Trump Threatens Democracy By Demanding California Change Voting Laws To Get Disaster Relief

Donald Trump can't change voting laws, since all elections are administered by the states, so he he is trying to extort California into changing its voting laws to get disaster relief.

The Daily is a newsletter written by ordinary citizens as an alternative to say what the mainstream media won’t. To join the community and support our work, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Trump Is Using A Natural Disaster To Attack Democracy

There is one big check in our constitutional system of government that prevents any president from becoming an authoritarian strongman, and that is that all elections are overseen and administered by the states. The Supreme Court has ruled over and over again, including the current conservative majority, that election oversight and administration is a power that rests with the states.

So Donald Trump came up with this idea that he told reporters when asked if he would withhold disaster relief from California:

I want two things. Voter ID, and the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California ever has ever seen. I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farmland that's barren and dry.

You know, they have land that they say is the equivalent of the land in Iowa, which is about as good as there is anywhere on Earth. The problem is it's artificial because They artificially stop the water from going onto the land. So, I want two things. I want voter ID for the people of California. And they all want it.

Right now, you don't have voter ID. People want to have voter identification. You want to have proof of citizenship. Ideally, you have one day voting. But I just want voter ID as a start. And I want the water to be released. And they're going to get a lot of help from the US.

Video:

The water claim is nonsense. It has been debunked by numerous experts, but that is not what Trump really wants.

Trump wants voting laws changed, and that is an attack on democracy.