Donald Trump has effectively used the Big Lie 1.0, famously claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Now, he's preparing Big Lie 2.0, aiming to shut down the government this fall, believing it will harm the Biden administration and Harris/Walz campaign. This new lie alleges widespread voter fraud in America, aimed at crippling the Biden administration and preventing millions, particularly minorities and women, from voting. The GOP has wielded this lie to undermine democracy since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, using Operation Eagle Eye to intimidate minority voters in the Goldwater/Johnson race. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s Arizona branch of Operation Eagle Eye was just one of many such Republican voter suppression efforts that emerged across the U.S. as noted by The New York Times in 1964.

Fast forward to today, the concept of voter fraud is still largely unheard of outside specific southern states, and major U.S. news media rarely challenge this Republican narrative. Despite decades of Republicans exploiting this lie to disenfranchise minority and women voters, no other developed nations share these voter fraud concerns. In other modern democracies, the fictitious nature of voter fraud is clear, and they don’t use voter registration to limit voter turnout. Instead, if you're a citizen, you just vote. Mail-in voting in these countries is common and uncomplicated since the penalties for voter fraud deter such actions.

When large-scale voter fraud attempts, like the GOP’s mail-in ballot scheme in a North Carolina trailer park, are uncovered, the repercussions are significant due to the difficulty of executing fraud on a large scale. For 60 years, media have been largely passive, even legitimizing GOP claims about voter fraud, leading to extensive voter suppression tactics. Now, Trump wants Republicans to insert a provision demanding proof of citizenship into must-pass budget legislation — a measure already redundant since voting as a non-citizen is a felony in all states. Such legislation doesn’t address a non-existent problem but rather seeks to prevent lower-income, Democratic-leaning individuals from voting due to increased difficulty in accessing the required documentation.

Millions of women are particularly angered by the Dobbs decision, causing the GOP to expand its anti-fraud efforts to target women using requirements for proof of citizenship to register. The GOP is also ramping up challenges to mail-in ballots, planning to recruit tens of thousands to scrutinize and potentially reject ballots in blue districts. This strategy leans on the falsehood of non-citizens voting and aims to complicate the process for legitimate voters. Trump’s push for this anti-fraud rider in budget legislation threatens a government shutdown, with media likely endorsing GOP seriousness on Sunday shows. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson has not yet committed to shutting down the government over this, but this could change.

Fighting this requires Biden, Harris, and Walz to adopt FDR’s confrontational approach against GOP lies, as FDR emphasized to UAW auto workers in 1944. Ignoring these lies has historically enabled their spread, making it a grim truth among Republicans today. The continuing crisis is a consequence of the media’s neglect of GOP’s voter fraud narrative for decades. Without active debunking by both the Democratic Party and media, this lie threatens the essence of American democracy, likening it to a fascist regime reminiscent of Putin or Orbán’s style.

Urgent action is needed to expose and eradicate the voter fraud myth to preserve democratic integrity. This entire situation emphasizes a critical moment for the media to expose and tackle the destructive voter fraud narrative perpetuated by Republicans before it undermines American democracy. This story is a tale warning about the Trump team’s tactics surrounding voter fraud and voter suppression, echoing past disastrous decisions and remaining a critical issue requiring immediate public awareness and action.