Donald Trump spoke to a rural, predominantly white Pennsylvania audience yesterday and told them he was concerned about being cheated out of the November election. His remedy for that? Call the police—which can be … well, intimidating.
Trump told supporters at the rally that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania would be if cheating occurs “in certain sections of the state.”
“We have some great people here, some great leaders here, of the Republican Party, and they’re very concerned about that, and that’s the way we could lose the state,” he said.
“We have to call up law enforcement, and we have to have the sheriffs, and the police chiefs, and everybody watching,” he said. “Because if we get cheated out of this election, if we get cheated out of a win in Pennsylvania, which is such a vital state, especially when I know what’s happening here, folks. I know it — she can’t beat what’s happening here.”
Cheating is one thing—which, if it were happening, would be a thing—but The Donald’s remedy is a whole ‘nother thing. Although Trump’s website asks for volunteers to sign up to be election observers, asking for “law enforcement … sheriffs … police chiefs” … to be “watching” is intimidation pure and simple, the kind of intimidation that sounds like Jim Crow and poll taxes. The kind of intimidation that sounds like 1980s and 1990s voter suppression.
Never mind that the Republican Party has been banned from this type of activity via a consent decree since at least 1982. That’s not important.
Its Trump’s pronouncements, and the deafening silence from leading Republicans that accompany such edicts, that is the real problem.