Trump's Obsession With Undoing His 2020 Defeat
Every authoritarian leader has a central obsession that comes to occupy propaganda and policy. Trump's is fixing the system so he never loses again.
Every authoritarian leader has a core obsession, one that is often linked to some grievance or other negative emotion or cause. For autocrats, holding office is a way of solving their personal, political, legal, and financial problems, and so government institutions are repurposed to prioritize whatever core emotional and practical situation consumes the leader, keeping him up at night.
For President Donald Trump, that situation is the 2020 election. The Big Lie is back because Trump has a psychological and practical need to “prove” that his devastating loss never happened, because the election was rigged against him. The desire to undo the reality of his rejection by American voters has translated now into an all-hands-on-deck approach: rerouting the business of governance to satisfy his need for vengeance and the creation of an alternate reality he can live with.
Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard passed the loyalty test, going in person to Georgia, and the head of the FBI, Kash Patel, is racking up sycophant points for declaring the 2020 election probe an FBI “priority” that requires an “immediate surge” of hundreds of personnel to Fulton Country, the scene of the alleged crime.
Patel likely got extra credit for firing two analysts who dared to point out that the investigation was thin on evidence. The Party Line, i.e. Trump’s personal fantasy, must be maintained!
Trump has been remarkably thorough in seeking to discredit every link in the chain of voting, as I pointed out in a 2021 CNN essay that displeased MAGA and was cited in Trump’s 2022 lawsuit of the news company:
It’s not surprising that Trump’s lying had a dramatic uptick in 2020, when he was campaigning for reelection during a pandemic that he mismanaged with lethal results. He needed to discredit the main thing that threatened his power – the vote. He worked overtime to throw doubt on every single aspect of voting. He told lies about dead people voting, about fraudulent mail-in ballots, about votes illegally counted, not counted at all, or invented.
Now, the stakes are far higher. There is a relation between the decrease of Trump’s legitimacy, as his incompetence and incoherence have become obvious enough to jeopardize Republican victories in the midterms, and the increase of government resources and propaganda efforts devoted to election discrediting and manipulation.
The Big Lie, Foreign Interference Version
So get ready on Thursday night for a new roll-out of The Big Lie, Foreign Interference Version. The upcoming speech will likely seek to discredit our free and fair elections, conjuring corruption and foreign interference. Communists, who apparently are now everywhere inside America, might be mentioned, as well as the usual “radical left” suspects. The Orwellian phrase “election integrity” will be uttered many times: propaganda depends on repetition of slogans and phrases.
Since we are talking about 2020, these suspects might include the same people who currently have star billing on Trump’s January 6 White House propaganda site. “In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election…” the reader learns.
Or it might include a false claim that Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock are in office illegitimately because that state’s whole election machinery was corrupted. Ossoff, 39 years old, and Warnock, 56, are among the most talented and charismatic politicians in the country, with a fire and vigor that Trump no longer can muster.
One thing is certain: Trump will stay awake during the evening speech, no matter how interminably long it is, because (like many demagogues) he loves the sound of his own voice, and feeling powerful excites him. It will be a classic example of a strongman creating a fake crisis to justify a crackdown of some kind or an escalation of authoritarian tactics.
As preparation, I urge you to review two earlier Lucid essays on election manipulation. One, from February 2026, examines two narratives beloved by MAGA operatives: “China Did It: Reviving the 2021 “Coup Power Point” Narrative,” and “Venezuela Did It (And Maduro Can Fix It).”
What matters is having something to justify changes in the name of “election integrity” that will produce the right outcomes in 2026 and 2028. And that the culprit not be Russia.
The other, from June 2025, examines how foreign autocrats such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Nayib Bukele have removed elected officials on grounds of corruption (the evergreen autocrat excuse to get rid of rivals and dissenters). It was prompted by threats made by the former head of DHS, Kristi Noem, to remove elected officials in California for objecting to the militarized operations of ICE + National Guard + Marines on the streets of Los Angeles.
As a bonus, I include the informative conversation I had with election lawyer Marc Elias on election denial and threats to mail-in voting.
The history of resistance to autocracy is a history of people never giving up on elections, where these are still possible. If you want to do something, help us to achieve an overwhelming turnout in November and beyond, by phone banking, registering people to vote, calling friends and acquaintances and asking them if they are registered, setting up networks to get people to the polls, and more.
Your vote is your voice, and Trump and his allies want to silence you by converting our election system into a tool for remaining in power. Whatever Trump says tomorrow night, that remains the ultimate goal.
It’s important to remember, no matter what Trump claims or what documents he claims to have to back him up, that multiple arms of the US government found no foreign interference in any way that changed vote tallies or election outcomes.
On this Thursday’s night speech I bet he pulls out the Doomsday book and tries to shut the country and the elections down due to “ foreign threats”! Jeezus!!!!