Politico just released the results of a new nationwide poll showing the "electorate has turned deeply skeptical about the integrity of the nation's election apparatus, with 41 percent of voters saying November's election could be 'stolen' from Donald Trump due to widespread voter fraud."

I don't know if the grinning Pennsylvanian in hot pink above (photo taken two weeks ago) is one of those 41-percenters, but would you be surprised? And that's 41 percent nationwide—i.e., including Democrats. If you isolate Republicans in the data, well, uhhh...

Trump’s repeated warnings about a “rigged” election are having effect: 73 percent of Republicans think the election could be swiped from him. Just 17 percent of Democrats agree with the prospect of massive fraud at the ballot box.

You guys? Election night is going to be a bloodbath.

Especially if this guy is on the loose:


DeRay Mckesson, a journalist and Black Lives Matter activist, tweeted: "If I said this, I'd be in jail."

The Republican presidential candidate spreading the message that the election is rigged if he doesn't win is terrifying in a hundred ways. Here are the first four of those hundred:

1. It will inspire "well-regulated militias" like this guy above to take matters into their own hands.

2. It confuses already very confused voters who, because they have never read a book, don't realize there's a difference between how votes work in the U.S. and how they work in actual authoritarian countries.

3a. There is evidence that this 2016 presidential election is being compromised by the Russians, a country that knows a thing or two about rigging elections.

3b. There are lots of worrying connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

3c. Psychologically, Trump is all about projection—he accuses Bill Clinton of being a sexual predator, he accuses Hillary Clinton of having bad judgment. So whatever he accuses others of (e.g. rigging the election) is a clue about whatever might be true of him.

4. Spreading the message that the election may be "rigged" (and therefore invalid) amplifies an already worrying trend in U.S. politics, where when a political leader doesn't get their way just decides the person on the other side of the aisle is invalid. Think of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Think of the Senate refusing to hold hearings on the president's Supreme Court nominee.

This is the biggest threat to our democracy, because it's so widespread: Generally decent and rational people like John McCain are part of the problem. Speaking of the Supreme Court situation, just today, he said, "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up. I promise you." In other words, "I promise that no matter who the person is, we won't even consider them on their merits, we will just be automatically against them, no matter what." They will be invalid because Hillary Clinton nominated them.

That's just like Mitch McConnell saying in 2009: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." How is that not rigging things from the inside? How is McCain's comment not evidence of rigging things from the inside?

The only difference with Trump is that he has poured kerosene on this "I disagree so you're invalid" logic. Partly that's because, if he loses, Trump's pride is at stake, and my God, who has gone to greater lengths (and more elaborate hair pieces) to preserve their pride than he?

Brian Stetler has been great on this topic and I hope other talking heads start getting good at this topic too, because this is only going to get worse between now and election day.