Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says Donald Trump has laid the groundwork to deny the results of the 2024 election.
In a statement provided to POLITICO, Senator Sanders said:
Donald Trump Maybe he’s crazy, but he’s not stupid. When he claimed that “nobody” showed up to the 10,000-person Harris-Walz rally in Michigan that was live-streamed and widely covered by the media, that it was all AI and that the Democrats had been cheating , there is a method to his madness. Clearly, and dangerously, what Trump is doing is laying the groundwork for refusing to accept the results of the election if he loses. If you can convince your supporters that the thousands of people attending televised rallies don’t exist, it won’t be hard to convince them that the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere were “fake” and “fraudulent.”
This is what destroying faith in institutions is all about. This is what destroying democracy means. This is what fascism is about.
That’s why we must do everything we can to get Trump defeated.
Trump is trying to delegitimize the Harris-Waltz crowd size because it was the gateway to delegitimizing the election results. Trump was intimidated by Harris’ energy and large crowds, but he also knew that if he acknowledged the large crowds were real, it would be harder for him to deny the election results if he lost.
Bernie Sanders is correct. Trump is laying the groundwork for claims that the election was stolen and that the people who voted for Harris-Walz are not real people. Part of the reason is that the former president has lived in a fictitious fantasy world his entire life. Harris’ campaign, on the other hand, drew large crowds that made it difficult for him to deny the election results.
Trump works every day to undermine the legitimacy of democracy, and he must be stopped.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of Society of Professional Journalists and American Political Science Association
