In an executive order last spring, Trump asserted that, if a mail-in ballot arrives after Election Day, states cannot legally count it. Currently, many states — including Nevada and Virginia — count ballots that arrive shortly after Election Day, if they were postmarked on time.
In that same executive order, Trump called on the Election Assistance Commission to decertify every voting machine in the United States — and then recertify only those that met an exacting set of requirements. As The Atlantic’s David Graham notes, it’s not even clear that the government could procure enough voting machines to meet these new standards in time for November’s midterms.
Regardless, courts blocked both of these measures. Yet each established a rationale for the administration to reject any future election results that it did not like: This November, several states will count mail ballots in a manner that the White House has formally declared illegal, while virtually every precinct in the country will use voting machines that it has deemed untrustworthy.
I’ve been trying to keep track of their various attempts to steal the Midterms, and figured the most likely way was to instigate violence, then invoke Martial Law, and suspend elections until peace is restored, which will never happen, since he controls the peace.
I hadn’t even considered this strategy, but it makes sense. We saw on Jan 6 that he had a Plan B, with the seditious False Electors Plot, so it makes sense that he’d have a Plan B for the Midterms, and probably a Plan C and D, too.
”I think every magistrate judge in the country would understand the difference between a search warrant to seize materials for an election that happened five years ago and a search warrant to seize election materials from an election in progress,” Levitt said.
Fairly certain my concern isn’t whether they understand the difference, it’s whether they’ll care. MAGAt has been installing loyalist judges for a while, sure they got at least one in their pocket in each district?
Carry a firearm and train.
Remember this isn’t about whether or not they fail. It’s the fact that they are cocky enough to do it in the first place.
Governors need to call up their national guard, and place them around their state’s vulnerable election infrastructure, with orders to prevent illegal interference in their local elections.
ICE can probably outman and outgun any local police department, outside of major ones like NYPD or LAPD, but not the national guard.
Trump would be forced to bring in the actual military to steal the election by force. At that point, he either has the support for a coup, or he doesn’t.
Wouldn’t be just federalize the NG at that point, though?
Community organization of citizens is needed. Some thoughts:
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Before the elections, they’re going to try and purge eligible voters off the rolls, especially ones they consider likely democratic voters. (Part of what DOGE accomplished was acquiring and collating detailed government records on everyone and ways to query that data for their purposes, like this one). So people who get purged may need help a) finding out in time that they were purged and b) getting re-registered, which could mean help with trips to offices and funds for fees so if needed they can get their birth certificate/marriage license or other required documents.
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Everyone should vote early if they can. We don’t even know if the Post office can be trusted with mail ballots either, so if you’re in a vote-by-mail state, if possible, take your ballot to the election office ahead of time and hand it in personally. Either way, we need to organize rides to/from the election office for anyone who needs them so as many people as possible can vote early and minimize the number of people having to go to the polls on election day. That way if they do seize ballots from some stations, fewer votes would be lost.
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Scouts in the areas near the polling places to call in any locations ICE shows up at and monitoring/reporting what they see back to the central group, who could send people there to record them.
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Then we need ideas how to make sure people can still safely get in to vote if ICE is there, without disrupting anything, if that’s possible. Maybe some civil rights lawyers or ACLU would have advice. In any case, documenting what they do is important. There are laws on how close people are allowed to a polling station but we could have multiple people filming from different angles and of any doors in/out. It would be good if the elections office could have cameras installed inside the locations, at least ones in “swing” districts where feds would be likely to try and interfere.
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So this article has a narrow scope, it only considers two ways Trump might interfere:
This interference could take many forms. But recent events have increased experts’ level of concern about two possibilities in particular:
- That the Trump administration will try to seize ballots and voting machines from key jurisdictions before votes have been fully counted.
- That Trump will deploy ICE or other federal agents to the vicinity of critical polling places, so as to deter turnout among voters in general — and those with undocumented family members, in particular.
So for context, the people who don’t think Trump will succeed are:
Wendy Weiser, the VP of the Brennan Center,
and Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and prior Biden-era deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s civil rights department.
