Why many believe Trump's 2020 lies
Talk of foreigners swaying elections is nearly as old as the republic.
Samuel F.B. Morse is most famous for the telegraph. In 1844, with a federal subsidy, he strung copper wires from Washington to Baltimore, sending and receiving messages through clicks of his Morse code. A crowd gathered to hear Morse sing out news reports, and a reporter said the invention “has originated in the mind . . . a new species of consciousness. Never before was any one conscious that he knew with certainty what events were at that moment passing in a distant city.” Today that “species of consciousness” is so nearly universal that we notice when the internet slows down for a few seconds.
An 1856 telegram sent on the “Morse Line.”
Morse is less famous for his earlier career as a politician. In 1836 he ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of resisting the supposed dangers of Catholics and foreigners. The city of immigrants defeated him, forcing him to turn back to the inventing that later made his name. But his story shows how the fear of outsiders has always been part of our politics.
Morse is one of the characters I’ve encountered while writing three books on the nineteenth century. The latest, Differ We Must, out Oct. 3, tells Abraham Lincoln’s life story through his meetings with people who disagreed with him. You can preorder at your local bookstore, or click this link for a hardcover, ebook or audio book in your hands upon publication.
One chapter shows Lincoln facing an anti-immigrant wave in the 1850’s. He despised the nativists’ views, but needed their votes to build a coalition against slavery. Differ We Must explores his excruciating effort to manage this without losing his integrity. I hope you’ll read it because the story is so relevant today.
Nativist power faded and grew over time, but never vanished. It’s always been a culture war. At first it pitted native-born Protestants against largely Irish Catholics. In later times, nativists turned against Muslims or people of color.
It’s always been a field for conspiracy theories. Early nativists warned that the Pope was plotting to control America through Catholic and immigrant voters. Modern nativists, like Tucker Carlson, claim that “the left” is deliberately “importing” new and “obedient” voters to overwhelm the native-born.
Carlson’s riff on “obedient” voters plays on another old theme: the baseless assumption that immigrants do not understand democracy and can’t practice it well. This was used in the 1800’s as an excuse to prevent them from voting.
Back then, reality pushed America in the opposite direction. Western states needed immigrants to populate the prairies, and realized that they could attract new residents by offering voting rights even to people who were not yet citizens!
In the twenty-first century it remains true that immigrants often help to revitalize the country and push its economy forward.
The false claim of “obedient” voters leads to another old theme: partisan politics. In the mid-1800’s, the Democratic party courted immigrant voters. Their main rivals at the time, the Whig party, resented it. Whig politicos came to talk of any election decided by immigrant votes as unfair or illegitimate. The Whigs’ successors, Republicans, included some who talked this talk.
In the twentieth century, political reform movements fought to break the power of big-city Democratic political machines. These corrupt organizations deserved opposition. But some reformers assumed that ignorant and “obedient” immigrants (and Black people) had been captured by political machines, who commanded or bought their votes. This may be why urban voters sometimes rejected reform, suspecting the supposed reformers were really targeting their political power.
The Republican party eventually blended the fear of immigrants with the ever-present fear of “stolen” elections. When Richard M. Nixon lost the presidential election of 1960, supporters claimed that Richard Daley, mayor of populous and immigrant-rich Chicago, had produced fake votes to deliver Illinois for John F. Kennedy.
Proof never emerged, and if Illinois had gone for Nixon, he still would have lost the overall electoral vote. This only led conspiracy theorists to expand their theory, alleging fraud in multiple states—like Texas with its “obedient” Mexican voters.
According to biographer Evan Thomas, Nixon publicly said he would not contest the election—a magnanimous gesture that kept his reputation intact for future elections—but privately believed that Democrats had cheated him. It intensified the paranoia that undid him when he later won the presidency.
Supporters awaiting a Trump rally at a Florida airplane hangar, 2018.
Today, Donald Trump still weaves together fears of immigrants and “stolen” elections, talking without evidence of “millions” of “illegal votes” cast by “illegals.” It’s a demonstrable lie. Thousands of election officials from both parties and more than sixty courts affirmed his 2020 election defeat. Even blatantly partisan “investigations” in places like Arizona failed to find any evidence to overturn his defeat. Lies about voting machines were so plain that Fox News paid $787 million to settle just one of the resulting defamation suits.
History explains why this lie feels true to many people. Generations of voters and leaders have passed down such stories until they become a fact that “everybody knows.” It’s a part of the landscape to many people, a sort of folk wisdom.
We could look across the political spectrum and find many such beliefs, right and left, that “everybody knows” and that no evidence can support. Trump’s critics should not automatically assume they are superior in this respect!
But Trump relies heavily on what “everybody knows,” picking up on things people commonly repeat and amplifying them.
To those of any political persuasion who favor facts, history offers reassurance: such falsehoods have long been with us and don’t necessarily decide elections.
History also offers useful context. When you understand why so many people claim to believe something that’s untrue, it’s easier to empathize—and to frame an effective answer.
The power of history is one thing that makes me so passionate about my books, and particularly Differ We Must, which I hope you will read for yourself.
Just curious, what is something ‘everyone knows’ on the left, that has no evidence or is not based on facts?
Good question. Is there anything anyone can come up with?