Be outraged, don’t accept the election results…and send money.
By David Corn
I’ve heard from Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Lara Trump. I’ve heard from Rudy Giuliani, Ronna McDaniel, and Newt Gingrich. And I’ve heard from Donald Trump. Over and over again. The 2020 election was stolen from Trump. The left-wing mob, the Democrats, the fake news media—they successfully plotted together to pull off the greatest political heist of all time. Trump really won. But fake ballots were counted. Real ballots were trashed. American democracy was undone. The people have been robbed of their rightful president.
Yes, this is what I am told every day—multiple times—by Trump, his family, and his lieutenants. I am on several rightwing email lists, including various Trump campaign lists, and for the past three weeks, each day I have received a steady stream of emails signed by Trump or one of his minions. These missives all request money for Trump’s so-called “Election Defense Fund”—that is, his effort to overturn the election results and retain power—and they are obvious acts of grift. Though they generally ask for small amounts—from $5 to $45—the fine print on the donation page notes that unless you kick in about $8,000, the money goes to Trump’s political operation and the Republican National Committee, not the special fund that pays for the legal challenges Trump has been mounting (and losing) and the recounts he has been requesting. These emails are merely the latest iteration of Trump’s campaign money-grab, as he tries to financially exploit the clown-show coup Giuliani has been running for him.
But this barrage is doing more than squeezing cash out of Trump fanatics. For the recipients, it is solidifying a dangerous message: the election was illegitimate. Though campaigns typically do not disclose such information, it is a fair assumption that millions of people are receiving these solicitations on a daily basis. Your pro-Trump uncle or aunt—they are constantly being told that the evil Democrats have mounted a coup to topple Trump. Yes, Trump tweets this every day. But for those Trump-supporting Americans not on Twitter, these emails form a ceaseless reinforcement of Trump’s false counter-narrative: the 2020 election was rigged