again, I think you've nailed it. Trump is saying it right there, out in the open. I hope campaign officials are reading your column. I hope Marc Elias is, too. Thank you for raising this now. We have to be ever vigilant, starting NOW.
Agreed. I have been saying all along that the plan from day one has been for the Supreme Court to support Trump's claims of irregularities, and they are laying out the lies that will pave the way for them to hand it to him. Which is why I think we need to focus as much on the courts as the election and force Dick Durbin to do something. He is saying he backs Harris but he can work with Trump. What the hell is that hedge betting attitude? He is not getting a penny from me, and frankly, after months of writing him to take on the Supreme Court and go down on the right side of history, he sent me a stupid letter saying, yada yada yada, I'm doing so much of nothing! He has said he does not support mandatory retirement age, but I did not see him backing Biden when the vultures were going after his age. I don't know what is up with Durbin, but he is letting AOC do all the heavy lifting here. We have to go after Alito and Thomas because that whole house of cards falls apart without them. Personally I would add Roberts to the list, but most people don't. Today Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat was saying in her weekly talk to paying subscribers, that we have to use hope to drive the campaign forward, so we have to make sure that the thought that they will steal our votes, or declare them invalid should not keep us from turning out in big numbers, because that is what authoritarians try to convince you to do.
We absolutely have to turn out HUGE numbers. And all those people will feel a sense of ownership over their votes and the election and will fight for their voice to be heard.
But even before that, we have to be watchful and READY for them! They have never been shy about being underhanded and sneaky—-they’ve been at THAT for literally decades.
Linda,I agree with you on every point. I was a civil rights activist in high school. My inspiration was Black Americans facing the terror of the Klan, and all the other nightmare groups to intimidate them into not voting. Those memories are my inspiration today, in the face of terrible intimidation. Remember when Maggots were showing up in Arizona with guns???? OMG.
My son, a paid canvaser for Democratic candidates and a paid poll worker for several elections, was harassed by an aggressive Republican poll watcher during several elections. He was threatened with arrest and taunted for hours whenever he was working in his official capacity. Eventually he became angry when the Republican poll watcher was permitted to continue her targeted intimidation and decided not to risk a confrontation.
I worked for years as an official election inspector and never faced such onerous intimidation. It is unthinkable that a young poll worker could be so discouraged by persistent baiting at the poll site. He feared for his safety, a young, eager Democrat who was hopeful about having a future in public service. He withdrew from politics and became “a childless cat-person!”
How knows, one day he may find himself in the middle of a real crisis, and be called upon to defend our democracy.
He is absolutely planning on stealing this election, and I believe he thinks the christofascists on the supremely criminal court will support him. We need to be prepared for the worse in November - January. We need to be prepared to take to the streets like we are French!
We need to be able to take to the streets like the French and Russian Revolutions. However, I do not think it should wait that long. All of us should be writing our Democratic Senators, as well as President Biden, to have the Senate impeach these rogue justices, and for the Justice Department to investigate their actions. However, Dick Durbin is sitting on the code of ethics like it is glued to his butt. Join me in writing him. If you need an address to use because you are not in Illinois in his district, you can use this one of a local grocery store, 1528 East 55th Street, Chicago, IL 60615. Dick Durbin is trying to avoid being on Trump's hitlist, and we need to be telling him to stop being Joe Manchin Lite!
If anyone communicates with Marc, please share this with him.
“We don’t need the votes.”
He always projects.
We have been warned.
I was shocked and surprised but not totally when Jan 6 happened, because I had already written the spring before to the NYT that I thought Trump was going to stage a coup. They did not publish that comment either. I was walking with my friend and her dog each morning and worrying that idea to death. Then, when it happened I had been worried it would be a military coup, and since then have been more appreciative of our military than I ever was. I read a lot of stuff about White Supremacist militias so it makes me concerned about those who train in the US military. Prof. Ben-Ghiat did say when asked about a possible civil war, that the right is armed but the left with Biden still as president has the law enforcement on our side. However, we have dealt with how a rogue SCOTUS will be handled. I personally think the military should arrest and imprison them for the justice department.
I don't think the perpetrator(s) who placed explosive devices at the DNC and the RNC near the U.S. Capitol complex on January 6, 2021, threatening our security were ever identified. Imagine the chaos those explosions would have caused as well as grounds for trump declaring martial law. I thought that was his plan from the beginning.
