Some Democrats say his comments, directed at a Christian audience, signaled his plans to be a dictator. His campaign says he was talking about ‘uniting’ the country, and experts point to his ‘deliberately ambiguous’ speaking style.
Democratic lawmakers and Vice President Harris’s campaign joined a chorus of online critics in calling out remarks Donald Trump aimed at a Christian audience on Friday, arguing that the former president and current Republican presidential nominee had implied he would end elections in the United States if he won a second term.
At the conclusion of his speech at the Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. … You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
Democrats and others interpreted the comments as signaling how a second Trump presidency would be run, a reminder that he previously said he would not be a dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One.”
Fox News will yell “That’s not what he meant, crazy liberals! You’re the real authoritarians here because you didn’t have a primary for Harris!” while the ensuing debate shifts the Overton window towards authoritarianism as discussions about having an American dictator are normalized.
Trump is so toxic for America.
obligatory propaganda vaccine:
Trump’s statements are reckless and unacceptable for a politician, and he probably was hinting at a dictatorship using plausible deniability, given that he attempted a coup after the last election. We have no reason to take him at his word anymore.
The DNC elector process is the only viable way of choosing a candidate with the looming 2 week Ohio ballot deadline, as the alternative would be to not run a candidate at all. Harris is the most popular candidate out of those willing to run, and well-informed, locally-elected politicians across the country have independently endorsed her without DNC pressure. Primary reform (or even better, election reform) would be great for democratizing, optimizing, and de-risking the candidate selection process for both parties, but the DNC has not abused their power here by choosing the most popular candidate in an emergency situation.
A sane voting system would be so lovely. How about STAR voting and fucking ZERO primaries? Fuck the party politics.
Amen.
We waste so much energy and productivity with party politics. I don’t give a damn about your clics.
Parties exist in part because it costs millions of dollars to run. What we really need to do is fix that problem first, or we will always be ruled by the rich, or their bought-and-paid puppets.
I want a sane voting system so I can fight with my real enemy: someone who agrees with 99% of what I do but we disagree on one tiny thing. Currently I have to make common cause with everyone left of Clinton and it’s no fun.
Using a different voting system just for primaries would still be a huge improvement, though.