When I saw this news story, published a few hours ago in the Washington Post, I had to write to you. The administration, aware that its villainy and incompetence will lead to major losses at the ballot box in 2026 and beyond, is being urged to use the narrative of “Chinese interference” in the 2020 election as an excuse to deal a blow to fair and free elections. They are building on talking points suggested in a Power Point that Trump officials viewed before the January 6 coup attempt, which I discussed in a Feb. 6, 2026 essay.
“The Big Lie is back, and its revival marks an escalation,” I wrote.
The first time, it supported the mission of overturning one election that didn’t go the way the Lie’s creator, President Donald Trump, needed it to go. This time, it’s not one election at stake: it’s all American elections, which, Trump tell us, should be “nationalized” and managed by Republicans to fight the kinds of fraud and interference which deprived him of his 2020 win.
When a major event is being planned, authoritarian governments often “test” different narratives on the public to see which one lands best. This is what is going on now with the machinations around the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
In the essay, I note that they were test-driving both Venezuela and China as culprits, and whatever propaganda narrative they settled on, two things mattered: that it not be Russia, and that the invented threat justify “interventions” into our election system sufficient to produce the outcomes Trump needs in 2026 and 2028.
It’s notable that two main elements of this propaganda —Chinese interference in 2020, and a national emergency should be declared to prevent it from happening again—were both part of the Jan. 6 Power Point.
“The Chinese systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency,” read the suggested talking points on one slide. “The electronic voting machines were compromised and cannot be trusted to provide an accurate vote count.” Electronic voting should be declared invalid, the PPT continued, and hand counting of ballots given over to “federalized national guard” and “U.S. Marshals.”
“The 2020 Election: Made in China?” was the recommended slogan, with a helpful image attached.
This said, we can’t rule out a future revival of the “Venezuela did it” option. Maduro remains in prison in New York, awaiting trial on drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit “narcoterrorism” charges. From the administration’s point of view, the fate of Maduro is far less important than “solving” the problem of losing elections once and for all.
Let’s keep track of the language and logic used to fabricate an emergency, remembering that “when nothing is true, everything is possible,” to paraphrase the title of a book by Peter Pomerantsev. Denying one election, and keeping that lie alive, is needed for a bigger move that places all elections in jeopardy.
The felon is the most obvious cheater we’ve ever been exposed to. He NEEDS to cheat.
Thank you Ruth for everything