For context about the Brennan Center:
The Brennan Center for Justice is an American liberal[2][3][4] nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Center advocates for public policy positions including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections.[5][6] Its operations are centered at the New York University School of Law. The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofit organizations.[7][8]
The stated mission of the Brennan Center is to “work to hold our political institutions and laws accountable to the twin American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all”.[9] Its president is Michael Waldman, former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.
So why does the article say the attempts will fail?
“There is a very high risk that the administration will use every tool at its disposal to get voting machines or ballots in the course of an upcoming election,” the Brennan Center’s Weiser told me. “But I don’t think there is a high risk that they will succeed.”
“I think every magistrate judge in the country would understand the difference between a search warrant to seize materials for an election that happened five years ago and a search warrant to seize election materials from an election in progress,” Levitt said. “I understand why people are worried. But it’s not remotely the same.”
So Weiser and Levitt think rule of law will prevail and the courts will not grant Trump the authority to seize election materials during the election.
What about ICE?
Even just having ICE presence at polling stations could deter certain voters, it’s hard to say what the aggregate effects of these measures might be, from the article:
Their reasoning is simple: If ICE is harassing residents and causing traffic jams in heavily Democratic precincts, fewer Americans will make it to the voting booth in those areas. And voters with undocumented family members may be especially likely to stay home.
“Trump wants to project ICE as an all-powerful force everywhere,” Levitt said. “And they are, as Minneapolis is proving emphatically, not. There simply aren’t enough ICE personnel to blanket a modestly large city. We live in a big country. And it is hard to control through fear.”
Even in the Twin Cities — where Trump deployed some 3,000 immigration enforcement agents — ICE’s presence seems to have mobilized Democratic voters, rather than deterring them. In a special election on January 27 for Minnesota House district 64A, the Democratic candidate defeated her Republican opponent by a 91-point margin. In 2024, a Democrat had won the seat by 66.6 percentage points.
“There is clearly an effort afoot to interfere in our elections and that is something that people should be alarmed about,” Weiser said. “But this can be thwarted. And it must be.”
So the argument is that ICE doesn’t have enough manpower for this strategy to work across the US, and attempting to use ICE this way could backfire and result in stronger Democratic wins like we saw in Minnesota.
What isn’t mentioned are other ways Trump could attempt a coup or election interference that might ignore the constitution - the two individuals who are doubtful Trump will succeed are assuming the law will be respected and followed, and they don’t consider other possibilities.
Maybe we should start organizing to prevent this fuckery at the polls so people can feel safe to vote?
How to organize a rapid response from a very high level with further detailed resources. https://southerncoalition.org/resources/rapid-response-101/
Good general advice on organizing, also a good resource to find groups near you that are likely aligned. https://www.fiftyfifty.one/organizer-resources
So the argument is that ICE doesn’t have enough manpower for this strategy to work across the US, and attempting to use ICE this way could backfire and result in stronger Democratic wins like we saw in Minnesota.
But with how divided America’s 2-party system is, they don’t need manpower. The need the projection of power in a few very select locales that will swing the overall vote in the correct direction. They can very easily steal the executive branch that way (thanks electoral college), and most likely the key house and senate seats they need as well.
Also, ICE doesn’t need to be everywhere, they need to be at a few dozen key locations in swing states.
Yeah… People seem to be forgetting that bush stole an election via the brooks brothers riot in one county. With just how fucked up the American electorial system evolved it only takes one country to vastly change the course of American history.
As far as the courts, just in the last couple years we’ve seen the judicial branch is more than willing to reinterpret history and law to empower the current administration.
The bigger the blowout is, the less marginal risk that any given precinct being fucked with can alter the outcome in his favor. Even greater reason to mobilize the vote as much as possible.
The electoral college also has nothing to do with the midterms.
It’s important to identify threats, but it’s also critical not to aggrandize their power and make them appear invincible. They are desperate to instill defeatism into the ranks of their opposition. But their bravado betrays their weakness.
