You don’t need to be an expert in electoral politics to understand Rule One of any campaign: Candidates should pursue as many votes as possible. In a democracy, it’s common sense: The more votes a campaign has, the greater the chance of success.
With this in mind, Donald Trump appears to have a counterintuitive rhetorical habit. The New Republic noted:
On Fox News Thursday morning, Donald Trump had a weird instruction for his supporters: they don’t have to vote. “My instruction: We don’t need the votes, I have so many votes,” Trump said on Fox & Friends before going on a rant about how much support he has in Florida.
As a clip from the show makes clear, the former president didn’t appear to be kidding: https://x.com/atrupar/status/1816482779581775943
If the phrasing sounded at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. The day after last month’s presidential debate, for example, Trump held a rally in Virginia and told attendees, “We don’t need votes.”
Are they hoping if his results are abnormally low it will be easier to sell that it was rigged?
Or is it self sabotage so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he couldn’t succeed (“I only lost because I sabotaged myself, otherwise I would have won!”)
So around the time Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in 2016 he also started saying some really bizarre shit like that right before the election. He started claiming that the whole thing was rigged against him, that he never stood a chance, etc. Things that you should probably never say as a serious candidate intending to win. This was partially to shield his own fragile ego, but also to open the floodgates for lawsuits and accusations of election interference/fraud if he lost. The idea being to extend the media frenzy past November and focus on Trump for even longer. He had run for office many times before that and enjoyed the pump from the media reporting on it. Trump is a narcissist that can’t stand not being the center of attention.
I still genuinely think he doesn’t actually want to do the job. He said stuff like “If we lose [in 2020] you’ll never hear from me again!” and he spent most of his time in office on his own private golf courses. He ran again in 2020 because not running for a second term would make him seem weak, which he couldn’t handle because it would damage his reputation as a strongman toughguy who never backs down. He’s running again in 2024 to avoid going to prison, which might still happen anyway if the state cases are allowed to proceed/go to sentencing.
There’s no chance he actually gives a shit about any of the problems he claims to want to fix. This is about him - enriching himself with the job at the expense of the American taxpayer, avoiding the legal consequences of his actions, and having his cult puff up his ego every second of every hour of every day.
I think, maybe, he is really dumb and just thinks ‘we don’t need the votes’ looks strong and will encourage people to show up to share that strength