What did Donald Trump mean when he told a crowd of supporters to “get out and vote, just this time,” and that in four years they won’t “have to vote again” because “we’ll have fixed it so good”? Given the ex-president’s affinity for dictators and authoritarianism in general, his vow to be a dictator on “day one” of a potential second term, and his documented inability to accept the outcome of elections that result in him losing, a lot of people believe he meant that if he wins in November, we can kiss free-and-fair elections goodbye. But according to a number of Republicans, that could not be further from the truth!
Speaking to ABC’s This Week on Sunday, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu insisted Trump would never even dream of undermining democracy. Claiming that Trump merely meant he was going to “fix” the country, the GOP governor added: “Obviously we want everybody to vote in all elections, but I think he was just trying to make a hyperbolic point that it can be fixed as long as he gets back into office and all that.” Sununu’s claim is, clearly, spin. Even if Trump was simply saying he was going to improve the country, people would still need to vote four years later.
But of course, the governor was not the only Republican telling people not to take Trump at his word. Over the weekend, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) claimed Trump was “obviously making a joke,” while Senator Lindsey Graham said Trump was “trying to tell the Christian community and anybody else who’s listening [that] the nightmare that we’re experiencing will soon be over, give me four more years and I’m gonna ride this ship called America and pass it on to the next generation.”
Democrats—who, like the rest of the country, watched as Trump incited a violent attack on the Capitol in 2021 because he couldn’t accept that he’d lost—unsurprisingly had a different interpretation. A spokesperson for Kamala Harris said of Trump: “He has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America.” Representative Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) wrote on X: “The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator.” Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said of the ex-president’s remarks: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.”
For his part, Trump has a long history of merely implying the terrible things he’d like to see happen without directly calling for them, in the same way a mafia mob boss would. For instance, when he called up the president of Ukraine in 2019, he didn’t say, “I need you to dig up dirt on my political rival, and if you don’t, I’m not going to send you any more aid”—but that was, quite obviously, the implication. And on January 6, 2021, he didn’t tell attendees of the Stop the Steal rally, “Go break into the Capitol and stop them from certifying the results of the election, and while you’re there, chant about hanging Mike Pence”—but he might as well have!