They absolutely rely on the obedience of various pillars of support throughout society to retain their power and legitimacy. Those pillars can be convinced and/or forced to cease their obedience and in some cases to actively provide support to the opposition. None of this is new or unique to America. Tyrannical regimes have been removed from power many time through nonviolent mass movements. We can learn from them if we choose to.
Excellent post. Thank you for taking the time.
I can only add that if we keep on showing up to resist, to make our peaceful non-consent loud and obvious like we did on the last Friday in January, the less support any of this planned and possible election fuckery will have. The people who desperately want to get or keep power do not want to actually have to take on the public hate of the entire country, like ICE has. But it’s up to us.
yes, I do think they under-anticipate the way that ICE could be used surgically - just flipping a few elections could crucial …
I’m concerned that they’ve already undermined trust in the elections so much that neither side will accept a losing outcome as legitimate. The larger attack on democracy has already succeeded. I hope I’m wrong.
I think the GOP’s support for trump has always been an endgame. Demographically speaking - their party was dying. This was always one last chance to drive the bus completely off the cliff - destroy education, trust in institutions, the US’s international cooperation from aid to NATO, wreck it all, if they can’t drive the bus forever then no one gets to.
Like we see from the files, it’s a cabal of evil fucks from a huge variety of motivations - racists, sexists, climate denial, oligarchs and techbros all lining up together to fix this whole liberal democracy problem.
Didn’t the Brennan Center come up with scenarios in his first term but didn’t anticipate an angry mob ransacking Congress as one of them?
that would be good to know, but based on their analysis here I would absolutely not be surprised that they just ignored extra-judicial methods like a full-on coup …
So the argument is that ICE doesn’t have enough manpower for this strategy to work across the US
Anyone who doesn’t understand this, has no idea how much goes into everyone voting in person within the same 12 hour period…
What I think he’ll try, is claiming Dem states aren’t competent to run elections and appointing his own people to run, and rig, the elections in blue states.
And he’ll specifically target states run by neoliberals he knows won’t fight back.
Cali has a shit ton of electoral votes, and Newsom would prefer Republicans steal the election if he’s not the Dem candidate, so he’d probably just make some token complaints, have an intern post some memes, and then let it happen hoping it gives him a shot at 2032
Isn’t the most foolproof method -and one that Trump has floated previously- just to not hold the elections?
Even Putin holds elections. He held elections in annexed Ukraine, too.
And holding elections at all keeps Trump’s rule somewhat stable. If we know we’ll get another election, “we can all vote a little harder to get him out”. If elections simply don’t happen anymore, then people may seek other means to remove Trump, like assassination.
Constitutionally, elections are governed by the states. He can’t just stop elections. The federal executive literally has zero power over them, and that is by design.
But what he could do, and what I think he was or is planning on doing, is to try to create conditions to dissuade states from holding elections, like inciting disorder with ICE, as he tried in Minnesota, to then use as an excuse to invoke martial law. A state could then decide, based on its own constitution, what to do in that situation, including postponing to some future date “to be determined” later.
Fortunately, public outrage is now such that I think there will be such a voter turnout that some of what he tried in 2020 – calling state election officials and ordering them to “find him votes” like he did Raffensperger in Georgia – is dead in the water.
Or to put it another way, if we keep protesting and showing up like we did in January, I don’t think anyone at the state or local level is going to have the courage to “find” him jack shit, because they know they’ll be facing a mob if they do.
not sure why you think that’s “foolproof” - he has no authority to do that, and it seems tantamount to a coup to stop elections without constitutional grounds
he has no authority to do that
When has that stopped him?
Do you see any National Guard in Portland or Chicago?
Or just ignore the result. They might not be able to block every voting booth in the country, but they could easily block the newly elected Democrats being sworn in or even allowed inside the buildings. Then they start making laws without them. Who’s going to stop them?
What isn’t mentioned are other ways Trump could attempt a coup or election interference that might ignore the constitution
There really aren’t any other ways which don’t fall into either “entirely protected speech” or “instigation of civil war”.
