Trump’s relentless fraud about election fraud

WHILE speaking at a rally in Michigan on Oct 3, former US president Donald Trump insisted, as he has countless times since losing the 2020 election, “We won, we won. It was a rigged election.” And, just like every other time, Trump offered no evidence.

A few days before that, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, refused at the vice-presidential debate to say whether he thought Trump had lost, and then declined five opportunities to do so in an interview with The New York Times. Not long after, though, Vance fell in line, stating unequivocally that Trump did not lose in 2020. He, too, failed to provide any proof.

Precipitating this latest cycle of denial was the release of a brief by special prosecutor Jack Smith that reveals damning evidence of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the weeks and months that followed. But whenever critics shine a spotlight on these misdeeds, Trump and his loyalists repeat their claims of fraud and omit the facts, and the US media and public move on to the next controversy.