Here’s the familiar playbook Trumpists will use to try and overturn the election if he loses
The Trumpist propaganda machine is ready to fire on American democracy
Published
Donald Trump’s right-wing propaganda machine, which was an essential element of his 2020 coup attempt, is gearing up to again follow his lead and subvert the 2024 election, if necessary, to return him to the White House.
Polls suggest the presidential race will be a close one. Trump may very well prove victorious over Vice President Kamala Harris by securing enough votes to win the Electoral College. But if Trump loses, he has long suggested that he will repeat his 2020 strategy of declaring victory, claiming the election was rigged against him, and trying to backfill evidence of election fraud in order to overturn the results — through violence if needed.
The right-wing disinformation ecosystem will play a crucial role in that seditious endeavor. Its propagandists, from the biggest stars on Fox News to the most extreme influencers on social media, have trained their readers, listeners, and viewers to trust them and to ignore information that undermines Trump or his worldview.
That ecosystem has spent the last four years helping Trump to smooth the road for another attempt at seizing power over the will of the electorate. And in the final days of the 2024 election, the former president and his media allies are poised to work the right into a frenzy by reviving the same deceptive tactics they used in 2020.
Their hoary claims of election fraud are part of a charade. Its purpose is not to produce credible evidence that could hold up in court. It is to kick up dust, enraging Trump supporters who are already primed to believe elections are rigged. Then Trump can leverage that fury, encouraging GOP officeholders to use whatever power they have to overturn the election, from local election officials refusing to certify results to members of Congress tossing out electoral votes.
This Trumpist threat to overturn American democracy is real but would face immense challenges. Legislative changes and Democratic control of the White House have defanged aspects of the 2020 effort, and states have numerous guardrails against election subversion. But as we’ve seen in the years following Trump’s last failed coup attempt, such a campaign of election delegitimization can nonetheless prove incredibly toxic to the country.