Trump is free to claim his party won the midterms, and even file nuisance suits in the courts. And we shouldn’t assume he wouldn’t try to just declare who won or try and interfere with the formation of the much-bluer 120th Congress. But all permutations are either things he’s as free as anyone to do, things that likely won’t work, or things that would start a civil war.
Trump literally instigated an insurrection … I don’t know why “starting a civil war” doesn’t seem like a straightforwardly likely path for him … in particular I think that will be most likely at the end of his term, just like last time. The question is whether his coup will be successful this time, even though it failed last time. He has been more careful this time to appoint positions with loyalists (think JD Vance rather than Mike Pence), and has been purging the military with this in mind.
We are far from being confident that Trump won’t succeed in another coup attempt.
At least I take comfort knowing that even if he does succeed in a coup, he doesn’t have much life left - it won’t be as bad as when the fascists won in Spain (36 years of fascist rule under Franco), or as bad as Stalin’s rule (29 years).
Trump is 79 years old right now, he is very likely to survive the next 3 years (the rest of his term), but the average life expectancy of men in the US is 76 years, and his life expectancy is probably less than a decade.
This is a cult of personality, I find it unlikely MAGA will have much success post-Trump.
We are far from being confident that Trump won’t succeed in another coup attempt.
This entirely depends on what you mean by “succeed”.
Would you consider the Confederate States of America (nominally founded during and extinguished by the 19th century US civil war) a “success”?
a secession is different than a coup, a coup is successful if there is a transfer of power (or the constitutional transfer of power fails, like when Trump tried to prevent Biden from taking office) … and yes, even if Trump led a coup and was in power for a short time like the short life of the Confederacy, I do think retaining power after his constitutional term would be a “success” in the sense that I mean
and I do think the Confederacy successfully seceded from the Union, even if it didn’t last long
in some sense the Confederacy succeeded in ways we don’t even acknowledge - after Lincoln’s assassination, the South was met with appeasements and failed to integrate … from the perspective of Black lives at the time, I would say the South succeeded in maintaining their power and control, and we see this even in the ways that massacres of tens of thousands of Black folks in the South after the civil war went unpunished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen_massacres
I think it’s a rhetorical distinction, but an important one to be aware of.
It would be terrible for us to waste time arguing over whether or not “Trump can succeed!” when we both agree that any such success is likely to be short lived, lead to immediate violence, and most probably result in a violent removal of his administration from power.
(Not to say that we necessarily agree on those things – just that it’d be a waste of time arguing if we do.)
Agreed on most of that - but I don’t know that violent removal of his administration from power is the most likely outcome - the US government was in the hands of other side in the case of the Confederacy … a successful Trump coup would maybe lead to schisms within the military or between state National Guards and federal forces (maybe), but it’s also possible Trump just takes and holds power and there is no domestic military force that is willing or able to remove him. Maybe California and other states would band together, but I’m not sure they would have the military to fight off the US military if they are loyal to Trump after a coup.
How close is the Levitt family tree to the Leavitt family tree?
not sure, but I doubt it’s that close
It’s not going to fail. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think we will see the outcome we’d like to see.
We must assume it will. We know these people are incredibly incompetent and of the 3 estimated tracks I theorized (in risk planning), Trump is somewhere between the lowest and middle tier of inflicting tyranny.
Game Theory is that we must be viligent and also assume they will be legit and drive turnout for Democrats.
(to those who criticize the AIPAC Dems and what not, now is the time to get involved in Dem primaries to get more progressives in).
I don’t know about competent but brazen for sure. Think they won’t try to steal the election by straight up bombing high density liberal areas? Oh, they definitely would.
heory is that we must be viligent and also assume they will be legit and drive turnout for Democrats.
(to those who criticize the AIPAC Dems and what not, now is the time to get involved in Dem primaries to get more progressives in).
Technically, the best time to start building primary candidates was immediately after the last election. The second best time is now.
