Donald Trump is a sinister buffoon, a clown who actively seeks authoritarian power. Ridiculous even when he’s most malicious, Trump isn’t always taken as seriously as he should be. His most absurd statements often contain implicit threats that are hard to pick up on because a listener’s first instinct is to mock him for his detachment from reality.

Last Sunday, Trump issued a typically dishonest Truth Social post claiming that a photo showing Kamala Harris being greeted by a large crowd in the Detroit airport was a fake image generated by artificial intelligence (AI):

Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she “A.I.’d” it, and showed a massive “crowd” of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane. She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the “crowd” looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake “crowds” at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING – And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!

I’ll confess that when I first read that post, my initial impulse was to see it as just a manifestation of Trump’s insecurity, which has naturally increased since Kamala Harris has surged into a polling lead in the election. While that insecurity is undeniably visible in Trump’s remarks, there is also an alarming and threatening undercurrent. As in 2020, when Trump also trailed in the polls before losing the election to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Trump is preparing for his supporters to violently challenge an election defeat.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders picked up on this element of Trump’s strategy. In a statement released Tuesday, Sanders wrote:

Donald Trump may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. When he claims that “nobody” showed up at a 10,000 person Harris-Walz rally in Michigan that was live-streamed and widely covered by the media, that it was all AI, and that Democrats cheat all the time, there is a method to his madness. Clearly, and dangerously, what Trump is doing is laying the groundwork for rejecting the election results if he loses. If you can convince your supporters that thousands of people who attended a televised rally do not exist, it will not be hard to convince them that the election returns in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere are “fake” and “fraudulent.”

Trump’s Truth Social post is part of a larger pattern where he’s making false statements designed to undermine the legitimacy of the election.

A report from NBC News linked the Truth Social Post with two further examples of Trump claiming an illegitimate system is cheating to deny him the presidency:

Trump has said in recent days that President Joe Biden’s exit from the race, prompted by Democratic concerns that he would lose, is unconstitutional. It is not. The Constitution is silent on party nomination….

On Thursday, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that Judge Juan Merchan — who is due to sentence him next month for felony convictions in New York — is using a partial gag order to prevent him from talking to reporters in the midst of a campaign. The narrow order allows him to speak to the media so long as he doesn’t attack the families of the officers of the court.

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Writing in Gzero Media, reporter Stephen Maher called attention to Trump’s attacks on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (who resisted Trump’s 2020 attempt to overturn the election results in that state) and Trump’s praise for election officials who are willing to do his bidding. This also falls into the pattern of preparing for another bid to overturn election results. Maher reports: “Democrats and independent election analysts believe he is preparing to systematically challenge the results if he fails to win the electoral college in November, using a combination of procedural disruptions, legal challenges, and, if necessary, Jan. 6-style violence.”

The renewed salience of Trump’s election denialism presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Harris’s campaign. On the one hand, election results since 2020 have made clear that the memory of the January 6 insurrection hurts Republicans. “Fictitious personal grievances do not play well on the campaign trail,” political consultant Matthew Bartlett told NBC. “Telling voters who voted against you in 2020 that the election was stolen is not a welcome-back message. It was political poison in the midterms and could be political suicide for Trump in the general election.”

Harris has enjoyed remarkable success in repackaging the familiar argument that Trump is a threat to democracy by presenting it in comical fashion and emphasizing that Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, are “weird.”

This lighter tone has served Harris well, allowing her to present herself as a happy warrior who is above Trump’s tawdriness. The “weird” line has also gotten under Trump’s skin. In a press conference on Thursday, Trump was asked if he would heed calls to stop his personal attacks on Harris. Trump respond, “I’m angry at her. I don’t have respect for her. She attacks me. She called me weird.”

The “weird” argument makes Trump seem small. The question, though, is whether the “weird” label will be sufficient as the election draws closer if Trump is again inciting another insurrection. To fend off another insurrection, the Democrats are going to have to work to protect many institutions, notably state election officials and the courts. Merely belittling Trump, although an entertaining and politically potent exercise, won’t be enough. It will have to be supplanted by a return to the older argument that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.

The current Democratic mood of robust mockery and good cheer might only be a temporary summer pleasure. It’s likely that in the fall Harris will have to sound a more dire alarm, reminding voters that Trump is not just a clown. He’s also an aspiring dictator.