How Trump intends to hijack the midterms

Donald Trump’s authoritarian chaos machine is running amok. Pro-democracy Americans — and those simply hoping for a return to normalcy — are pinning their hopes on a Democratic victory in November’s midterm elections. But that salvation will not be easy or cheap. Their hopes will face a coordinated effort by Trump and the anti-democracy right-wing to secure victory before a single ballot has even been counted.

As the Washington Post reported on Monday, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were a trial run. Then, he “pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers, and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast.”

These strategies include “challenging long-established democratic norms” and making “unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.”

Trump expressed regret in a recent interview with the New York Times that he did not send in the National Guard to seize voting machines in the 2020 election, which he has falsely claimed was stolen by Democrats. He has also suggested he could deploy federal law enforcement or the National Guard to Democratic-led cities to monitor elections for so-called fraud, which would be a form of voter intimidation, and is taking steps to systematically dismantle programs designed to protect the integrity of the country’s elections from foreign and other malign actors. His administration has installed election deniers and other conspiracists — believers in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen — in key positions throughout the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government.

In short, the wolves are watching the chicken coop.

The Post’s analysis did not fully account for the administration’s voter suppression and nullification campaigns targeting Black and brown people, young people, students and other likely Democratic voters. Voter suppression efforts in Georgia and other battleground states are estimated to have cost the Democrats millions of votes — and potentially the 2024 election. The right-wing justices on the Supreme Court are also poised to gut the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects the voting rights of racial minorities by ensuring that voting districts are representative and not diluted by gerrymandering. Republicans and other members of the antidemocracy right-wing have repeatedly used language about the “quality” of voters and “voter integrity,” and they have made false allegations of widespread fraud in “urban areas” to signal their belief that the votes of Black and brown people are not legitimate. The ultimate goal is to create a 21st-century version of Jim and Jane Crow, where Black and brown people are made into second-class citizens. 

Trump and his allies have placed election deniers in key local positions on election boards and in election offices.

Compared to Democrats, centrists and mainstream liberals, the Trumpists and the broader anti-democracy right are revolutionaries who think in decades and centuries — and build the networks, relationships, institutions and resources required to win. Democrats’ lack of vision and adherence to obsolete normal politics is one of the main reasons why they have been so ineffective in resisting the rise of authoritarianism and neofascism underTrump.

Even if Republicans somehow lose the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, they will still seek to boobytrap the country’s governing institutions.

“This is the big one,” political scientist Barbara F. Walter explained in an essay exploring the dangers of institutional sabotage. “Watch for changes that would constrain a Democratic House even if Democrats win. Last-minute regulations that take years to undo. Executive orders are designed to be irreversible. Budget maneuvers that limit congressional power. Court appointments that lock in a conservative judiciary for decades.”

If Trump and his MAGA forces and the broader right-wing can execute even some of their plans, the integrity and legitimacy of the country’s elections will be further undermined. The result will be what political scientists describe as “competitive authoritarianism.” In such a pseudo-democracy, the United States would be like Putin’s Russia, where there are elections but a victory by the ruling party is all but assured.

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As Walter warned, we can’t “assume the midterms will save us. If we’re not actively defending the democratic process right now, we may find there’s nothing left to save come November.”

Trump is a fighter. He does not retreat. Like other autocrats and authoritarians, the weaker his position, the more aggressive he becomes. In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, the president once again suggested canceling the upcoming midterm elections, saying, “It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms… When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

This was the third time this month Trump suggested that elections are unnecessary now that he holds power. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s remarks as a “joke,” insisting that “he was speaking facetiously.” 

Dictators, autocrats and other malign actors strategically use humor as a type of diminutive to minimize their real intent and to distract the public and media. Trump’s public behavior, such as the plot to nullify the 2020 election and his stated desire to be a dictator, are two of many examples showing how serious his threats to end the midterms really are. 

On Thursday, he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to quell ongoing protests and civil disturbances in Minnesota, a week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good, an unarmed United States citizen who was acting as an observer.

The protests and unrest in Minneapolis and other cities were sparked by Good’s killing and a broader pattern of increasingly aggressive and reckless behavior by ICE and other federal law enforcement who are waging Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

If Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act, voting and elections could be suspended or outright canceled in the blue states and other parts of the country that support the Democratic Party. Under such a scenario, he would take an action — such as ordering ICE to target Democratic-led cities in a very aggressive and provocative manner — that would create widespread protests and unrest. He could then claim that the situation is an emergency and invoke the Insurrection Act, declaring that elections cannot take place in such an environment.  

We have a very long year ahead, and the American people and our democracy are going to be greatly tested.

Do we have the stamina and patience? The world will soon find out.