Trump Names Guy Who Accused the New Black Panthers of Voter Intimidation As Head of ‘Election Protection’

Photo: Brian Blanco/Getty Images

Donald Trump is very concerned that there will be “large-scale voter fraud” on Election Day, especially in “certain communities.” (Trump later clarified that “certain communities” meant predominately African-American urban centers like St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Chicago.)

To prevent these “other communities” from helping “international bankers” rig the election, Trump has instructed his supporters to “pick some other place” on Election Day “and go sit there with your friends and make sure it’s on the up and up.”

In other words, Trump instructed his (gun-loving) supporters to monitor the behavior of black voters at polling places. And heading up this effort will be a GOP operative whose claim to fame is stoking outrage over a video that showed two members of the (gun-loving) New Black Panther Party … monitoring the behavior of white voters at a polling place.

A justice-department investigation of the incident failed to turn up a single voter who said he or she was intimidated by the New Black Panthers. Which is to say, the only act of intimidation that was established was the mere presence of two black men in uniforms, one wielding a nightstick.

Nonetheless, GOP operative and Breitbart contributor Mike Roman found that behavior to be a dire threat to the legitimacy of our democracy. Now, he’s the head of “election protection” for a candidate who has essentially advised his supporters to perform that exact same behavior, The Guardian reports.

“I’ll look for … well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” one Trump supporter said, while describing his marching orders to the Boston Globe. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

(Trying to make voters “who can’t speak American” nervous at a polling place is illegal).

Why Mike Roman — a man passionately opposed to voter intimidation — would work for a candidate who is all but demanding his supporters engage in it is a mystery.

It’s almost like Roman believes that black people intimidating white voters is bad, but white people intimidating black voters is a defense of America’s democratic traditions.

Which, from a certain angle, is fair enough, I suppose.

Trump Names Mike Roman As Head of ‘Election Protection’