As his 2016 presidential campaign comes to a close, and his numbers shrink, fizz and whiz like a disappearing Bugs Bunny Tasmanian Devil, Republican nominee Donald Trump seems to be getting more and more desperate. He’s also getting more and more dangerous.
In her first segment on Wednesday evening, Rachel Maddow started with relaying the poll gains of the Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton. Maddow also tells the good news about the increasing chances of Democrats taking control of the Senate, because Trump is the gift that keeps giving for Democrats and a perpetual “Oh Fuck No!” for the GOP.
After the third and final presidential debate, millions witnessed Donald Trump saying that he wasn’t sure if he was going abide by the elective decision of the American people—if results don’t work to his favor. He is also in nonstop mode with, “the election’s rigged.” But now, his whining has led him incite his supporters to vigilantly watch voters on election day to make sure there is no “rigging.” Trump tells his crowd to poll-watch, adding, “You know what that means.”
No, tell us, Donald, because if what “that means” is even close to how Republicans monitored voting stations in key minority districts back in 1981, it will spell out big trouble for Republicans, as if they’re not already swimming drowning in it now.
During Wednesday night’s show, Maddow reviewed a new legal action filed in federal court by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) against the Republican National Committee (RNC) for racist intentional voter intimidation. This is not the first time the RNC has been accused of such.
Back in 1981, Republican Party “watchmen,” some of whom were off-duty policemen and security guards, showed up in minority districts donning guns and wearing armbands. They were going to make sure the election went their way — and it did. Posters were put up containing the word “WARNING” in giant red text and a reward of $1,000 was offered for reporting bonafide fraud. The posters also included a phone number, which led callers directly to a Republican National Party office.
Since then, the RNC was has been under a court-ordered consent decree that severely limits their election activities due to their actions in 1981. They were just about to come out from under the court order in 2017, but Trump changed all that. With his continuous call for big, bad poll-watchers to pack and head to polling stations, he has nixed the RNC ability to slide out from under the decree in 2017, and caused the DNC to launch a legal action in a federal court claiming the RNC is violation of the court. This failure to comply will most likely extend the RNC’s consent decree for another eight years. Sucks to be a Republican right now. But then, they built this.
Of course, Trump doesn’t give a flip. He’ll be off doing other things, or if we’re lucky he’ll be in a chain gang. But in order to avoid another seven years of mandatory stipulations, the RNC will have to completely divorce themselves, as a party from Trump, his surrogates, and his supporters. Oh, my.
Rachel Maddow goes into more detail in this MSNBC clip:
Watching a liberal commentator gloat with a big fat “I told you so” might be annoying in some cases. In this case, it pure enjoyment. Thank you, Rachel Maddow. We’ll take it!