Trump is already poisoning trust in yet another US election

If God was the vote counter, Donald Trump says he’d win in a landslide.

The Republican nominee suggested on Thursday that divine intervention in next week’s election would reveal him as the rightful winner of even Democratic bastions like California.

On one level, Trump’s comment shows how his false election fraud claims have entered the outer realms of absurdity.

But this goes beyond hyperbole. Trump — who altered reality for tens of millions of Americans by claiming he was cheated out of power four years ago — is creating a sinister threat to the 2024 election and spinning a legacy of fractured trust that could taint presidential votes long after he’s left the stage. The election fraud claims that Trump most notably supercharged in 2020 to salve his humiliation at losing to Joe Biden are already at high intensity this year.