In 2020, Donald Trump’s mob chanted “stop the steal” while he tried to steal an election he lost. Two weeks out from the midterms, that phrase is about to be turned against him.
I want you to zoom out for a moment on what Trump has said and done this election cycle. It’s the best preview you can get of what he might try to do in two weeks. It’s scary. But it’s also been met with an unprecedented response.
In January, he told the New York Times he regretted not sending the National Guard to seize voting machines in 2020. Weeks later, armed FBI agents raided an elections facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and carted off more than 600 boxes of ballots and voter rolls, proof that he’s willing to lay hands on the actual votes. In February, he said Republicans should “take over the voting” and “nationalize” elections, and then he signed an executive order to gut mail-in voting. In the meantime, his allies pushed the SAVE Act to bolt new ID requirements onto registration and purge the rolls.
And then his Justice Department demanded every state’s voter file and sued roughly 30 states that refused. Last week, it gave California officials 48 hours to act on a list of 20,000 supposed “noncitizen” voters or face prosecution. ICE has also bought voter data, ingested more than 50 million voter records, opened “voter fraud” investigations in nine states and run voter rolls through USCIS citizenship databases known to be faulty and flag actual citizens. Meanwhile, the administration has sidelined CISA (the agency that guards elections from foreign interference) and has threatened election workers with prosecution, including refusing to rule out sending armed agents to the polls, which Steve Bannon says is the plan.
That’s just an off-the-cuff summary. And much of it rests on the phantom menace of the “noncitizen voter,” a threat that doesn’t exist and has never been shown to have affected the results of an American election. Ever. Yet the Trump administration appears to be planning to use that non-existent danger to take dramatic action if they don’t like the results of the midterms.
Already, this is the most sweeping campaign of election interference by a sitting president in American history. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s colliding with the most sweeping mobilization ever assembled to stop one. He’s been getting crushed in the courts, as groups have sued him top to bottom over his attempts at voter suppression.
Just look at DEFIANCE.org alone and what we’re up to. I want you to do that because it’s a powerful reminder of how much more prepared the pro-democracy side is this time around than in 2020. In the past few months alone, our members have:
funded independent media in battleground states…
pushed young voters in a major mobilization to the polls…
backed turnout and election-security efforts in crucial swing states…
helped sue the Trump administration over its illegal election orders…
supported the May Day walkouts as a rehearsal for post-election protests…
partnered with groups briefing officials in all 50 states so that lawsuits are ready to be filed against Trump’s meddling, including the abuse of “emergency powers”
created and funded FAFO to prepare local prosecutors to go after federal agents who break the law at the polls…
backed sheriffs’ plans to stop unlawful ballot seizures…
launched pro-bono defense for any poll worker Trump retaliates against (and a channel for DOJ and FBI employees to blow the whistle on election interference)…
stood with Latino voters facing intimidation…
funded an off ramp for Americans leaving MAGA…
bankrolled turnout in Texas, Georgia and the Black church…
put all 3.5 million Epstein files on the road and parked them in Dallas outside Trump’s midterm convention to call out corruption…
…and tomorrow, we’ll release the first teasers from CORRUPTIONLAND, our midterms “closing argument” — a documentary about Trump and his enablers’ abuses of power.
And that’s just what one small organization has helped make happen.
Multiply it across the whole pro-democracy movement, and you’ll begin to see what Trump is up against. He’s facing hyper-prepared election officials… prosecutors and sheriffs… armies of lawyers with briefs already drafted… millions of Americans ready to fill the streets… and an independent media operation big enough to shoot down the president’s lies in real time. This isn’t a repeat of 2020, when people scrambled to respond to Trump’s bogus election claims.
This year, a corrupt president is walking into a pro-democracy buzzsaw. And he’s desperate because he knows he’s losing.
So as we go into the final two weeks before the midterms, let me just say this: if Donald Trump tries to steal this election, WE will come together to turn his old catch phrase against him. WE will “stop the steal.” And if he lays a hand on our ballots, WE will lay down the law.
Your friend, in defiance,
P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit “club for the courageous.” We literally exist to FIGHT the corruption you just read about. We announce a new effort every week to counter Trump’s abuses of power. That’s what your membership funds. If you haven’t yet, become a member today.
DEFIANCE DAILY
In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!
TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE
The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile rolls into Atlanta, Georgia, TODAY. If you’re in the Atlanta area, please stop by. Visit the website to RSVP and get the location.
The Reading Room is OPEN THIS WEEK in Detroit, Michigan through Thursday, October 22. Get your free tickets HERE and send to folks you know in these areas!
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