A new type of low I suppose. I’m not surprised and I’m sure his followers will brush this off as an example of Trump’s fine sense of humor.
I’d guess that the appeal of this for the MAGA folks is that Donald is asserting that Laws Don’t Apply To Us. In the “laws for thee but not for me” sense.
‘Of course WE can cheat----WE can do ANYTHING’ – that’s the basic claim. MAGA finds that to be empowering and inspirational.
Reminds me of the “fight like hell” speech in which the Orange Traitor instigated an insurrection on January 6, 2021.
There also this:
It was bad, but now it’s good.
The intellect and eloquence of the Orange One are just stunning, the sheer poetic power rivaling that of John F Kennedy or maybe even Shakespeare himself!
Trump urging people to cheat could be Trump at his most honest.
Trump: “I am America. You pledge your allegiance to me, not to the country.”
MAGA: “He’s just joking!” or “That sounds great! Donald Trump died for my sins!”
Everyone else: “He’s not joking.”
I’m going to call this foreshadowing. This is where Trump is going and has been going for a very long time.
A couple of weeks ago I was having trouble articulating an idea concerning the Trump’s desire to subsume political support for him specifically with American identity. I said at the time this is why he’s renaming everything for America. He wants everyone to think America=Trump. This is yet another example of that. Probably an escalation.
Another poster linked the following wiki page which perfectly encapsulated what I was thinking.
See also “Absolutism”…
(I wanted to give proper attribution to the previous poster who pointed that out for me. Unfortunately I cannot find the original post nor do I remember who that was. So sorry! If that was you please feel free to speak up!)
ETA: And yes, he’s telling people to directly engage in voter fraud in support of him and the Republican party. I’m sure the hypocrisy is intentional.
The Right has been trumpeting about widespread Leftist voter fraud for so long that most rightists totally believe it to be true. Despite the fact that even when Rightists in authority go looking, the only fraud they can find is small scale Rightist fraud.
“Every accusation is an admission” totally applies here. It’s entry number one in the Reactionary playbook. Accuse your enemy of what you intend to do. That justifies to your followers doing it yourself as restoring a level playing field, not tilting it.
This from three days ago is an above-average size horror:
ABC News: Trump claims Butler assassination attempt was a 'Democrat Plot
If DJT and Vance steal the 2028 presidential election, this false belief will be front and center when future generations of Trump biographers try to explain the fall of American democracy.
Trump says he’ll be “demanding” that drug companies split vaccines into five doses, six months apart, claiming it will lead to a “massive reduction” in autism.
My God, he’ll kill thousands of children with this.
And the parents will be real happy to have to make 4 more doc visits. And we all know that kids just love getting shots.
But they won’t have autism!!
They’ll probably start faking autism to get out of the shots.
Of course the point is to make vaccination so inconvenient that many parents won’t bother.
I’ve many times posted that DJT is a clever man, batting down claims of low intelligence. However, my thesis faces a pretty strong challenge here.
What ever made you think he was clever in the first place?
Well, some of them will.
But, why?
From an anti-vaxxer’s perspective, because vaccines are a harmful practice that hurts children.
From a normal person’s perspective, because anti-vaxxers are nuts.
Soon as I see one infinitesimal amount of evidence that they care about children (or anyone but themselves), I might buy that.
My theory was always that it was selfish: for a parent, taking your child to get vaccinated is an unpleasant hassle that costs money, even if just a co-pay. What if you could be a hero and take a stand against (whatever) merely by avoiding an unpleasant task?
The consequences are so far removed from the action that if your child should fall seriously ill or die, you can shift your cognition to blame something else. Certainly not you, you hero.
He did get elected President twice. And it can’t be attributed to his doing what expert Republican handlers advised because he defied them.
I could have defended the intelligence of his recent vaccine statements because he came up with something outrageous enough to please the anti-vaxxers without slamming the parts of his base who do get the shots. However, Donald is down in the polls, and that where there’s a political case that the nonsense instinct is getting outside rational control.