You don’t need to be an expert in electoral politics to understand Rule One of any campaign: Candidates should pursue as many votes as possible. In a democracy, it’s common sense: The more votes a campaign has, the greater the chance of success.

With this in mind, Donald Trump appears to have a counterintuitive rhetorical habit. The New Republic noted:

On Fox News Thursday morning, Donald Trump had a weird instruction for his supporters: they don’t have to vote. “My instruction: We don’t need the votes, I have so many votes,” Trump said on Fox & Friends before going on a rant about how much support he has in Florida.

As a clip from the show makes clear, the former president didn’t appear to be kidding: https://x.com/atrupar/status/1816482779581775943

If the phrasing sounded at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. The day after last month’s presidential debate, for example, Trump held a rally in Virginia and told attendees, “We don’t need votes.”

  • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    “We don’t need the votes because we’re going to call this election rigged and stolen just like the last one. We’re going to challenge the legitimacy of Harris as a candidate and draw out the election results in court for years. Hopefully we’ll get it to the supreme court where my lackies will nullify the results and declare me leader. At the same time, we’ll call for more violence against our enemies and try to incite a full blown civil war because I’m a narcissistic man-child who can’t accept that I could be wrong and lose.”

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      So then what’s he waiting for? If he doesn’t need votes then he doesn’t need an election. If his plan is to seize power without voting or going through the electoral process then there is no point waiting for an election. If that’s the case then what’s he waiting on? Sounds like bullshit to me.

  • zaph@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    If there’s one thing magats have right it’s that Donnie tells it like he sees it. The reason he doesn’t need votes is because he thinks he can steal the election. It’s pretty simple when you don’t look too deep and with him you never should.

  • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Because the fix is in with the Republican state legislatures and Republican Governors

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    1 month ago
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  • Laereht@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Maybe it’s his feeble attempt at reverse psychology? It’s probably something more nefarious but we must account for stupidity

    • SGforce@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I’m betting his aids keep saying they need votes and his ego is saying it’s impossible.

      • Laereht@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        One good thing about this era we find ourselves in is the growing understanding that the rich and powerful aren’t smart or good in any way. As soon as all of us realize this, the sooner we can achieve a world run by those that are intelligent and interested in actually running things properly.

        • flerp@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          The problem with that is that most of the poor are not really smart either. On average we’re a pretty dumb species.

          • Laereht@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            As they say, aim for the moon… And if you miss…I guess you get to enjoy the immensity of the universe? Optimism might be foolish but here we are narrowly avoiding authoritarian control day by day. So that’s at least something

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Because he’s counting on not having, or needing, the votes to win. His plan is to call the Election rigged, get Mike Johnson to refuse to certify the results, throw the election. Being “So confident” that he has more than enough votes to win, and then showing election results that have him way behind Harris, will just feed his narrative of a rigged election. He’ll go on about how a disparity like that isn’t possible, Johnson will parrot the same shit, opening a process that is much more unclear to certify a different result.

    Trump is laying the groundwork for an election loss, sewing seeds of doubt that he could lose my any margin, much less a big one. When the results come in, the bigger the landslide against him, the louder his screeching that it was obviously rigged.

  • Freefall@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Overconfidence, ignorance, and the knowledge of the shady crap the GOP is doing behind the scenes to suppress votes and rig things. Those together with narcissism means he has to brag but can’t reveal why he is so confident.

    • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      What little life he has left. I’ll never understand how people get to that age and are still behaving like they’re going to live forever. If someone has a forward-looking sense of duty that motivates them to make a better future for others I understand that, but Trump is clearly just in it for himself so I don’t really understand the motivation if it’s not just straight up denial of his own mortality.

      The end is right around the corner for old Dumpy, you’d think he’d want to spend it sitting on a beach drinking pina coladas that he got other people to pay for.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    1 month ago

    One aspect of the fake elector scheme was to block the counting of rightfully assigned electoral college votes.

    If they can successfully do that in enough states to prevent either candidate from getting 270, then it goes to the House of Representatives to select the president.

    Each state gets one vote, and since there are only 19 states with Democratic controlled legislatures, that would guarantee a Trump win, no voting necessary.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    Even if you are planning to cheat, you’d still want as many people voting for you as possible.

    • invertedspear@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      This implies he’s conniving. I don’t think he’s mentally fit enough anymore. Behind closed doors he worries about what will happen if he loses and they tell him, “you don’t need the votes, we’ll fix it if you don’t get them” and he’s just not with it enough to not brag about how smart and great he is. He lets things slip all the time. So now he’s made speeches saying people won’t have to vote, they’re going to fix it for him, etc. His team is likely freaking out that he keeps slipping, but it’s mixed in with so much bullshit rambling that it’s easy to play off. We absolutely need to be prepared for fuckery this fall.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Are they hoping if his results are abnormally low it will be easier to sell that it was rigged?

      Or is it self sabotage so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he couldn’t succeed (“I only lost because I sabotaged myself, otherwise I would have won!”)

      • kandoh@reddthat.com
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        1 month ago

        I think, maybe, he is really dumb and just thinks ‘we don’t need the votes’ looks strong and will encourage people to show up to share that strength

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        So around the time Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in 2016 he also started saying some really bizarre shit like that right before the election. He started claiming that the whole thing was rigged against him, that he never stood a chance, etc. Things that you should probably never say as a serious candidate intending to win. This was partially to shield his own fragile ego, but also to open the floodgates for lawsuits and accusations of election interference/fraud if he lost. The idea being to extend the media frenzy past November and focus on Trump for even longer. He had run for office many times before that and enjoyed the pump from the media reporting on it. Trump is a narcissist that can’t stand not being the center of attention.

        I still genuinely think he doesn’t actually want to do the job. He said stuff like “If we lose [in 2020] you’ll never hear from me again!” and he spent most of his time in office on his own private golf courses. He ran again in 2020 because not running for a second term would make him seem weak, which he couldn’t handle because it would damage his reputation as a strongman toughguy who never backs down. He’s running again in 2024 to avoid going to prison, which might still happen anyway if the state cases are allowed to proceed/go to sentencing.

        There’s no chance he actually gives a shit about any of the problems he claims to want to fix. This is about him - enriching himself with the job at the expense of the American taxpayer, avoiding the legal consequences of his actions, and having his cult puff up his ego every second of every hour of every day.

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    Trump is planning a violent overthrow of the nation in my opinion. Perhaps they have a kill calculator app that they are relying on, or police databases filled with phony reports on people they have marked to be killed.

    whichever.