I Remain Very Worried About the Midterms

[Previously: Trump Suggests the Midterms Will Be Compromised, I Am Very Worried About the Midterms, and I Am (Still) Very Worried About the Midterms.]

Donald Trump is relentlessly hammering the idea that the Republicans are going to prevail in the midterms. The polls are wrong. The Republicans are fired up. The election is going to be a referendum on Kavanaugh and immigration. He relentlessly tells lies about the caravan of refugees headed for the southern border, including that they are being funded by Democrats and will illegally vote in the midterm election.

He is reportedly fixing to question the integrity of the midterms if Democrats win, preparing to "throw legal challenges into the courts, sow confusion, declare a victory actually, and say that the election's been illegitimate — that is really under discussion in the White House."

Sitting members of the Republican Party are helping him lay the groundwork, creating the expectation of a GOP win and preparing to line up behind whatever democracy-killing maneuvers he deploys in case of a loss.

The Republicans' various propaganda outlets — Fox, Breitbart, etc. — are endorsing and amplifying all of this mendacious noise.

And now the mainstream political press is falling in line.

To wit, this AP article, headlined "Senate Slipping Away as Dems Fight to Preserve Blue Wave," opens thus: "In the closing stretch of the 2018 campaign, the question is no longer the size of the Democratic wave. It's whether there will be a wave at all."

The entire piece is rank propaganda for the Trump Regime. Take this, for instance: "Republican lawmakers are increasingly optimistic, in part because of Trump's recent performance as the GOP's campaigner in chief. Republicans say the often-volatile president has been surprisingly on-message during his campaign events, touting the strong economy and doubling down on the Kavanaugh fight to promote his efforts to fill courts with conservative jurists."

This is straight-up horseshit. Trump has not been "surprisingly on-message" at his fascistic rallies. He's been his usual rambling self, going off on bigoted, self-aggrandizing, and variously vile tangents as always, in between vaingloriously basking in the echo of "Lock her up!" chants and declaring himself a "nationalist."

Trump is only "on-message" so much as he can never be off-message, as far as his cultists are concerned. They lap up whatever he says, because he is an effective fear-monger and validator of their sundry resentments.

The Republicans continue to do everything they can to undermine free and fair elections, and that includes creating noise about how they are likely to win — while simultaneously either actively colluding with Russia to steal the election or passively colluding by failing to enact consequences for previous interference — and implying that if they lose it will indicate election rigging.

As opposed to the other way around.

And a significant portion of the political press is helping them transmit these messages.

I am worried that the midterms are not going to be free of interference, even beyond the usual Republican efforts at voter suppression and disenfranchisement.

I am worried that, even if they are free of additional interference, the Trump Regime and the rest of the Republican Party will claim that they weren't in order to further subvert our democracy.

I am worried about the political press' inclination to help them destroy our democracy.

I am worried that we are going to lose, even if we win.