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Buried.News

The stories buried under the noise

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Norms Impact

Trump Declines to Back Away From ‘You Don’t Have to Vote Again’ Line (Published 2024)

When a former president refuses to disavow “you won’t have to vote again,” we are watching a direct assault on the core democratic norm that power must remain answerable to future elections.

Elections

Jul 30, 2024

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/us/politics/trump-christians-vote-ingraham.html

Summary

Donald J. Trump repeated his statement that Christians “won’t have to vote” again if they vote for him in November and refused requests to walk it back or clarify it. A former president who previously attempted to overturn the 2020 election again declined to affirm the basic premise of continued, competitive elections. The result is a public invitation to interpret political victory as a pathway to removing the electorate’s future leverage.

Reality Check

Normalizing the idea that citizens “won’t have to vote again” is a direct threat to self-government because it signals an intent to make elections irrelevant and to strip the public of peaceful leverage over power. Based on the conduct described here—speech and refusal to clarify—this is not, on its face, a chargeable federal crime, but it is a flashing warning sign after prior efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The legal line is crossed when rhetoric becomes a concrete scheme to corrupt the electoral process—conduct that can implicate federal statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy), 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (obstruction), and 52 U.S.C. § 20511 (election fraud), along with applicable state election-interference laws. Even before any indictment-worthy act, the governing norm at stake is existential: in our system, leaders must commit to the continuation of free elections, not flirt with their elimination.

Detail

In an interview broadcast Monday night, former President Donald J. Trump was asked about remarks he made Friday to a gathering of Christian conservatives. In those remarks, he told the audience: “I love you. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

During the Monday interview, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham raised the quote and said Democrats were using it to argue that Mr. Trump would end elections, urging him to rebut that criticism. Mr. Trump declined to back away from the statement. He began by saying, “Let me say what I mean by that,” then spoke about the size and support of the crowd, asserted that Catholics are “treated very badly by this administration” and “like persecuted,” and digressed to say that Jewish people who voted for Democrats “should have your head examined.” He then reiterated the voting remark from Friday rather than clarifying it.