Three prominent Republicans are unbothered that Donald Trump promised in four years, his supporters “won’t have to vote anymore” because “we’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
On Sunday, Gov. Chris Sununu called the comments “a classic Trumpism,” while Sen. Tom Cotton said Trump was “obviously making a joke,” and Sen. Lindsay Graham laughed and claimed that Trump meant, “Give me four more years, and I’m going to right the ship called America and pass it on to the next generation.” (That is decidedly not what Trump said.)
Trump’s comments came during an address to the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in Florida on Friday. “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore,” he told the crowd. “Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
The former president added, “You’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
While Republicans are happy to dismiss Trump’s remarks, Democrats, on the other hand, see them as a threat. “The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator,” Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democrat running for a Senate seat representing California, said on X. “Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.”
Sununu claimed that by saying things will be “fixed,” Trump merely meant that he will fix the country. “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 said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.
“I think he’s obviously making a joke about how bad things have been under Joe Biden and how good they will be if we send President Trump back to the White House, so we can turn the country around again,” Cotton said on CNN’s State of the Union.
“He’s trying to tell the Christian community and anybody else who’s listening,” Graham said during an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation, “the nightmare that we’re experiencing will soon be over. Give me four more years, and I’m gonna right this ship called America and pass it on to the next generation.”
Graham added, “We will have democracy, God willing, for a very long time in this country. But what President Trump is trying to tell people — ‘I did it once, I can do it again.'”
For the most part, the anchors on each Sunday show were happy to let Republicans spew their justifications without pushback.
But Trump’s comments on Friday are not the only time the former president has hinted at — or blatantly endorsed — subverting democracy. He infamously tried to pressure Georgia officials to “find” more votes for him in the state after the 2020 election. He told his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day Congress voted to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election — to “fight like hell” or “you’re not going to have a country anymore.” His supporters then marched to the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification. Earlier this year, Trump made comments that he plans to abuse his power “on day one” and followed up those remarks by saying he wants “to be a dictator for one day.”
“You know why I wanted to be a dictator?” Trump said. “Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
With this track record, it’s disturbing that Republicans are trying to convince the American people not to take his words seriously.
