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Trump’s biggest fans say they will refuse to accept their loss no matter what – Mother Jones

Trump’s biggest fans say they will refuse to accept their loss no matter what – Mother Jones

Donald Trump points his index finger at the crowd standing behind a podium during the election campaign, mouth open.

Donald Trump at a campaign rally on November 4, 2024.Evan Vucci/AP

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The day before On Election Day, our DC bureau chief David Corn traveled to Reading, Pennsylvania, to speak with diehard Donald Trump supporters at one of the last campaign rallies of his political career.

The rally, held in a half-filled Santander arena, was one of Trump’s final campaign stops on Monday. For his devoted followers, this was the last chance to catch a glimpse of the man himself and sway together with the phone light on to familiar campaign anthems (while they waited for over an hour for him to appear). And it was yet another opportunity for his most loyal supporters to bask in Trump’s apparent political invincibility. As the vote approached, David wanted to know: If they didn’t recognize the potential loss as legal, what would happen next? Could Trump’s “big lie,” first advanced in the run-up to the 2020 election and still a core tenet of his base, extend beyond this election to trigger another event on January 6?

It was clear from nearly a dozen interviews in the arena that many of Trump’s supporters will continue to view him as the most aggrieved figure, defeated by the corrupt system installed by Democrats. Among them was Hector Vargas, convicted on four misdemeanors for his role in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol. Despite spending five months behind bars, Vargas openly admitted that he would have difficulty accepting Trump’s defeat. “I think people are going to be upset about this, especially if they think there was some kind of fraud going on,” he said. Asked if they could repeat the events of January 6, Vargas replied: “It probably could have been worse. It probably could have been 10 times worse.”

Check out David’s post below: