Tag: midterm elections
Trump Blurts Out His Plan To Corrupt 2026 Midterm Elections

Trump Blurts Out His Plan To Corrupt 2026 Midterm Elections

Democratic election lawyer, voting rights expert and Democracy Docket publisher Marc Elias is warning that President Donald Trump is determined to "steal the 2026 elections" — and his game plan, according to an August video, includes a combination of voter suppression, election denial and a mid-decade U.S. Census (which is violating the rules because the next Census isn't due until 2030).

According to The New Republic's Greg Sargent (formerly of the Washington Post), Trump made his intentions for the 2026 midterms clear in a Monday morning, August 18 post on his Truth Social platform.

"President Donald Trump raged at Democrats Monday for supposedly cheating in elections in a long and unhinged Truth Social rant — and buried in his tirade is a clear indication of how he hopes to corrupt the 2026 midterm elections at a time when his agenda is nosediving in polls," Sargent explains. "In his screed, Trump rehashed his familiar lies about how mail balloting is riddled with fraud, and promised to lead a new 'movement' to abolish it."

Sargent warned that the executive order Trump is threatening for the 2026 elections is especially troubling.

Trump posted, "WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes."

Sargent explains, "Trump already unveiled a similar executive order in March designed to change election rules. It would have barred states from accepting ballots mailed on time but that arrive after Election Day and forced state officials to require documented proof of citizenship for everyone who registers to vote in federal elections…. Trump appears prepared to have a second run at such an executive order. But what's critical about Monday's post is he connected this scheme directly to the midterms, inadvertently revealing the real aim behind it."

The New Republic journalist continues, "Trump's new rant says he’s going to 'lead a movement to get rid of' mail balloting, then later says this 'movement' will begin with his new executive order — a strong indication he will try to ban vote-by-mail by executive order. Voting rights advocates have long expected him to attempt something like this, perhaps by arguing that vote-by-mail is a threat to national security."

Attorney Pooja Chaudhuri of the Democracy Defenders Fund warned that Trump could commit an "enormous abuse of power" with the 2026 midterms.

Chaudhuri told The New Republic, "It sounds like he will try to ban all mail-in balloting through executive order, and he's going to have to find some other rationale for such a sweeping presidential action."

Greta Bedekovics, associate director of democracy at the Center for American Progress, told The New Republic, "If they are going to try to stand for election integrity, it hurts them to point out that this is directly related to the 2026 elections. It exposes that this is not about election integrity and national security, it's about election rigging."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Fox News Instantly Slashed Crime Coverage Following Midterm Elections

Fox News Instantly Slashed Crime Coverage Following Midterm Elections

Fox News significantly decreased its volume of violent crime coverage in the week of the midterms, down 63 percent from the week prior.

The network averaged 141 weekday violent crime segments per week from Labor Day through the Friday before the election; in the week of the midterms, Fox aired 71 weekday violent crime segments — a decrease of 50 percent compared to the prior average.

Fox was open in its strategy of using violent crime as a political cudgel against Democrats throughout the midterms. Driven in part by Fox host Tucker Carlson's calls for Republicans to run on the issue, the network engaged in a months-long campaign to tie Democrats and the Biden administration to violent crime, often by highlighting specific incidents in “Democratic cities” and blaming progressive criminal justice reform for individual violent crimes.

In the lead-up to the midterms, Fox averaged 141 weekday violent crime segments per week from Labor Day through the Friday before the election. The two weeks prior to Election Day, those starting October 24 and October 31, featured the highest number of weekday violent crime segments of the period studied: 187 and 193 segments, respectively. That coverage dropped dramatically during the week of the election, which had just 71 weekday violent crime segments.

In the week after the election, Fox’s crime coverage has ticked back up a bit as stories about the tragic shooting at the University of Virginia and multiple killings at the University of Idaho entered the news cycle — but the coverage was notably less focused on painting Democratic cities as crime-infested. Thus far this week, Fox has aired 74 violent crime segments in three days, which is still notably fewer than in the weeks prior to the midterms.

Fox’s breathless political coverage of violent crime during the midterm period often ignored key context, such as the reality that crime statistics from red states were higher than those of blue states and that Democrats across the country at multiple levels of government made efforts to fund law enforcement and curtail violent crime. Instead, these segments often focused on attacking progressive district attorneys and candidates across the country.

This initial drop-off in violent crime coverage immediately following the midterm elections bears resemblance to another long-forgotten Fox News midterm narrative: “migrant caravans.” The network went all in fearmongering about “migrant caravans” in the weeks leading up to the 2018 midterms — only to completely drop the subject right after.

Media Matters searched our internal database of all original, weekday programming on Fox News Channel (shows airing from 6 a.m. through midnight) for segments that analysts determined to be about violent crime in general or specific violent crimes from September 5, 2022, through November 16, 2022.

