Hopefully, any Nevada-specific election mayhem Trump may attempt to lob Nevada’s way will suffer the same fate as all the other scurrilous lies he’s hurled at Nevada’s elections over the years, and collapse under the weight of their absurdity. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Does Trump even care about the midterms?”
I rhetorically asked that question in the Daily Current newsletter nearly eleven months ago, ten days into the new year.
A couple days earlier the New York Times had published a piece in which Trump had been asked if there were any limits on his authority. Trump’s response: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Imagine that.
“So you can see why he gets bored when he hears about people struggling to pay for rent, groceries, insurance, utilities, and other costs,” I wrote at the time.
His callous disregard for those issues has only intensified since then. Your problems, your family, their future — you — seem to bore the hell out of him more and more with each passing day.
Even in early January it was clear he had no 2026 legislative agenda to speak of.
Little wonder congressional Republican candidates don’t have one now.
Trump doesn’t care.
And he didn’t then.
He’s limited only by, as he put it, “my own morality.” In other words, as countless observers noted after he confided his faith in his magnificent omnipotence, he’s limited by nothing at all. Certainly not any regard for decency or honesty, let alone fairness.
A chronically self-absorbed monomaniacal jerk even before his faculties started deteriorating in real time on rally platforms, it’s hard to imagine Trump caring one way or the other if Nevada’s Democratic U.S. House delegation — Dina Titus, Susie Lee, and Steven Horsford — won or lost their elections this year.
Congress? Trump’s never shown much interest in it.
Indeed, The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky this week outlined why Trump probably has “a perverse desire for Republicans to lose” the midterms.
The reason “that should be most concerning to normal Americans,” Tomasky writes, is that Trump “wants Democrats to win because he wants to be able to accuse them, with of course no factual basis whatsoever, of cheating.”
Unlike most elections since the start of this century, Nevada isn’t getting national “battleground” attention this year. Not only is there no presidential race, there’s no U.S. Senate race in Nevada.
Apart from the longtime Republican stronghold that is the state’s second congressional district, a Nevada Republican hasn’t won a single race for federal office since 2014. And the ragtag crop of Republican contenders in Democratically held congressional seats this year appear to be no improvement over all the others who’ve ignominiously lost to Democrats over the last decade.
This year there’s a chance that even the Republican running in Nevada’s reliably ruby red second congressional district, a sorry sack by the name of David Flippo, could lose. Trump (or at least whoever has Natalie’s ear), seems unimpressed. Trump literally phoned in a wretchedly low-energy (and yet jammy-packed with skanky lies) audio clip for Flippo, and that’s about it.
So maybe Trump and his deplorable henchmen in the now corrupt, unmoored and, yes, evil U.S. Justice and Homeland Security departments won’t bother with Nevada, and instead will attack and strive to discredit free and fair elections in … Alaska fergawdsake.
Then again, Nevada has committed the unforgivable sin (in Trump’s bitter, twisted mind) of voting for Trump’s opponent in two out of three presidential elections. It is his habit and custom to abuse Nevada by drawing on signature features of the Trump brand: filthy lies, bogus charges, and unconstitutional acts of malice.
Hopefully, any Nevada-specific election mayhem Trump may attempt to lob Nevada’s way in the coming days, and perhaps weeks, will suffer the same fate as all the other fake crimes he’s accused Nevada of over the years, and get laughed out of court, withdrawn by the people who lodged them, or otherwise collapse under the weight of their phoniness.
As Tomasky notes, the activity that brings the most joy to Trump is snarling bitterly at people. So Trump will be doing that somewhere after Election Day.
Since Nevada’s definitely not going to decide control of the Senate and almost as assuredly will be incidental to control of the House, there’s a chance — or at least a hope — that Nevada’s free and fair election will be relatively untroubled by Trump’s tantrums.
But even if Trump does treat Nevada’s election as he’s treated Nevada’s economy, i.e., with mere malign neglect, the damage inflicted by his deliberate and vile efforts to undermine faith in democracy and elections in Nevada and the nation will be with us for a long, long time.
Like the credibility of Nevada Republican politicians from Gov. Joe Lombardo on down who have apologized for and acquiesced to Trump’s sick lies, trust in democracy is also a casualty of Trump’s “own morality.”
Fortunately, there’s a readily available way for Nevadans to fight back against Trump’s vulgar and relentless assault on democracy: Participation in it.
Portions of this column were originally published in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.
