Trump’s vote delay call

With barely 100 days left for the US elections, President Donald Trump is beginning a last-ditch effort to fully transition into a tinpot dictator. After months of attempting to cast doubt on the reliability of mail-in voting, which is gaining popularity due to the problems presented by large crowds gathering at polling stations, Trump on Thursday suggested that the elections should be delayed outright. Nevermind that he doesn’t have the power to do so or that he has no evidence to back his allegations of mail-in voter fraud influencing an election result, he is terrified of polls in November. This is because he is on course to lose heavily. Some polls suggest we can expect the most lopsided presidential election in history. Even polls by groups considered ‘favourable’ for Trump have Trump trailing Joe Biden, but by smaller margins.

There is also the fact that his comments came the same day it was revealed that the US economy shrank by 33%, and just a few days after the American death toll for Covid-19 crossed 150,000, with over 4.5 million people infected. Trump’s incompetence got the US here, yet he has continually absolved himself of all responsibility for his government’s mismanagement of the pandemic. It is also worrying that Trump has previously refused to say if he would accept official election results if he lost. And while it is notable that top Republicans have come out to slam the suggestion of delaying the elections, it must also be noted that many of the same people have previously criticised Trump with words before backing everything he says with their actions.

Some pundits are already claiming that the deployment of federal troops to assault unarmed protesters demanding minority rights is an attempt to eventually suppress the vote, or even a test-run for a dictatorship. The theory is strengthened when we track back to scenes of armed Trump supporters calling for the assassination of Democratic governors opposed to Trump’s Covid-19 mismanagement. No federal troops were deployed. No arrests were made. Trump even cheered them on. Just like a dictator would.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2020.

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