Is more than six months until Election Day,
and Donald Trump is dangerously already refusing to commit to
accepting the results of the
2024 election while pushing the big Lie.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
Trump said this about the
2024 race. Quote If everything's honest,
I'd gladly accept the results.
If it's not, you have to fight for the right
of the country.
That terrifying warning comes just after Trump,
speaking with Time magazine, hinted that another January 6th could
happen if he loses this election.
Joining us now is Democratic strategist and former Executive Director
of the New York State Democratic Party,
Basil Michael, Good morning, Good morning.
Good to have you man,
to be here. So quick question,
how the gate When does when do people not realize
that Donald Trump means what he says?
I mean, is it is it just a small group
of us who are sitting here listening to this man
repeatedly say the same thing over and over and over
again doesn't sway off of it?
His base is there. They're all down for it.
What is it in the media and what is it
in politics that people cannot begin to take what this
man is saying seriously and prepare and gird ourselves against
what will be a very difficult election?
Well, you and I are probably raised in a way
where we'd sit where somebody told you,
you know, if somebody said something to you,
you believed them, right? That's how I was raised.
And I think most of us were raised that way.
What was the attraction for Donald Trump or to Donald
Trump in 2016 was that he was going to be
this big disruptor,
right? But now he's shifted into dictator and and I
think the challenge for so many of us as we
go out and sort of talk to voters about what's
at stake here is to say,
look, this is this is no longer disruptive politics.
He has told you time and time again what he
will do.
What I think is that a lot of voters just
see that as a sign of strength because they respond
to strength.
Some of it is a little misogyny in there,
to be clear, and a toxic,
a
toxic masculinity that's in there as well.
But a lot of voters respond to this kind of
strength.
But what they don't understand is that he is intent
upon taking the thousands of people who he can appoint
in government,
put his followers, and I say that word very carefully,
followers into these positions so that they can do his
bidding.
The guardrails are going to be off,
but I don't think enough people really understand the importance
of those positions.
They want to vote for the person.
And I have to go back and say it's not
just the person,
it's everyone that he's going to appoint,
that, going to, that will head institutions,
that will move the bureaucracy in a way that he
sees fit,
not for the good of the people.
So, Basil, we've heard a lot about how Donald Trump
is really appealing to black male voters.
And part of that is,
you know, he's tried to sort of insist that his
criminal problems right now is sort of similar to the
facts,
the issues that black America faces.
How does this play with black America is like the
idea of marshalling the government against a group of people
who are your enemies,
Should not play well with black people.
Yeah. But here it it shouldn't.
But there's this interesting tactic that he's used.
You know, Donald Trump's always been a person that loves
celebrity.
So he goes to the celebrities 1st and gives them
an opportunity to then talk to everybody else.
So when I, with all due respect to the gentleman,
when I see brother Stephen A Smith out here talking
about,
well, you know what, Donald Trump's going through something that
you know,
African Americans are going through.
Absolutely not. Because Donald Trump was the one that was
saying that these five young men
in in New York in the late 80s should be,
should be put in on the exonerated 5.
The exonerated 5. Right. It is,
it is nowhere near the same thing.
But what he what they do,
what he does is he gets a certain group of
folks in the community to then be his mouthpiece And
what I don't think they realize is what that they
are being his mouthpiece. So that starts to filter down
a little bit,
but it then becomes incumbent upon us to be be
able to counteract that.
I was at Morehouse at the beginning of of April
and when I talk to those students,
they get the assignment. Now I have some concerns about
Joe Biden coming and speaking and we get that,
but they understand the assignment their their need is to
go out and speak to the social justice agenda.
And I think we have to continue to to to
beat that drum.
Here's say anyone who's done Geo TV.
Anyone who's done civic engagement knows that there is a
challenge in talking about election integrity,
which is you can freak voters out.
You can demotivate voters by making them think that their
vote doesn't matter because there is already something wrong in
the system.
It was interesting to me that in the wake of
Donald Trump's comments,
you had the Wisconsin Republican Party wanting to come in.
I want to ask you about this as a national
chair.
