Republicans Are Cheating. Again. But Now It’s Worse Than Ever.

Here, supporters of Donald Trump will counter that Iran has spread disinformation to hurt Trump. And yes, that’s true. But here’s the difference. Trump and his people wink at Russian disinformation and deny they know anything about it. But when Iranian hackers emailed some officials from the Biden campaign and then the Harris campaign, those officials a) did not respond and b) began cooperating with law-enforcement authorities. And in any case, the Iranian meddling is a molehill compared to the vast mountain range of Russian meddling.

Finally, let’s consider what Elon Musk is up to. He’s paying people in battleground states $100 to sign a petition affirming free speech and gun rights, and he announced over the weekend that every day until the election, some lucky signatory is going to win $1 million. Since he’s not paying people to vote, this wouldn’t appear to be illegal. But it’s gaming the system in a gross and un-civic way. And who knows what kind of voter data his PAC is collecting, and to what future use the data might be put?

But there’s more. Musk has also reportedly poured $100 million into a right-wing dark money PAC that created an initiative called Progress 2028, which was purported to be the Harris campaign’s answer to Project 2025. Progress 2028 consists of fake positions that the Harris campaign has not taken: for example, “Empowering Undocumented Immigrants, Building Our Future” and “Expanding Medicaid to Undocumented Immigrants.”