Donald Trump has ignited alarm among his critics after telling a crowd of supporters that they won't 'have to vote again' if they return him to the presidency in November's election.
'Christians, get out and vote! Just this time â€" you won't have to do it any more,' the Republican former president said on Friday night at a rally hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the far-right advocacy group Turning Point Action.
'You know what? It'll be fixed! It'll be fine. You won't have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians,' he said with a slight shake of his head and his right hand pressed against the left side of his chest.
He added: 'I love you. Get out â€" you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote.'
Trump's remarks â€" delivered not far from his Mar-a-Lago resort and home â€" were immediately met with consternation in some political quarters.
The constitutional and civil rights attorney Andrew Seidel, for instance, replied to video of Trump's comments circulating on X by writing: 'This is not subtle Christian nationalism. He's talking about ending our democracy and installing a Christian nation.'
Actor Morgan Fairchild added in a separate X post: 'But … what if I want to vote again?? I was always raised that we get to vote again! That is America.' And NBC legal commentator Katie Phang said: 'In other words, Trump won't ever leave the White House if he gets re-elected.'
Trump's comments on Friday came months after he remarked that he would be 'a dictator on day one' if given a second four-year term in the White House. He has repeatedly made known his admiration for authoritarian leaders, including Russia's Vladimir Putin, Hungary's Viktor Orbán and North Korea's Kim Jong-un. And a former White House aide reported that Trump once said Adolf Hitler â€" whose Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews during the Holocaust amid the second world war â€" 'did some good things'.
Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 has detailed plans to aim retribution at Trump's actual and perceived enemies â€" whether politicians or bureaucrats â€" should he be re-elected.
Experts on authoritarianism warn the public to take Trump seriously when he speaks in that manner. And before Joe Biden halted his re-election campaign on 21 July and endorsed Kamala Harris to succeed him in the Oval Office, the Democratic president repeatedly sought to portray Trump as an existential threat to American democracy.
Trump's supporters have tried to blame that rhetoric for the failed 13 July assassination attempt that targeted the former president at a political rally in Pennsylvania. The FBI said on Friday that a bullet â€" whether whole or fragmented â€" hit Trump in one of his ears during that day's shooting, which also killed a rally-goer and wounded two other spectators before a Secret Service sniper shot the gunman to death.
Yet many pointed out how Trump's remarks on Friday seemed to be an indication that the Republican nominee for president had no plans to stop making explicit threats against democratic norms, including elections themselves.
'Oh. Trump just cancelled the 2028 election,' liberal political commentator Keith Olbermann wrote on X in a post containing a video clip of the ex-president's remarks on Friday.
Caty Payette, the communications director for Democratic US senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, added in a separate X post: 'When we say Trump is a threat to democracy, this is exactly what we're talking about.'
However, not everyone is turned off by the rhetoric to which Trump resorted on Friday. An Ipsos poll published in June and commissioned by the Earth4All non-profit and the Global Commons Alliance found that 41% of Americans believe 'having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections' is a very good or fairly good way to govern.
Some younger people and higher earners in particular showed support for that sentiment, according to the poll, said Owen Gaffney, co-leader of Earth4All.
Trump easily clinched the Republican nomination for November's election despite having been convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York state prosecution involving $130,000 paid to adult film actor Stormy Daniels after she alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him. He has also been grappling with charges of illicitly trying to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election that he lost to Biden â€" efforts that were buoyed on 1 July when a US supreme court with three Trump appointees ruled that he enjoys immunity from being prosecuted for any acts deemed official.
And, among other legal issues, he has faced multimillion-dollar civil penalties for fraud and a rape allegation that a judge determined to be substantially true.
A poll released on Friday by the Republican-friendly Fox News network showed Trump in a tight race with Harris, the US vice-president, in key swing states that could decide November's election. Before Biden's withdrawal from the presidential election, polls generally showed Trump had built relatively comfortable leads in a number of key swing states.
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