Let’s be honest. He is getting worse. In the last 24 hours, Donald Trump has stood before an audience of religious leaders and declared that the 2024 election was rigged. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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February 5, 2026
Let’s be honest. He is getting worse.
In the last 24 hours, Donald Trump has stood before an audience of religious leaders and declared that the 2024 election was rigged. He sat down for an interview with NBC News and claimed that China is involved in our elections. He went on Truth Social and spread right-wing conspiracy theories.
While Trump has been banging the rigged-election drum for years, it is getting worse.
In 2016, Trump said he would “totally accept” the election results “if he wins.” During a debate, when asked if he would concede the election, he said, “I will keep you in suspense.” Yet election denialism was not yet central to his political movement.
At the time, people were eager to live by a now-discredited rule: Take Trump seriously, but not literally. His threats to dismiss the election results were taken as a joke. People doubted he would win, and they definitely doubted he had the movement and influence to act on any such threats.
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Even when Trump won, his threats to democracy did not stop. In 2017, he established a presidential commission to look into fraud in the election he won. While it ultimately collapsed under its own incompetence, it should have been a warning.
By the 2020 election, Trump had ramped up a campaign of election denialism and voter suppression to a fever pitch. In July 2020, when Fox News asked if he would accept the election results, he said, “Look … I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”
When he lost the election, his answer became a firm “no.” Frivolous lawsuits, abuse of election officials, and violence ensued.
Unrepentant, he was back at it in 2024 — this time hinting at the violence he unleashed four years earlier. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Before Trump, the peaceful transfer of power was not even a question. The wheels of democracy turned every four years, no matter who won or who lost. Former presidents attended inaugurations. The baton was passed from one president to another. They were graceful in defeat and humble in victory.
Sadly, that is no longer true.
As I said, the last 24 hours have been filled with an endless heap of election conspiracy. Last night, during an interview with NBC News, he said, “There are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections… If there was cheating, which there was, but if there was cheating, it should be found because we can’t let it happen again.”
Then, during the National Prayer Breakfast, he said, “They rigged the second election. I had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would’ve had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible ... The first time they said I didn’t win the popular vote. I did.”
This is probably the closest Trump has come to identifying what is really going on. Yes, he is an authoritarian, but he is also a narcissist. He is driven by an uncontrolled ego.
While other presidents have sought to bring the best and the brightest into government, Trump surrounds himself with incompetent sycophants and blind loyalists.
In past elections, this meant refusing to admit the reality of election defeats and spinning lies even when he won. In 2021, it also led to violence.
But this year, it is taking on a different cast entirely.
In 2020, he attacked the electoral system from the outside. Even though he was president, his destructive actions were taken in his role as a candidate. The White House staff and the Department of Justice prevented him from using the military to seize ballots. They refused to engage in litigation against state certifications.
That has all changed. Now, the DOJ acts as Trump’s personal election-denying law firm. The White House counsel seems to exist to facilitate whatever outrageous action Trump wants to take. There are no internal guardrails or truth-tellers.
As Trump threatens this year’s elections, he operates against the cold reality that he has never accepted an election he lost. He won’t accept it when he loses control of Congress this fall. He will try to overturn it however he can, with the full range of tools available to him as president.
Those of us in the pro-democracy movement have our own tools. Now is the time to sort and sharpen them and get ready to use them. It’s going to be a busy year.
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