“They cheated like hell,” former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Indiana, again accusing the Democrats of “stealing” the 2020 election in which Trump was defeated by Joe Biden.
Trump goes on to say that the most important thing is to “guard the vote” in the upcoming election, encouraging MAGA adherents to police the vote and, some say, practice voter intimidation. “You should go into Detroit, you should go into Philadelphia, you should go into some of these places…Atlanta,” Trump said. “And you should go into some of these places and we gotta watch those votes when they come in.”
Trump asserts that the U.S. is “like a third-world nation,” invoking — without irony — a history of strong men manipulating the vote in places that are only ostensibly democratic republics.
I hope everyone realizes what he’s doing.
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) December 4, 2023
He’s actively working to incite violence on Election Day. He wants people to either be afraid to go vote or —barring that — he wants to disrupt the polls so he can question the results again. https://t.co/fhinvaSjCy
AngryStaffer, a popular political commentator on social media, warns that Trump in this segment is “actively working to incite violence on Election Day. He wants people to either be afraid to go vote or — barring that — he wants to disrupt the polls so he can question the results again.”
If that’s the right assessment, there is some evidence that it’s already having the desired effect, as one commenter writes “I’m a poll worker, and [Trump’s] making me nervous to do that this year.”
The three cities Trump named specifically are each among the top ten major metro areas with the combined highest total number and percentage of Black residents. Detroit’s larger metro area population is approximately 22% Black, with the city being more than 70% Black. The Philadelphia metro area population is 24% Black, including nearly 40% Black residents in the city, and the Atlanta metro area’s population is more than 32% Black, with census data measuring the city at approximately 49% Black.
