Trump Suggests the Midterms Will Be Compromised

On the night of the 2016 election, when the horrendous result became clear, one of the friends who was at my house that night sighed heavily and said, "Well, we'll just have to win back the House and Senate in 2018." To which I replied, "If we still have free and fair elections in 2018."

Her face dropped; she had not even contemplated that possibility. "Do you think that's possible?!" she exclaimed. I told her it could be; that after a year and a half of covering Donald Trump, I believed him to be a dangerous authoritarian who would not cede power easily — and whose power grab would be abetted by Congressional Republicans.

What I didn't tell her is that I did not just think it was possible; I thought it was likely.

Now, it is a virtual certainty that we will not have free and fair midterm elections. There is no doubt, except that which has been manufactured by disloyal scoundrels, that Russia interfered in the 2016 election — and, having suffered no consequences for that act of war on our democracy, they will absolutely interfere again.

At the same time, the Republican Party has continued to fight against any effort to undercut their attempts at gerrymandering and voter suppression, has refused to ensure election accountability with paper receipts, and has ignored calls for serious audits of electronic voting machines to ensure that they have not been compromised.

This morning, Donald Trump's morning tweetshitz contained this doozy:

The 13 Angry Democrats (plus people who worked 8 years for Obama) working on the rigged Russia Witch Hunt, will be MEDDLING with the mid-term elections, especially now that Republicans (stay tough!) are taking the lead in Polls. There was no Collusion, except by the Democrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2018

It's widely acknowledged that Trump speaks in projection. We should all be very concerned that he's telegraphing what his party is inviting during the midterm elections: "MEDDLING." Which should be obvious enough, anyway, by his failure to address meddling in the last election. https://t.co/7WVtdqy9tA

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 29, 2018

Let me be perfectly clear: I am categorically not saying that voting doesn't matter anymore. To the absolute contrary, I am saying that it is more important than ever — that progressives have to turn out the vote so overwhelmingly that it would be absurd to imagine that the Republicans could have won.

The best hope we have of overcoming the imminent attacks on the midterm elections is to make sure that even remotely winnable races aren't even close. We have to make every race a blowout.

That isn't going to be easy, but there isn't going to be a "blue tsunami" without an ocean of voters to overwhelm the attempts to defeat us outside the ballot box.

Get ready to get out the vote. The president has signaled his intent to cheat. We had better steel ourselves for the hard work it's going to take this fall to thwart him and the forces with whom he'll be colluding. Again.