Trump’s base doesn’t seem interested in looking beyond the 2020 election. At a Trump rally in Alabama on Saturday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who is running for Senate in the state, was booed after he admonished the crowd to move on from the 2020 presidential race. Brooks has been one of the most prominent promoters in Congress of the lie that the election was somehow rigged for Joe Biden, and as it turns out, he can’t have it both ways. Getting people riled up with nonsense about last year’s election gets you people riled up about last year’s election rather than focusing on the future!
Brooks seems to have a vested interest in having Trump supporters move on from 2020, since he’s hoping to win a new position in the next round of elections. That implied vested interest did not sway the crowd. As Brooks nevertheless put it:
‘There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020… Folks, put that behind you, put that behind you… Look forward, look forward, look forward. Beat them in 2022, beat them in 2024… All right, well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it… We have got to win in 2022. We’ve got to win in 2024.’
Brooks added those last couple of lines after jeers continued from the crowd. Check out footage of the booing below:
Oh boy. Mo Brooks suggested, in seriousness, that those in attendance should accept the results of the 2020 election and move on to the next one
… needless to say it did not go well and he nearly lost the crowd 😮 pic.twitter.com/1htgV3QAgm
— Ryan Phillips (@JournoRyan) August 22, 2021
Brooks isn’t some kind of covert liberal. He is an open and ardent supporter of the false conspiracy theory that last year’s presidential election was defined by systematic fraud. In the House, he helped lead the charge to object to the formal certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, and on the day when Congress met to confirm that victory, Brooks was one of the featured speakers at the outdoor rally in D.C. where Trump also spoke and which preceded the Capitol riot. Even considering all of these factors, Trump supporters seem willing to swiftly turn on Brooks. The crowd’s behavior is cultish — and it’s Brooks who helped lead Trump supporters into such nonsense.
