Trump will never allow a MAGA defeat – and the implications are unthinkable

Last Aug. 18, Donald Trump sat across from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office and posed a “question” that seemed, at the time, like nothing more than Trump being Trump.“So you say during the war, you can’t have elections. So let me just say three and a half years from now. So you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody — no more elections?”Zelensky laughed nervously. Some in the media laughed too.I cited that exchange in an Oct. 26 post titled “Why the 2026 Elections May Not Happen.” My argument: Trump simply cannot withstand Democrats regaining control of the House in the midterm elections — neither politically nor psychologically.It follows that Trump would indeed do everything in his power to cancel or postpone elections for the first time in U.S. history, rather than succumb to defeat. My prediction wasn’t that he’d succeed, but that he’d at least try if backed against the wall.Twice in the past week, evidence has emerged that Trump’s efforts to thwart democracy this Nov. 3 have evolved to the point of going public.Last week, FBI agents raided the Fulton County elections office in Georgia, seizing boxes of 2020 voting records. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present.Gabbard is a dangerous individual, her cult wiring too easily obscured by others in the crackpot collective surrounding Trump. The DNI has no role whatsoever in the administration of elections.The revival of seditious lies from the 2020 election — now central to Gabbard’s Trump-imposed mission — deserves far more than the fleeting one-news-cycle coverage it received.And here’s the latest: Trump has personally and publicly validated that warning. The New York Times reported:During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”Nationalize the voting.Those three words have never been spoken by an American president until now. If that strikes you as nothing more than noise, you’ve lost perspective.It does not require investigative skill to place this in context. To those who “both sides” gerrymandering — a bipartisan tradition — note that Trump’s motivations have been stated publicly, brazenly and unapologetically.At least both political parties in the past have pretended to connect gerrymandering to a legal purpose. That Trump feels no such need speaks volumes about his confidence in having subjugated “his” U.S. Supreme Court justices.Meanwhile, Trump’s Justice Department has sued 24 states demanding their voter rolls — lawsuits that federal judges in Oregon and California rejected as unauthorized overreach. When Minnesota refused to comply, Attorney General Pam Bondi tried outright blackmail: hand over voter data or we won’t withdraw ICE agents from Minneapolis.Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon called it “an outrageous attempt to coerce” the state into violating federal privacy law. So far, he has stared down the bully.The Times described Trump’s Monday’s comments as “an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters.” That understatement bound to journalistic convention was most unhelpful in this case.When I warned about this last October, here’s how I concluded the piece:“It’s a critical first step to discard any notion that canceled or postponed elections cannot happen here. We’re already traveling down a dark and perilous authoritarian road with Donald Trump; this would barely represent a speed bump. We’d best not take the midterms for granted.”Consider it warned again.Click here to subscribe to Ray Hartmann’s Soapbox

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