By all appearances, Donald Trump really doesn’t like it when Democrats describe him as a threat to democracy, and yet, the Republican keeps saying things that reflect a degree of animosity toward the American system of government.
Take the former president’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, for example. The New York Times reported:
Trump said polls suggested he was at “93 percent” although it was not clear what that number was referring to. The former president said he responded by saying: “So why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?”
The context for these off-the-cuff comments was a bit of a mess. The GOP candidate, holding a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, was speaking about inflation when he apparently had a thought.
“You know, they do polls on this stuff, and I’m at like 93%,” Trump said, referring to surveys that apparently exist in his imagination. “I said, ‘So why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?’”
And at that point, he moved on, lamenting the fact that President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign.
Honestly, it’s not clear exactly what Trump was trying to say. Evidently, he’s still outraged that the Democratic Party didn’t go through a traditional nominating process before rallying behind Vice President Kamala Harris. The “they” in his quote, in other words, referred to his Democratic rivals.
It was less obvious who Trump was referring to with “we.”
To be sure, it was a rhetorical question, but “we” are having an election because that’s how we make decisions in the United States.
It’s tempting to think Trump was complaining about the asymmetry — he had to go through GOP primaries and caucuses, nearly all of which he won with relative ease — but he was speaking entirely in the present tense. “Why are we having an election?” couldn’t refer to Republican nominating contests that wrapped up months ago. Charitable observers might be inclined to shrug this off, and as best as I can tell, the comments didn’t generate a lot of pickup over the weekend. But let’s not forget that Trump has spent recent weeks repeatedly saying that he and his political operation “don’t need” votes — a curious comment from a candidate for public office — which has dovetailed with his comments a few weeks ago that his Christian supporters “won’t have to vote anymore” if he wins a second term. Soon after, given a chance to walk that back, the GOP nominee instead doubled-down on the rhetoric. This is the same White House hopeful who’s raised the prospect of creating what he’s pitched as a temporary American “dictatorship,” refused to accept his electoral defeat four years ago, talked about “terminating” parts of the Constitution that stand in the way of his ambitions, and arguing that his rivals shouldn’t be “allowed” to run against him. It’s against this backdrop that Trump asked his supporters, “Why are we having an election?” as if this were a legitimate question. It isn’t.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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