Frightening Rhetoric from the White House. Again.
If you, like me, sit and wonder when the true groundwork for the inevitable claim for a third term and an increase in voter discrimination is to be laid, then you probably tuned in to the United State’s presidential address tonight (16 July 2026). There was some portent lying in wait in the smoke billowing down from the North. My gut heaved as though in the sea, and so I watched the damn thing. Live. Which, having a reasonable attachment to my remaining functioning brain cells, is not something I typically do. Donald’s syllabic slaughterings are worse than binge-drinking from a Camelback while getting tackled by Jordan Mailtala (that’s an American football reference that even I don’t understand. Thank you search engine).
For those of you who aren’t willing to sacrifice their bodies, Donald Trump spent just under thirty minutes reading from a script that he clearly did not write about how the 2020 election was interfered with, how there was and still is massive evidence of voter fraud that was covered up by the Biden and Obama administrations, and how Obama directed people to create burn bags containing bombshell proof of corruption that were never burned due to incompetence. He pushed the SAVE America Act, rambled about how great we are now, and somehow still have the bandwidth to shout a solid “transgender for all” right at the beginning.
We are all just expected to ignore that any 2020 election interference would have happened on his watch, that if Democrats are so good and keen on cheating elections then why did he win in 2024, and that we DO have proof of election interference, but it points the finger at Republicans more so than Democrats.
What has me more frightened in this particular instance is the preamble the affair had. Stephen Miller came out and talked about the intent and plan to eliminate “radical left-wing terrorism” just weeks after left-wing zine distributors were sentenced as, admitted by the judge, an example to everyone else. Musings of domestic election interference from the current administration are constantly implied with Karoline Leavitt going so far as to suggest, via omission, that Donald won’t respect the outcome of the upcoming midterms unless they go his way.
Taken piecemeal, in isolation, and when squinting, each instance is designed to appeal to the frictionless side of the brain that accepts what the vast authority network of media and electoral officials utilise. Every word is laden with emotional sauces that bypass anything even resembling a cognitive process for the sake of jumping your blood pressure and getting you to do nothing but listen to their brazen disinformation. If any, and I truly do mean any, semblance of critical thought is applied to the goals of Donald’s election interference tirade it becomes clear that he wants nothing more than to ensure he stays in power regardless of the decisions of the voting public.
What especially scares me is that it works. There is a considerable sample of people that believe every disgusting accusation without thought. Does my neighbour eye me and think me out to turn his children trans? Does the person at the grocery store go home and celebrate the destruction of my rights as a disabled person? Do I have “friends” who stay their tongue because, “yea, what he says about women isn’t right, but he’s good for the economy?” The division that Donald sows amidst his own followers is equally effective against those that can see him for what he is. MAGA is afraid of a boogeyman lurking in a closet out to snatch away their dicks and their privilege and in so doing has created a real monster for everyone else.
MAGA is afraid of a ghost painted, dressed, and rigged by people who sell the equipment to hunt it. I am afraid of the equipment being sold that looks a lot like fascism with “gost huntr” written in gold marker on the side.