We counted segments, which we defined as instances when violent crime in general or a specific violent crime was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of violent crime in general or of a specific violent crime. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed violent crime in general or a specific violent crime with one another.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Republicans Prepare Racially Inflammatory Anti-Immigrant Midterm Campaign

Republicans Prepare Racially Inflammatory Anti-Immigrant Midterm Campaign

Two organizations tracking anti-immigrant advertising say they’ve documented more than 700 such ads leading into the 2022 midterms, including attacks against the Biden administration over a so-called “border crisis” and content designed to undermine a vastly popular pathway to citizenship for the nation’s undocumented communities.

The former is particularly shameless considering two of the previous administration’s worst policies largely shutting down the U.S. asylum system, Remain in Mexico and the debunked Title 42 public health order, are still in effect today. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from lying. And as we get closer to Election Day, we already know it’ll only get worse.

“Increasingly, these ‘border crisis’ attacks are also using Vice President Kamala Harris as their main foil: the border czar,” America’s Voice and Immigration Hub said in the report. “Thirty-seven paid ads invoke the Vice President with xenophobic dogwhistles, echoed by members of Congress, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA). The gender and racial connotations are also quite evident.”

The report notes hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has spent tens of thousands of dollars over the past two months targeting nearly two dozen House Democrats for their support of popular, pro-immigrant legislation. The racist Tanton network organization has launched ads against House Democrats despite the fact that House Republicans also voted in favor of bills protecting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and undocumented farmworkers.

But anti-immigrant advertising isn’t solely a product of the fringe right-wing. Racism is the Republican mainstream. (FAIR led Congressional Republicans in “border crisis” messaging from the very start of Biden’s administration.)

America’s Voice late last year noted racist ads from House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik and Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the National Republican Senate Committee. While both voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election in favor of the twice-impeached former president, Stefanik’s ad stoops to calling undocumented immigrants the real insurrectionists. Stefanik also echoed the white supremacist “replacement theory” in her ad.

The report notes that Lindsey Graham, once a Republican champion of comprehensive immigration reform, also echoed racist “invasion” rhetoric. Once again: It’s not the fringe, it’s the GOP. But America’s Voice and Immigration Hub note that GOP-led attacks “fail to dampen support for citizenship.”

“The report includes new results of a study by Immigration Hub, conducted by BlueLabs Analytics, testing political ads among Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania voters,” the two organizations said. “A GOP ad that attacked President Biden on his management of the border failed to move voters against a path to citizenship, only managing to drive down Biden’s approval numbers.”

“However, voters who viewed the Hub’s ad that exposed the GOP’s obstruction and politicization of the border and pushed for citizenship, moved voters in favor of Democrats. By going on offense, Democrats have an opportunity to counter the Republican electoral playbook.” America’s Voice has separately noted that in a futile attempt to stop GOP attacks, “the Biden administration has maintained numerous Trump policies along the border, only to continue to be attacked by the rabid right wing media.” The groups encourage Democrats to combat Republicans by delivering on promises for a more humane immigration system.

“Republican and right-wing messages haven’t changed since Trump’s departure,” Immigration Hub chief political and communications officer Beatriz Lopez said. “The warning signals to Democrats are clear: It’s immigration today and it’ll be immigration in 2022.”

“While the right-wing playbook is to exacerbate fears over the economy and public health with hyperbole over immigrants and the border, their strategy fails to shake voters’ strong support for a path to citizenship,” she continued. “Our tracking and testing among battleground voters makes clear that Democrats must go on offense by driving their efforts to deliver on a path to citizenship and sensible immigration solutions while exposing the GOP political gamesmanship on the issue.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Trump Unable To Answer Simple Question On Republican Agenda (VIDEO)

Trump Unable To Answer Simple Question On Republican Agenda (VIDEO)

When former President Donald Trump appeared on right-wing Newsmax TV this week, he was asked about the 2022 midterms and the things he would like Republicans to prioritize if they regain control of the House of Representatives. But Trump didn’t offer any specific policy recommendations should the GOP have a House majority in 2023 and seemed to ignore the substance of the question entirely.

Newsmax TV prides itself on being more right-wing and more pro-Trump than Fox News and Fox Business

"Sounds like the Republicans are going to take back control of Congress," the interviewer asked, "and what would you like to see them do?"

Trump responded, “Number 1: take back. That’s what has to be Number 1; we have to take it back.”

Obviously referring to the Democratic majorities in Congress, Trump continued, “These are radicalized, horrible people that hate our country — what they’re doing with the open borders and the judges and all of the things they’ve been doing is so sad. And then you look at Afghanistan is a topper…. We were coming out strong, with dignity. There’s never been a lower point than what happened with Afghanistan, in my opinion. So, we’ve gotta, Number 1, we’ve gotta win the House — and I think we can win the Senate also.”

Despite Trump's claim that Democrats have enacted an "open borders" policy, Biden has actually preserved many of his predecessor's immigration policies, much to the dismay of some critics on his left. The borders are in no sense "open." Here are some responses to Newsmax’s Trump interview:



Reprinted with permission from Alternet

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