Those incredibly incompetent people managed to turn America into a full-on dictatorship. Those incompetent people are murdering people in broad daylight with impunity. Those incompetent people are illegally deporting citizens live on camera-
At what point t are we going to stop calling them incompetent and start accepting that they’ve efficiently undermined the history- and future, of the largest superpower on the entire planet all within 6 months.
^ EVERYONE BE VERY WARY OF COMMENTS LIKE THIS SPREADING DEFEATISM, APATHY.
It’s over already. We lost.
This is bullshit, and I can think of 100000 ways it could be 1,00,000x worse than it is.
It is a completely and utterly non-constructive mindset and intended to prevent action and resistance. At BEST, it is just completely ignorant and short-sighted. The only thing this mindset does is help the fascists. Please, don’t help the fascists.
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it”
~ George Bernard Shaw
And for the record, I’m more wary of pie-in-the-sky bullshit trying to paint some non-existent freedom-fighting movement into the picture.
No one is doing shit about anything. Look around. Its words. That’s all a tone has- words.
Saying this again…
The future can’t be “observed” because it hasn’t happened yet - that’s fortune teller stuff. Nobody ever managed to do something by deciding it was impossible and not bothering. What other options are there but trying? Don’t give up preemptively, that’s how the fascist bastards win!
This is a miserably defeatist attitude and it helps no one. If you’re not going to say anything useful, then just stay out of our way, please.
Oh? And what exactly are you doing? Posting words on social media?
Meanwhile, they’re point-blank shooting people in the face. And I’m not in your way because you aren’t doing jack shit.
Even if I were doing nothing but posting on social media, you would literally be doing less than that with all your demoralizing doom posting. Just because you’re too myopic to see a way out of this mess doesn’t mean you need to go around spewing your defeatism all over everyone else and dissuading them from meaningful action in the process.
Once again, I implore you to shut the fuck up. You are part of the problem right now.
I implore you to shut the fuck up.
How about no. You’re free to spread happiness and rainbows, peace and love, and I’m just as free to spread the gospel of reality.
Don’t like what I have to say, block me. But I’m telling you now, I’m not done saying it and it’s not violating any rules.
Have a nice day.
It’s over already. We lost.
You only lose if you refuse to fight. Look, I know it looks hopeless. I’ve been fighting for energy transitions for 25 years, if you think I don’t know what hopeless feels like? I have good news for you though. The future didn’t always look this dark once. That also means you don’t know how bright it might be around the next bend. I will probably not live to see victory if it happens; and it may never happen. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth going down fighting anyway.
In the frame of reference of the grand scope of the universe, everything anyone anywhere has ever done is inconsequential. But in the frame of reference of right here, right now, what you chose to be, matters. It matters to everyone around you, everyone you care about, and it matters to you. MY fight isn’t over until I choose for it to be over or someone takes me out. Is yours?
I’d love to be wrong, but at 54 years of age. I know a defeat when I see one.
It’s over.
When a woman was shot the face in broad daylight in front of witnesses and nothing was done about it- it was over. When a nurse helping a fellow citizen was murder for his efforts, in broad daylight- and nothing was done about it- it was over. When legal citizens are deported DAILY and never heard from again- and nothing was done about it- it was over.
It IS over.
The old world dies and the new struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters. It is neither the first time or the last. America may be done but “it” isn’t over. At 44 I’ve had to reinvent my identity from scratch more times than I can count, and I am so very tired. But life doesn’t end here just because one order falls. In every time of monsters, heroes rise. Every Luke Skywalker needs his Master Yoda. Every Ang, needs his Uncle Iroh. I may not Bea young man at the peak of his ambition anymore. But I am ready to put myself on the line one more time. To show my son, my daughter, and anyone else ready to hear that there can be a tomorrow worth sacrificing everything for.
An old man was planting fruit trees, when two boys found him and asked, “Old man, why do you plant fruit trees. They are so young and it will take forever for them to grow. You’ll be long dead before you will ever eat their fruit.” The old man said to the boys, “You’re right, I will never live to see their harvest. That’s not why I plant them. You see, I have sons about your age who will one day inherit my land. With the fruit from these trees they will feed our village for generations to come.”
