No, Donald Trump, the Election Is Not Rigged

GOOD GRIEF THE PRESIDENT ACTUALLY HAD TO SAY THIS YESTERDAY.

Obama pushes back on Trump's comments: "Of course the elections will not be rigged. What does that mean?" https://t.co/z9v1h6howF

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 4, 2016

Of course the elections will not be rigged! What does that mean?! The federal government doesn't run the election process. States and cities and communities all across the country—they're the ones who set up the voting systems and the voting booths, and, if Mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a conspiracy theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places like Texas, where typically it's not Democrats who are in charge of voting booths, that's ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense. And I don't think anybody would take that seriously.

President Obama added that, naturally, the federal government takes seriously "our responsibilities to monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process," and responds when there are indications that voting machines are vulnerable to hacking, or when jurisdictions are disenfranchising voters. But that's the extent of the federal government's involvement in elections. Which Donald Trump doesn't appear to know. Like everything else about how government works.

President Obama also added: "I think all of us at some point in our life have played sports, or maybe just played in a schoolyard or a sand box, and sometimes folks, if they lose, they start complaining they got cheated. But I have never heard of someone complaining of cheating before the score is tallied. My suggestion would be, you know, go out there and try to win the election." OH SNAP!

Snarky POTUS is my favorite POTUS.

Meanwhile, as LOLGOP reminds us at Electablog, "Republicans were trying to steal this election and the courts stopped them" with, as Ari Berman details, "six major decisions against GOP-backed voting restrictions in five different states" in the last ten days.

Like I keep saying: Once you realize everything Donald Trump says is projection, it all makes so much more sense! It's his party that was trying to rig the election, by disenfranchising people who disproportionately vote for Democrats. And the GOP's shitty shenanigans were, thankfully, denied.

But of course all Trump can do to try to explain why he's currently losing and will definitely lose on Election Day, by possibly historic margins, is promulgate some conspiracy bullshit about rigged elections.

Because he can't imagine any other reason he could be losing. Not when he's got cheering crowds everywhere he goes! The polls must be rigged! The election will be rigged! How else could he be losing when he's got TREMENDOUS CROWDS?

For someone who's weirdly obsessed with Bernie Sanders, you'd think he'd have noticed that large crowds don't necessarily translate into electoral victory.

Then again, he thinks it was "rigged" against Bernie, too. And also: Trump doesn't seem big on learning lessons, even the most obvious ones.