Trump and the Right-Wing Machine Are Pushing Coup Conspiracies

President Donald Trump and the right-wing media apparatus supporting him are pushing the lie that mail-in ballots currently being counted constitute rampant voter fraud and evidence of some conspiracy against him.

After prematurely declaring victory on Tuesday night, Trump went on a Twitter tear Wednesday morning after mail-in ballot counts propelled Joe Biden to narrow leads in Michigan and Wisconsin. First, Trump falsely claimed that his lead in several states seemed to “magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.” 

Twitter labeled this tweet as “disputed,” but in the next one, which was not labeled, Trump questioned why mail-in ballots are “so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?”

The “ballot dumps” were not magical. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan were legally barred from counting mail-in votes, which have overwhelmingly leaned in Biden’s direction, prior to Election Day. This has been expected for months, and the partisan gap between Republican and Democrat mail-in votes grew as time went on, and as Trump repeatedly attacked the process. 

Trump’s recent Twitter claims have been boosted by various right-wing media figures and Twitter personalities. He  retweeted a claim by Travis County (Texas) GOP chair Matt Mackowiak, which was later labeled by Twitter as disputed, that an update of Michigan numbers gave 140,000 new votes to Biden and none to Trump.

“So while everyone was asleep and after everyone went home, Democrats in Michigan magically found a trove of 138,339 votes, and all 138,339 of those ‘votes’ magically went to Biden?” Federalist co-founder and former GOP staffer Sean Davis tweeted, in response to the map that Mackowiak posted. “That doesn't look suspicious at all.”

With no evidence whatsoever, tight-wing radio host Steve Deace said Biden was “miraculously garnering [Hugo] Chavez-like totals in the dead of night,”  referencing the former Venezuelan leader. “This is a coup,” he added.

Despite unfounded online claims, vote counting is continuing in Michigan, where Biden currently leads, and his margin is expected to grow as more mail-in votes are tallied. The same goes for  Pennsylvania, where Biden is expected to win a large share of people who voted by mail. In Wisconsin, state election administrator Meagan Wolfe said the initial count finished with Biden leading by a nearly-insurmountable 20,000 votes. 

Even Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s former Republican governor, said it was unlikely for a potential recount to change that much, pointing to previous elections where recounts only changed vote totals by a few hundred votes. 

“As I said, 20,000 is a high hurdle,” Walker wrote. 

Nevertheless, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien has announced that they will request a recount. And the president has continued to angrily tweet through it.