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Trump pivots from lies to threats; most news organizations ignore the shift

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broken glassIf you go to the home page of the New York Times, the Washington Post or CNN looking for information about what is at stake in November, you’ll be greeted by stories about polls: educated guesses about what voters might do in less than 60 days.* What you won’t see are headlines like these:

National media aren’t even sanewashing Trump’s words this weekend. They’re pretending they don’t exist. Even the Irish Star (!) is writing about the disservice that is sanewashing.

Look, any time Trump speaks publicly or rants on TruthSocial, he lies. He has recycled some of his lies for eight years, according to Daniel Dale. The lies are so common that traditional media ignore them, until there’s new evidence of crazy. And sometimes, like now, new evidence isn’t sufficient to overcome inertia.

Writing on TruthSocial Saturday, Trump issued new threats regarding the November election:

The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.

Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.

AND

WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!

Even though Trump lost (without any ballot box shenanigans), four years later he persists in claiming the election was stolen while repeating the myth that voter fraud is widespread. (It is not. The GOP lost dozens of court cases in 2021.)

At a rally Saturday in Mosinee, Wisconsin (attendance, about 7,000), Trump told the crowd: “We gotta stop the cheating. If we stop that cheating, if we don’t let them cheat, I don’t even have to campaign anymore.”

In a flashback to January 6, 2021, Trump wound up the violent rhetoric:

Every citizen who’s sick and tired of the parasitic political class in Washington that sucks our country of its blood and treasure, November fifth will be your liberation day. November fifth, this year, will be the most important day in the history of our country because we’re not going to have a country anymore if we don’t win…

I better win or you’re gonna have problems like we’ve never had. We may have no country left. This may be our last election. You want to know the truth? People have said that. This may be our last election…. It’ll all be over, and you gotta remember…. Trump is always right. I hate to be right. I’m always right.

Heather Cox Richardson details some of his more out-of-touch ramblings at that event:

  • “Trump told the audience that when he took office in 2017, military officers told him the U.S. had given all the military’s ammunition away to allies.”
  • “He reiterated the MAGA claim that mothers are executing their babies after birth—this is completely bonkers—and again echoed Russian talking points when he said these executions are happening—they are not—but ‘nobody talks about it.’ He went on: ‘We did a great thing when we got Roe v. Wade out of the federal government’.”
  • “He reiterated the complete fantasy that schools are performing gender-affirming surgery on children. ‘Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school, and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?’ Trump’s suggestion that schools are performing surgery on students is bananas. This is simply not a thing that happens.”
  • “And then he went full-blown apocalyptic, attacking immigrants and claiming that crime, which in reality has dropped dramatically since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office after a spike during his own term, has made the U.S. uninhabitable. He said that ‘If I don’t win Colorado, it will be taken over by migrants and the governor will be sent fleeing.’ ‘Migrants and crime are here in our country at levels never thought possible before…. You’re not safe even sitting here, to be honest with you. I’m the only one that’s going to get it done. Everybody is saying that.’ He urged people to protest ‘because you’re being overrun by criminals’.” .

The disintegration was evident on Friday. From AP:

On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.

The Washington Post does have that Friday story on its politics page. And CNN has a headline the leads you to think you’ll read about Wisconsin, but that’s not what shows up.

What are some things at stake in November?

They are each far more important for voters than the latest poll. Our press, protected by the First Amendment, is practicing journalistic malpractice.

* PUBLIC 2:25 pm; UPDATE 5:30 pm eastern. The NYT has a story but it’s not on the home page.