Global mood darkens with fears of President Donald Trump becoming even more confrontational, simultaneously aggressive and defensive. His poll ratings plummet, blunders and confrontations rise, his wars turn forever, fraught and foul, revealing not the extent but the limits of American power. Alarm over Trump rigging the November mid-term elections to perpetuate his “imperial presidency” is now flashing orange.
The White House and Republicans have already taken unprecedented steps to swing the election in their favour. They have aggressively pursued “gerrymandering”—redrawing constituency boundaries to harvest 10 additional electoral seats. The Democratic Party loses seats when their voters are concentrated in few districts, while scattered across others.
In March, Trump issued an executive order to restrict postal ballots to “prevent” illegal migrants from voting and altering election outcomes—an unfounded allegation as non-citizens cannot vote. It was criticised as a ploy to delegitimise eligible Democratic voters. Trump and his loyalists still badger on that electronic voting is a scam. After the 2020 election, Fox News had to pay $768 million in damages for lying that the US Dominion electronic voting system is fraudulent. Last year, Dominion was bought by a Republican. Activists say Trump is hostile to electronic machines precisely because they nail false allegations by leaving a paper trail that can be audited to detect fraud. An audit in Nevada showed that only 185 of three million votes cast had insufficient data.
Former aide Steve Bannon is pushing Trump to declare a national election emergency to usurp states’ powers to deploy federal agents to polling stations, ostensibly to “guard against interference”. Norman Eisen, cofounder of Democracy Defenders Action that has sued the Trump administration on several issues, contends,” US elections have taken place during wars and pandemics without declarations of national emergency.” Critics worry agents will intimidate voters, seize ballots and voting machines. Plots are allegedly being hatched to challenge Democratic representatives’ election victories and deny them physical seats in the Congress.
Trump swings his club wildly. In a strange address to the nation that aides touted as a bazooka, turned into a dud, he blamed China for meddling in elections. No evidence, no story. He labels opponents “lefty lunatics” “terrorists” and “communists”, evoking the spectre of past American witch-hunts and civil wars. Trump’s rants and baseless bragging provoked Nobel laureate Paul Krugman to call him “dangerously delusional”.
Analysts take the rigging threat seriously—Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, and he cannot afford to lose now. “He does not want to face congressional investigations, much less potential impeachment for corruption,” says legal analyst James D. Zirin. Trump has weaponised the justice department and other once-independent institutions to wage his vendetta wars. As November approaches, election officials brace themselves for interference, violence, bomb threats, raids and meddling MAGA-troopers. Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg said, “The creation of a climate of fear is a goal in itself.”
Experts say judges would probably block Trump’s election shenanigans. But Trump is unlikely to limp out of office. Rather, The Economist predicts Trump will display “the violence of an ageing silverback when it senses its time is up”. Called silverbacks because of their greying hair, alpha male gorillas are “conspicuously vicious towards members of the band they lead” while avoiding actual combat with rival alpha males, preferring performative dominance—chest-beating, bluff charges and wrenching off tree branches. The Economist prophesies, “Now that his dominance is threatened, the world will find him more disruptive than ever.”
Pratap is an author and journalist.
