With a series of speakers focused on Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, Democrats on Wednesday had an ominous message for the months ahead: Trump is “plotting again.”
“He would rather subvert democracy than submit to it,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the congressional Jan. 6 committee, told the Democratic National Convention crowd. “Now he’s plotting again. His campaign proclaims that elections won’t end until the moment of the inauguration. ‘We will win, or it was rigged.’ ‘We win or else.’ This is Donald Trump’s America.”
Trump himself emphasized that same message earlier Wednesday, telling a rally crowd that his win was a foregone conclusion — and reiterating his 2020 message that Democrats only win if they cheat.
“When, if, but when — I have to always say ‘if,’ you know, because they cheat,” Trump said of Democrats. “I would say ‘when’ if they didn’t cheat, but they cheat. That’s the one thing — they’re great at cheating in elections.”
Thompson drew a parallel between Trump’s attempt to overturn voters’ choice in 2020 and Thompson’s father’s own inability to vote due to Jim Crow laws.
“Elections are about choice,” said Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. “Choose democracy, not political violence.”
The key congressional Democrat was part of a string of speakers focused on Trump’s election subversion attempt. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and former lieutenant governor of Georgia, recalled having armed officers outside his house “protecting us from other Republicans” as Trump contested the 2020 results.
“His action disqualified him from ever, ever, ever stepping foot in the Oval Office again,” Duncan said.
After Thompson, Aquilino Gonell, a former sergeant of the United States Capitol Police, recalled being beaten with “a pole attached to the American flag” on Jan. 6 as he protected the Capitol. Trump incited the crowd and “betrayed us,” Gonell said.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who famously began cleaning up the Capitol shortly after the attack subsided, admonished the audience.
“Always remember this chaos that we see, it doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “As a father, I refuse to believe that our kids are doomed to grow up in a broken America,” Kim said.
In the middle of the series of speakers, convention organizers played a video montage showing Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6 — refusing to concede the election and telling the crowd he would accompany them to the Capitol — followed by the crowd of Trump supporters roaring with rage as he tweeted a condemnation of then-Vice President Mike Pence and watched the attack unfold on television.
The video closed with a list of the felonies Trump faces for his election subversion attempt and a caption: “If re-elected, he will never be held accountable.”