Jon, I think we can have free and fair elections. Susan Crawford, with the all powerful Elon Musk drowning the race with money managed a 10-point victory, winning the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin’s counties. This can be done. We have to stop treating this man as if he is a God.
Mark, Do I the elections ‘can’ be free and fair? Sort of. Theoretically. But I remain highly dubious. The Crawford election was a wonderful result, but I had been predicting for months that the more Musk campaigned for her opponent, the higher her win tally would be. Musk is perhaps the most unpopular major figure in America and just about the dumbest ‘politician’ we’ve ever seen.
If you follow Marc Elias at Law Dork, you can easily see the huge array of measures being imposed by Republican state administrations, the SAVE Act in the Congress, and things like the example of the North Caroline Supreme Court conspiring to overturn the recent high-court election (and so, so much more) to understand how terribly fragile and unsupported is our electoral infrastructure. Trump’s people know this far better than the rest of us. They’ve studied this extensively. They are preparing for the confrontation and for controlling the narrative from beginning to end so that their captured audience of MAGA faithful will continue to stand by Trump through thick and thin.
My take on all of this is that if we aren’t able to inform and ‘sensitize’ a larger public to the many ways in which this reactionary administration is preparing to win the midterms, come ‘hell or high water,’ we will be ‘convincingly’ defeated. The courts will defer to the ‘will of the people.’ And we will be at the ‘show-no-mercy of Trump and his henchpeople.
The only way I am currently able to think about slowing, let alone stopping and turning back this authoritarian tide is to be very clear that they will deploy a vast array of ‘convincing’ resources and approaches to justifying whatever they need to justify in order to achieve their goals. We need to harden and ready ourselves and our compatriots for the difficult struggle ahead.
Jon, this is a rather irresponsible thing to say, and it ignores the fact we've already had a bunch of special elections in red states that Democrats have won. We should have little concern about the 2026 midterms because states, not the national government, hold elections. Trump is close to powerless on this issue.
The more Dems say this about 2026 (others have made this point, too, unfortunately), the more we'll write off the midterms, which would be very, very bad. Winning a House and Senate majority next year must be our party's singular goal, and this doesn't help with that.
Brad, thanks for your comment. I get why this post may not sit well with some people. We certainly can’t let-up for a minute in working to win the terms. And I applaud all efforts to do so. But I also think we can’t simply assume that the midterms will be anything like what we have long considered normal. And, like it or not, I think there’s a very good chance Trump and allies will do everything in their power to get the outcomes they want.
Trump is showing every day that he is willing and able to ignore and break laws to get his way. We’re not even three months into his term and already, as I briefly spelled-out above, Trump is doing things unlawful and unconstitutional that most people never imagined could be done — and didn’t therefore anticipate. Where will we be 15 months from now? That’s anyone’s guess. But mine is that he will have greatly solidified his imperial presidency and be in a position to do far more to stymie a democratic resurgence than many of us would anticipate
And Trump’s aggressive unlawfulness gives him huge advantages in time and impact when the only remedy is to go to court after a rogue act is committed and then get into the court system that takes months or years to play-out.
I’m old enough to remember well Bush v. Gore, where a much less reactionary SCOTUS than we now have essentially threw the election to Bush because they were conservative and didn’t want the process of counting votes to go on long enough that Gore might actually be demonstrated to have won. And it was all due to something as ridiculous as ‘hanging chads.’
Our current SCOTUS would likely go to even further lengths as it is already doing, to find ways to enable Trump to get his way. This could occur for many reasons, including the eruption of chaos and violence accompanying claims of fraud in states all around the country where Republicans might be losing.
And I’m certainly not alone in worrying about this. Below is a link to a recent post from Democracy Docket about many, though likely not nearly all, of the efforts Republicans are already putting into preventing free and fair midterm elections in 2026. To ignore and/or not be actively aware of them and/or not to be fighting them tooth and nail — and loudly — would be irresponsible. Not sure why you wouldn’t agree with that.
I really appreciate the detailed response, Jon. The thing I keep coming back to is, why didn't Trump simply cancel the 2018 or 2020 elections? Especially in 2020, he could have used COVID as a pretext. Thankfully, no president can simply decide on a whim to prevent elections from being held. I'm not even sure if a state could skip elections, if it wanted to.
Right now, my single biggest fear with 2026 is that Dems are probably going to come up short in the Senate (I touched on this in my most recent post). That's what we need to talk about as a party right now, as having a Senate majority to stop Trump matters profoundly.
Jon, I think we can have free and fair elections. Susan Crawford, with the all powerful Elon Musk drowning the race with money managed a 10-point victory, winning the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin’s counties. This can be done. We have to stop treating this man as if he is a God.
