Trump’s claims about California vote-rigging are a grim preview of November |
By now, it is an event as regular and predictable as the tides: a Democrat wins an election, and Donald Trump says that that election was rigged. There does not need to be any evidence for this; indeed, there never is. Trump will say it anyway.
He rallies the rightwing media ecosystem to spread the lie; he convinces his followers to believe it. That this, by now, a repetitive spectacle, devoid of suspense, does not mean that it is not dangerous.
This time his target is California, where the state’s quixotic election rules but staunchly Democratic electorate mean both that results from last week’s elections are still not complete, and also that they are unlikely to go Trump’s way.
The state has an open primary in which candidates from all parties compete on the same ballot, and the leading two go on to a November general. One of Trump’s preferred candidates seems set to eke out only a very narrow victory, if a victory at all, in the governor’s race: Democrat Xavier Becerra leads, and seems likely to face the Trump-endorsed Republican Steve Hinton, who has narrowly edged out another Democrat, Tom Steyer, for the number two spot.
In another contest, the race for Los Angeles mayor, Trump’s pick, the reality television star and political neophyte Spencer Pratt, has been beaten back by a charismatic young progressive Democrat from the city council, Nithya Raman, who will now go on to face the incumbent Democrat Karen Bass.
As has long been his habit, Trump claimed, when it........