EDITORIAL - If Trump runs again he should shut up about the big lie

The next big event in US politics, following the midterm elections where the Democrats won the Senate and the Republicans are set to win Congress, is the expected announcement by former US president Donald Trump of his third bid for the White House.

The announcement has yet to be made officially but one of his advisors, Jason Miller, said the decision to run again has been made final.

"President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he's running for president," Miller was reported as saying by the Agence France-Presse.

If Trump does indeed plan to run again then he should shut up about his claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

That is because in deciding to run again, he is saying he is willing to put himself through the same process he himself questioned. It will signify that he trusts the US electoral system after all, the same one he so mercilessly assailed after losing to US President Joseph Biden by a margin of over seven million votes two years earlier.

There’s saying that goes “once bitten, twice shy”, which means that someone will not do something a second time because they had a bad experience the first time they did it. The fact that Trump seems willing to go again is telling.

It is known to all political observers that Trump still continues to push his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him through manipulated results. He has often claimed it was the software used in the voting machines that secured a false victory for Biden.

No evidence exists to support this claim or any other claim of fraud during the 2020 US presidential election. Even most of his Republican partymates agree that the election was an honest one, except for a few die-hard holdouts who believe in his every word.

But then again we may be jumping the gun here. Even if Miller said it, Trump may yet still change his mind between now and the announcement. He may yet decide to hold off running for president for another four years, as per advice of some of those closest to him.

This being the case he should feel free to say whatever he wants about the election. But should he decide to submit himself to the same electoral process again, any claim of his that it was flawed, even rigged, becomes contradictory to his actions.