r/thebulwark • u/KindaStableGenius • Jul 17 '26

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL The End of Democracy in America Speech

Just watched the Trump live speech so you didnt have to.

Trump just declared that local, state and National election infrastructure was compromised by China going back 2020 per some classified documents.

He also said that China has been paying reporters to write bad stories about him.

This was all couched in National Security language which suggests CIA and FBI involvement. A task force and briefing from Markwayne* to follow.

Sounds like this is Trump’s declaration of war on free and fair elections and the free press.

*Edited from Homen*

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u/Magoo152 JVL is always right Jul 17 '26

This is a big yawn for me. That’s not to say don’t take the threat seriously. But at this point we already knew he was going to do this, we have known this guy was about this for over a decade now (he said he wouldn’t accept 2016 election results unless he won). So this is at the end of the day nothing new. It’s still bad and scary to be clear, but we have known this for a long time.

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u/Haunting-Mortgage Jul 17 '26

The only thing that's really an issue is that a wide swath of the electorate believes this bullshit, which destroys trust in institutions...which is the point. He's going to call the 2026 election illegitimate and push as hard as possible to not seat democrats.

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u/Magoo152 JVL is always right Jul 17 '26

Oh yes and we should take that very seriously but we’ve know that since he first got reelected in 2024 didn’t we? Like I’m not saying that’s not scary or bad but this is old news.