They will lie and blame immigrants for losing

The next story is also one of the oldest.

Note: I’m writing this from Tulum so for those of you listening to the audio version of this post, please forgive the music in the background. Currently the hotel next door is playing “Murder She Wrote” by Chaka Demus and Pliers, which feels very weird considering the subject of this edition of this newsletter. Today’s post focuses on the lie that immigrants are to blame for a potential Donald Trump loss in November. Unfortunately, that means that an immigrant or a brown person in America is going to be hurt or killed as a result of this lie. I wish that weren’t the case but it probably is.

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It’s very strange to know what is almost surely going to happen and, no matter how hard one tries, to not be able to do anything about it. There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants — “illegals,” as the right likes to call them — vote in any significant manner in U.S. elections. And yet, that is exactly the story increasingly being told as we inch closer to Election Day. 

On the campaign trail, in lawsuits, in television interviews, and in private, the American right is setting up their supporters to believe another massive lie about November’s election. This time, it won’t be unseen nefarious forces flipping votes on voting machines, like election deniers absurdly argued in 2020, or “mules” “harvesting” ballots and depositing them in drop boxes en masse. No, this time, the story will be much simpler — and in a way much more dastardly. 

Donald Trump and his supporters in the Republican party and the broader ecosystem of right-wing media and culture will blame immigrants for stealing the election from him, should he lose. In lawsuits across the country, they argue that there are more than a million people who are perhaps illegally registered to vote. As I reported today for Rolling Stone, these lawsuits claim that among those ineligible voters are an unknown number of undocumented immigrants.

More on political extremism

• The magic pill of migrant fear

• Emails reveal ties between election officials and far-right sheriffs

• Careening toward darkness

• We've been here before

• "No way Trump can lose without fraud" - Election officials in the South preview election denial to come

The lawsuits are in line with what Trump and others have said publicly: that “illegal immigrants” are going to steal the election for Vice President Kamala Harris. Not only is this a more craven and dangerous ploy that will probably result in political violence being carried out against non-whites, but in a way it’s more believable than the opaque and sweeping conspiracies about election fraud in 2020. There are noncitizens who are registered to vote — albeit a very small number. And in some places noncitizens can legally vote in certain elections. 

These facts make the growing claims of election fraud by undocumented immigrants slightly more plausible — and understandable — than the often bizarre and insane claims that came four years ago. Put another way: it’s politically smart.

The cleverness of the plan is part of what makes it so unsettling. Trump and his acolytes in the Republican party, the right-wing media and many, many other areas of American life who should know better are willing to sell out for this soul-harming lie.