I know you’re tired friend. I know you’re mourning the orchard as it burns. I know the world we grew up in is ending and the monsters are everywhere. But IT is not over. Now is the time for old men to begin planting trees they will never see the fruit of.
You said it better than I ever could. Yes. That’s is what I mean. What we knew is done. What we have yet to learn is uncertain. Everyone is trying to hold on to how things were, but that’s done. It’s over.
What happens next is up to a lot of variables.
If you’re still breathing it’s not over. So better stop with that defeatism, because you have no idea what is next. It isn’t over, you’re still alive so get involved!
The take away isn’t that they’re not incompetent, they absolutely are, it’s that the bar to getting away with all of that was way lower than anybody ever thought. All those checks and balances, laws and conventions, and distributed powers ultimately mean nothing if someone controls enough of the government and the one thing Republicans have been highly competent about is making sure a majority of every branch of government has been packed with loyal Republicans. Once that was done nothing else mattered, it’s Calvin Ball from here out so it literally doesn’t matter that they’re all knuckle dragging morons.
At this point there are only three possible ways of fixing this. In order from best to worst the first possibility is that MAGA doesn’t feel bold enough to outright ignore the midterms and they lose their majority in at least the legislative branch. The second possibility is that they fuck with the midterms so obviously that the military feels compelled to actually follow their oath to defend the Constitution and stages a military coup to oust MAGA. The third and worst possibility is that the military fails to act and it’s up to regular citizens to stage a revolt which would likely lead to a second civil war. Best case scenario in that case is that the military either sits things out or else fractures and sides in part with each side. Worst case the military sides with MAGA.
MAGA has the military. That’s a foregone conclusion. They’re above the law. Period. There will be no justice. Because if there were, we’d not have a convicted felon in the White House.
America is done.
Speaking for myself, I intend to show up as if success is the only possibility, and I suggest the same to any American.
It’s far too early to guess the outcome one way or another, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool, whether they belong to a thinktank or a sports bar.
But assuming failure is a lazy, shitty place from which to encourage people, including myself, to do their best to stop it.
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it”
~ George Bernard Shaw
It’s not going to fail.
Your own future-looking statement; predictive.
*“The power of accurate observation . . .”
Your comeback, lol.
“Accurate observation is only applicable to the present and past. Try harder when borrowing false intellectual authentication from old quotes.”
~ Me, just now
Try reading it again and this time, pay attention to the context instead of thinking up edgy shit to respond with.
I’ll bet it makes more sense.
Says the month old account full of brief low-effort posts insisting that any resistance will fail. You know, like the one I just called you out on.
It’s not my comprehension at fault here, kid. It’s your agenda. I don’t want fascism to succeed in my country. You want people to feel too discouraged to even think about resisting. And I’m here to put a cold boot in that wherever I see it.
Don’t need no old quote for that. And George Bernard Shaw was a questionable source to start with.
As I said, try harder.
Dude. I’ve been here for years. Check my .world account.
Dude. Piefed.world is also a .world account, or hadn’t you noticed?
Also, seems like you have stopped trying to defend the indefensible, which is a plus. But go ahead, quote another fascist-lite to me in defense of your position.
The only opportunity is for 3 Republican House seats to switch, then impeach.
LMAO! Take a look around man… ffs…
I can tell you are not a serious person, as you pretend impeachment means anything.
I don’t understand how the emoluments clause is not an open and shut impeachment case.
As we saw with his first two impeachments, impeachment is not removal. So long as the cult of personality continues to support him, so too will the Republican Party.
It’s going to be same as the last elections. Media will claim left is winning and followers of pop news will eat it up.
Trump will be trying to steal the election in lots of different ways simultaneously. This article doesn’t even get to the ID law he’s trying to pass, where your birth certificate must match your current ID, or you have to also supply all intervening name changes (such as through marriage and divorce).
Also, trump is using facial recognition software and other data that will allow them to pull non-trumpy voters out of the lineup for additional time-consuming harassment over their ID. Voting times may be cut off.
Nothing to see here. Move along!
