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For those concerned about the state of Wisconsin’s democracy, Friday’s news represented the latest in a series of disappointments. The conservative majority on the state Supreme Court issued a ruling barring the use of ballot drop boxes in future elections, despite the total absence of problems with Badger State voters using ballot drop boxes.
A Slate analysis noted that the ruling didn’t “brazenly reject” the plain language of state election law, Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley, who authored the ruling, “went further, stuffing her opinion with paranoid and irresponsible language about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.”
Making matters much worse, however, is how Donald Trump reacted to the decision. HuffPost noted that the former president is using the decision to pretend he won Wisconsin, despite the election results that prove he lost.
His reasoning? Since the Wisconsin state Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday sharply curtailing the number of drop boxes for absentee ballots, that must mean all the votes in those boxes in November 2020 were somehow fake — and apparently were all marked for victor Joe Biden. “This means I won the very closely contested (not actually) Wisconsin Presidential race because they used these corrupt and scandal-ridden Scam Boxes,” he falsely insisted in a post Friday on Truth Social.
All of this is as wrong as it is bizarre. The ballot drop boxes are not “scandal-ridden”; the state Supreme Court ruling did not invalidate the ballots from Wisconsin voters who utilized the boxes; plenty of Trump voters used the same boxes without incident; and the court decision does not reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.
But the former president didn’t just declare victory in a state he lost — 20 months after the fact — he also went on to take his absurd arguments to the next ridiculous step.
“Other States are looking at, and studying the amazing Wisconsin Supreme Court decision,” the Republican wrote on his social media platform. Trump added, “[S]tate House Speaker Robin Vos has a decision to make! Does Wisconsin RECLAIM the Electors, turn over the Election to the actual winner (by a lot!), or sit back and do nothing as our Country continues to go to HELL?”
The former president concluded by touting a resolution introduced by a far-right state legislator in Wisconsin that would decertify the 2020 results.
In other words, more than 600 days since Election Day 2020, Trump is still pushing the idea — in public, in an entirely serious way — that his defeat can and should be undone.
What’s more, it’s not just Wisconsin. Last September, the failed former president insisted, “Arizona must immediately decertify their 2020 Presidential Election Results.” Two months later, the Republican went further, demanding that Georgia also “start the process of decertifying the 2020 Election.” This came on the heels of related rhetoric in which he talked up the idea of undoing his defeat and returning to the presidency.
Let’s also not forget that Trump isn’t the only one peddling this nonsense. Christina Bobb, a former OAN host who’s now working for the former president, raised the prospect last week of states decertifying their 2020 votes after the 2022 midterm elections.
As recently as April, The New York Times reported, “In statehouses and courtrooms across the country, as well as on right-wing news outlets, allies of Mr. Trump — including the lawyer John Eastman — are pressing for states to pass resolutions rescinding Electoral College votes for President Biden and to bring lawsuits that seek to prove baseless claims of large-scale voter fraud. Some of those allies are casting their work as a precursor to reinstating the former president.”
As a legal and procedural matter, all of this is simply stark raving mad. There is no scenario in which a state can undo election results for no reason. But as Trump’s online missives made clear, he either doesn’t know that or doesn’t care.
The House Jan. 6 committee is holding its seventh public hearing on Tuesday, July 12 at 1 p.m. ET. Get expert analysis in real time on our liveblog at msnbc.com/jan6hearings.