In a speech at the Turning Point USA Believers' Summit on Friday, Donald Trump implored audience members to vote in the 2024 election, assuring them that, if he gets a second term, "it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians." In four years, he reiterated, "you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote." Even Fox News host Laura Ingraham recognized the anti-democratic promise that his supporters "won't have to vote anymore" had created problems for Trump. In an interview with the former president on Monday, she encouraged him to clarify his statement, yet he continued to repeat it multiple times. Taken together with the rest of Trump's speech, in which he cast himself as a divinely protected savior of his supporters' vision for America, and falsely portrayed Kamala Harris as a ruthless persecutor of patriotic believers, his doubling down on his promise to "fix" it sends an unambiguous message. It is the most definitive statement to date of his intention to implement the Christian nationalist autocracy sought by his most ardent believers. This is a preview of Sarah Posner's latest article. Read the full column here. |