Don’t forget that Bden will still be president and will be prepared for them. FBI Director Wray has testified that domestic terrorism is a major threat and has also explicitly called Jan 6 a domestic terror attack so he will not ignore the threat either even though he is a Republican.
I think you're right. He's paving the way for another election steal accusation. He's getting his people convinced that there are so many millions who support him, who love him unconditionally, that he is chosen by god as his miraculous survival has just proved, to the point where if he is declared the loser after the votes are counted in November it's obviously another stolen election. He's a sick and extremely dangerous man who will stop at nothing to assume power, because his mental illness has completely deranged him to the point where he can't survive without adoration. His handlers know how sick he is, and how his cult will obey him. They are using him to get power for themselves.
All true.
The whole f...ing WORLD is being held hostage to a mental illness.
Just started reading Joe Conason’s new book “The Long Con”. What is happening isn’t the result of a temporary aberration or one person’s mental illness of a decades-long, organized, well-funded far right movement to take over our government. That is far more dangerous than anything the idiot Trump could ever do on his own.
And right wing danger won't go away after just one election. In fact it will NEVER go away.
Bingo
Thank you for breaking glass. You are one of the very, very few who publicly try to alert Ds to the range of sabotage being orchestrated by Rs. One fear is that people will wake up to another coup that only "looks" different. There's no crying wolf here.
I'm in Florida. Rest assured that as dumbed down as this screwball state's population has become with its long term attack on education, there are VERY FEW Trump signs and bumper stickers on display. Far less than in '16 or '20.
He's become an embarrassment to publicly support which would tie them to the racist ignorance of the Proudies and the inane garbled vomit flowing out of the clown's mouth.
It was fun to be part of a disruptive party, but only the truly fooled would be caught live at a Trump rally at this point.
Over the years signs have been quietly removed from yards. It's obvious where the bumper stickers were scraped off. Trump's become an embarrassment and it's the rare Trumpian that makes it publicly known any more, although it's uncanny how easy they are to spot nonetheless. The disgruntled Fox Frowns and the sour guarded selfish demeanor tend to be dead giveaways.
God, I hope you're right, Ralph. I'm a former lifetime Floridian who left the state in part because of the Maggots that were moving there from all over the country.
Good move Stan. The state is certainly depressingly infested with ignorance.
I'm really glad to hear this. I live in a reddish area of Southern California and I see almost no Trump anything anymore. I hope this is indicative.
Lucian, you articulate well what we all suppose.
This utterly dangerous and dodgy character has such a record of telegraphing his crimes in advance.
When he picked the other sofa guy to be his running mate, my first thought was that he was confident he had the fix in with “his” judges, legislators etc…. so doesn’t think he has to worry about anything as silly as actually winning the election through votes.
This is exactly what we have to protect ourselves against.
So that's why he's spending his time hitting golf balls instead of campaigning!
Yeah. He has the $SCROTUS$$ in his back pocket.He is worry-free about how they will rule in any case that involves him or his family.We The People need to overwhelm this criminal traitor at the ballot box so that there can be no doubt whatsoever whose side the democracy loving citizens of our great country are on.
Hitting golf balls and blathering about sharks, electric boats and "Hannibal" at the lectern.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who officiates the Presidential inauguration, has told him he already has the votes.
Six Supreme Court Justice votes.
We're all screwed.
I've been wondering about this sort of thing for a while. He's barely campaigning. Says he doesn't need the votes. It's in the bag? But it's hard to know how much is his narcissist braggart self and how much has a nugget of truth. Biden stepping aside has shaken him, however, and Kamala has gotten inside his head.
Think Trump cares one whit that America is giddy with pride and relief now that Kamala's lead is growing?
America, this isn’t over after all the votes have been counted. After Kamala wins the popular vote and the Electoral College, then the games begin.
Yes, it's the aftermath that is worrisome. Nothing is assured for him, however. Kamala makes it easier to win decisively, which is what we need to happen to make the inevitable lawsuits harder to promote in the justice system.
You right something stupid this way comes. How to get your suggestion to the campaign? Forwarding this.
Me too.
I think you're right. The worst part is you get a circus clown for a villain. Let's hope he does a 'Falling Wallenda' at the ballot box, in a way that he cannot circumvent.
It may require calling in the military. I hope the Dems have the cajones to do it.
