Have you ever noticed that every time voters of color stand up and start leading the charge for change against this MAGA failure, President Trump finds a new and novel way to start ranting and raving about so-called stolen elections, phantom illegal voters and his vision for “ballot security.”
Does that feel like a coincidence to anyone? It shouldn’t.
It’s the same old anti-democracy song and dance that we’ve seen time and time again, and it was on full display during his July 16 speech. It was the old soft shoe routine he’s so fond of, where every election he wins was legitimate, and every one he loses is rigged.
It’s the old “heads I win, tails you lose” situation, and he’s trying to use it to position himself for the November midterms, because he’s going to lose.
Look, we already know that Trump is a liar. He lied about his relationships, he lied about Project 2025, he lied about his plans to “fix healthcare,” “end inflation,” and all the rest. He lies about ICE, Iran, his corrupt White House and gas prices. He even lies about crowd size.
But while so many in the MAGA party bend over backwards to excuse and normalize those lies, I keep remembering how my grandmother used to warn me that anyone who’s willing to lie to you will also happily steal from you.
Scratch a liar and find a thief.
Donald Trump is a liar, make no mistake. He’s been lying to you, and he’s doing his level best to steal the upcoming midterms from you because he can’t stand the fact that Black folks are willing to stand up to him.
Related: Why Black America Isn’t Taking MAGA’s Bait Over These Lies
He’s lying to you and trying to steal this election from you by racial gerrymandering and dismantling Black districts, mobilizing ICE agents or our own military to “oversee” in-person voting and ballot counting, illegally declaring a ban on mail-in voting and more.
But fear and suppression are known strategies. That’s why we’ve already seen Voter ID, voter roll purges and the endless restrictions passed by GOP legislatures all across this country. That’s why we had poll taxes, literacy tests, Jim Crow and the KKK showing up at your house if you had the audacity to cast a ballot.
We know that song pretty well by now because, as much as Republicans like to talk about loving America, it’s only when they’re winning. Heaven help them if you manage to beat them. Then all that love goes out the window.
Scratch a liar and find a thief.
But there is good news because, for all their bluster, we have defeated this strategy before and we will beat it again this November because, for Black folks in America, this isn’t a game. We’re casting a survival vote.
However, if we want to win, we must be of one accord.
Look, don’t get me wrong. Lots of people have issues with the Democratic Party and its leadership. I get that, and I hear you. But the reality is that the disagreements we may have within our party simply don’t compare to what we’re facing on the outside.
As much as I believe that most decisions fall somewhere on the spectrum, this one is a binary vote because either you’re voting for working folks or you’re not. Either you want ICE to be held accountable for grabbing people off the street, locking away defenseless children and gunning down American citizens, or you think that’s okay. Either you’re voting to end this affordability crisis, or you’re endorsing the Big Ugly Bill with the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in American history. Either you want quality healthcare to be affordable and accessible to all, agree that a woman should have control over her own body and what the MAGA mob says shouldn’t matter more than her doctor, believe that no one is above the law and that democracy isn’t just a stepping stone to dictatorship, or you don’t.
Either you believe every American has the right to vote or you don’t because, let’s be honest, Donald Trump is afraid of what happens if you take that to heart. That’s what his speech was all about. Donald Trump is afraid because he knows that if you can vote…if you do vote…and if you speak with one united voice, then his day is done.
He’s afraid because he knows that, when you scratch a liar, you find a thief.