Mark, Do I the elections ‘can’ be free and fair? Sort of. Theoretically. But I remain highly dubious. The Crawford election was a wonderful result, but I had been predicting for months that the more Musk campaigned for her opponent, the higher her win tally would be. Musk is perhaps the most unpopular major figure in America and just about the dumbest ‘politician’ we’ve ever seen.
If you follow Marc Elias at Law Dork, you can easily see the huge array of measures being imposed by Republican state administrations, the SAVE Act in the Congress, and things like the example of the North Caroline Supreme Court conspiring to overturn the recent high-court election (and so, so much more) to understand how terribly fragile and unsupported is our electoral infrastructure. Trump’s people know this far better than the rest of us. They’ve studied this extensively. They are preparing for the confrontation and for controlling the narrative from beginning to end so that their captured audience of MAGA faithful will continue to stand by Trump through thick and thin.
My take on all of this is that if we aren’t able to inform and ‘sensitize’ a larger public to the many ways in which this reactionary administration is preparing to win the midterms, come ‘hell or high water,’ we will be ‘convincingly’ defeated. The courts will defer to the ‘will of the people.’ And we will be at the ‘show-no-mercy of Trump and his henchpeople.
The only way I am currently able to think about slowing, let alone stopping and turning back this authoritarian tide is to be very clear that they will deploy a vast array of ‘convincing’ resources and approaches to justifying whatever they need to justify in order to achieve their goals. We need to harden and ready ourselves and our compatriots for the difficult struggle ahead.
I agree. The states are critical. They administer the elections.
Jon, this is a rather irresponsible thing to say, and it ignores the fact we've already had a bunch of special elections in red states that Democrats have won. We should have little concern about the 2026 midterms because states, not the national government, hold elections. Trump is close to powerless on this issue.
The more Dems say this about 2026 (others have made this point, too, unfortunately), the more we'll write off the midterms, which would be very, very bad. Winning a House and Senate majority next year must be our party's singular goal, and this doesn't help with that.
Brad, thanks for your comment. I get why this post may not sit well with some people. We certainly can’t let-up for a minute in working to win the terms. And I applaud all efforts to do so. But I also think we can’t simply assume that the midterms will be anything like what we have long considered normal. And, like it or not, I think there’s a very good chance Trump and allies will do everything in their power to get the outcomes they want.
Trump is showing every day that he is willing and able to ignore and break laws to get his way. We’re not even three months into his term and already, as I briefly spelled-out above, Trump is doing things unlawful and unconstitutional that most people never imagined could be done — and didn’t therefore anticipate. Where will we be 15 months from now? That’s anyone’s guess. But mine is that he will have greatly solidified his imperial presidency and be in a position to do far more to stymie a democratic resurgence than many of us would anticipate
And Trump’s aggressive unlawfulness gives him huge advantages in time and impact when the only remedy is to go to court after a rogue act is committed and then get into the court system that takes months or years to play-out.
I’m old enough to remember well Bush v. Gore, where a much less reactionary SCOTUS than we now have essentially threw the election to Bush because they were conservative and didn’t want the process of counting votes to go on long enough that Gore might actually be demonstrated to have won. And it was all due to something as ridiculous as ‘hanging chads.’
Our current SCOTUS would likely go to even further lengths as it is already doing, to find ways to enable Trump to get his way. This could occur for many reasons, including the eruption of chaos and violence accompanying claims of fraud in states all around the country where Republicans might be losing.
And I’m certainly not alone in worrying about this. Below is a link to a recent post from Democracy Docket about many, though likely not nearly all, of the efforts Republicans are already putting into preventing free and fair midterm elections in 2026. To ignore and/or not be actively aware of them and/or not to be fighting them tooth and nail — and loudly — would be irresponsible. Not sure why you wouldn’t agree with that.
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/what-we-must-do-now-to-win-in-2026/
I really appreciate the detailed response, Jon. The thing I keep coming back to is, why didn't Trump simply cancel the 2018 or 2020 elections? Especially in 2020, he could have used COVID as a pretext. Thankfully, no president can simply decide on a whim to prevent elections from being held. I'm not even sure if a state could skip elections, if it wanted to.
Right now, my single biggest fear with 2026 is that Dems are probably going to come up short in the Senate (I touched on this in my most recent post). That's what we need to talk about as a party right now, as having a Senate majority to stop Trump matters profoundly.
Holy SH-T!!!!!
You are always on point and always with hope but now this!!!!!
Yikes!!!!!!
Yes! All we have left is thought and voice!