Accept No Substitutes

    There's something beyond brazen about a serial crook like Donald Trump saying that the only election results he'll accept are the ones he'll be allowed to steal. He said as much in 2024 just before the election that, yes, he stole with a certain South African Nazi's help.

    And Republicans all over the country at every level are shitting their pants at the certainty of voter backlash on Election Day this year. In keeping with the fascist bunker mindset, they're not recalibrating their message and trying to be more appealing to those voters. Instead, they're resorting to gerrymandering, voter suppression and the usual dirty Republican tricks. Their policies suck and swallow with gusto and they know it. Selling rank and file voters on their policies would be like trying to sell ICE merchandise in Minneapolis. 

    The first and biggest salvo against the will and voice of the people was when Trump essentially ransacked Fulton County, Georgia of its 2020 election records, including sensitive and highly personal voter data. To justify this, Trump is still pissing and moaning about a redneck state having the temerity to go for Biden that year.

    But even the guy who made dementia cool again must know that no matter what, the 2020 election's long over. It's not like he can jump into a time machine and make himself the president from 2021-2025. It's not as if he's going to get back pay. In short, he can't change history no matter how many times he posts on Truth Social.

 

(Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

     It would be a mistake to think that Trump is actually relitigating his grievances from 2020. He's simply recycling those grievances as a pretext for going after Fulton County, where he was arrested and booked in 2024 before being hit with charges by the office of a Black woman. Fulton County is just a dress rehearsal for what he's planning on doing to other states and counties.

     Otherwise, if it really is all about 2020, then why order DNI Tulsi Gabbard to lurk in the warehouse and supervise the raid (which was a real good look for her, by the way. It makes her look like Mrs. Kravitz spying on Samantha Stevens.)? Why personally call FBI agents during the raid to rah rah them and congratulate them? Why have a Cabinet-level intelligence official supervising the whole thing?

     And why did Pam Bondi send a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stating that if he just turns over the voter data from 2020, they'd see less heat from ICE? Nice state you got here. Be a shame if...

     Now he's talking about a partial GOP nationalization of this year's elections, 15 states to be more precise (although he hasn't specified which states need Uncle Sam's avuncular "help" but odds are all or at least most of them have Democratic governors).

     Republicans, of course, seeing their incumbencies jeopardized, are only too willing do so his bidding. The four Republican scumbags sent to Capitol Hill from Minnesota recently proposed legislation that would halt election funds to their own state if they didn't cave in to Trump's ransom demands to turn over electoral data.

     Trump's also going after absentee ballots... again. This would essentially end all voting in Washington State since historically, they use nothing but mail-in ballots. It would also halt elections in Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, and Utah. Which I wouldn't expect a fucking idiot like Trump to know or care about. Steve Bannon's also predicting that ICE will "surround the polls" on election day.

     And then, there's this bizarre 50 state conference call between election officials and the DOJ that will be held at the end of the month.

     Republicans are right to soil their pants. Five days ago, Taylor Rehmet flipped a Texas state Senate seat in SD-9 (Fort Worth) that had been reliably red as far back as anyone could remember. But it wasn't just that Rehmet merely overperformed by losing with grace or eking out a win. He destroyed his Republican opponent, Leigh Wambsganss. (Immediately losing interest in Wambsganss, Trump said, "I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race." despite having endorsed him in the 11th hour.)

     Overperformance? Far from it. Rehmet beat Wambsganss by 14 points (despite being outspent by nearly 6-1)  in a district that Trump carried in '24 by 17 points. This represents a 31 point shift in a solidly conservative SD. Even more alarmingly, it represented a whopping 50 percent shift in the Latino vote in that district. Suddenly, deporting their own kind was no longer a viable way to own the libs.

     It's always risky to look at any one election result as a bellwether, especially one that's a local race and not even state-wide. But those numbers in SD-9 can't be interpreted as anything less than a wake-up call to complacent Republicans. And Rehmet's win this week is just another Democratic win to add to the growing pile of Democrats winning local and state-wide races that saw Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger get sent to the governor's mansions in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.

     So is it any wonder why Trump and his fascist goons are raiding warehouses and arresting anyone with skin color as brown as a paper bag? Trump said early this year that if Republicans don't reclaim the House and Senate that, "I'll get impeached", which is perhaps the only honest thing he's ever said in this term. 

     He said the quiet part out loud. He doesn't give a shit if the Republicans win or not. He's panicking that if the Democrats take over both chambers of Congress, there's a chance he'll get impeached for a third time and thrown out of office (although a conviction would require 60 votes in the Senate). Trump essentially told those Republicans, "Win, you losers, and save me!"

     But keep in mind that last December, with the passage of the Epstein discharge petition that had barely gotten 218 votes, all but one Republican (Clay Higgins) voted in the roll call vote to release the Epstein files. When the Democrats take the House and the fat man falls, you'll be amazed how many Republicans will tap dance on his political grave.