正如白昼继夜晚、春天继冬天，美国生活中最不可避免的现象之一又一次开始了：唐纳德·特朗普在一场他未能赢得的选举后，毫无根据地抱怨选民舞弊。在早期反应异常平淡、承诺接受结果并与民主党合作，以及周末在TruthSocial上发布一些激烈帖子之后，这位总统终于明确表示，他不信任选举结果。他会这样做从来不在疑问之中；真正的问题是，其他有权势的人是否会效仿。
Just as day follows night and spring follows winter, one of the most inevitable occurrences in American life has begun again: Donald Trump is baselessly complaining about voter fraud following an election he did not win. After a strangely muted early reaction, a pledge to accept the results and work with Democrats, and then some furious posts on TruthSocial over the weekend, the president finally said explicitly that he doesn’t trust the election’s outcome. The fact that he would do so was never in doubt; the real question is whether other powerful people will follow suit.
“有人真的相信这次‘选举’是公正的吗？”特朗普周一清晨在其TruthSocial平台上写道。“民调怎么可能会错得这么离谱？？？一些提前投票的‘倾倒’量大得让人无论如何都无法获胜，无论有多少人去投票。这全都关乎机器，机器比选民重要得多！总统DJT”在长期集体接触总统心理的多年后，人们很容易坐而论道，推测这次他可能并非真心实意。
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” Trump wrote on his TruthSocial platform early Monday morning. “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter! President DJT”After so many years of collective exposure to the president’s psyche, it’s tempting to armchair psychologize and presume that this time his heart isn’t really in it.
毕竟，他只发了一条帖子，而不是我们都已习惯的多部分长篇大论。周末他转发的其他人写的帖子质疑了选举结果，但并未明确指控任何人舞弊。“诚实的问题，”一条帖子写道，上面附有一张模糊不清、有些难以辨认的图表截图，显示得克萨斯州选民投票率数据，X轴被截断了。“有人真的相信这个吗？还有票要统计，但是……该死……”在选举前夕，大量支持MAGA的评论员和当选官员暗示民主党会窃取中期选举，并且舞弊已经在进行中。
After all, he only authored one post, rather than the multi-part screed to which we’ve all become accustomed. And the posts written by other people that he shared over the weekend questioned results but stopped short of explicitly accusing anyone of fraud. “Honest question,” one read, above a somewhat illegible, blurry screenshot of a graph showing Texas voter turnout numbers, where the X-axis has been cut off. “Does anyone believe this at all? Still votes to count but… damn…” In the leadup to the election, a great many MAGA aligned pundits and elected officials suggested that Democrats would steal the midterms, and indeed, that fraud was already in progress.
例如，在加利福尼亚州，特朗普任命的高级检察官比拉尔·艾赛利（Bilal Essayli）在夏天于X上声称，“加利福尼亚州存在选举舞弊的证据，”并且“更多调查正在进行中。”今年早些时候，前特朗普顾问史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）呼吁让移民与海关执法局（ICE）在投票站驻守，宣称：“我们将在11月让ICE包围投票站。我们不会坐视不管，任由你们再次窃取这个国家。你们可以想怎么抱怨、哭闹、发脾气就怎么做，但我们绝不会再允许一次选举被窃取。”特朗普官员拒绝排除向投票站派遣ICE或军队的想法，尽管这显然是非法的。
In California, for instance, Bilal Essayli, a senior Trump-appointed prosecutor, claimed on X over the summer that there “is evidence of election fraud in California,” and that “more investigations are underway.”Earlier in the year, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon called for ICE to be at polling places, declaring, “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”Trump officials refused to rule out the idea of sending ICE or the military to polling places, even though it’s nakedly illegal.
然而，最终ICE特工或军方并未出现，目前也没有广泛的选民欺诈指控。事实上，特朗普对此事显得格外孤立；白宫X账号尚未分享任何欺诈指控，尽管该账号在选举前刚刚分享了一条承诺调查投票欺诈的帖子。特朗普的副总统JD·万斯也没有参与欺诈发生的说法，反而明确表示，与伊朗的战争，正如他在一条推文中所说，是“我们输掉的原因”。目前也没有其他知名的MAGA当选官员提出这一说法。
In the end, however, ICE agents or the military didn’t show up, and no widespread allegations of voter fraud are currently being made. Trump is, in fact, strangely alone on this one; the White House X account hasn’t yet shared any fraud claims, although the account shared a post just before the election promising to investigate voting fraud. Trump’s vice president JD Vance also hasn’t engaged in the claim that fraud occurred, instead saying explicitly that the war in Iran was, as he put it, in a tweet, “the reason we lost.”No other prominent MAGA elected officials are yet making the claim either.
缺乏欺诈指控的情况如此明显，以至于特朗普的盟友和超级粉丝劳拉·卢默在周末抱怨，其他共和党人对此问题不够重视。“你有没有注意到，所谓的‘保守派’更专注于攻击特朗普总统的核心圈子，而不是谈论关键州出现的关于涉嫌选民欺诈的报道？”她在推文中写道。“这是一个大机会。这些人中的许多人与民主党达成了交易，你可以看出他们根本不在乎我们的国家会怎样，只要他们能直播并收取超级聊天的钱。得克萨斯州的数字说不通。这毫无疑问。”
The lack of fraud accusations is so pronounced that Trump ally and mega-fan Laura Loomer complained over the weekend that other Republicans aren’t taking the issue seriously enough. “Have you noticed how so called ‘conservatives’ have been more focused on attacking President Trump’s inner circle as opposed to talking about the stories popping up in key states regarding suspected voter fraud?” she tweeted. “It’s one big opp. A lot of these people made deals with Democrats and you can tell they really couldn’t care less about what happens to our country so long as they get to livestream and cash in their super chats. The math isn’t making sense in Texas. That’s for sure.”
公平地说，还有一位知名的MAGA人物正在大声提出选举欺诈指控：MyPillow创始人、公认的选举否认论者迈克·林德尔。林德尔这样做尤其大胆，因为他在2021年被多米尼恩投票系统公司起诉了13亿美元，指控他称其机器被操纵；双方于2026年达成了一项保密和解。
In fairness, there is one other prominent MAGA figure loudly making election fraud claims: MyPillow founder and established election-denialist Mike Lindell. This is especially bold of Lindell, given that he was sued for $1.3 billion in 2021 by Dominion Voting Systems over his claims that their machines were rigged; the parties agreed to a confidential settlement in 2026.
但即使是林德尔，似乎也对其主张的影响力设下了界限。“我的网络安全团队发现，我们认为在包括德克萨斯州和堪萨斯州在内的多个州存在匹配的算法模式，”林德尔在推特上写道，视频中他正在林德尔电视台（LindellTV）上讲话，这是他拥有的流媒体平台；他讲话时的字幕写着，“美国选举舞弊显而易见。”林德尔承诺将于周一晚上发布更多信息，并展示他所说的“被窃取”的选举。可以肯定的是，他至少会有一位非常有影响力的观众。
But even Lindell seemed to put a limit on the reach of his claims. “My cybersecurity team has identified what we believe are matching algorithmic patterns across multiple states, including Texas and Kansas,” Lindell tweeted, over a video of himself on LindellTV, the streaming platform he owns; the chyron as he spoke read, “ELECTION FRAUD IS OBVIOUS IN AMERICA.”Lindell promised to release more information on Monday night and to show which elections, as he put it, “were taken.”It’s safe to say he’ll have at least one, very powerful, viewer.