Donald Trump inadvertently is doing Republicans a back-handed favor, one that is no doubt in private causing them great grief. Those would be the same Republicans who in a group of key states have enacted overkill "Voter ID" laws that are really voter-suppression laws … laws that Trump now by proxy seems to suggest are not working and will not work.
You see, Trump is on a big-time rant about how the November election is "rigged" against him. He's certain (at least that's what he says) that the media and Democratic candidates are going to "steal" the election from him. Never mind polls showing him fading badly -- the polling is all part of the plot, don't you see.
Also, in the Trump-o-verse, Democrats will be busy busing thousands of "illegal immigrants" to the polls. That's a gross impossibility under existing election supervision processes, but never mind the facts. Be afraid!
One of the biggest ways Democrats will steal the election, according to Trump, is by voter fraud -- people registering to vote under someone else's name, and in Trump's opinion (he doesn't, as usual, provide any evidence) even doing it multiple times.
Never mind that this kind of improper voting almost never happens and is usually spotted and prosecuted in the less-likely-than-a-lightning-strike cases where it does happen. Even top Republicans now are forced to acknowledge that Trump's claims are bogus and nothing for voters to fear, as the above PBS Newshour link also makes clear.
For his own part, Trump probably would prefer you forget that Republican Party officials are pooh-poohing his talk and urging him to quiet down about it. Two reasons, in my view, for their stance:
1. Republican leaders are afraid Trump's "rigged" meme will further alienate voters from the GOP, not to mention making many more voters into cynical, tea-party conspiracy theorists, who will be increasingly disruptive and unmanageable within the Republican Party.
2. They're also afraid, that Trump's "rigged" talk is going to serve to further expose Voter ID laws for the sham they are, by forcing Republicans to discount voter fraud. Take Wisconsin: The entire Republican-controlled legislature, Gov. Scott Walker, and other GOP leaders in the state pushed Voter ID into quick passage, although it clearly was going to make it hard if not impossible for tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens to exercise their right to vote, even if they've been voting without trouble for decades.
This disruption -- which arguably is the real reason Republicans enacted Voter ID -- has resulted in lawsuits and some major victories against the measures in state and federal courts. Wisconsin Republicans continue to strongly defend Voter ID, which they say makes it harder to cheat, but really only makes it harder for Democratic-inclined voters to exercise their constitutional rights.
Therefore take a moment to pity in particular the steadfast, Wisconsin GOP backers of voter ID who are also steadfast Donald "It's Rigged" Trump supporters, such as Walker and House Speaker Paul Ryan, and others. Those backers maintain their support of Trump despite his increasingly tainted record and campaign, and despite their increasingly uncomfortable stand-offishness.
But now comes Trump telling anyone who'll listen -- including many tea party Republicans -- that voter fraud is a huge problem. Which forces the national GOP to tamp down the claim, reassuring voters that the election will be fair. Caught in the crossfire: hypocritical and now Voter ID-exposed Republican Trump backers.
And so, Trump-centrics like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan are tonight walking around with even more egg on their faces. Orange you glad you're a Democrat?