By Antjuan Seawright, Columnist
Have you ever noticed that every time voters of color stand up and start leading the charge for change against this MAGA failure, President Trump finds a new and novel way to start ranting and raving about so-called stolen elections, phantom illegal voters and his vision for “ballot security.”
Does that feel like a coincidence to anyone? It shouldn’t – especially now that the primaries are over.
It’s the same old anti-democracy song and dance that we’ve seen time and time again, the soft shoe routine he’s so fond of where every election he wins was legitimate and every one he loses is rigged. It’s the old “heads I win, tales you lose” situation and he’s trying to use it to position himself for the November midterms…because he’s going to lose.
But don’t just take my word for it. Look at Shelby County, TN where Black turnout just surged to the highest level in a decade. Look at South Carolina where a massive Black voter turnout, particularly during early voting, killed the Trump-led redistricting movement in that state. Look at Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan and more where Black turnout has been surging since Trump’s Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act because we are watching our votes being suppressed in real time and it’s invigorating the Black community instead of intimidating us.
That doesn’t just scare MAGA. It terrifies them. That’s why they’re pushing the so-called SAVE America Act with desperate abandon. That’s why Trump is claiming that Black voters are “flocking” to his banner when the opposite is true. That’s why he’s doing everything he can to distract and disguise his own impotence and that’s why he’s doing all he can to divide Democrats and independent voters even if it means resurrecting the old “Communist” dog whistle.
It’s his last chance and he knows it.
Look, we already know that Trump is a liar. He’s lied about his relationships, he lied about Project 2025, he lied about his plans to “fix healthcare” and “end inflation” and all the rest. He lies about ICE, Iran, his corrupt White House and gas prices. He even lies about crowd size.
But while so many in the MAGA party bend over backwards to excuse and normalize those lies, I keep remembering how my grandmother used to warn me that anyone who’s willing to lie to you, will also happily steal from you.
Scratch a liar and find a thief.
Donald Trump is a liar, make no mistake. He’s been lying to you and he’s doing his level best to steal the coming midterms from you because he can’t stand the fact that Black folks are willing to stand up to him.
He’s lying to you and trying to steal this election from you by racial gerrymandering and dismantling Black districts, mobilizing ICE agents or our own military to “oversee” in person voting and ballot counting, illegally declaring a ban on mail-in voting and more.
But fear and suppression is a known strategy. That’s why we’ve already seen Voter ID, voter roll purges and the endless restrictions passed by GOP legislatures all across this country. That’s why we had poll taxes, literacy tests, Jim Crow and the KKK showing up at your house if you had the audacity to cast a ballot.
We know that song pretty well by now because, as much as Republicans like to talk about loving America, it’s only when they’re winning.
Scratch a liar and find a thief.
But there is good news because, for all their bluster, we have defeated this strategy before and we will beat it again this November because, for Black folks in America, this isn’t a game. We’re casting a survival vote.
But if we want to win, we have to be of one accord.
Look, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of people out there taking issue with the Democratic Party and its leadership. I get that and I hear you. But the reality is that the disagreements we may have within our party simply don’t compare to what we’re facing without.
The reality is that, as much as I believe that most decisions fall somewhere on the spectrum, this one is a binary vote because either you’re voting for working folks or you’re not. Either you want ICE to be held accountable for grabbing people off the street, locking away defenseless children and gunning down American citizens or you think that’s okay. Either you’re voting to end this affordability crisis or you’re endorsing the Big Ugly Bill with the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in American history. Either you want quality healthcare to be affordable and accessible to all, that a woman should have control over her own body and what the MAGA mob says shouldn’t matter more than her doctor, that no one is above the law and that democracy isn’t just a stepping stone to dictatorship or you don’t.
Either you believe every American has the right to vote or you don’t because, let’s be honest, Donald Trump is afraid of what happens if you take that to heart. Donald Trump is afraid because he knows that if you can vote…if you do vote…and if you speak with one voice united, then his day is done.
He’s afraid because he knows that, when you scratch a liar, you find a thief.