I want to ask you about this as a state
chair.
This is what the Wisconsin Republican Party,
how they responded to that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece.
They said the Republican Party of Wisconsin has taken unprecedented
steps to ensure the
2024 election will be the most secure in our states
history.
We are confident that the will of Wisconsin voters will
be made clear on Election Day and look forward to
winning their trust and support during this campaign.
This comes from the Wisconsin GOP Chair
Brian Shiman, 'cause they know the those statements are a
problem for the very voters they need to turn
out. They are. They always are.
And and this can we just put on the table
for the record that our elections in this country,
and I just had this conversations in my travels last
week about the American elections and everybody think,
oh, it's so corrupt. BS on that.
It is not corrupt. Our elections are some of the
most secure in the world.
The men and women who are at the grassroots level,
who are out there churning the efforts to make sure
that that happens are good men and women.
And the concern that a lot of state parties have
and a lot of election officials have is whether or
not,
because of this toxic environment that Trump has created around
voting right,
that people won't show up to volunteer as they once
did because they don't want to live under threat
from a neighbor who's gone half crazy over Trump.
And it's a lot of women,
too. Women are predominantly poll workers.
And they're exactly, exactly. And you know,
what are the most compelling arguments I make to folks
that are
interested in a process but don't follow it day-to-day is
that as a state party leader,
I know when you don't vote,
we know this. We can go back 1520 years to
find your voting record.
We know if you don't vote.
So if there's a campaign with limited resources,
limited time, what are they going to do?
Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. They're going to pick and choose
where they're going to get their votes from based on
whether or not people actually go out and cast their
ballot. So when you tell me that your vote doesn't
count,
I said, well, it does count because we know when
you don't.
And if you decide not to vote over periods of
time and groups of people make that same decision,
if I'm a campaign, again,
limited resource, this is limited time.
What do I do? I don't go to you.
And if that happens year after year after year,
then you have, you have communities,
whether it's based on race,
ethnicity or ethnicity or geography,
communities that are not getting substantial representation because they don't
cast that ballot.
And I thought a lot of folks want to say,
well, yeah, I'm not going to do it in protest.
Like, yeah, you can protest your way out of being
represented.
Well, here's the problem. You have Donald Trump saying I'll
accept the results if they're honest.
Well, the process is an honest process.
The results will be honest.
So the idea that you think of all of all
the elections that we've had in the history of this
country
that your election is the
is is the least honest and the and the most
corrupt is,
it just shows the fallacy of what the man is
laying out there.
Donald Trump is is afraid of losing
because it strikes at the core of the thing that's
most important to him,
and that's his ego. And he doesn't want to do
the work to actually win.
He wants to goad and cajole and bully people into
believing something about our system because he's too weak of
a man to actually go out and campaign like any
other normal candidate would go out and campaign.
So that's your truth, Donald Trump.
And now what you're trying to do is game the
system,
as he did in in 16 and 20,
to say that, well, if I don't win,
then the system is corrupt.
No, Donald Trump, if you don't win,
it's because more people voted against you than for you.
And our electoral system confirmed that.
Well, I think it's actually even bigger than just winning
this election.
If you stoke the view that there is rampant voter
fraud,
then not only do you have an explanation for why
you didn't win,
you also have an impetus for states to enact more
draconian laws that make it harder for certain communities to
vote.
So I mean it is a two prong strategy to
not only explain whatever might be the results of this
election,
but also to lay the foundation for making future elections
less democratic And and add a third leg to that
as well.
Because if you also have a judiciary that's going to
side with states that mind you and you know during
Obama's term,
I say this all the time 1000 Democrats in state
legislatures across the country lost their seats.
So if you see that all this policy is being
pushed to the States and you have a judiciary in
place so that if anything goes to court,
they can start venue shopping,
right? Finding the path of least resistance and therefore you
get all of these policies that are enacted.
That's why I say this is this is a grand
scheme.
And I think if we don't focus on that aspect
of instead of just voting for the man,
vote for the agenda and all the people that are
sort of part of that agenda,
then this is you, you,
you. We escape this issue of of a diminishing democracy.