Trump sics Markwayne on NV's election

Happy Saturday. "On its face, we refute these claims," Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said Friday, in response to the latest in a long history of baseless allegations and extortion threats hurled against Nevada and its election system by Trump and his attack dogs.

Aguilar was responding to a series of growls and snarls and barks emanating earlier in the day from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Conveniently ignoring the fact that states, not Trump and let alone Mullin, are in charge of running their elections, Mullin had riffed on a couple conspiracies Trump reiterated for the eleventy-billionth time in a speech Thursday night — teeming hordes of noncitizens, all of them transgender of course, are voting in elections, that sort of thing. (And yes, I may be mashing up some of Trump's greatest hits there.)

States better do as told, Billy Goat Markwayne gruffed, or they'll lose money and state election officials might even be prosecuted.

Earlier Thursday, Mullin had sent whiny letters to a few secretary of state offices around the country.

In the Nevada version of the letter, Mullin said a "preliminary review" indicated nearly 16,000 "noncitizens" are registered to vote in the state.

"That was some bullshit," Aguilar, in his capacity as chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said about Trump's speech.

And in a separate statement from his office, Aguilar dismissed Mullin's allegation as "wildly speculative at best" and noted Mullin "hasn’t shared anything that backs it up."

"The Administration lacks a fundamental understanding of how elections work," Aguilar added.

The Trump administration lacking a fundamental understanding of things is generally a safe bet (see Hormuz, Strait of).

And Trump, Mullin, and the rest of the people in Trump's administration who believe Trump's election conspiracies and lies (or are pretending to because it’s a job requirement) routinely demonstrate that any concern for elections functioning fairly and properly is the last thing on their minds.

Aguilar hinted at that a couple times this week, describing Trump's warmed over pig slop of a speech Thursday as "the latest chapter in a predictable playbook crafted intentionally to undermine faith in our elections," and observing in his response to Mullin's remarks Friday that Trump and his apparatchiks "just want to cause chaos and doubt ahead of the midterms."

“Attempts to spread misinformation and create distrust make people question a process that works and threaten to stop them from participating and voting," Aguilar said.

Yup. That's our Trump.

Undermining public faith in democracy so people won't vote and/or won't trust results is thoroughly loathsome and anti-American. And yet even that doesn't match the intensity of Trump's second-term radicalism or the callous and blatant disregard he's showing for everyone and everything everywhere except himself. It seems unlikely that he will be satisfied with merely undermining faith in democracy.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants the federal government to "take over the voting."

For him to attempt do that, perhaps by deploying ICE or other, more competent armed federal forces, still might seem unthinkable. But then, so did launching a war against Iran and losing it.

As you’ve probably noticed, there is a belief among some Nevadans that Republican governor and self-styled Trump whisperer Joe Lombardo will save us — that the governor's staggering charm and mad skills of persuasion would combine with his purportedly Western lawman-style sense of uprightness and decency ("I'm Joe Lombardo") to prevent Trump from, say, deploying shock troops to forcibly seize control of ballots, polling places, tallying procedures, and the election (even though as a consequence of such a takeover Lombardo's reelection would be assured).

Then again, the cornerstone of the "Lombardo will save us" proposition is that Lombardo's influence with Trump is protecting Nevadans — and presumably its all-important tourism industry — from despicable actions by Trump's immigration enforcement thugs.

Too bad that Lombardo-Trump accord, if in fact there is one, was evidently unbeknownst to the blundering ICE thugs who made international headlines with an ugly botched attempt to arrest a 57-year-old man at Harry Reid airport, suggesting to people the world over in the process that flying into Las Vegas is a dangerous proposition.

Lombardo didn't thwart the ICE thugs at the airport. People did. And people, specifically Nevada voters, are the ones who ultimately will have to defeat Trump's perpetual malevolent assaults on democracy in Nevada.

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Here’s some of the stuff we published in the Current this week we wouldn't want you to miss:

Jen — BLM land sale near Anaconda Mine challenged in court and Boulder City Council seeks to stop data center on BLM land

Michael —  State lawmakers urged to step up resistance to Trump’s detention and deportation tactics and NV prison system mortality report ‘sounds like a lot of unexplained deaths,’ legislator says

Dana — Ford prosecutes twice the share of Medicaid fraud referrals as the national average

April — Billionaire backers help secure Lombardo campaign’s big fundraising advantage

Brookings/Lincy guest column — Strengthening our nonprofit sector to improve our communities

My column — He’s Joe Lombardo

Good luck