Donald Trump Jr. Calls For ‘Total War’ Over Election Results
Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted on Thursday, saying his father should go to “total war” over the results of the election, which he falsely claims are fraudulent.
There’s no evidence so far of any of the fraud that the Trump family and their supporters are claiming. In fact, courts in both Michigan and Georgia threw out lawsuits brought by the Trump Campaign Thursday because there was no evidence brought for their allegations.
However, on Twitter, Don Jr. continues to declare that there is fraud, including votes from people who no longer live in the state in which they allegedly voted, votes cast in the names of dead people, and other cheating.
The best thing for America’s future is for @realDonaldTrump to go to total war over this election to expose all of the fraud, cheating, dead/no longer in state voters, that has been going on for far too long.
It’s time to clean up this mess & stop looking like a banana republic!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 5, 2020
It should be noted, first, that “dead people voting” is an old trope, and generally comes from misinformation around the fact that sometimes people who die are not automatically removed from voter rolls. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there are votes cast in their name, only that they’re still listed as registered voters. Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research explains here how a study spanning 8 years found a total of 14 votes cast in the names of dead people — and they’re not even certain that all of those are actual cases of fraud and not clerical error.
Even if every one of those was fraudulent, it’s a fair bet that 14 votes over 8 years didn’t substantially change America or influence any elections.
Though Twitter flagged the eldest Trump son’s comment for misinformation, as you can see below, perhaps more concerning is the reference to war.
Though he later complained about the misinformation tag and suggested that he was only talking about a thorough investigation, the call to war is alarming.
Twitter is censoring and flagging this of course why would we not want to find out if these things exist? If they don’t then we will find nothing and people could maybe regain some faith in the process which doesn’t exist now.
Why would they be against finding potential fraud? https://t.co/uJUKMtZ8iZ
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 5, 2020
Concerns have already been expressed that Trump’s fan base would respond violently to a loss, and there are already cases of people showing up at voting sites and demanding access,. For example, the NY Times has reported that armed Trump supporters showed up at a voting site in Maricopa County, Arizona, to intimidate poll workers who were counting ballots.
At this point, any reference to war or other violent response is a matter of concern, especially from someone who is close enough to the president to influence his following.