You don’t need to be an expert in electoral politics to understand Rule One of any campaign: Candidates should pursue as many votes as possible. In a democracy, it’s common sense: The more votes a campaign has, the greater the chance of success.

With this in mind, Donald Trump appears to have a counterintuitive rhetorical habit. The New Republic noted:

On Fox News Thursday morning, Donald Trump had a weird instruction for his supporters: they don’t have to vote. “My instruction: We don’t need the votes, I have so many votes,” Trump said on Fox & Friends before going on a rant about how much support he has in Florida.

As a clip from the show makes clear, the former president didn’t appear to be kidding: https://x.com/atrupar/status/1816482779581775943

If the phrasing sounded at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. The day after last month’s presidential debate, for example, Trump held a rally in Virginia and told attendees, “We don’t need votes.”

  • @norimee
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    2194 months ago

    They don’t need the votes because they have a plan in place to seize the power with undemocratic measures.

    It’s all he’s been saying the last few weeks. If you listen to him, he says again and again, that they plan to abolish american democracy.

    • @emax_gomax
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      554 months ago

      ISTG if trump loses, incites another insurrection and we still don’t put him jail I don’t know what the point of it is anymore.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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        384 months ago

        This is a common feeling with a lot of people. Not jailing rapists and other criminals just because their daddies were wealthy breaks down the social fabric. After all, if it’s everyone for themselves, why shouldn’t I steal from Walmart? Why should I not commit fraud against corps? Why should I not try and murder a presidential candidate?

        The public not seeing that crimes against the social contract have consequences will be the actual thing that breaks society, not gay people loving each other.

    • n1ckn4m3
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      4 months ago

      As one of the other posters mentioned (@[email protected]) , it’s exactly this. Johnson will refuse to certify the results of the election that put Democrats in the House, claiming some kind of bullshit irregularities with no proof, leaving the House controlled by facists. They’ll then claim irregularities in the presidential election and force a contingent election where they have a 100% chance of electing Trump no matter what the public votes.

      More people need to be made aware that this is 100% legal for them to do, and more people need to be aware that it is almost certainly what they will try. The only thing that can possibly stop it is significant awareness by the mass population of Americans and significant publicity (similar to how mass awareness of Project 2025 turned it into a poison pill).

      EDIT: Oh look, they’ve already started making it super-legal in battleground states: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/06/georgia-local-election-boards-allowed-withhold-vote-certification

    • @rottingleaf
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      -124 months ago

      While that’s true, there’s another thing just as true - the other side has a plan to seize the power with democratic measures.

      It’s deep state vs bandits. Surely the latter are not cool, but the former, while being cool, are very dangerous.

      It’s Palpatine vs Hutts. You wouldn’t want to be ruled by a Hutt. But Palpatine has his quirks.