One thing that’s little remarked among the punditry, perhaps because it’s so hard to make a both siderist case about it, is the Republican habit of projection. If they’re doing it, they’re loudly accusing the Democrats of doing it. They even had the chutzpah to claim that the Democrats were trying to destroy Medicare. They claim that voter suppression is all about stopping rampant voter fraud when the only recent cases of voter fraud involved Republican operatives (See this, for example).
So it’s not surprising that no one among the pundit class or in the reportorial ranks is pointing out that Trump is loudly proclaiming his intent to steal the election. He is doing so in the usual way, by accusing the Democrats of trying to do it. This is from the on-line edition of the linked article.
The president also continued his monthslong assault on voting by mail and repeated unfounded accusations that it was part of a plot by Democrats to hand the election to Mr. Biden.
But this, from the print edition we got this morning, which has apparently been “updated” and which I can’t find online, is more to the point:
President Trump was formally nominated for a second term on Monday, and immediately accused Democrats of leveraging the coronavirus crisis “to steal the election” using the first day of the Republican convention to level the sort of inflammatory, and often misleading charges he has increasingly turned to as he tries to make up ground against Joseph R. Biden.
So, we’ll definitely be seeing at least attempted robbery. Whether it will be successful is another question.
By the way, notice that despite the mostly negative tone of the article in the Times, they won’t go near the “L” word when it comes to Trump and his enablers. “Misleading” or “unfounded accusations” will have to do.
Update: Looks like the theft has begun. The Trump folks are trying to create fraudulent voters.