A DEFEATED PRESIDENT CHOSE ARIZONA To stage a Save America PAC Rally For Mid-Term Election Season

It was a Political Action Campaign to broadcast and spread everything about Stop-The-Steal and "The Big Lie" he's been repeating for more than a year using his newly chosen cast of true believers he has endorsed -- only if his cast of new apprentice characters follow his script

 

Trump Soft-Launches His 2024 Campaign

The former president’s message at his Arizona rally was as clear as it was dishonest:

He didn’t lose to Joe Biden in 2020, and he’ll spend the next year working to elect Republicans who agree.

(Image credit: Mario Tama / Getty)

By Elaine Godfrey

The Atlantic |

FLORENCE, Ariz.—Tonight, deep in the Arizona desert, thousands of people chanted for Donald Trump. They had braved the wind for hours—some waited the entire day—just to get a glimpse of the defeated former president. And when he finally appeared on stage, as Lee Greenwood played from the loudspeakers, the crowd roared as though Trump were still the commander-in-chief. To many of them, he is.

“I ran twice and we won twice,” Trump told his fans. "This crowd is a massive symbol of what took place, because people are hungry for the truth. They want their country back."

Tonight’s rally was Trump’s first public event since July. On paper, the gathering was meant as his response to the anniversary of January 6, as well as an unofficial kickoff for his efforts to support Republicans in the midterm elections. But the event also served as the soft launch of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Although he didn’t say the words, the former president seems poised to run in two years—”Make America Great Again Again … Again,” he joked to the crowd—and tonight, his message was as clear as it was dishonest: He didn’t lose to Joe Biden in 2020, and he’ll spend the next year working to elect Republicans who agree.

Trump chose Arizona for this moment for a reason: In this state, the Big Lie thrives. Trump only lost Arizona by 10,000 votes in 2020, giving him and his supporters the space, apparently, to allege that the close outcome was the result of left-wing chicanery, the result of ballot stuffing and interference by Venezuelans, among other false claims. . .GOP politicians across Arizona adopted Trump’s lies anyway. Many of them were guests of honor tonight.

The pre-Trump headliner was Kari Lake, the former TV-news reporter running to replace Governor Doug Ducey; she alleges, falsely, that “bag loads of ballots” were dumped in Arizona last year. (“Kari Lake, she’s been with us from the beginning on the election fraud,” Trump gushed when he brought her back on stage for a cameo during his speech.)

Other speakers included secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, who was at the Capitol last January 6 and who often wears a cowboy hat and bolo-tie despite being from Michigan; Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Debbie Lesko, three Trump-loving members of Congress who voted against certifying Biden’s win in 2020; and the state GOP chair Kelli Ward, who has embraced numerous conspiracy theories and recently received a cease and desist notice from Dominion Voting Systems after accusing the company of changing 6,000 Trump votes to Biden votes last year. Each of these Republicans has repeatedly echoed Trump’s false allegations of election mischief. Of course they have. This is the former president’s new litmus test: You endorse the lie; he endorses you.

Nearly everyone I interviewed at the rally vowed to follow Trump’s lead, and only support GOP candidates who endorse the false idea that he won the election. . .If Lake and the other Big Lie proponents at tonight’s rally can win their primary races, they’ve got a good shot at becoming the Grand Canyon State’s next generation of political leaders. Even with power, though, they’ll still owe Trump a debt of loyalty—one that he’ll expect to be repaid.

[...] Trump has still been speaking directly to his most dutiful supporters through far-right media outlets, though. (“He’s tan, fit, has lost some weight since he left office,” Newsmax’s anchors, speculating eagerly about a 2024 announcement, trilled as Trump took the stage here. “People forget that The Apprentice was the number one show on NBC.”) Now that the midterm season is fully underway, Trump will be out and about more often, hosting rallies and stumping for the any Republicans desperate enough to lie about the election in exchange for his support. He will in some ways be reintroducing himself to the country: Here I am, America, back after a stolen election, ready to win by any means possible. . .

Trump has had a remarkable 14 months. Most losing presidential candidates are forced into quiet retirement by their parties. Trump has bucked the trend, only tightening his grip on the GOP in the wake of his defeat. He has convinced Republican candidates all over the country—including those on stage tonight—to repeat his election lies, and convinced his rank-and-file supporters to treat those falsehoods as holy writ. By this point, those lies have been circulating for what feels like forever. But at tonight's rally, as Trump’s fans called for the arrests of poll workers and the reinstatement of the rightful president, I got the sense that this might be just the beginning."