Some of you may be disappointed to learn that former President Donald Trump, who tried to lie, cheat, and intimidate his way into staying in office after losing the 2020 election, has not learned a lesson from being impeached and investigated for his actions. On the contrary, Trump appears to be gearing up to start the process over again, using the 2022 midterm elections as practice for the next presidential race, and he’s still zeroing in on Black voters for his baseless legal challenges.
Pennsylvania as a 2022 battleground
Rolling Stone reports that Trump and his team are already planning to challenge the validity of Pennsylvania’s 2022 elections. The state is in the midst of several key races, such as a contest between Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano for Governor. Trump is particularly interested in the race between Republican candidate Mehmet Oz – the TV personality known as “Dr. Oz” who has picked up a Trump endorsement for his hard-right platform – and Democrat John Fetterman.
If Fetterman wins, as polls indicate is likely but not guaranteed in the close race, Trump’s team is reportedly ready to challenge the results in court, much like they did in several states where Trump lost in 2020. And the Trump legal strategy is particularly targeting Philadelphia, a heavily Black and heavily Democratic-leaning city that faced similar challenges from Trump after the 2020 election.
Targeting Black voters
Challenging Philadelphia’s votes is obviously a partisan strategy – like many urban areas of the country, the city tends to vote heavily Democratic, in contrast to the more conservative rural areas of Pennsylvania. But the strategy also has racial undertones.
In 2020, the Trump campaign’s election challenges tended to target not only heavily-Democratic areas in swing states but specifically those with a heavy Black population – cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, and Milwaukee. Trump and his surrogates also targeted specific Black people, like Georgia election poll worker Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, who were slandered and threatened by Trump and his allies with false claims that they rigged ballots in Fulton County. More recently, Trump has been falsely accusing the Democratic Party of stealing Black votes, refusing to believe that the vast majority of Black voters support Biden and Democrats over Trump and the GOP.
Trump to face consequences?
So far, Trump has failed to face any legal consequences for the attempts by himself and his followers to subvert democracy after the 2020 election, emboldening the former president to try the same tactics again. That could change soon, as Trump is currently facing multiple criminal investigations.
The former president has recently been subpoenaed by the January 6 Commission, which has reportedly indicated that they believe he can be held criminally liable for the insurrection. Meanwhile, Trump allies are being forced to testify in a separate probe being conducted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis related to his possible election tampering efforts in Georgia. And Trump may also face liability for stealing classified and sensitive documents as he left the White House and storing them in his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Should any of these cases result in criminal charges soon, they could deter Trump’s involvement in challenging the 2022 election and put his 2024 plans in doubt. Until then, however, Trump and the Republicans who follow him seem focused on interfering as much as they can with any elections that do not go their way, especially those that are being decided on the strength of Black people heading to the polls.