We need to be prepared 100%! Hopefully, he will receive a good sentence on September 18! He is being treated like he is above the law and he is not! F__CK SCOTUS!
It's all so weird. I don't know why he isn't in jail yet. It's like there's 2 sets of rules. One, for people who are inclined to obey the law and the other for the wealthy.
It could be that a chill has fallen on the judiciary already, for their own sense of safety, but also, because nobody in that position wants to be the one who triggers major civil unrest.
It's astonishing, and now so easy to see how the Nazis managed to pull it off.
I hope somebody in the Harris campaign is paying attention to this because sure as hell they'll be trying to "improve" and "expand" on what they tried to pull in 2020.
Doesn’t the new congress begin on Jan 1? If the dems get a commanding majority then sending the vote to the house would favor the democratic candidate, wouldn’t it?
Looks like the new Congressional Term would start on Jan 3rd so yes let's hope for a blue wave so that Mike "Rubber Spine" Johnson isn't the Speaker for certification
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
The contingent election process in the House is based on state delegations, not overall party control.
This has been very smelly for a while. Do Dem campaign officials have a clue? Anyone talking to the Dem Sec of State folks? The Heritage Foundation has already, a while ago, said the 2024 election is fraudulent. Is this their projection? They are the ones doing the fraud. Heritage has been loud about this.
Fishy like a Putin infused shark.
The magas will try something for sure.
But it will be difficult to argue when Vice President Harris wins by 12,000,000 votes. I said it. Twelve million.It will be the biggest win in the history of presidential elections.
Bingo. Trump, who tends to telegraph his intentions, has had four years to pull together the operation he needs to thumb-scale E2024. We are looking at just two realistic possibilities for post-Nov. 5: 1) Trump wins outright; 2) Trump loses and launches Stop the Steal on Steroids, a blitz for which I suspect neither election officials nor Democrats (pace Marc Elias) will be prepared.
Here are a few supportive analyses for anyone trying to game it out: 1) https://whowhatwhy.org/elections/election-2024-what-if-they-take-it-to-the-house/; 2) https://codered2014.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/TheRealSteal-IntroAnalysisCombinedUpdated-js8_WWW-2.pdf; 3) https://www.amazon.com/CODE-RED-Computerized-Elections-Democracy-ebook/dp/B087L8PWZP/ref.
Lucian, keep sounding the alarm. You’re absolutely right that it already smells very bad. *Rump and the MAGA Rethugs are making no bones about their intent to challenge the election as fraudulent, once again, and again without any real evidence to back it up. This time they are planning in depth, and the chaos I foresee after November will make what happened in 2020-21 look like a tea party. I am concerned that Harris as the winning candidate is eligible to also preside over the Jan. 6 certification as the sitting Vice-President, and the President-elect. That, it seems to me, is an opening for *Rump, etal., to run to SCOTUS on some basis claiming a conflict of interest. I yield to the lawyers here to weigh in on this possibility, which might be the mechanism for our corrupt SCOTUS to throw the election into the House, and therefore to *Rump. I suppose Harris could voluntarily decline to preside, but then who would? I think, one way or another, MAGA is going to provoke a constitutional crisis, which could override both the popular and electoral college vote. There are others here far cleverer than I who can imagine other scenarios and schemes to frustrate the will of the voters. I think it’s worth airing them all - not to paint the devil on the wall - but to be ready for what the unscrupulous fascist anti-democracy crowd is more than likely to pull. I would hope the Democrats are prepared in depth for what I think looms before us. It would be foolish to believe otherwise.
We also need to get the public informed as to the GOP plans to steal this election. If Americans are keyed up to EXPECT shenanigans, it may be harder to pull off. Forwarding Mr Truscott's post through your contacts would be a start.
You'd only get to COI questions & issues if the VP's role entailed putting together something far beyond just counting the Electoral College results and verifying who won. Even then you would have to show palpable conflicts generated by what the Vice-President was charged with doing, so it would remain a difficult lift.
The GOP's trickeration has to lock in before we reach that point - January 6 - in the normal process. They have to have full-on disruption cloaked in legalities before that date.
Yes, I agree with gildedtwig and probably others. We need to protect the electors and watch out again for January 6!
I just came home from seeing a new play at Lincoln Center called N/A about Nancy Pelosi and AOC! It's very powerful and if you live in NYC or nearby, I urge you to see it. It's in previews and I saw it through TDF for only $37! It was fabulous and very strong!