Trump’s Political Blackmail
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | May 21, 2020
“The protections needed for our system of representative government are clear. We must ensure that safe and secure elections take place in every state in the union.”
President Trump’s latest attacks on voting by mail reveal in stark terms his plans for the November presidential election.
Trump’s tweets threatening to withhold federal funding from Michigan and Nevada if they do not back off of efforts to implement voting by mail reeks of political blackmail.
It brings back memories of Trump’s effort to blackmail Ukraine by withholding needed military aid until they opened an investigation into Joe Biden – a scandal for which Trump was impeached.
Trump is obviously attempting to suppress the vote in the upcoming presidential election by making it as difficult as he can for eligible voters to vote. Trump obviously believes the fewer eligible voters who exercise their constitutional right to vote, the better his chances of winning.
But Trump is up to more than this with his false claims that voting by mail will result in widespread fraud in the presidential election. Even after he won in 2016, Trump challenged the election results by falsely claiming without a single shred of evidence that three to five million votes were illegally counted. Trump appears to be setting up claims of fraudulent voting by mail as a grounds to contest the November election results if he loses.
Trump can be expected to contest a loss in November, and that would no doubt become very ugly if Trump calls on his supporters to take to the streets in protest.
Trump’s past conduct indicates that he will do everything he can to stay in office, regardless of the absence of any grounds to continue as President.
The protections needed for our system of representative government are clear. We must ensure that safe and secure elections take place in every state in the union.
This includes enacting the $3.6 billion provided in the House-passed HEROES Act for states to run their elections. We also must be ready to effectively counter every move that Trump makes before or after the presidential election to delegitimize the election results.
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